| 1 |
She knew that to her ballet mistress, it would seem a negligible effort. Madame Markova stared ahead in silence and said nothing, as the atmosphere grew thick between them. She had been reassigned to her old room, and it filled Danina's heart with sadness when she saw the old building. Instead of feeling like a homecoming to her, it was only a reminder of how far she was now from Nikolai and their nights in the beloved cottage. She couldn't imagine spending a night without him, but she was going to have to. They both had long roads to travel separately until they could once again be together, hopefully forever. She had thought of saying something to Madame Markova immediately about her plans, but she had decided to wait until she heard from Nikolai about the divorce and Marie's move to England. It all depended on how fast things were moving. And beneath the thin surface of her blouse, she felt the comfort of her locket. Everyone was warming up, or rehearsing, or exercising, or in class when she arrived, and there was no one in the stark room she had left four months before. It looked strange to her now, and pitifully ugly as she changed into a leotard and ballet shoes, and hurried down the stairs to the studio she normally warmed up in. And when she got there, she saw Madame Mar kova, sitting quietly in a corner, watching the others. Her presence made Danina feel slightly uncomfortable, but she got to work at the barre, and was stunned to discover how stiff she was, how awkward her movements, how unwilling her limbs were to do what they had been trained for. "You have a lot of work to do, Danina," Madame Markova said sternly, as Danina nodded. Her body had become her enemy in four brief months, and did none of the things she expected of it. And that night, when she went to bed, every muscle she had used for the first time in months was screaming at her. She could hardly sleep for the pain she felt everywhere, nor get up the next day, as she felt every muscle in her body tighten. |
| 2 |
The effect of the past four months of indolence and happiness had been brutal. But no less so than the rigorous training she launched into at five o'clock that morning. She was in her first class at six, and worked until nine o'clock that night, and through most of it, Madame Markova watched her. "Your gift was not given to waste," she said harshly after the first class, and then warned her even more sharply that she would never get back what she had lost if she didn't push herself well beyond her limits. And then she added, "If you are not willing to pay for it with blood, Danina, you do not deserve it." She was visibly furious at what Danina had lost in her months away from the ballet, and she reminded her unkindly that night that her place as their first prima was not simply something they owed her, but an honor she had to earn back if she intended to regain her position. Danina was in tears when she went to bed that night, and again several times the following day, and finally at the end of the second day, exhausted beyond anything she had ever known, she sat down and wrote Nikolai a letter, telling him what she was going through and how much she missed him. More than she had ever thought possible when she left him. The torture they put her through went on for days, and by the end of the first week, Danina was sorry she had ever returned to the ballet, particularly if she was leaving. What was the point, and what did she have to prove to them now, if she was going to return to Nikolai and stop dancing? But she felt she owed it to them to finish honorably, and even if it killed her, she was determined to do so. But at that point, dying from sheer exhaustion and endless pain seemed not only desirable, but likely. It was at the end of the second week that Madame Markova called her into her office, and Danina wondered what it meant. In the past thirteen years, she had rarely been there, though others had been, and always emerged in tears, sometimes to leave the ballet within hours. |
| 3 |
Marie had returned from England two weeks before, and was more adamant than ever that she wouldn't free him. She had begun to hear rumors about Danina, and was threatening to create a huge stir, which could cost him his position, or even any remote association with the Czar and Czarina. In fact, Marie was blackmailing him and holding him hostage, and when he had asked her why, she said he owed it to her to treat her respectably and not embarrass her or their sons, although she admitted that she had never loved him. But she was going to hang on to him at all costs now. She said she found it embarrassing to be left for another woman, particularly a ballerina. She said it as though Danina were a prostitute, and it had enraged him. They had argued endlessly, but he got nowhere with her. And he was very depressed about it, which Danina could easily see. He came again in November, and Madame Mark ova almost didn't let him see her, but he was so insistent that she finally ran out of excuses. But she only allowed Danina half an hour with him, due to rehearsals. Their only comfort then was knowing that they would be together for three weeks over Christmas and New Year's. For now, it was all they lived for. He came to all her performances after that, or as many as he was able to attend. And her father came to one as well, as he did each year, but unfortunately they were never at the same performance, so she couldn't introduce Nikolai to her father. But tragedy struck her family the week before Christmas. Her youngest and favorite brother was killed in Molodechno on the Eastern Front during a battle, and she was in deep mourning for him during her last performance, and still in a somber mood when Nikolai came to take her back to her little guest cottage at Tsarskoe Selo, and he was deeply solicitous of her loss. Knowing her brother was gone now pained her deeply, and even Alexei thought she looked very sad, and much quieter than usual, as he reported to his parents, after he visited Danina just after she arrived. |
| 4 |
But Christmas with them was magical, and her spirits rose as she spent time with Nikolai, talking quietly, exchanging books as they had before. He stayed with her openly, as he had at Livadia that summer. They talked about how much they loved each other, and the good times they had shared, but there was little they could say now about their future. Marie had remained entrenched in her unreasonable and immobile position. But he had nonetheless begun to look at small houses for Danina, and was determined to save up enough money to buy one so she could give up dancing, and come to live with him. But they both knew that it would take time, perhaps even a great deal of it, before either of them could afford it. She had promised herself, and him, that she would dance through the spring now, and perhaps until the end of the year. But as soon as she returned to the ballet this time, she began feeling ill. She ate even less than before, and when he saw her at the end of January, he was seriously dismayed by the way she looked, and how pale she was. "You're working too hard," he complained, as usual, but more stridently this time. "Danina, they're going to kill you, if you don't stop." "You can't die of dancing." She smiled, hating to admit to him how ill she felt. She didn't want to worry him, with Marie being so difficult, and the Czarevitch sick again. Nikolai had enough problems to concern him, without adding her health to the rest. But she was growing dizzier by the day, and had nearly fainted twice in class, though she said nothing to anyone, and no one seemed to notice how miserable she felt. By February, she felt so ill that she was actually unable to get out of bed one morning. She forced herself to dance that afternoon anyway, but when Madame Markova saw her, Danina was sitting on a bench with her eyes closed, and she was looking gray. "Are you ill again?" Madame Markova asked in an accusing tone, still unwilling and unable to forgive her for her continuing affair with the Czar's young doctor. |
| 5 |
She had been merciless with her, but seeing how ill Danina was, even she relented. "Do you want me to send for Dr. Obrajensky?" she asked, much to Danina's dismay. Danina would have liked nothing better than to have an excuse to see him, but she didn't want to frighten him, and she felt sure that she was very ill. It was more than a year since she had had influenza. But in the ten months since she had returned to the ballet she had pushed herself so relentlessly that she began to think she had destroyed her health, just as Nikolai had warned. Her head swam constantly, she could no longer eat anything without becoming violently ill, and she was exhausted. She could barely put one foot in front of the other, yet she was dancing sixteen and eighteen hours a day, and every night when she went to bed, she felt as though she would die in her bed. Perhaps Nikolai had been right after all, she thought one night as she lay in bed, wanting to vomit and not having the strength to get up again to do it. Perhaps the ballet was going to kill her after all. Five days later, she was unable to get out of bed, and she felt so ghastly, she didn't care what Madame Markova did to her, or who she called. All Danina wanted to do was lie there and die. She was only sorry she wouldn't see Nikolai again, and wondered who would tell him when she was gone. She was lying with her eyes closed, drifting out of consciousness, as the room spun slowly around each time she opened her eyes, when she dreamed that she saw him, standing beside her bed. She knew he couldn't be there, and wondered if she was delirious again, as she had been with the influenza. She even heard him speaking to her, and calling her name, and then she saw him turn and say something to Madame Markova, asking her why he hadn't been called sooner. "She did not want me to call you," she heard a vision of Madame Markova say, and then she opened her eyes again to see him. Even if the vision wasn't real, she thought, it looked just like Nikolai. |
| 6 |
They had only been careless once or twice, but it was the last thing he had expected to happen. And now he had to help her find a solution. This was his fault, he knew, more than hers. And he was agonized that Danina was paying the price more than he was. But when he returned the next day, neither of them had any simple answers. They could not afford, or take care of, a baby. They couldn't even afford a place to live. It simply wasn't possible, she knew, though he insisted it was, but Danina didn't argue with him. She just lay there miserably, crying silently, and continuing to retch and vomit. He was forcing her to eat now, and drink what she could, and she seemed a little stronger to him, but she was so violently ill, she felt worse rather than better. He was in tears too, as he sat helplessly by and watched her. He knew she'd feel better in a month or two. But in the meantime, she was going through torture. And when he left again, she went to talk to one of the other dancers. Danina knew for certain that the girl she spoke to, Valeria, had done it, twice, from what she had heard. Valeria told her where to go and who to talk to, and even offered to go with her, and Danina gratefully accepted her assistance. The two girls left the next morning, as quietly as they could, when the others went to church. It was Sunday, and Madame Markova was at church, as she was every Sunday. Danina was obviously too ill to go, and Valeria had feigned a migraine headache. They left hurriedly, with Danina getting sick every five minutes on the way. They had to walk halfway across town, but eventually they got to the address in a poor neighborhood with filth everywhere around them. It was a small, dark house, with dirty curtains in the window, and the look of the woman who opened the door made Danina shudder, but Valeria promised it would be over quickly and done well. Danina had brought all her savings with her, and hoped she had enough money. She had been horrified when she heard how much it would cost her. |
| 7 |
The woman who called herself a "nurse" asked Danina a series of questions. She wanted to be sure it hadn't gone too far, but two months didn't seem to worry her. And after taking half her money from her, she led Danina into a bedroom in the back. The sheets and blankets looked dirty, and there were bloodstains on the floor, which no one had bothered to clean up after the last visitor had come to see "the nurse." The old woman washed her hands in a bowl of water standing in a corner, and she took out a tray of instruments that she said had been washed, but they looked terrifying to Danina, as she turned away from the sight of the old woman. "My father was a doctor," the nurse explained, but Danina didn't want to hear about it, she just wanted to get it over with, and she knew that if Nikolai knew what she was doing, he would have done anything to stop her, and once he found out, might never forgive her. But she couldn't let herself think of that now. The worst of it was that they both wanted this baby, but she knew they couldn't have it. There was no way they could even think about it, she had to do this for both their sakes, no matter how terrible it was, or even if it killed her in the end. And as she thought about it, and wondered if it would, the nurse told her to take her clothes off, and Danina's hands trembled mercilessly as she did so. And finally she lay on the filthy bed wearing only her sweater, as the woman examined her and nodded her head. Just as Nikolai had, she felt the small, round, tight lump low in her belly. Nothing that had ever happened to Danina in her life had prepared her for this humiliation and horror. Nothing she had ever known with Nikolai bore any relation to this, and as she thought of it, she began to vomit. But it didn't seem to stop the woman who called herself a nurse, and she assured Danina it would be over soon. The "nurse" told Danina she could stay for a little while until she was strong enough to walk again, and then she had to leave. |
| 8 |
After her job was done, the rest was on Danina's shoulders. She would not be allowed in if she tried to come back, the woman said to her somewhat darkly. "Let's get started," the nurse said firmly. She liked getting her patients in and out quickly, before they caused her too much trouble. And the fact that Danina was still vomiting didn't stop her, but Danina asked her to wait for just a minute, and then signaled that she was ready. She was too frightened to speak. Danina braced herself as the woman told her to, and with one strong arm, she held Danina's leg down, and told her in a stern voice not to move. But Danina's legs were shaking too violently to obey her. And nothing anyone had said had prepared her for the sharp pain she felt as the woman plunged into her with the tool she used. Danina tried not to scream as she looked at the ceiling, or choke on her own vomit as she did. The pain seemed to go on endlessly, and the room began to spin around her almost instantly, as she finally slipped into merciful blackness. And then suddenly the woman was shaking her, and there was a cold cloth on her head, as the nurse told her she could get up. It was over. "I don't think I can stand yet," Danina said weakly. The smell of vomit was heavy in the room, and the sight of a pan of blood near the bed nearly made her faint again, as the woman pulled her to her feet and helped her to dress without waiting any longer. Danina was reeling with dizziness and pain and terror as the nurse put rags between her legs. It was all too unbearable to think of as Danina walked slowly into the next room to find her friend, barely able to see her through the dizziness that engulfed her, and she was stunned to realize they had been there less than an hour. Valeria looked worried but relieved. She knew better than anyone how bad it was, having been through it herself. "Take her home and put her to bed," the nurse said, holding the door open for them, and they were lucky to find a taxi driving past. |
| 9 |
The surgeon said she was still too ill to see anyone, and Nikolai agreed with him. He didn't leave her side until that evening, and only then went home to change his clothes and check on Alexei, and make sure that Dr. Botkin was still able to relieve him. He explained that a friend was gravely ill in the hospital, and he needed to be with her. And although his colleague didn't ask, he was certain who it was. "Will she be all right?" Dr. Botkin asked gently, startled by Nikolai's ravaged face and look of anguish. It had been an agonizing night for him as well, worrying about her. "I hope so," Nikolai said quietly. He was back at her side late that night, and sat next to her all night without sleeping, yet again. She drifted in and out of consciousness, muttering, talking to people he couldn't see, and she cried out his name more than once, and begged him to help her. It tore his heart out watching her, but through it all he sat silently, holding her hand, and thinking of their future, and the other children he hoped they would have. It was two days before the bleeding fully stopped, and the transfusions seemed to begin to help her. She was still too weak to sit up, but he spoon fed soup and gruel into her, like any nurse, and slept on a cot beside her bed. After seeing her a little better, he finally dared to sleep himself. He was utterly exhausted, but deeply grateful Danina had survived it. "How do you feel today?" he asked gently, looking at the dark circles beneath her eyes. She still looked ashen to him. "A little better," she lied. She couldn't remember any of the other girls being so ill in similar situations, although one often heard of women who died from it, but she had had no clear understanding of the risk she was taking. And even if she had, she would have done it anyway. She had absolutely no choice, she felt, and even now, with Nikolai at her side, she knew they could never have had the baby. It would have destroyed everything, his life, her career. There was no room for a child in their lives. |
| 10 |
She kept dreaming of losing Nikolai there, of wandering the streets, looking for him, and never finding him, and when she awoke in the hospital, he was gone, and she was crying and alone. He had left her a note that he had gone to check on Alexei, and would return to see her in the morning. And as she read it, she was lost in thought. She stayed in the hospital for two weeks, and when she left, the doctor ordered her to stay in bed for two more. Nikolai wanted her to stay at the Czar's cottage with him, at Tsarskoe Selo, but Madame Markova was violently opposed to it. She wanted Danina back at the ballet, and said the trip to Tsarskoe Selo was too far. This time, Danina didn't have the energy to fight her. The mistress of the ballet was too determined, and unwilling, to let Danina slip out of her hands again. She didn't want her to spend another four months "recuperating" in the cottage with her lover. She was intransigent this time, and in the face of the ferocity of her objections, Danina returned to the ballet. And as Nikolai had when she was ill when they first met, he came to see her every day, and stayed for as long as he could, a few hours at least, before he went back to his own duties. He sat in her dormitory room with her while she rested in bed. And while she walked slowly around the small garden at the ballet with him, he talked to her of Vermont, and his cousin there. He was convinced it was the only way, and he wanted to go with her as soon as they could both get away. He suggested early summer, which was only a few months away. "Your season will be over then. You can complete what you are doing. We must pick a time, and then go through with it. There will never be a perfect moment to leave, we must seize the moment while we can." She would be twenty two by then, and he would be forty one that year, time enough for both of them to start a new life in America, as countless others had done before them, some for reasons as complicated as theirs. She promised to think about it, and she did, constantly. |
| 11 |
If Nikolai threw her away one day, if she regretted giving up the ballet all her life, and hated Vermont, if they were not happy together? Who could know the answers to those questions? There was no certainty to his plans, only promises, and hopes and dreams, and wishes. Hers as much as his own. Yet he was willing to give up medicine for her, the security he had, the life he had known for over fifteen years with his family. He was willing to sacrifice all for her. Why couldn't she do the same for him? "You must think about it very carefully," Madame Markova reminded her, "and come to the right decision." The right decision to her, of course, was staying at the ballet and forgetting Nikolai, but Danina also knew she couldn't do that. Leaving the ballet now might destroy her life, but losing him would kill her. Just thinking about it, she felt under the blouse she wore for her locket, and was comforted to feel it there. She was deeply in love with him. Perhaps even enough to risk everything and follow him. Now all she could do was think about it, and look into her heart. Madame Markova left her alone after that, to her own thoughts. She had planted the seeds she wanted to, and hoped that they would grow and take hold. She wanted Danina to feel the loss and terror of leaving the ballet, of perhaps a lifetime of regret and sorrow. It was certainly something to ponder. It was the only life Madame Markova knew, the only one she ever wanted, it was the legacy she wanted to give Danina now, the sacred bond, the holy grail, the wand passed from hand to hand, from teacher to student to teacher and back again, endlessly, the almost holy vow they took when they came, the love too deep to escape in the end, the sacrifices endless. To stay here now meant giving up all hope of a future with him. In a sense, it meant giving up hope. But to leave Russia with him meant giving up who she was forever. It was an agonizing choice, and whichever road she chose would require sacrifices almost too agonizing to think of. |
| 12 |
Danina did not dance for a month, and began taking class again on the first of April. There was still snow on the ground outside, and once again she had to work harder than before to regain what she had lost, but this time the return to full strength was swifter. She was stronger now, and in better health. She was back in rehearsals within a week, and performing again in early May. It was over a year since she had left Nikolai after their long, idyllic stay in the Czar's guest cottage during her convalescence from influenza. And in a year, little had changed between them. They were still deeply in love with each other, he was still married and living with his wife and children, and she was still at the ballet. But they were no closer than they had been a year before to a solution to their problems. If anything, Marie Obrajensky was more firmly entrenched than she had ever been in not leaving him. And in the past year, the two lovers had been able to save very little money for their future together. All they knew for sure was that a life together was still what they wanted. How to achieve it was the obstacle they constantly struggled to overcome. And Danina could not bring herself to agree to join him in Vermont. It was too big a change, she felt, too far away, too unknown, too foreign to her. And Nikolai continued to try and convince her, as gently as he could. One of the Grand Duchesses fell ill in June, and kept both Imperial physicians busy. Nikolai had little time to visit Danina. He wanted to, but he couldn't get away, and she understood. And in early July, she had another tragedy when her oldest brother was killed in Czernoivitz. She had lost two now, and she knew from his letter that her father was beside himself over the death of his son. He had been with him when they were shelled, and miraculously he had been spared, but his firstborn was killed instantly. Danina took the news hard, and for weeks afterward she felt drained and lifeless. The war was taking a toll on all of them, even at the ballet. |
| 13 |
So it was only the women and children and both physicians who were there, and Danina. The Czarina and her daughters had allowed themselves to take a brief time off from nursing the soldiers, and were happy to be in Livadia again. They were all old friends now, and she and Nikolai were happier than they had ever been. It seemed a perfect time to both of them, a magical moment suspended in time, protected from a dangerous world seemingly far from them. In the safety of Livadia, they were shielded from the realities that had already engulfed everything else. They had picnics every afternoon, went on long walks, rowed boats and swam, and Danina felt like a child again, as she played the old familiar games with Alexei. His health had been frail that year, and he didn't look well, but surrounded by his family and the people he loved, he seemed happy to be with them. Nikolai tried to speak to her of Vermont, but she was vague when she answered now. She had been given important roles in every ballet they were doing that year. Madame Markova knew exactly how to keep her in St. Petersburg. And Danina and Nikolai had finally agreed not to discuss Vermont again until Christmas, at least until the end of the first part of her season. It was an agreement that pained Nikolai to make, but he did so for her sake. It turned out to be a blessing that he never left, when his youngest son came down with typhoid in September, and nearly died. And it took all of Nikolai's expertise, and that of Dr. Botkin, to save him. Danina was terrified for the boy, and sent Nikolai letters daily, worrying about the child, and aching for Nikolai's terror as a father, knowing how much he loved his children. It would have been disastrous, she told herself, if they'd been in Vermont and the boy had been ill, or worse. Nikolai would never have forgiven himself, or her, for the tragedy, and would always have blamed himself. And it only made her more certain than she had ever been that it would have been wrong for them to run away to America. |
| 14 |
Despite her illness of the past year, her dancing had improved even beyond where it had been before. Whenever she danced, people talked about her for days, and her name was known now all over Russia. She was in fact the greatest young ballerina of her day. Nikolai was desperately proud of her, and more in love with her than ever. He came to her performances whenever he could, and in November met her father and one of her brothers. There were only two left now, and the other had been recently injured, but was in Moscow, recovering well. Her father and brother had no idea who Nikolai was to her or how much she loved him, but the three men seemed to enjoy meeting each other. Nikolai wished them luck when they left, and congratulated the colonel on his very talented and remarkable daughter, and the elderly colonel beamed proudly at her. It was easy to see how much he loved her, and he had always known that bringing her to the ballet as a child had been the perfect answer for her. He fully anticipated her being there forever, and it never dawned on him that she was considering leaving it one day. And when at last Christmas came, Danina couldn't wait to go to Tsarskoe Selo to stay with Nikolai in the little cottage that had begun to seem like their own. It would have been so simple for them if living there could have been a possible solution for them, but it wasn't. They could only be together, on borrowed time, for a few days, or weeks, now and then. She attended the Czar's Christmas Dance with him. They did not give the grand balls they had before the war, but nonetheless managed to invite over a hundred friends. Danina shone like a bright star in a gown the Czarina had given her as a gift. It was red velvet trimmed in white ermine, and she looked every bit as regal in it as the Czarina did in hers. Guests all over the room were commenting on how beautiful she was, how elegant, how talented, how gracious, and Nikolai beamed like a handsome prince as he stood beside her, holding her hand. |
| 15 |
He had promised not to ask her about it again until Christmas, and now the time had come again. And he had given it even more thought since they'd last discussed it in September. It was a recurring theme with Nikolai, and he still hoped to convince her of the wisdom of his plan. "What solution?" she asked innocently, as she took off her earrings. He had just given them to her, and she loved them. They were pearls with tiny rubies hanging just beneath them, and they looked lovely on her. "Vermont," he reminded her. "There are no revolutions in America. They don't have a war on their doorstep. We could be happy there, Danina, and you know it." She was running out of excuses not to discuss it with him, and she wanted to be with him, but there never seemed to be a time when she felt ready to leave the ballet, and do something quite so drastic as all that. They were comfortable with the life they shared, and perhaps one day his wife would agree to a divorce. "Maybe one day," she said wistfully. She wanted to be brave enough to go with him, and yet at the same time she still couldn't imagine abandoning their familiar world. She had an equal amount of elements pulling at her from both directions. Madame Markova and the ballet, and Nikolai and all he promised her. A shared life together in a new land, and the ballet, which was her obligation, her duty, her life. "You told me you would talk to me about it again at Christmas," he said sadly. He was beginning to fear she would never leave the ballet, and they would never be able to have more than they had now, unless his wife died, or changed her mind, or he inherited a great deal of money, none of which was likely. All she could be here was his mistress, and they could only live together a few weeks a year, unless she left the ballet. But even then, he couldn't have housed her, and they both knew that. Vermont was the only hope they had of being together and starting a new life. But the sacrifices required of each of them still made her shy away from any decision. |
| 16 |
Madame Markova knew that in Danina's heart, the ballet would win in the end. She was certain of it. Danina began exercising that afternoon as soon as she got back, and again at four o'clock the next morning, before rehearsal began at seven. She was well warmed up by then, and in good form, and she knew the role well that she was going to rehearse, so much so that she seemed not to pay much attention. In fact, she allowed herself to play a little bit with some of the other dancers, and they clowned around behind the teacher's back, and did some funny kicks and new steps. She did a leap that took their breath away, and then a very pretty pas de deux with one of her partners. And it was late afternoon before they stopped for something to eat. They had been dancing for nearly ten hours by then, which wasn't unusual for them, and Danina was tired, but not excessively. She gave a last leap on her way out, and someone gasped as she slipped and sailed across the floor with one foot at a shocking angle. There was a long silence in the room as everyone waited to see her get up, but she was very white and very still, as she simply lay there and held her ankle in silence. And then everyone ran to her, and the teacher came briskly across the floor to see what had happened. She was hoping to see a bad sprain, or a ballerina who would be very sore the next morning at rehearsal. But what she saw instead was Danina's foot almost at an impossible angle to her leg, and Danina clearly in shock and barely conscious. "Carry her to her bed at once," the woman said sharply. Danina's teeth were clenched, her face deadly white, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind what had happened. She had broken, not sprained, her ankle. A death knell, if it were true, for a prima, or virtually any dancer. There was not a sound, not a word, only the occasional gasp from Danina, as they moved her, and a moment later she lay on her bed, in her leotard and the warm sweater and leg warmers she had been wearing. |
| 17 |
Without a word, the teacher cut her leotard off, using a small sharp knife she carried for purposes such as that, and the ankle was already swelling to the size of a balloon, the foot still at the same hideous angle, as Danina stared at it in silent horror, the reality too terrible to imagine. "Get a doctor. At once," a voice said from the doorway. It was Madame Markova. There was a man they used for such things. He was extremely good with feet and legs and bones and he had helped them before, with good results. But what Madame Markova saw as she entered the room nearly broke her heart. In a single instant, with one swift leap, it was over for Danina. The doctor came within the hour, and confirmed the worst to them. The ankle was badly broken, and she had to be taken to the hospital. They would have to operate in order to set it. There was no argument, nothing anyone could say. A dozen hands touched hers as they carried her away. Everyone cried, but no one harder than Danina. She had seen it happen too often before. She knew exactly what had just occurred. After fifteen years in these sacred halls, for her, at twenty two, it was over. They operated on her that night, and the entire leg was set in a huge cast. For anyone else, it would have been considered a success. The leg would be straight again, and if she had a limp from it, it would only be a small one. In her case, that was not good enough. The ankle had been shattered, and even if she walked normally, she would never be able to dance as she had before. It would not carry her weight sufficiently to do what she would have to do. There was simply no way of repairing it to give her the flexibility or the strength she needed. And there were no words to console her. Her career had ended with that one small, foolish leap. Not only her ankle, but her life shattered in a single instant. She lay in her bed and cried that night, almost as hard as she had when she lost Nikolai's baby. The life she had lost this time was her own. |
| 18 |
It was the death of a dream, a tragic finish in counterpoint to a brilliant beginning. And this time Madame Markova sat beside her, holding back her own tears. Danina had made the sacrifices, the vow, the commitment, but the fates had not been kind to her. Her life as a ballerina, the life she had lived and breathed and been willing to die for, for fifteen years, was gone. She was sent back to the ballet the next day, to lie in the room she shared with the others, and they came to visit her, alone and in pairs, with flowers, with words, with kindness, with sorrow, almost as though to mourn her. She felt as though she had died, and in a way she had. The life she had known, and been an integral part of, had died for her. She already felt as though she didn't belong here. And it was only a matter of time before she had to gather up her things and leave them. She was even too young to teach, and she knew she couldn't anyway. It was not in her. For her, it was simply over. The death of a dream. It took her two days to write to Nikolai, and when her letter reached him, he came at once, unable to believe what had happened, although everyone explained it to him in detail once he arrived. All the other dancers knew him and liked him. And they told him again and again how she had fallen and how she looked as she lay on the floor. But seeing her, lying there, with her huge cast, and the look of sorrow in her eyes, said it all to him when he first saw her. But to Nikolai, as ghastly as it was for her, it seemed almost like a ray of hope. It was her only chance for a new life. Without this, she would never have left. But he knew he could say none of that to her. She was in deep mourning over her career. And this time, when he insisted on taking her away with him, Madame Markova offered no objections. She knew it would be kinder for her not to be at the ballet, for a while at least, listening to the familiar bells and sounds and voices going to class or rehearsals. Danina no longer belonged here. |
| 19 |
And Alexei hadn't been well, so he didn't feel able to go to St. Petersburg with her. "Don't be silly, I'll be fine," she insisted, and after a day of arguing back and forth, he finally agreed to let her go without him. "I'll come back in a week or two," she promised him, "as soon as I see she's better. She would do, and has done, as much for me." He understood all too well the power of the relationship between them, and he knew that Danina would have been agonized over not going to her. He took her to the train the next day, warned her to be careful and not overtax herself, handed her her cane with a kiss, and put his arms around her. He hated to see her go but understood it, and made her promise to take a taxi directly to the ballet from the station. He was sorry not to go with her. And after all their time together recently, it felt odd to him not to do so. But Danina had promised him she would be fine alone. But much to her surprise, when she reached St. Petersburg, she saw people milling about in the streets, shouting and demonstrating against the Czar, and there were soldiers everywhere around them. She had heard nothing of it in Tsarskoe Selo, and was amazed to find the atmosphere in the city unusually tense. But she forced it from her mind as she made her way to the ballet. Her thoughts were on Madame Markova, and she hoped her mentor and old friend was not desperately ill. And she was dismayed to find that in fact she had been, and as had happened once before, she had grown very weak and very frail from her illness. Danina sat beside her every day, fed her soup and gruel, and begged her to eat it. And within a week, she was relieved to see some slight improvement, but the older woman seemed to have aged years in a few brief weeks, and she looked intolerably fragile as Danina looked at her lovingly and held her hand. Nursing her, the days seemed to fly past her, and Danina fell into bed at night feeling utterly exhausted. And moving around as much as she had, had caused her ankle to swell painfully again. |
| 20 |
Before he left her that night, he pressed a roll of bills into her hand. He told her to pay for their passage, and arrange it in the next few weeks. He was sure that by then, the Imperial family would be comfortably settled, and he would be able to leave them and go with her. But she watched him go that night with a feeling of terror. What if something happened to him? As he mounted his horse, he turned and smiled at her, and told her not to worry, and assured her that, staying with the Imperial family, he would be even safer than she was. He rode off again at a gallop, and clutching the money he had left her, she hurried back into the safety of the ballet. It was a long, anxious month waiting to hear from him again, and trying to glean what they could from the rumors they all heard in the streets, from citizens and soldiers. The Czar's fate still seemed unsure, and there was talk of their staying at Tsarskoe Selo, going to Livadia or going to England to stay with their royal cousins. There were constant rumors, and the two letters she had from Nikolai told her nothing more than she already knew. Even in Tsarskoe Selo nothing was definite or certain. No one knew where or how it would all end. Danina was careful with her funds while she waited to hear further from Nikolai, and with a terrible pang of guilt she sold the little nephrite frog Alexei had given her, knowing that once they were in Vermont, they would need the money. She managed to contact her father through his regiment, and in a brief letter, told him what she planned to do. But once again the letter she received from him held bitter news. The third of her four brothers had been killed. And he urged her to do as Nikolai suggested. He remembered meeting him, though he still had no idea that he was married, and told her to go to Vermont, and he would contact her there. She and Nikolai could come back to Russia again when the war was over. And in the meantime, he told her to pray for Russia, wished her godspeed, and told her he loved her. |
| 21 |
She wrote the Grand Duchesses and Alexei a quick letter, sending them her love, and promising that they would meet again, and Nikolai folded it carefully and put it in his pocket, to take it back with him. He had explained all the circumstances to her, and what the house arrest entailed. They were allowed to walk in the gardens, or anywhere on the grounds. And he told her that people stood at the gates and stared at them, talking to them sometimes, telling them they loved them, or criticizing them for what they had or hadn't done. Just listening to him talk about it was painful to Danina, and she wished more than ever that she could be in Tsarskoe Selo with them, to lend them her support as well, and just be there for them. She hated to see Nikolai leave again that night, but knew he had to go back. And this time, she exchanged their tickets for a boat leaving on the first of August. Nikolai had promised to be back in St. Petersburg by then. It was incredible to her to realize that they had already waited three months to leave, since the Revolution began. It seemed an eternity to her now as she continued to wait for him. By then, some of the dancers had gone home to other countries, other towns, but most of them had stayed. All their performances had been canceled months before, but once she was well again, Madame Markova insisted that classes continue as usual. She invited Danina to watch with her, and little by little, Danina's limp had begun to fade, but there was no question of her ever dancing again. But for the moment, she no longer cared. All she could think of, as the days crawled by, was Nikolai, and their friends. And it was the end of July when Nikolai returned. And this time, he said, the plans for the Imperial family were certain. The trip to Livadia had been vetoed by the provisional government as too dangerous for them to undertake, as they would have to pass through what were deemed hostile towns, and they were leaving for Tobolsk in Siberia on August fourteenth. |
| 22 |
They spent their last day in St. Petersburg walking the streets, going to places they had both been fond of. It was a litany of memory and torment, and suddenly Danina could no longer remember why she was going. They both loved it here so much, why would they want to leave? But they could not delude themselves anymore. It was dangerous here. Their time in Russia was over. There was no way they could ever have had a life here. Even less so now, with the Revolution in full progress. But without it, Marie would have stayed, and held on to him. Danina would have had nowhere to go without the ballet. They had to go thousands of miles away, to a new world, to have a life together. And they both knew it was worth it. It was just excruciatingly painful leaving. But in another day, she'd be on the ship, in a month he would come too, and they could begin their life together. In some ways, it seemed like a great adventure. But she was still desperately sad to leave him in Russia. For the moment, they were staying at a hotel, under his name, and on their way back, they bought a newspaper, and read with dismay of the war news. And all of it was distressing. It was impossible to ignore. They had dinner in their room that night, clinging to each other for the last moments they could share, wanting to be alone for their final hours. They had so much to say to each other, so much to dream of, and promise. The days and nights they shared went all too quickly. They barely slept those last three days, not wanting to miss an instant with each other. Her bags were all packed, her few treasures and souvenirs ready to go with her. And he was sending two bags of his with her too, as though to prove to her that he was coming later. She was even bringing the gowns the Czarina had given her, although she knew they were part of the past now, as it all was. Danina wondered at times how they would ever explain to their children, if they had any, what their lives had been. It would all seem like fairy tales to them, as it did to her now. |
| 23 |
It was there, safely at her neck, beneath her sweater. "I'll see you soon," he promised for a last time, kissed her quickly, and then hurried down the last gangplank, as she went to the rail and watched him leap to the dock and stand there, watching her. "I love you!" she shouted. "Be careful!" She waved at him and he waved back, mouthing "I love you" at her. And moments later, the big ship began to move slowly from the dock as she felt her heart pound, and wondered why she had been stupid enough to let him convince her to leave without him. Everything about it felt wrong to her, but she knew she had to be brave now, for his sake. They had been through so much together, she could do just a little more, let him finish his work here, give his last to the Imperial family, and then join her in Vermont, to begin their life together as man and wife. She waved to him until she could barely see him anymore. He was still standing there, waving at her, tall and proud and strong, the man who had won her heart two years before, and whom she knew she would love forever. "I love you, Nikolai," she whispered into the wind, and then stood there for a long time, with tears running down her cheeks, thinking of him and holding her locket. She wasn't even sure why she was crying. He was right. They had so much to look forward to, so much to be thankful for, so much waiting for them in Vermont. It was all beginning. She had no reason to cry, except that in a place in her heart she was desperately afraid that she had just seen him for the last time. But there was no reason to think that. It was foolish, she told herself, as she looked up at the sky and saw the last gulls flying past. She could not lose him now. It could not happen. And with a sigh, and a last glance at her homeland, thinking of him, she walked slowly down to her cabin. She could not lose Nikolai, she told herself. No matter what happened to them, she would always love him, there was no way they could lose each other now. |
| 24 |
She must have felt as though she would die without him. But before he had died, his last letter had warned her that there was talk of an execution. Cruel as it may have seemed at the time, he had tried to prepare her. He sounded surprisingly cheerful actually, and strong, and had told her that she must go on, that she must find happiness in her new life, and remember him, and their love, with joy and not sorrow. He told her he had been married to her in his heart since they'd met, and she had given him the happiest years of his life, and his only regret was not leaving with her. She must have known that day, that she would never see him again. And yet, destiny could not be altered. Neither his, nor hers. She was destined for another life, with all of us, in a place so far from the life she had shared with him. And he was not destined to be with her. Her father and remaining brother were killed at the end of the war. And Madame Markova died of pneumonia two years after my grandmother last saw her. She lost them all, one by one, irrevocably, lost everything, a life, a country, a career, a handful of precious people... the man she loved, her family, and the dancing she had loved so much before that. Yet there had never been anything tragic about her, nothing sad, or sorrowing, or mournful. She must have missed them terribly, especially Nikolai. Her heart must have ached from time to time, and yet she never told me. She was simply Granny Dan, with her funny hats, and roller skates, her sparkling eyes, and delicious cookies. How could we have been so foolish? How could we have thought that that was all of her, when there was so much more? How could I have believed that the little woman in the frayed black dresses was the same person she once had been? Why do we think that old people have always been old? Why could I not imagine her in the red velvet gown trimmed with ermine, or dancing Swan Lake for the Czar in her toe shoes? And why did she never tell me? She had kept all her secrets to herself. |
| 25 |
He loved it. And so did the network. They went crazy over it. And the baby, Adam, and the show had been born at almost the same time, one a strapping nine pound baby boy with his father's big blue eyes and a mist of golden curls, the other a tryout on the summer schedule that brought the ratings through the roof and an instant outcry when the show disappeared again in September. Within two months, A Life Worth Living was back and Bill Thigpen was on his way as the creator of the most successful daytime television soap ever. The important choices came later. He started out by writing some of the early episodes himself, and they were good, but he drove the actors and director crazy. And by then his career on off off Broadway was all but forgotten. Television became his lifeblood in a matter of moments. Eventually, he was offered a lot of money to sell his concept and just sit back and go home to collect residuals, and go back to writing plays for off off Broadway. But by then, almost as much as his six month old son, Life, as he called it, was his baby. He couldn't bring himself to leave the show, much less sell it. He had to stay with it. It was real to him, it was alive, and he cared about what he was saying. He talked about the agonies of life, the disappointments, the angers, the sorrows, the triumphs, the challenges, the excitement, the love, the simple beauty. The show had all his zest for life, his own sorrow over grief, his own delight for living. It gave people hope after despair, sunshine after storms, and the basic core of the story line and the principal characters were decent. There were villains, of course, too, and people ate them up. But there was a basic integrity about the show that made its fans unshakable in their devotion. It was in effect a reflection of the essence of its creator. Alive, excited about life, decent, trusting, kind, naive, intelligent, creative. And he loved the show, almost like a child he was bound and determined to nurture, almost as much as he loved Adam and Leslie. |
| 26 |
She and her teacher friend had everything in common, she insisted, and she and Bill no longer did, except their children. Adam had been heartbroken to see him go, but at two and a half he had readjusted pretty quickly. And Tommy was only eight months old and seemed not to know the difference. Only Bill really felt it as tears filled his eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks as the plane soared over New York and headed for California. And once there, Bill threw himself into the show with a vengeance. He worked day and night, and sometimes even slept on the couch in his office, as the ratings continued to soar, and the show won innumerable Daytime Emmys. And in the seven years he'd been in California, Bill Thigpen had become only slightly less manic. A Life Worth Living had become his pride and joy, his daily companion, his best friend, his baby. He had no reason to fight it anymore. He let his work become his daily passion. The boys came out to visit him on alternate holidays and for a month in the summer, and he loved them more than ever. But being three thousand miles away from them when he really wanted to see them every day remained extremely painful. And there had been a parade of women in his life but the only constant companion he had was the show, and the actors in it. And he lived for his vacations with Adam and Tommy. Leslie had long since married the Juilliard teacher and had two more kids, and she had finally given up teaching. With four kids at home under the age of ten, she had her hands full but she seemed to love it. She and Bill talked on the phone now and then, particularly when the boys were coming out, or if one of them was sick or if there was a problem, but they didn't have much to say to each other anymore, except about Adam and Tommy. It was hard even to remember what it had been like when they were married. The pain of losing her was gone, and the memories of the good times were dim. Except for the boys, it was all gone now. And they were the real loves in his life. |
| 27 |
She talked about it like a disease from which he might soon be healed, if he would only let her help him. She also hated kids, and kept putting away the photographs of his children. Remarkably, it took him a full six months to catch his breath and let her have it. It took six months because she was great in bed, treated him like a six year old at a time when he desperately needed nurturing and liked it, and she seemed to know everything about the television industry in L.A. But when she told him he ought to stop talking about his kids, and forget about them, he rented a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel for a month, gave her the key, told her to have a great time, and not to bother to call him when she found an apartment. He moved her things to the bungalow the same afternoon, and didn't run into her for the next four years until they saw each other at an awards ceremony, where she pretended not to know him. And what had come after that had been intentionally lighthearted and easy. Actresses, starlets, walk ons, models, girls who wanted a good time when he was free, and enjoyed going to an occasional party with him when he wasn't in a period of high stress due to some change on the show, and they wanted nothing more from him. They fitted him in among the other men in their lives, and seemed not to care when he didn't call them. Some of them cooked dinner for him occasionally, or he for them since he loved to cook, and the ones who were good with kids were sometimes called on to go to Disneyland with him when the boys were in town, but more often than not he enjoyed keeping the boys to himself during their visits to California. More recently, Bill had gotten involved with one of the actresses on the show. Sylvia was a pretty girl from New York, and she had an important part on the show. And it was the first time in a long time that he had allowed himself the indulgence of getting involved with someone who actually worked for him. But she was a sensational looking girl, and she had been hard to resist. |
| 28 |
At thirty nine, he had become the king of daytime soaps, as his row of Emmys lined up on a shelf on his office wall clearly attested. But he was, as always, totally unaware of them, as he returned to his office and began to pace, wondering how the actors in today's show would react to the unexpected last minute changes. Two of the women usually handled it well, but one of his male actors frequently blew his lines when surprised at the last minute, and if the alterations made him too nervous. He had been on the show for two years, and Bill had thought more than once about replacing him, and yet he liked the human quality he brought to the show, and the power of his performances when he believed in what he was saying. It was a show which seemed to mean a lot to untold millions across the United States, and the volume of mail Bill and the actors and the producers got was nothing short of amazing. The cast and crew had become a kind of family over the years, and the show meant a great deal to all of them. It had become a home and a way of life for a lot of very talented people. That afternoon, his own ladylove, Sylvia, was going to be playing her part as Vaughn Williams, the beautiful younger sister of the show's principal heroine, Helen. "Vaughn" had been lured into an affair with her brother in law, and introduced to drugs by him as well, unbeknownst to anyone in her family, particularly her own sister. Trapped in a web from which she seemed unable to free herself, Vaughn's brother in law, John, was luring her deeper and deeper into his clutches and leading her toward her own destruction. In an unexpected turn of events on that day's show, Vaughn was going to be witness to a murder committed by John, and the police would begin seeking Vaughn for the murder of the drug dealer who had been supplying her drugs since John introduced her to him. It had been a difficult series of events to orchestrate and Bill had been closely supervising the writers, with an eye to stepping in himself if he had to. |
| 29 |
He was wondering what Sylvia would think of the script changes he had just handed her through her dressing room door. He hadn't seen her since the night before, when he left her place at three a.m. and came to the office to start working on the idea that had been gnawing at him all evening. She had been asleep when he left, and he had gone home to shower and change before going to his office at four thirty. And by twelve thirty, the atmosphere in his office was still electrically charged as he got to his feet, stubbed the cigarette out, and hurried to the studio, where he watched the director carefully going over the last minute changes. The director was a man Bill had known for years, a Hollywood veteran who had come to the show after directing reams of successful television movies. He had been an unusually serious choice for a soap opera on daytime TV, but Bill had obviously known what he was doing. Allan McLoughlin kept everyone on their toes, and he was speaking seriously to Sylvia and the actor who played John, as Bill walked into the studio and stood discreetly in a remote corner of the room where he could observe but not disturb them. "Coffee, Bill?" A pretty young script girl inquired. She had had an eye on him for a year. She liked him. He was what some people would have described as a "teddy bear," tall, powerful, warm, smart, nice looking but not gorgeous, with easy laughter and a gentle style that somehow softened the intensity with which he worked. But Bill only smiled and shook his head. She was a nice kid, but he had never thought of her as anything but the script girl. He was too busy working while he was there to concentrate on anything but what was happening in front of the cameras, or in his head, as he plotted the show's future turns and detours. "No, thanks, I'm fine." He smiled at the girl and turned his attention back to the director. He noticed that Sylvia was studying her lines, and the actors who played Helen and John were conferring quietly in a corner. |
| 30 |
It was something that women said at times, without actually saying the words. It had to do with feeling alone and being lonely. And he knew it well, but there was nothing he was going to change now. He never had before, and at thirty nine, he figured it was too late to do much changing. Sylvia left his office, and Bill went back to work. He had a mountain of notes he wanted to make about the new scripts, and all the upcoming changes, and by the time he looked up from his typewriter again, it was dark outside, and he was startled to realize it was ten o'clock when he looked at his watch, and he suddenly realized tie was desperately thirsty. He got up from his desk, turned on some more lights, and helped himself to a soda water from the office. He knew Betsey would have left a bunch of sandwiches for him on her desk, but he wasn't even hungry. The work seemed to feed his spirit when it was going well, and he was pleased as he glanced over what he'd done, and leaned back in his desk chair, sipping the soda. There was just one more scene he wanted to change before giving it up for the night, and for the next two hours, he banged away on the old Royal, totally forgetting everything except what he was writing. And this time when he stopped, it was midnight. He had been at it for almost twenty hours and he was hardly even tired, he felt exhilarated by the changes he'd made and the way the work had been flowing. He took the sheaf of pages he'd been working on since that afternoon, locked them in a desk drawer, helped himself to another soda water on his way out, and left his cigarettes on the desk. He seldom smoked except when he was working. He walked past his secretary's desk, with the sandwiches still sitting in a cardboard box, and walked out into the fluorescent lit hall, past half a dozen studios that were closed down now. There was a late night talk show in one, and a bunch of odd looking kids in punk clothes had just arrived to make an appearance. He smiled at them, but they didn't smile back. |
| 31 |
He and the old guard shared a passion for the Dodgers. And then he walked out into the fresh air, and took a deep breath of the warm spring night. The smog didn't seem so bad at that hour, and it felt good just to be alive. He loved what he did, and it made it seem somehow worthwhile to work those ridiculous hours, making up stories about imaginary people. Somehow when he was doing it, it all made sense to him, and when he was finished, he was always glad he had done it. Now and then it was an agony, when a scene didn't go right or a character slipped out of control and became someone he had never intended, but most of the time doing it was something he loved, and there were times when he missed doing it full time, and he envied the writers. He sighed happily as he started his car. It was a '49 Chevrolet woody station wagon, and he had bought it from a surfer seven years before for five hundred dollars and he loved it. It was maroon and it was in less than perfect condition, but it had soul, and lots of room, and the boys loved riding around in it when they came to visit. As he drove home on the Santa Monica Freeway toward Fairfax Avenue, he realized suddenly that he was hungry. He was more than hungry. He was starving. And he knew that there was nothing in his apartment. He hadn't eaten there in days. He had been too busy working and before that he'd eaten out, and he had spent the weekend before at Sylvia's place in Malibu. She rented it from an aging movie star who had been in a retirement home for years but still kept the house in Malibu she had once lived in. Bill stopped at Safeway on his way home, and it was after midnight as he pulled his woody into the parking lot and slid into a space right in front of the main entrance. He parked it next to a battered old red MG with the top down, walked into the brightly lit all night store and helped himself to a cart as he tried to decide what he wanted to eat. There were chickens barbecuing in a nearby aisle, and he noticed that they smelled terrific. |
| 32 |
There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Steven Townsend was going to succeed, no matter what it took, or cost him. He was one of those people who were determined to get where they wanted to go, who planned things out in great detail. There were no accidents in Steven Townsend's life, no mistakes, no failures. He would talk to Adrian for hours sometimes about clients he was going to get, or a promotion he had set his sights on. She marveled at him sometimes, his determination, his drive, his courage. It hadn't been easy for him. His father had been an autoworker on the assembly line in Detroit, with five kids, three daughters and two sons, of which Steven had been the youngest. His older brother had died in Vietnam, and the three girls had stayed close to home, perfectly content not to go to college. Two of them had been married while still in their teens, both pregnant, of course, and his oldest sister had married at twenty one, and had had four children before her twenty fifth birthday. She had married an autoworker like her dad, and when there was a strike they all went on welfare. It was a life Steven still had nightmares about, and he seldom talked to anyone about his childhood. Only Adrian knew how much he had hated it, and how much he had come to hate them. He had never gone back to Detroit once he left, and Adrian also knew that it had been more than five years since he had communicated with his parents. He just couldn't talk to them anymore, he had explained it to her once when he'd had a little too much to drink and they'd come home after an office party. He had hated them so much, hated their poverty and despair, hated the look of constant sorrow in his mother's eyes over all that she could not do for, or give, her children. But she must have loved you all, Adrian had tried to explain, sensing the woman's love for them, and her sense of helplessness in the face of what they needed and she couldn't give them, in particular, her youngest child, anxious, ambitious Steven. |
| 33 |
She wondered from time to time what they would have thought of him, if they could see him now. He was handsome, athletic, outspoken, well educated, intelligent, bold, and sometimes even a little too brassy. She had always admired his fire, his ambition, his drive, his energy, and yet from time to time she wished that it were only a little tempered. Perhaps that would come in time, with age, with love, with kindness from those who loved him. Sometimes she teased him, she said he was like a cactus plant. He wouldn't let anyone come too close, or touch his heart, except when he decided to allow it. They had been married for almost three years, and the marriage had done them both good. Steven had continued to rise in the agency meteorically in the past two and a half years, after moving to Los Angeles twelve years before when he finished college. He had worked in three different ad agencies over the years, and he was known in the industry as being smart, good at what he did, and more than occasionally ruthless. He had taken over clients from friends, and wooed them from other agencies in circumstances that occasionally bordered on the improper. But the agency where he worked never lost out from his maneuvers, nor did Steven. They were growing day by day, and so was Steven's importance. She and Steven were very different, Adrian knew, and yet she respected him. Most of all, she respected what he had come from. She knew, just from the little she had heard, that surviving his early beginnings must have been brutal. Her own were at the opposite extreme, from an upper middle class family in Connecticut, she had always gone to private schools, and she had one older sister. She and Adrian didn't see eye to eye, and in recent years, Adrian had drifted away from her parents, too, although every few years they came out to California to see her. But it was too different from their comfortable life in Connecticut, and the last time they had come, her parents hadn't gotten along with Steven. |
| 34 |
They had never been close, but at least early on they had been friends, or pretended to be. Now the veneer appeared to have worn off, and there was nothing left but Connie's anger that Adrian was gone, and free, and doing what she wanted in California. And Adrian didn't tell them that she and Steven had agreed not to have children. It was something that meant a lot to him, after the horrors of his childhood. Adrian didn't agree with him, but she knew he blamed his parents' misery on the fact that they had children, or certainly too many of them. But he had told her long since that children were not on his agenda, and he wanted to be sure that Adrian was in full agreement. He had talked more than once about having a vasectomy, but they were both afraid that if he did, there might be physical repercussions. He had urged her to have her tubes tied instead, but she had hedged about it because it seemed so radical, and finally they had settled on alternate methods of assuring that they wouldn't have children. It made Adrian sad sometimes to think of never having children of her own, and yet it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for him. She knew how important it was to him. He wanted to pursue his career without encumbrances, and he wanted her to be free to pursue hers too. He was extremely supportive of her work. And she had come to like working in TV news over the past three years, but she still missed her old shows occasionally, her TV films and miniseries and specials. And more than once, she had talked about leaving the news and getting a production job on a series. "And when they cancel it?" Steven always said. "Then what? You're on the unemployment line, you're back to square one. Stick with the news, sweetheart, it's never going to be canceled." He had a horror of losing jobs, being out of work, losing opportunities, or not following a stellar route right to the top. Steven always kept his eye on his goals, and his goals were always at the top. And they both knew he was going to make it. |
| 35 |
Adrian liked to putter in the tiny garden on the weekends. There was a pool for, the entire complex to use, a tennis court, and a two car garage for her MG, and his shiny new black Porsche. He still tried to get her to sell her car, but she never would. She had bought it used when she went to Stanford thirteen years before, and she still loved it. Adrian was someone who loved to hang on to old things, and Steven was someone who was always seeking what was newest. And yet, together they were a good team. He gave her an extra sense of drive and push that she might not have had to the same extent if she'd been on her own, and she softened his sharp edges just a little. Not enough for everyone. Her sister, Connie, and her brother in law, Charles, still hated him, and her parents had never come to love him. It had affected Adrian's relationship with them, and it pained her to realize at times how distant she had grown from them. But in spite of her love for them, she felt that she owed her principal allegiance to Steven. He was the man whose bed she shared, whose life she was helping to build, whose future she was forging. And no matter how much she loved them, they were her past, and he was her present and her future. Her parents understood it, too, they no longer asked when she and Steven were coming east. And they had even stopped nagging her in the past year about when she and Steven were going to have children. She had finally told Connie that they didn't want kids, and she was sure that her sister had passed the word on to her parents. Adrian and Steven's whole relationship seemed unnatural to them, in their eyes Steven and Adrian were two egocentric young hedonists living in the fast lane in California, and it was hopeless trying to explain a different viewpoint to them. It was easier just not to talk too often, and Adrian's parents no longer volunteered to come out for a visit. But Adrian wasn't thinking of her parents as she took the Fairfax Avenue exit off the Santa Monica Freeway late that night. |
| 36 |
Survival of the fittest. And Steven Townsend was fit. In every possible way. He stood looking at Adrian for a moment, and then turned and raced upstairs to shower and change before he left for the office. She was still in the kitchen when he came back down, impeccably dressed in a khaki suit, pale blue shirt, and blue and yellow tie. With his shining dark hair, he looked like a movie star again, or a man in an ad at the very least. It always jolted Adrian a little when she looked at him, he was so incredibly handsome. "You're looking good, kid." He looked pleased at the compliment, and looked her over as she stood up and picked up the tote bag she always took to work. It was a soft black leather Hermes bag she'd had for years, and like her ancient sports car, she loved it. She was wearing a navy wool skirt, a white silk blouse, and a soft white cashmere sweater knotted over her shoulder. She was wearing expensive black Italian loafers, and her whole look was of casual, understated, expensive elegance. It was a kind of casual, throwaway look, but when you looked again, it had style and whispered all the secret code words of good taste and breeding. She had a wonderful easy style, and as understated as she was, somehow everything about her still managed to be beautiful and striking. And as they left the house together, they were a handsome pair. He got in his Porsche as she climbed into the MG, and she laughed at the look on his face. It embarrassed him to be seen anywhere near her car and he had been threatening to make her use the open parking lot at the front of the complex. "You're a snob!" She laughed at him and he shook his head and a moment later he was gone in a roar from the Porsche's powerful engine, while Adrian tied a scarf around her head, put her beloved old car in gear, and listened happily as it sputtered to life and she headed it in the direction of her office. The freeway was bumper to bumper by then and a few minutes later she wound up sitting in the car at a dead standstill. |
| 37 |
She was late. She should have had her period two days before, but she knew it didn't mean anything. With the odd hours she worked, and the constant stress, it wasn't unusual to be late, although admittedly it didn't happen to her very often. She made a mental note to think about it again in a few days, and with that, the traffic began moving again, and she stepped on the accelerator and headed for her office. Everything was in total chaos when she arrived. The producer was out sick. Two of their prize cameramen had had a minor accident, and two of her least favorite reporters were having a heated argument two feet from her desk, and she finally wound up shouting at everyone, which took them all by surprise, since Adrian seldom lost her temper. "For chrissake, how the hell is anyone supposed to get any work done around here? If you two want to beat on each other, go do it somewhere else." A senator had just gone down on a commuter plane and reporters at the crash site had just called in to say that there were no survivors. A major movie star had committed suicide during the night. And two of Hollywood's favorites had just announced that they were getting married. And an earthquake in Mexico had claimed nearly a thousand lives. It was going to be the kind of day that usually tried to give Adrian ulcers. But at least life was interesting for her, or at least that was what Steven said when she complained. Did she really want to live in fantasyland, working on miniseries, and specials about Hollywood ladies? No, but she would have loved to work on a successful prime time series, and she knew she had enough production experience by now to do that. But she also knew she would never convince Steven that a job like that was worthy of her attention. "Adrian?" "Yeah?" For a minute she had let her mind drift to what wasn't and what might have been, and she didn't have time for that, not today at least. And it was also easy to figure out by then that she wasn't going to be having dinner that night with her husband. |
| 38 |
She chatted easily with him about unimportant things on the drive to Beverly Hills and she was impressed when she saw the house. Mike James was Steven's boss, and his wife was one of the most expensive decorators in Beverly Hills. It was their housewarming, and she had been hearing for months about the endless multimillion dollar renovations. But the results were impressive anyway, and there were easily two hundred people there when they walked in, and Adrian almost instantly lost Steven, and found herself wandering between one of the many bars and buffets, listening to snatches of conversation. People talked about their kids, their marriages, their jobs, their trips, their houses. Several people stopped and talked to Adrian, but she didn't know anyone there and so was in a quiet mood and didn't linger long in any group. And more than once she noticed, as she often did lately, that when people realized that she was married, they asked her if she had children. It made her feel strange sometimes, saying that she didn't. It was as though not having children was a kind of failure. No matter that she had an important job, and that she was only thirty one. Women who had children looked proud of themselves, and lately Adrian had been wondering if she had missed something when she and Steven had decided never to have children. Nothing was written in stone, of course, and it wasn't as though their decision couldn't be changed, but she knew how strongly Steven felt about it, which was why she was beginning to feel a little flurry of panic each time she remembered that she was late. And day by day, she seemed to be getting later. She had thought about buying an at home test that afternoon, but it seemed a little premature, and there was no need to overreact just because she was a few days late... but what if she was pregnant? She stood alone, staring at the view, and a man stopped to chat with her and offered her a glass of champagne, but she really wasn't interested in talking to him. |
| 39 |
And she lay in bed awake all night, crying and thinking of this child she would never know. The child she was sacrificing for her husband. She was still awake when the sun came up the next day, and she felt as though she were waiting for an execution. She had taken the week off from work, and all she had to do now was get back to the doctor's office and force herself to have the abortion. As she dressed, she kept telling herself that at the last minute Steven would call and tell her not to do it. But he didn't. The house was still silent as she left and drove away in sandals, a denim skirt, and an old work shirt. And she arrived at the doctor's at nine o'clock, as she'd been told to, if she decided to go through with the abortion. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since the night before in case they had to administer an anesthetic. She was trembling and pale as she drove the MG along Wilshire Boulevard, and she arrived at the doctor's office five minutes early. She told the nurse that she was there, and sat down in the waiting room with her eyes closed, and a feeling in her heart that she knew she would never forget for the rest of her life, and for the first time in her life, she knew that she hated Steven. She had a frantic urge to call him, to find him wherever he was, and tell him he had to change his mind, but she knew that it was pointless. The nurse stood in the doorway and called her name, and smiled at her as she led her down the hallway. She put her in a slightly larger room, and this time she told her to take all her clothes off, put on the blue gown, and lie on the table. There was an ominous looking machine standing by, and Adrian knew that it was the vacuum. She felt her throat go dry, and her lips seemed to stick together like dampened tissue paper. All she wanted was to get it over with and go home and try to forget about it, and she knew that for the rest of her life she would never again let herself get pregnant. And yet, part of her still wanted to keep this baby. |
| 40 |
She had checked out of her room there on Monday morning, exactly nine days before, the hotel said, but she still hadn't come back to work, and feeling awkward about it, Bill had gone to her apartment to check, and she hadn't been back there either. They had written alternate scripts for the past week, but it was getting pretty desperate without her. And in a few more days they would have to replace her. And Bill had just said as much to the director. By not calling in to at least explain to them what was going on, she was in clear violation of her contract. "If she doesn't turn up before tomorrow's show, you've got to get me someone else," Bill was saying to the director and one of the assistant producers. They had already called one of the agencies earlier that day, but it wasn't going to be easy to replace her without upsetting their viewers. "Did everyone get the new material today?" the director asked, frowning at what Bill had just handed him. It was a whole new script, and it was obvious that Bill had the writers working night and day in Sylvia's absence. It was a heroic piece of work, and it kept the story afloat while she was gone. There were so many dramas occurring on the show at the same time that so far it seemed plausible that Vaughn Williams had not been seen for nine days, but barely. She was still in jail, being held for the murder of the man her brother in law had killed nine days before, on a Friday. Bill stayed in the studio till they went on the air, and watched the entire show, satisfied that everyone was handling the new plot turns and the new script well, and when it was over, after congratulating everyone, he went back to his office. It was half an hour later when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom, and told him there was someone to see him. "Anyone I know? Or are we going to keep it a secret?" He was tired from his long nights of work, but he was pleased that things were going well. It was mostly due, he felt, to a tremendous cast, two terrific writers, and an outstanding director. |
| 41 |
She couldn't believe how upset he had been, how frantic, and for the next two hours she tortured herself wondering if she should have the abortion. If it meant that much to him, if it threatened him so deeply, what right did she have to force him to have the baby? And yet what right did she have to kill the baby because a grown man couldn't cope with the prospect of being a father? Steven could adjust, he could learn to handle it, he would discover eventually that she didn't love him any less, perhaps she would love him more, and his life would not be over. She couldn't give the baby up, she reminded herself. She remembered again what it had been like going to the doctor and preparing to have the abortion, and she knew she just couldn't do it. She was going to have their baby, and Steven was just going to have to accept it. She would take full responsibility for it, all he had to do was sit back and relax and not let it make him completely crazy. She was still telling herself that when she drove back to work at eleven o'clock. And when she got home after midnight she played back her machine to see if he had called, but he hadn't. And she was still upset about it the next day when she went to work and called his office and asked what plane he was coming in on, and it was perfect. He was due in at two o'clock, and she would have plenty of time to go to the airport and pick him up, and hopefully by that night everyone would have calmed down, and life could begin to get back to normal. As normal as it was going to be for a while anyway. Sooner or later they were going to have to make the ordinary adjustments to the fact that she was pregnant, the way other couples did, buying bassinets and building nurseries, and getting ready for their babies. Just the thought of it made her smile as she went back to work and forced herself not to think of Steven. Everyone stood on the set and watched Sylvia get killed that afternoon. John visited her in jail, pretending to be her lawyer. |
| 42 |
She wasn't sure what Steven would do. She had met him several times, and been impressed by him, but in her heart of hearts, she had never liked him. There was something cold and calculating about the man. He looked right through you, as though anxious to move on to someone else, and she had never thought he was as warm and decent as Adrian. There was something about Adrian that she had liked the minute she met her. And she was sorry for her now. It was rough being pregnant and having her husband walk out on her. It wasn't fair, Zelda fumed, and she didn't deserve it. She didn't, but there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't do anything to make him come back, or change his mind. And later that night Adrian sat in front of the TV, blinded by tears and crying. She fell asleep on the couch finally, and it was four o'clock when she woke up to the somber strains of the national anthem. She clicked off the TV, and turned over on the couch. She didn't want to go upstairs to their empty bed. It was just too depressing. And in the morning she woke up, as the first rays of sun streamed in through the windows. She could hear the birds chirping outside, and it was a beautiful day, but she felt as though there were an elephant sitting on her heart as she lay on the couch and thought about Steven. Why was he doing this to her? And to himself? Why was he depriving them both of something that had so much meaning? It was strange how after resigning herself to never having kids, now suddenly she was willing to sacrifice everything for this one. It was all strange, she thought to herself as she got up slowly, and sat on the couch, feeling as though she had been beaten by midgets. Every inch of her body hurt, and her eyes felt swollen from all the crying she'd done the night before. And when she went to the bathroom a minute later, she groaned when she looked in the mirror. "No wonder he left you," she muttered at the image she saw, and tears filled her eyes again as she laughed. |
| 43 |
Who else would call at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning? But when she answered it, the voice was Chinese, and he hung up as soon as he heard her. It was a wrong number. She dragged around the apartment for the next hour, picking things up and putting them down, sorting out laundry, but most of it was his, and she started to cry again when she saw it. Nothing was easy to deal with anymore. Everything hurt, everything was a reminder of what had happened, and just being in the apartment without him suddenly seemed too painful. By nine o'clock she couldn't stand it anymore, and she decided to take a walk. She didn't know where to go, but she just wanted to go somewhere and get some air, and get away from his clothes and their things and the empty rooms that made her feel even more lonely. She picked up her keys, and closed the door behind her, walking toward the front of the complex. She hadn't picked up her mail in two days and she didn't really care. But it was something to do while she went out walking. She stopped at their mailbox and leaned against the wall, flipping through bills, and two letters for Steven. There was nothing for her, and she put it all back in the box, and walked slowly out to her car, thinking that maybe she'd go for a drive. She had left her car at the front of the complex the day before, and she noticed an old woody station wagon parked next to it, and as she approached she saw a man taking a bicycle out of it. He was hot and damp, and he looked as though he had been out for an early morning ride, as he turned and looked at her. He seemed to stare at her for a long moment, as though searching his mind, and then he smiled, and remembered exactly where he had seen her. He had a fantastic memory for things like that, useless details, faces he had once seen, and names of people he would never meet again. He didn't know hers because he had never known her name, but he remembered instantly that she was the pretty girl he had seen in the Safeway weeks before. |
| 44 |
She felt sick as she listened to him. There was no fooling herself anymore. He was leaving her. It was over. Unless afterward... after the baby was born, he came back and realized how wrong he had been. There was always some small hope of that. She wouldn't believe he was really gone until he had seen their baby and then told her he didn't want it. She was willing to wait until then, no matter how neurotic he got in the meantime. And even if he divorced her, they could always get remarried later. "Do whatever you want," she said calmly. "I'll be by to get my things this weekend." In the end, he came the following week because he'd had the flu, and Adrian watched mournfully as he packed everything he owned into boxes. It took him hours to pack it all, and he had rented a small truck that he'd brought with him, and a friend from the office to help him load it. And it was embarrassing for her just being there. She had been so happy to see him at first, but he had been cool and maintained his distance. She went out for the afternoon when they loaded the truck and she just stayed in her car and drove so she didn't have to watch, or say good bye to him again. She couldn't stand the pain of it anymore, and he seemed anxious to avoid her. She went home after six o'clock, and she saw that the truck was gone. She let herself in, and her breath caught as she looked around. When he had said he was going to "take everything," he had meant it. He had taken everything that was technically his, everything he had owned before, and everything he had paid for, or given her even some of the money for, since they'd been married. She started to cry without meaning to. The couch and chairs were gone, the cocktail table, the stereo, the breakfast table, the kitchen chairs, every single thing that had once hung on the walls. There was not a single chair in the living room, and when she went upstairs the only thing left in the bedroom was their bed. All her clothes from the chest of drawers had been carefully folded and put in boxes. |
| 45 |
He had taken everything. But she had kept the only thing that mattered to her. Their baby. She was in surprisingly good spirits in spite of everything and it was only the next day that it hit her. She lay by the pool for a long time, thinking of him, and wondering how their life had managed to fall apart so quickly. Something must have been wrong from the start, something essential must have always been missing, in him perhaps, if not in their marriage. She thought of the parents and siblings he had walked out on years before, the friend he had betrayed, with never a look back. Maybe there was a part of him that just didn't know how to love. Otherwise it wouldn't have been possible for everything to fall apart the way it had. It just couldn't have... but it had. In a matter of weeks, their marriage had ended. It depressed her to think about it now, but she had to face the fact that he was gone. She had to make a new life for herself, but she couldn't even begin to imagine how. She was thirty one years old, she had been married for two and a half years, and she was pregnant. She was hardly dating material, and she didn't want to go out with anyone anyway. She didn't even want to admit to anyone that Steven had left her. She kept telling everyone that Steven was away. Because it hurt too much and it was too embarrassing to say that he had left her. And when Bill Thigpen turned up at the pool that afternoon with a quizzical look and asked if they were moving out, she flinched visibly and said they were selling their furniture and buying everything new, but even to her something about the way she said it didn't sound convincing. "It looked like great stuff," he said cautiously as he watched her as they lay by the pool. And there had been something about Steven's face that had reminded him of Leslie when she left him. But Adrian looked perfectly happy as she lay by the pool. She had a book in her hands, and she was holding it upside down as she felt her heart ache, thinking of Steven. |
| 46 |
But when she got home at night, he wasn't there. He never called. And she sat on the floor of her living room at night, trying to read, or pretending to shuffle papers. She had thought about buying new furniture as soon as he left. But she decided not to, in case he came back, which she still thought he would. And what was the point of having two sets of furniture for one apartment? She kept the answering machine on most of the time, but she listened to the calls when they came in. They were never Steven, but usually friends, or her office, and lately more often than not it was Zelda. But Adrian didn't feel like talking to her either. Her only concession to keeping her life afloat was going to work and coming home. She felt like a robot getting up and going to work every day, and then coming home, making herself something to eat, and going back for the eleven o'clock news. She felt as though she were on an endless treadmill. There was a blind look of pain in her eyes day after day, and it hurt Zelda to see her like that, but even she couldn't help her. She still couldn't believe what Steven had done, or that he really meant it. But when Adrian tried to call him, his secretary always said he was away, and Adrian wasn't sure if he was or not. There was still that panicky feeling of what would happen to her if she really needed him, but she didn't for the moment, and she knew she just had to sit tight until he came to his senses. It was Friday of the Fourth of July weekend when she ran into Bill Thigpen at the Safeway again. She had just finished the late news, and she had realized that she had nothing in the house for the next day, and she was off for the whole weekend. He was juggling two carts, and they were filled with charcoal, two dozen steaks, several packages of hot dogs and some ground meat, buns, rolls, and an assortment of things that looked as though he was preparing a picnic. "Hi," he said as they collided in the aisle where he was picking up two huge containers of ketchup. |
| 47 |
It was twelve thirty at night, and they were chatting as though it were ten in the morning. "I guess I ought to get the rest of my stuff," he said regretfully. "Come by if you change your mind. Bring your friends. I've got enough for an army." "I'll try." But she had no intention of going to the barbecue as she shopped for the rest of her groceries. She remembered seeing a sign up sheet in her mail weeks before, but she had thrown it out. She had other things on her mind at that point, and she didn't regret it. The last thing she wanted was to hang around a bunch of lonely singles at the complex. She had her own life to lead, and she was not interested in cultivating new relationships, or dating. She was married, and all she had to do was wait for Steven to come to his senses. It was just a matter of time, she was sure of it. And when he came back, they could concentrate on having the baby. In the meantime, she had put that on a back burner too. She hardly ever thought of it. She had made her decision and gone ahead with the pregnancy, but now she put it out of her head as much as possible. And it was still easy to ignore for the moment, except for an occasional moment of queasiness, and an increased appetite the rest of the time, and some fatigue, she could just about forget that she was pregnant. Nothing showed, and she was only three months pregnant. And all she needed to think about was her work, and waiting for Steven. When he left, at first, she had told herself that it was all over, that he would never come back, and if he did, their relationship would be permanently damaged. But in the past two weeks, she had managed to convince herself that it was a temporary lapse, a moment of insanity in the otherwise healthy life of their marriage. She refused to believe that the fact that he never called, that he wouldn't take her calls whenever she called him, and that she hadn't heard from him since he'd removed everything he owned from their condo was a sign that he felt the marriage was truly over. |
| 48 |
She caught a glimpse of Bill again in the checkout line, with three carts loaded to the brim trailing behind him. She carried her own meager purchases to the car, feeling sad again. She could fit a week's groceries into two bags now. Everything about her life seemed to have shrunk, ever since Steven had left her. And when she got home, the apartment seemed so ridiculously empty. She put her groceries in the fridge, turned off the lights, and went upstairs where the box spring and mattress still sat on her bedroom floor, and her clothes still sat in the boxes on the floor where Steven had left them. She lay in bed awake for a long time, thinking of him, and wondering what he was doing all weekend. She was tempted to call, to beg him to come home, to tell him she'd do anything... anything except an abortion. That wasn't the issue anymore. The issue was carrying on her life without a husband. It still surprised her to realize how lost she felt, how bereft and deserted. After two and a half years, she couldn't even remember what she used to do with herself to keep amused before they were married. It was almost as though she had never lived alone before, as though there had never been a life before Steven. It was after three when she finally fell asleep, and almost eleven when she woke up the next morning. It was the one thing she seemed to do easily now. She could sleep all day if she had the chance. The doctor said it was because of the baby. The baby. The idea of it still seemed unreal. The tiny being who had cost her her marriage. And yet she still wanted it. Somehow it still seemed worth it. She got up and showered, and made herself some scrambled eggs at noon, and then she paid some bills and did her laundry. She looked around the empty living room and laughed. It was certainly easy keeping house these days. There was nothing to straighten out, or dust, no spots to worry about on the couch, no plants to water, he had taken those too. All she had to do was make her bed and vacuum. |
| 49 |
It was so hard to relate to any of them, and ever since she'd married Steven, she didn't even try. She knew she had to tell them about the baby one of these days, though, but she wanted to wait until Steven came home, after he came to his senses. It would be just too complicated to explain that she was pregnant and he was gone, let alone why, all of which was why she was trying to put the pregnancy out of her mind for the moment. "It's too bad you can't make it tonight," he said forlornly. She nodded, embarrassed about the lie, but it was just easier not to go. She got in the pool and swam again, and he went back to his preparations for dinner, and a little while later he went back to his apartment to marinate the steaks. The barbecue sounded like a big production. And at five o'clock she went back to her apartment and lay on the bed and tried to read. But she couldn't concentrate. Lately it was hard to do that most of the time, there were just too many things on her mind. And as she lay there, she could hear the sounds of the barbecue going on. At six o'clock people started to arrive. There were music and laughter, and she could hear what sounded like about fifty people. She went out on her deck after a while, where she could hear the noise and smell the food, but they couldn't see her, and she couldn't see them. But it all sounded very festive. There was the clinking of glasses, and someone was playing old Beatles albums and music from the sixties. It sounded like fun, and she was sorry she hadn't gone. But it was too awkward to explain why Steven wasn't there, even though she had said he was in Chicago on business. But it was embarrassing going out alone. She hadn't done it yet, and she wasn't ready to start. But smelling the food was making her desperately hungry. She finally went back downstairs and looked in her fridge, but nothing looked as good as what she smelled, and all of it was too much trouble to cook. She was suddenly dying for a hamburger. It was seven thirty and she was absolutely starving. |
| 50 |
She hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, and she wondered if she could just slip into the group, grab something to eat, and disappear again. She could always write Bill Thigpen a check later for what she owed for participating in the dinner. There was no harm in that. It wasn't really like going out. It was just eating. Like going to a fast food place, or Chinese takeout. She could even grab a hamburger and bring it back. She didn't have to hang around for the party. She hurried upstairs again, looked in the mirror in her bathroom, combed her hair, pulled it back and tied it with a white satin ribbon, and then she slipped on a white lace Mexican dress she and Steven had bought on a trip to Acapulco. It was pretty and feminine and easy to wear, and hid the tiny bulge that didn't show but made it difficult to wear slacks or jeans now. But it still didn't show in her dresses. She put on silver sandals and big dangly silver earrings. She hesitated for just a moment before she went back downstairs. What if they all had dates, or if she didn't know anyone at all? But even if he had a date, at least she knew Bill Thigpen, and he was always easygoing and friendly. She went downstairs then, and a moment later, she was hovering at the edge of the crowd near one of the big picnic tables where the food was laid out. There were groups of people clustered everywhere, laughing and chatting and telling stories, some were sitting near the pool, with their plates on their laps, or drinking wine, or just relaxing and enjoying the party. Everyone looked as though they were having a good time, and standing at the barbecue in a red and white striped shirt and white pants and a blue apron over them was Bill Thigpen. Adrian hesitated, watching him, he was handing out steaks with a professional air, and chatting with everyone as they came and went, but he seemed to be alone, not that it really mattered. And she realized then that she didn't even know if he had a girlfriend, not that it really made any difference. |
| 51 |
She and Steven had gone out for two years before they'd gotten married. And here she was, suddenly, five years later, having dinner at a man's apartment. But she had to admit, she didn't mind it. Bill Thigpen was terrific. He was smart, interesting, kind, and he gave her the impression of taking care of her, no matter what he did. He was always concerned if she was thirsty, hungry, wanted an ice cream, a soda, needed a hat, was warm enough, comfortable, happy, all the while keeping her amused with his stories about his soap opera, or the people he knew, or his two boys, Adam and Tommy. And when she walked into his apartment, she saw yet another dimension. There were beautiful modern paintings on the walls, and some interesting sculptures he had collected in the course of his travels. The couches were leather and comfortable and well worn. The chairs, enormous and soft and inviting. And in the dining room there was a beautiful table he had found in an Italian monastery, a rug he had bought in Pakistan, and everywhere there were wonderful pictures of his children. There was a feeling of hominess about it that made you want to browse around, walls of books, a brick fireplace, and a beautifully designed large country kitchen. It looked more like a home than an apartment. He had a cozy den where he worked, with an old typewriter almost as old as his beloved Royal, and more books and a big cozy leather easy chair that was all beaten up and well loved and had been his father's. There was an attractive guest bedroom that looked as though it had never been used, done in beige wools, with a big sheepskin rug, and a modern four poster, and there was a big colorful bedroom for the boys, with a bright red bunk bed that looked like a locomotive, and his own bedroom was just down the hall, all done in warm earth tones, and soft fabrics, with big sunny windows that looked out on a garden that Adrian hadn't even known existed in the complex. It was perfect. It was just like him. Handsome and warm and loving. |
| 52 |
And when she went into the kitchen to get it, he whipped like whirlwind through her bedroom. It was as empty as he had expected it would be, and within seconds he pulled open both closets, and looked through the bathroom cabinets, pawed through the boxes where she kept her clothes, and discovered what he had just figured out but she had never told him... unless his things were downstairs, and suddenly Bill wanted to know, but he didn't dare ask her. A sixth sense told him that there was a reason why Steven Townsend had loaded all their belongings into a van, and it wasn't because they were going to redo the apartment. Even their wedding picture in the silver frame now sat on the bedroom floor with the room's only lamp, because Steven had taken the dresser and all the tables. "I like the layout," he said, as he came downstairs looking relaxed, his whirlwind tour having gone unobserved, and then he asked her if he could use the bathroom. There were two doors on the main floor, and he intentionally chose the one he suspected was a closet, pulled open the door and found it empty save for a handful of empty wooden suit hangers. And then he opened the right one, and closed it behind him as he walked into the bathroom. He opened all the cupboards as quietly as he could, and then flushed the toilet and ran the water. And as he sat down to coffee with her again, he watched her eyes for the answers to his questions. But there were none. She had said nothing to him. She had pretended for weeks that Steven was away on business, that he would be back in a few days, that everything was fine, although she had admitted over dinner that it wasn't always easy. She was a beautiful girl, and he knew she was married. She was still wearing her wedding ring. But he also knew one other thing, after going through every closet in the place. For whatever reason she chose not to disclose, Steven Townsend was no longer living with his wife, and when he had left, he had taken everything with him. |
| 53 |
Eventually, John and Helen's marriage would end in divorce when he wound up in prison serving a life sentence for the two murders, and the identity of Helen's baby's father would become known, but not for a long time. And Bill was going to have a lot of fun with it in the meantime. And he was thinking about Adrian as he drove to work the next day, and why she hadn't told him that Steven had left her. It was not unlike one of his plots, although undoubtedly the reasons were a lot simpler. And there was always the possibility that he was wrong, he realized, but he didn't see how he could be. There wasn't a stitch of men's clothing in the house. No men's toiletries, no after shave, not even a razor. He was absolutely sure of it after his brief investigation. But what was she hiding? And why hadn't she told him? He wondered if she was embarrassed, or if perhaps she just wasn't ready to go out yet. He didn't have time to think about it once he got to work. One of the actors was sick, and the show's two principal writers were having a major battle, and it was almost noon before he had time to catch his breath, and he wanted to go to Adrian's show and pick her up to bring her on the set to watch their one o'clock airing. And in her office, Adrian was coping with the discovery that a local senator's son had been wantonly kidnapped and murdered late the night before. It was a shocking case, and the family was devastated. The boy had been only nineteen, and the entire newsroom was depressed. And it made Adrian sick to see the tapes as they came in. He had been dumped on his parents' front steps with his throat cut. She was busy assigning editors to work on what had come in, and reporters to speak to close family friends, when someone told her there was a call holding for her, but she didn't recognize the name when she picked it up, and she had no idea who it was. It was a man named Lawrence Allman. "Yes?" She was in the middle of a dozen things and writing notes frantically as she waited to hear what he wanted. |
| 54 |
Wolfgang Puck had made it everyone's favorite place to eat, with delicious pasta and pizza and the miracles of nouvelle cuisine that he created. Adrian had started to come to terms with the realities of her life in the last two weeks, and the prospect of an evening out sounded very appealing. And he had been incredibly patient with her. He had quietly kept an eye on her, without ever intruding. He had dropped by at work, sent food over late at night, offered her a ride once or twice, but never pressed the issue of a date or an evening that she obviously couldn't have coped with. And he had even recommended a lawyer who had taken her affairs in hand and already spoken several times with Lawrence All man. But after two weeks of mourning and agonizing, she finally felt slightly more alive, and both of Bill's suggestions sounded delightful. "Whichever you like." She smiled gratefully at him. He had become a good friend in such a short time. "How about Spago?" "That sounds great." She smiled, and they both went back to their own places to do the things they had to db, like laundry and paying bills again, a never ending task, particularly now that Steven was no longer there to do it. Her salary covered everything, but lately she was trying to save as much money as she could for when she'd need it for the baby. Now that Steven wouldn't be contributing anything, she wanted to be a little more careful. Bill picked her up at eight, and he was wearing khaki slacks, a white shirt, and a blue blazer, and she was wearing a dress that she'd had for years. It was a soft peachy pink silk that flowed easily from the shoulders. They drove to Sunset chatting about work, and how hectic it had been for both of them in the past few weeks, and it was obvious how excited he was about the boys coming out on the following Wednesday. They were going to spend two days with him in town, and then they were embarking on their big adventure. Bill ordered pizza made with warm duck, and she had cappelletti with fresh tomato and basil. |
| 55 |
It was the kind of life he had longed for for the last seven years, the kind of life he'd lost and thought he would never find again. But Adrian was a very special woman. In some ways, he was afraid of his feelings for her, and in other ways, he loved them. He took her back to her place around twelve o'clock, and he felt like a teenager standing in her doorway. He was dying to get his hands on her, but he sensed instinctively that she wasn't ready. And Tahoe wasn't going to be the answer to his prayers either. He wouldn't dare make a pass at her while traveling with his children. They were just going to have to wait, or he was. He didn't even know if she was attracted to him, and he was afraid to find out too soon. There was always the possibility that he would scare her off. And she was grateful that he hadn't pressed her. She kissed him chastely on the cheek, and as he walked back to his place, his desire for her almost drove him crazy. He took her for a drive the next day, and they went to the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel for Sunday lunch, and then they came back because he had to go to work. His work as usual helped him cope with his constant frustration. Sylvia had been gone for quite a while. And ever since Adrian had walked into his life, he hadn't wanted anyone else. But dreams of her were beginning to haunt him. She appeared in his studio on Monday just before noon, with a broad grin on her face and a look of victory as he was coping with last minute changes. "I can come! They gave me two weeks off!" she announced with glee in a stage whisper that everyone heard, and then she laughed, and two of the actresses giggled. Bill looked at her with awe and delight and then asked her to stay while he finished what he had to do before they went on the air, and then he invited her to watch the show with him from the control booth. It was an action packed episode, filled with conflict and emotion. Helen had admitted that she was pregnant by then, but she wasn't telling anyone whose baby it was. |
| 56 |
He had asked Adrian to come along, but she didn't want to crowd them. They didn't have any idea who she was, and they hadn't seen their father since Easter vacation. She had a doctor's appointment that day anyway. And it was the first time that she heard the baby's heartbeat. The doctor put the stethoscope to her ears, and there was a small device like a microphone attached to the other end which he slid across her stomach. The first loud thumping she heard was her own, it was actually the placenta pumping blood to the baby. But beyond that, much more softly, and beating much faster than her own heart, was a smaller one, the tiny pat pat pat of the baby. She listened to it with a look of astonishment, and tears came to her eyes when she first heard it. "Everything sounds fine to me," the doctor told her as she sat up. Her blood pressure was fine, her weight was okay, too, though she had already gained quite a bit, and there was no denying now that her body was changing. There was an Scurve to her suddenly, when she turned sideways in the mirror, and she was starting to wear her dresses a little looser, but so far, unless they knew, no one would have noticed that she was three and a half months pregnant. "Any problems, Adrian?" he asked. She hadn't seen him in a month, not since just before Steven had taken everything he owned out of the apartment and served her with papers. "Nothing I've noticed," she said quietly. "I feel fine." She did most of the time, too, except now and then when she had a really long day at work, or a late night, then she felt absolutely exhausted. "How's your husband adjusting to it now?" he inquired as he washed his hands. He fully expected Steven to come around and was sure he had by then. He had no idea what had happened in the last month, and Adrian didn't want to tell him. It was too embarrassing, and admitting that he was gone still gave her an overwhelming feeling of failure. She still hadn't told anyone at work, and the only one she had told, and sworn to secrecy, was Zelda. |
| 57 |
Uneventful except for the fact that her husband was going to divorce her. She went back to the office afterward, and as usual, there was a mountain of work for her to do. And she didn't hear from Bill, but she assumed that the boys had arrived safely. He called her in the newsroom late that night, just before the eleven o'clock news, the boys were in bed, and he sounded happy and exhausted. "It's like having a whirlwind hit this place," he sighed happily, but they both knew he loved it. "I'll bet they're happy to be here." "I hope so. I sure am happy to have them. I'm bringing them to work tomorrow for a while, till they destroy the place. Adam is always fascinated by it, he thinks he wants to be a director when he grows up, but Tommy gets a little antsy. I thought maybe we could stop by and say hi, or take you to lunch if you have time. Depending on how your day runs. The boys would like to meet you." "I can hardly wait to meet them." She smiled, but she was nervous about it too. The boys were so important to him that she was worried about what would happen if they didn't like her. Admittedly, she and Bill weren't deeply involved with each other, but she liked him a great deal, and she sensed that he liked her too. If nothing else, she hoped it was the start of a serious friendship. And there were overtones of something more, but something that, for the moment, due to her circumstances, neither of them had figured out how to handle. Too much had happened to her recently. Too much had gone on. Between the baby and Steven filing for divorce, she wasn't ready for a relationship. And yet, she was growing used to him. And she found that she needed him at unexpected times, and in some ways, she was afraid to need him as much as she might, if she let herself go completely. "Do you want to come to the set after we air tomorrow, or should we just stop by at the newsroom?" he asked. He had told them about her, and they hadn't seemed surprised. They had met ladyfriends of his before, and they were used to it. |
| 58 |
She knew Zelda wouldn't give away any of her secrets. "I saw you with Bill Thigpen the other day." She was curious about that. She knew who he was, and how successful his show had been, and she wondered if anything was going to come of it between him and Adrian, but she suspected that Adrian was still deluding herself about Steven. "Is that anything?" she asked openly, and Adrian looked offended by her bluntness. "Yes. A nice friendship." She hurried off to the control booth then, and at midnight she went home and fell into bed. She was too tired to even think, and she had a lot to do in the next two days before she left on vacation. She went to Bill's studio again the next day, just in time to see the show air, and she watched in fascination as the woman who was supposedly pregnant sobbed, talking about her baby. Her husband was still in jail, and she was being blackmailed by a woman who allegedly knew who had fathered her baby. Her husband's trial had just begun, and Helen was still mourning the loss of her sister. It was easy to see why people got caught up in it. It was all so absurd, and so exaggerated, and yet it wasn't. It was exaggerated in just the way real life was, with all its unexpected quirks and turns and sudden disasters. People having accidents and getting killed and cheating on each other and losing jobs and having babies. There was a little more melodrama than in most lives, but not as much as one might have thought, Adrian mused, not if her own life was anything to judge by. And as soon as she walked into the studio on silent feet, she saw the two boys, standing near Bill, watching the actors in fascination. Adam looked tall for his age, and he was standing quietly right next to his father, with sandy blond hair and big blue eyesy and long, long legs. He was wearing jeans and a T shirt and high top sneakers. Tommy was wrapped around a chair in a cowboy shirt and a pair of chaps, with the exact same look on his face that Bill wore when he was concentrating on something. |
| 59 |
He'd been hoping to organize an overnight pack trip when they got to Lake Tahoe. But admittedly, if he couldn't, it wouldn't be a disaster either. He was pretty easygoing about their vacation. "Not that much. And I'm not an absolutely marvelous rider." "Neither are we. Well, see how you feel about it tomorrow. And we'll pick you up at eight tomorrow morning." He could hardly wait, and neither could she, as she lay in bed thinking about it that night, and as she did, she ran a hand over her stomach. It was no longer quite so concave, and there was a subtle roundness that was beginning to protrude between her hipbones. And when she stood up, she could really feel it. Some of her clothes were beginning to feel tight, and she was wondering when people would start to notice. Everything would change for her then, including her relationship with Bill. She knew that there was no way he would want to go anywhere with her once it was obvious that she was pregnant. But at least for the moment, she could enjoy being with him, and she was really looking forward to the vacation. And there was no reason why he would suspect then, as long as she wore loose shirts over her jeans and sweatshirts and sweaters. They picked her up at exactly eight fifteen, and everything was ready. Bill picked up both her bags, and she carried a small tote bag with her makeup and toiletries, some snacks for all of them, and the games she had bought for his children. Bill looked happy and relaxed, and he bent toward her as though he was about to kiss her when he arrived, and then remembered himself and backed away with a shy glance at her, and a look over his shoulder at the two children. He had rented a Wagoneer, and they were fully equipped for all aspects of their trip. The back was piled high with sleeping bags and equipment and valises. "Is everybody ready?" he asked, beaming at her, as she smiled at him from the front seat next to him, and then glanced back at the two children. "We are!" they responded in unison. |
| 60 |
But today, Bill was fairly quiet. He was thinking of the night before, and wondering what it was that she was so worried about, why it was that she was so certain he would reject her. He knew it had to do with her marriage, or her divorce, and he wondered what it was that she wouldn't tell him. But by the time they reached San Francisco, he had relaxed again, and he was feeling better. They went to Fisherman's Wharf, rode the cable cars, visited Ghirardelli Square, and stopped at every possible tourist attraction. It was an exhausting two days, and Adrian looked pale when they finally headed for the Napa Valley. "You okay?" Bill asked softly the morning they left. He was driving, although she had offered to take a turn at the wheel, but he wanted her to relax and enjoy the drive through Sonoma. There were fields of wild flowers and vineyards, cows and sheep and horses grazing in fields, and beautiful tall trees that shaded them as the road turned, and they could see the hills in the distance. "You look tired." He was worried about her. She seemed to tire very easily, and she would grow pale, although she seldom complained about it. But she seemed healthy on the whole, she ate well, and she was always in excellent spirits. After their serious exchange on the second night of the trip, he had forced himself not to get too close to her, or tackle any serious subjects. She knew how he felt about her now, and he easily sensed that she felt the same, but he also knew that something was stopping her, and he wanted to give her plenty of time and space to resolve it. The one thing he was sure of was that he didn't want to lose her. She was also wonderful with the boys, and they had never been happier with any of his friends. They teased her mercilessly, and Tommy loved to tickle her, and play with her hair and climb all over her just to let her know that he liked her. They were crazy about her, and they looked like a perfectly normal family as they made their way through the Napa Valley. |
| 61 |
The boys were disappointed that she wouldn't go, and she tried to make light of it. And then, without thinking any more about it, they headed for Lake Tahoe. She shared the driving with him, but she liked to stop every couple of hours to stretch her legs. She said she got too stiff if she drove for too long without stopping. So they stopped at the Nut Tree on the way up, and again at Placerville, and the boys had a great time riding the train at the Nut Tree. They reached Lake Tahoe on Friday afternoon, and the mountain air was cool and beautiful, beneath a cameo blue sky with little puffs of white cloud chasing each other across the mountains. It was perfect. They easily found the campsite they had reserved, and Bill set up their tents. He had a larger one for him and the boys, and a smaller one he had bought especially for Adrian. He set them up side by side, and Tommy announced he wanted to sleep with her, which was going to be very cozy, but she seemed very flattered. They had all been wonderful to her, and in some ways, she felt as though she didn't deserve it. She was driving herself nuts weighing everything, thinking of what they meant to her, and yet feeling that at some point she would have to pull back. She couldn't get involved with Bill, if she was going to have the baby. And yet, she couldn't seem to stay away from him. All she wanted to do was talk to him night and day, and look at him, and enjoy his company and feel his warmth somewhere near her. She kept finding herself standing next to him, brushing hands with him, wanting to feel his hands on her face again, and his lips on hers. And all she could do was look at him and wish that things were different. She didn't regret the baby inside her, but she found herself regretting that the baby wasn't his, wishing that life had dealt them a different hand, and she had never married Steven. "What were you thinking about just then?" She had been standing still, staring into the woods, and he had been watching her. |
| 62 |
He liked her a lot, and he admired her even if she hadn't gone up in the hot air balloon. "Dad taught me to dive last year, but I think I forgot over the winter." "We'll get to work on it as soon as we get back." She cleaned up the breakfast things then, and they helped her. They rolled up their sleeping bags, and then took turns changing into their bathing suits, before zipping up their tents and going to the river. Adrian wore a T shirt over her suit, which looked fine, even to Bill. And they found a wonderful swimming hole full of other families and children and jumped in and out of it, laughing and teasing, and splashing water on each other. And in the distance, well beyond it and some rocks, were the rapids where people were rafting. They played in the swimming hole for well over an hour, and then finally Bill got out and announced that he was driving to the store to buy bait and some supplies and he'd be back in a little while, and Adrian and the boys opted to stay in the swimming hole until he came back again. They were having a good time, and there was plenty of time for fishing later. He also wanted to look into renting a boat for them, and he had to go to the bait and tackle shop to do it. "I'll meet you back at the campsite," he called out to Adrian with a wave as he disappeared across the clearing, and she turned back to the children. Tommy was having a wonderful time, and Adam was trying to dive underwater to see how deep it was, but she told him not to. The water wasn't clear and she couldn't tell if there were rocks and she didn't want him getting hurt, but he was very reasonable and listened to what she told him. She was explaining to him that it was never a good idea to dive where you didn't know exactly how deep it was, and she turned to explain the same thing to Tommy, and as she did, she realized that he was nowhere to be found. She began to panic as she looked for him, then she saw him on the rocks, watching the people in the rafts shooting the rapids in the river just beyond them. |
| 63 |
Adam was crying hysterically, and he started to jump in, but she grabbed at him and pushed him roughly aside, shouting at him as she pushed him away from the water. "No! Adam, don't you go in there!" and as soon as she said the words she ran away from him, and as fast as she could, she ran along the river, sailing over rocks, and leaping over obstacles and trees and pushing away people in her path. She had never run so fast in her life and she knew that his life depended on it, and all along the riverbank people were screaming. They had seen him now. But everyone seemed to be helpless. Two men shoved an oar at him from one of the boats, but he was too small and too stunned to grab it, and he was pushed under the surface by the currents and disappeared again as Adrian continued to run without stopping for breath or for anything. She knew exactly what she was doing and where she was going, if only it wasn't too late by the time she got there. She could feel branches rip her legs, and something struck her hip, and her feet were numb from the sharp rocks, and her lungs screamed, but she could still see him, and then she dove, just before the rocks where the water was the roughest. She dove smoothly near the surface of the water, praying that she wouldn't hit anything and that she could catch him before it was too late. If she didn't, it would be all over, and no matter what it took, she knew she couldn't let that happen. She was almost hit by an oar as she swam past, strong and swift and sure, battered by the currents, and in the distance she could hear people shouting, and from somewhere there was the whine of a siren. And then, as she was pushed down by the force of the water, suddenly she struck something hard, it hit her in the face, and she grabbed at it, and as she touched it, she knew she had him. It was Tommy. She pushed him to the surface, gasping for air herself, and the current dragged her down again, but she shoved him high above her head, trying to force him out of the water. |
| 64 |
Adam had just come running up to him, he was still crying and he clung to his father, as the paramedics lifted Tommy into the ambulance on a stretcher. Bill hopped in after him, and someone helped Adam in and handed him a blanket, as two of the paramedics lifted Adrian in. She was still deathly white, and there was an oxygen mask on her face. Bill knelt down beside her. "Is she dead?" Adam asked in a voice full of grief, and Tommy just stared at her. There were still leaves in her hair, and one of the men was keeping pressure on her arm, as Bill shook his head in answer to Adam's question. She wasn't dead, but she was barely breathing. They made it to the hospital in ten minutes flat, with Bill praying as he stroked her face and watched her. Twice he saw the paramedics checking her more closely, and he could see they didn't like what they saw, but there was a team waiting for them when they got to Truckee. Tommy was lifted out after that, and Adam climbed out of the ambulance. They all looked as though they were in shock, and an elderly nurse spoke quietly to Bill. "I'll stay with the boys so you can be with your wife. They'll be fine. We'll find some warm clothes for them, and they want to keep an eye on the little one for a while anyway. They'll be fine." He nodded, and told them both he'd be back in a little while, and he pounded the pavement as he ran into the building where Adrian had been taken. "Where is she?" he asked as soon as he was inside. They knew whom he meant, she was the most critically ill patient they had at the moment, and a nurse pointed to a pair of swinging doors almost at the same moment as he flew through them. He found himself inside a high tech emergency room, and there seemed to be a thousand knobs and dials, a flood of bright lights, and a dozen people in green pajamas working on her still form. They seemed to be doing ten thousand things at once, and they were watching half a dozen monitors and reporting things in codes he didn't understand. |
| 65 |
It was hard to believe that this was the same child who had been blue only a few hours before. Bill knew that as long as he lived, he would never forget it. He made some phone calls after that, and got a large suite in a deluxe hotel, and he went back to check on Adrian and talk to her doctor. She was still asleep, and they wanted her to stay that way for a while. She still had some repairing to do, and they thought she might be able to leave the hospital the next day if there were no further problems. They wanted to be sure she didn't develop pneumonia, or have complications with the baby. But so far, things seemed to be improving. He told them he'd be back in a little while, and he went to tell Adam that, too, and then he got a ride back to their campsite, and he stood trembling as he looked around, thinking that only that morning, life had seemed so carefree and so simple. And now suddenly two of the people he loved had almost lost their lives... three, if he counted the baby. He had a sense of reverence and gratitude, and he was relieved when everything was packed and he drove to the hotel. They had set aside a beautiful two bedroom suite, and he had already decided to sleep on the couch. He wanted to keep an eye on her at night, and be sure that he heard her if she called him. He would have preferred sleeping in the same room, but he was afraid it might upset the children. And as soon as he dropped off their things, he went back to the hospital, and was startled to discover that it was six o'clock and the boys were eating dinner. "Where've you been?" Tommy asked. They had taken out the IV, and he looked like his old self, as Adam told him to stop eating his mashed potatoes with his fingers. The children's ward was almost empty. There was a broken leg, a broken arm, a minor car accident that had required some stitches and observation for a concussion, and Tommy, having survived his dousing in the river. And most of the other children were older, and they were talking among themselves during dinner. |
| 66 |
He had a huge set in his room, and he and the boys used to pile into his bed at night and watch it. She had joined them several times, on nights when she was staying in the guest room, but it was different now that they were gone, and it was a little strange at first, getting on his bed with him, and being there alone with him, but she had to admit that she loved it. She settled back against the cushions on the bed, and he flicked the television on with the remote, and then left the room to make the popcorn, and she didn't follow. She sat there, thinking about him, about how much he meant to her, and how drawn to him she was. It was odd feeling sexual about a man who wasn't your husband when you were almost five months pregnant. But she did. She was extremely attracted to him, and not entirely sure how to show it. "Popcorn!" he announced, arriving moments later with a huge metal bowl from the kitchen. The popcorn was still hot and it was buttered and salted to perfection. "This is terrific," she grinned, cuddling next to him as he flipped the dial via the remote to a channel that showed only old movies. There was an old Cary Grant movie on, and Adrian insisted that he leave it. "I love this," she smiled happily, nibbling at the popcorn, and he moved closer to her and gently kissed her. "So do I," he said, and he really meant it. She was his best friend, and there was more to it as well. He found that he couldn't stop kissing her, as she nibbled at the popcorn and pretended to watch the movie. She was lying back against the pillows on his bed, her vision of the television obscured, and she found that she didn't care, as she kissed him back, and a passion rose in her that she had never known, as he whispered to her, "Are you on the pill?" and then she started to laugh and kissed him again. "Yes, I am," she whispered back. There was humor and love and laughter between them, but they both grew more serious again as their passion rose, and the romance of Cary Grant was forgotten. |
| 67 |
He had told the attorney that he wanted to forget everything about her, but the lawyer would never have told her. She hung up the phone, and she was even more depressed that afternoon, and Bill sensed it again, but figured it was still about the apartment, even though he thought it was silly. But he had no idea that she had tried to call Steven, just to talk to him, just to ask him why, it wasn't that she even wanted to change his mind anymore, she just wanted to know why he hadn't loved her, and had refused to accept their baby. There had to be a reason, something more than just a difficult childhood. But she didn't want to tell Bill. She knew that it would hurt his feelings. Instead, she just sat quietly in the living room, and suggested they call the boys after dinner. Talking to them always cheered her up. And the next day, her lawyer called her again and gave her the name of the real estate agent who would be showing the apartment. That weekend, she and Bill went away, and on Monday she felt better. The apartment didn't seem so important anymore, and she realized that she didn't need a place of her own. She was perfectly happy living with Bill. And the apartment she had shared with Steven wasn't worth trying to hang on to. They had gone to stay with friends of his in Palm Beach, an actor who used to be on the show in his youth, and had gone on to make several very successful pictures. He was an interesting man, with a lovely family and a wife Adrian really liked. It had been a perfect weekend, and they had teased Bill a lot about the baby. They assumed it was his, and they didn't find it at all unusual that they weren't married. But they had also been very warm to the idea, and Janet, the actor's wife, had been wonderfully supportive about the "marvels" of being pregnant. There were times when Adrian wondered if she would ever survive it, and other times when she actually forgot she was pregnant at all. It seemed to depend on the day and the mood and what else had happened. |
| 68 |
They parked in the hospital garage, walked into the hospital, and followed a number of extremely pregnant looking women up to the third floor, where they all gathered with what the lecturer referred to as their "significant others." They were invited to make themselves comfortable on the floor, where they sat cross legged on exercise mats, and introduced themselves, and their husbands. There were two teachers, a nurse, two girls who didn't work, a secretary, a postal employee, a swimming instructor who looked as though she was in fantastic shape, a hairdresser, a musician, and a woman who tuned pianos. And their assortment of mates was equally diverse. If anything, Adrian and Bill were the most sophisticated, and the most successful, but they just said they worked in TV, in the production end, and no one was impressed. The only thing that they all had in common was their pregnancies. Even their ages were widely different. Of the two women who didn't work, one was nineteen and still in college, and her husband was only twenty. And the postal employee was forty two, her husband fifty five, and this was their first baby. And somewhere in between was a range of people in their twenties and thirties, of various sizes and shapes and interests. Adrian was faintly intrigued with them, and she spent more time looking around than exercising until they were invited to stop for a "coffee break." The women drank sodas and water, while the men drank tea and coffee. And everyone looked more than a little nervous. The instructor addressed all of them then and assured them that if they practiced enough, the breathing techniques would really help them. And to illustrate her point of how well it could work, she showed them a film of a natural delivery using Lamaze, from beginning to end. And as Adrian watched the woman on the screen writhe in pain, she gripped Bill's hand in horror. It was the woman's second child, the instructor said. The first had been a "medicated birth," she said with disdain. |
| 69 |
And for Christmas she had bought him a tiny portable telephone that folded into a case the size of a razor. It was the perfect gadget for him, since he liked to be accessible to the show all the time, and they were always panicking trying to reach him. She had bought him other things, too, a new sweater, some cologne, a book he'd been admiring about old movies, and a tiny, tiny television he could watch in his bathroom, or even while he drove the woody, if he had to go somewhere but wanted to keep an eye on the show. She'd had a wonderful time shopping for him, and they had bought new skis and boots for the boys, and shipped them east well before Christmas. It was going to be the first time Tommy had his own equipment, but they were both outstanding skiers. And she had sent them each a gift just from her, beautiful ski parkas, and an electronic game for each. They could play them in the car next summer when they all went on their big vacation. But this time they had already decided to go to Hawaii for a month and rent a condo there, they were all feeling a lot less enthused about another camping trip at Lake Tahoe. It was three days before Christmas when Adrian was wrapping everything. She wanted to get it done before Bill came home. They were going to the annual Christmas party at his show, and she wanted to hide all his presents. She had put most of them in the baby's crib, with the comforter over them, and she was smiling to herself as she wrapped the tiny telephone. She knew he was going to love it, and he hadn't wanted to be extravagant and buy it for himself. It was nice being able to spoil him. And when she was finished, she went to get the mail, and she was startled when she saw the envelope from City Hall. She opened it without thinking, and gasped when she saw the papers. On the twenty first of December, her divorce had become final. She was no longer married to Steven, and although he could not remove it from her, he had stated a preference that she no longer use his surname. |
| 70 |
She was going to be leaving in two weeks and it seemed like an impossible task to get everything wrapped up before she left. And halfway through the week someone contacted her from Bill's show, and told her they were planning a surprise party for his fortieth birthday. They wanted her collaboration in getting him there, and she was happy and excited for him. His actual birthday was on New Year's Day, and they were going to have the party that afternoon, right on the set, with a band, and past and present members of the cast, and as many of his friends as they could contact. And Adrian thought it sounded great. She could hardly contain herself on New Year's Eve, keeping the secret. They had dinner with friends on New Year's Eve, it was a small party that a writer he knew was giving at Chasen's, and afterward as they drove home, Adrian was very sleepy. Bill had had a fair amount to drink, but he wasn't drunk, and it was just after midnight when they got home, and he climbed into bed as soon as he was undressed, and was almost asleep when she got in beside him. "Happy New Year," she whispered, and he smiled. "Happy birthday too!" She was thinking about the party the next day, but he was already asleep before she'd finished the words, and as she looked down at him, she leaned over and kissed him. He was so sweet, and so good to her, and she loved him so much. She lay there, awake for a while, tired, but no longer as sleepy as she had been an hour before, and then suddenly as she lay there, she felt a sharp kick, and then a tightening of everything from her chest to her thighs, so much so that she could hardly breathe, but it didn't really hurt her. It was another practice round, she figured. She was almost used to the warm up contractions now. They happened mostly on busy days, or when she was very tired, and she didn't really mind them. She lay there, thinking peacefully for a little while, and she felt another tightening, and then another. And she decided to try one of his tricks, without bothering him. |
| 71 |
But she just couldn't find him. She was worried about his surprise party, too, remembering that everyone was counting on her to get him to his office where the entire cast and crew were going to surprise him. She called the office directly finally, figuring that the others had to be there by then, and finally at six o'clock, someone answered the phone and she could hear all the noise in the background. She tried to shout loud enough so they could hear her above the din, and finally, the assistant director realized who was calling. "Adrian? Oh, congratulations on the baby!" Bill had told everyone about Sam, but those who knew him well thought he was strangely quiet. And they just figured he was tired after a long night with Adrian in labor. As it turned out, he had happened on the party completely by accident. After he left Adrian, he'd gone home, and then, needing to clear his mind, he had gone to the office. And he had arrived only slightly later than he should. It was as though, with or without her, he had been destined to get there. "Is Bill there?" Finally, she had found him. "He just left. He said there were some things he had to do. But it's a hell of a party." The A.D. sounded more than a little drunk, and they were having such a good time, they hardly missed their guest of honor. He had slipped away, touched by what they'd done, but anxious to be alone. It had already been quite a birthday. Adrian tried to call him at home again, but he had the machine on. She couldn't believe that he had just slipped through her fingers like that, or that he wasn't going to give her a chance to explain what had happened. He had always known that she wanted to contact Steven after the baby was born, but he hadn't expected to see him sitting next to Adrian, in her hospital room, holding the baby, and he had immediately made a brutally painful assumption. And as Adrian continued to lie in her hospital bed, waiting for him, she began to fear the worst when he never came back to see her. |
| 72 |
He must have been so angry at her that he didn't want to see her again, and there was nothing more she could do to find him. She couldn't leave her room, or the hospital, and she felt trapped and helpless. She held the baby for most of the afternoon, and put him in his little bassinet next to her for the entire evening. When her dinner tray came, she sent it away, and she put the big blue bear in a chair, and sat looking sadly at his roses. And all she wanted was to see him and tell him how much she loved him. "Would you like a sleeping pill?" the nurse asked at eight o'clock, but she only shook her head, and the nurse made a note on the chart about possible postpartum depression. They had noted the fact that she had eaten nothing for dinner or lunch, and she even seemed unexcited about nursing her baby. She was quiet and uncommunicative, and as soon as the nurse left the room, she dialed the apartment again, and the answering machine was still on, and she left an anguished message for him to call her. She picked up the baby again, and held him close to her for a long time, looking at the tiny nose, the sleeping eyes, the perfect mouth, the tiny, gently curled fingers. He was so sweet and so tiny and so perfect, and she was so engrossed in watching him that she didn't hear the door whoosh open at nine o'clock, and he stood there for a long minute, watching her, willing himself not to feel anything for her or the baby, as she turned her head suddenly and saw him. Her breath caught, and without thinking, she reached out a hand, and then started to get out of bed, which wasn't entirely easy. "Stay there," he said gently, "don't get up. I just came to say good bye." He sounded cool and calm, and he walked closer to the bed, but he kept his distance. He looked remarkably dressed up, and somehow she sensed that it wasn't from the party. The party had been a surprise, and he had been wearing a sweatshirt and jeans for that, but now he looked as though he was dressed for something important. |
| 73 |
It was a quiet, sunny November morning, as Carole Barber looked up from her computer and stared out into the garden of her Bel Air home. It was a big, rambling stone mansion that she had lived in for fifteen years. The sunny greenhouse room she used as an office looked out over the rosebushes she had planted, the fountain, and the small pond that reflected the sky. The view was peaceful, and the house silent. Her hands had barely moved over the keyboard for the past hour. It was beyond frustrating. Despite a long and successful career in films, she was trying to write her first novel. Although she had written short stories for years, she had never published any. She had even tried her hand at a screenplay once. During their entire marriage, she and her late husband, Sean, had talked about making a movie together, and never got around to it. They were too busy doing other things, in their primary fields. Sean was a producer director, and she was an actress. Not just an actress, Carole Barber was a major star, and had been since she was eighteen. She had just turned fifty, two months before. By her own choice, she hadn't had a part in a movie for three years. At her age, even with her still remarkable beauty, good parts were rare. Carole stopped working when Sean got sick. And in the two years since he'd died, she had traveled, visiting her children in London and New York. She was involved in a variety of causes, mostly relating to the rights of women and children, which had taken her to Europe several times, China, and underdeveloped countries around the world. She cared deeply about injustice, poverty, political persecution, and crimes against the innocent and defenseless. She had diligently kept journals of all her trips, and a poignant one of the months before Sean died. She and Sean had talked about her writing a book, in the last days of his life. He thought it was a wonderful idea, and encouraged her to start the project. She had waited until two years after his death to do it. |
| 74 |
The book would give her an opportunity to speak out about the things that mattered to her, and delve deep into herself in a way that acting never had. She wanted desperately to complete the book, but she couldn't seem to get it off the ground. Something kept stopping her, and she had no idea what it was. It was a classic case of writer's block, but like a dog with a bone, she refused to give up and let it go. She wanted to go back to acting eventually, but not until she wrote the book. She felt as though she owed that to Sean and herself. In August, she had turned down what seemed like a good part in an important movie. The director was excellent, the screenwriter had won several Academy Awards for his earlier work. Her costars would have been interesting to work with. But when she read the script, it did absolutely nothing for her. She felt no pull to it at all. She didn't want to act anymore unless she loved the part. She was haunted by her book, still in its fetal stages, and it was keeping her from going back to work. Somewhere deep in her heart, she knew she had to do the writing first. This novel was the voice of her soul. When Carole finally started the book, she insisted it wasn't about herself. It was only as she got deeper into it that she realized that in fact it was. The central character had many facets of Carole in her, and the more Carole got into it, the harder it was to write, as though she couldn't bear facing herself. She had been blocked on it again now for weeks. It was a story about a woman coming of age and examining her life. She realized now that it had everything to do with her, the life she'd led, the men she'd loved, and the decisions she had made in the course of her life. Every time she sat down at her desk to write it, she found herself staring into space, dreaming about the past, and nothing wound up on the screen of her computer. She was haunted by echoes of her earlier life, and until she came to terms with them, she knew she couldn't delve into her novel, nor solve its problems. |
| 75 |
She needed the key to unlock those doors first, and hadn't found it. Every question and doubt she'd ever had about herself had leaped back into her head with the writing. She was suddenly questioning every move she'd ever made. Why? When? How? Had she been right or wrong? Were the people in her life actually as she'd seen them at the time? Had she been unfair? She kept asking herself the same questions, and wondered why it mattered now, but it did. Immensely. She could go nowhere with the book, until she came up with the answers about her own life. It was driving her insane. It was as though by deciding to write this book, she was being forced to face herself in ways she never had before, ways she had avoided for years. There was no hiding from it now. The people she had known floated through her head at night, as she lay awake, and even in her dreams. And she awoke exhausted in the morning. The face that came to mind most often was Sean's. He was the only one she was sure about, who he had been, and what he meant to her. Their relationship had been so straightforward and clean. The others weren't, not to that degree. She had questions in her mind about all of them but Sean. And he had been so anxious for her to write the book she had described to him, she felt she owed it to him, as a kind of final gift. And she wanted to prove to herself that she could do it. She was paralyzed by the fear that she couldn't, and didn't have it in her. She had had the dream for more than three years now, and needed to know if she had a book in her or not. The word that came to mind when she thought of Sean was peace. He was a kind, gentle, wise, loving man, who had been only wonderful to her. He had brought order to her life in the beginning, and together they had built a solid foundation for their life together. He had never tried to own or overwhelm her. Their lives had never seemed intertwined or entangled, instead they had traveled side by side, at a comfortable pace together, right until the end. |
| 76 |
Because of who he was, even Sean's death from cancer had been a quiet disappearance, a kind of natural evolution into a further dimension where she could no longer see him. But because of his powerful influence on her life, she always felt him near her. He had accepted death as one more step in the journey of his life, a transition he had to make at some point, like a wondrous opportunity. He learned from everything he did, and whatever he encountered on his path, he embraced with grace. In dying, he had taught her yet another intensely valuable lesson about life. Two years after he had gone, she still missed him, his laughter, the sound of his voice, his brilliant mind, his company, their long quiet walks together along the beach, but she always had the feeling that he was somewhere nearby, doing his own thing, traveling on, and sharing some kind of blessing with her, just as he had when he was alive. Knowing and loving him had been one of her greatest gifts. He had reminded her before he died that she still had much to do, and urged her to go back to work. He wanted her to make movies again, and write the book. He had always loved her short stories and essays, and over the years she had written dozens of poems to him, which he treasured. She had had all of them bound in a leather folder several months before he died, and he had spent hours reading them over and over again. She hadn't had time to start the book before he died. She was too busy taking care of him. She had taken a year off to spend time with him, and nurse him herself when he got really sick, particularly after chemo and in the last few months of his illness. He had been valiant till the end. They had gone for a walk together the day before he died. They hadn't been able to walk far, and they had said very little to each other. They had walked side by side, holding hands, sat down frequently when he got tired, and they had both cried as they sat and watched the sunset. They both knew the end was near. |
| 77 |
He had died the following night, peacefully, in her arms. He had taken one last long look at her, sighed with a gentle smile, closed his eyes, and was gone. Because of the way he'd died, with such elegant acceptance, afterward it had been impossible to be overwhelmed with grief when she thought about him. As best one could be, she was ready. They both were. What she felt in his absence was an emptiness she still felt now. And she wanted to fill that void with a better understanding of herself. She knew the book would help her do that, if she could ever get a handle on it. She wanted to at least try to measure up to him, and the faith he'd had in her. He had been a constant source of inspiration to her, in her life and her work. He had brought her calm and joy, and a kind of serenity and balance. In many ways, it had been a relief for her not to work in films for the past three years. She had worked so hard for so long that even before Sean got sick she knew she needed a break. And she knew that time off for introspection would eventually bring deeper meaning to her acting as well. She had made some important movies over the years, and had been in some major commercial hits. But she wanted more than that now, she wanted to bring something to her work that she never had before. The kind of depth that only came with wisdom, seasoning, and time. She wasn't old at fifty, but the years since Sean got sick and died had deepened her in ways she knew she would never have experienced otherwise, and she knew that inevitably that would show on the screen. And if she mastered it, surely in her book as well. This book was a symbol of ultimate adulthood for her, and freedom from the last ghosts of her past. She had spent so many years pretending to be other people through her acting, and appearing to be who the world expected her to be. Now was the time in her life when she wanted to be unfettered by other people's expectations, and finally be herself. She belonged to no one now. She was free to be whoever she wanted to be. |
| 78 |
Her years of belonging to a man had been over long before she met Sean. They had been two free souls, living side by side, enjoying each other with love and mutual respect. Their lives had been parallel, and in perfect symmetry and balance, but never enmeshed. It was the one thing she had feared when they got married, that it would get complicated, or he would try to "own" her, that they might somehow stifle or drown each other. That had never happened. He had assured her it wouldn't, and had kept his promise. She knew that her eight years with Sean were something that only occurred once in a lifetime. She didn't expect to find that with anyone else. Sean had been unique. She couldn't imagine herself falling in love, or wanting to be married again. She had missed him for these past two years, but had not mourned him. His love had sated her so totally that she was comfortable now even without him. There had been no agony or pain in their love for each other, although like all couples, they'd had resounding arguments now and then, and then laughed about them afterward. Neither Sean nor Carole was the kind of person to hold a grudge, and there wasn't a shred of malice in either of them, or even in their fights. In addition to loving each other, they had been best friends. They met when Carole was forty, and Sean was thirty five. Al though five years younger than she was, he had set an example for her in many ways, mostly in his views about life. Her career was still going strong, and she was making more movies than she wanted to at the time. For so many years before that, she had been driven to follow the path of an ever more demanding career. They met five years after she had moved back to Los Angeles from France, and she'd been trying to spend more time with her children, always pulled between her kids, and increasingly alluring movie roles. She had spent the years after her return from France without a serious involvement with a man. She just didn't have the time, or the desire. |
| 79 |
They had been interesting men, but she'd never fallen in love with any of them, and was convinced she never would again. Until Sean. They had met at a conference they'd both gone to, to discuss the rights of actors in Hollywood, and had been on a panel together about the changing role of women in films. It had never bothered either of them that he was five years younger than she was. It was completely irrelevant to both of them. They were kindred spirits, regardless of age. A month after they met, they had gone to Mexico together for a weekend. He had moved in three months later, and never left. Six months after he moved in, despite Carole's reluctance and misgivings, they were married. Sean had convinced her it was the right thing for both of them. He was absolutely correct, although at first Carole had been adamant about not wanting to get married again. She was convinced that their careers would somehow interfere and cause conflicts between them, and impact their marriage. As Sean had promised, her fears had been unfounded. Their union seemed blessed. Her children had been young then, and still at home, which was an added concern for Carole. Sean had none of his own, and they had none together. He was crazy about her two children, and they had both agreed that they were too busy and wouldn't have had time to give to another child. Instead they nurtured each other, and their marriage. Anthony and Chloe were both in high school when she and Sean married, which was part of her decision to marry Sean. She didn't like setting the example of just living together with no further commitment, and her children had cast a strong positive vote for the marriage. They wanted Sean to stick around, and he had proven to be a good friend and stepfather to both of them. And now, much to her chagrin, both her children were grown up and gone. Chloe was in her first job, after graduating from Stanford. She was the assistant to the assistant accessories editor for a fashion magazine in London. |
| 80 |
His social life interested him less than his work at the office. He was diligent about his career in finance, and always kept his goals in mind. In fact, very little deterred him, and more often than not when Carole called him on his cell phone late at night, he was still working at his desk. Both children had been deeply attached to Sean, and to their mother. They had always been wholesome, sensible, and loving, despite the occasional mother daughter skirmish between Chloe and Carole. Chloe had always needed her mother's time and attention more than her brother, and complained bitterly when her mother went on location for a movie, particularly during high school, when she wanted Carole around, like the other mothers. Her complaints had made Carole feel guilty, even though she had the kids fly out to visit on the set whenever possible, or came home during breaks in filming to be with them. Anthony had been easy, Chloe always a little less so, at least for Carole. Chloe thought her father walked on water, and was more than willing to point out her mother's faults. Carole told herself it was the nature of relationships between mother and daughter. It was easier to be the mother of an adoring son. And now, on her own, with her kids grown and gone, and happy in their own lives, Carole was determined to tackle the novel she had promised herself to write for so long. In the past few weeks, she had gotten seriously discouraged, and had begun to doubt it was ever going to happen. She was beginning to wonder if she had been wrong to turn down the part she had declined in August. Maybe she had to give up writing, and go back to making movies. Mike Appelsohn, her agent, was getting annoyed with her. He was upset about the parts she kept turning down, and fed up with hearing about the book she didn't write. The story line was eluding her, the characters still seemed vague, the outcome and development seemed to be tied in a knot somewhere in her head. It was all a giant tangle, like a ball of yarn after the cat played with it. |
| 81 |
And no matter what she did, or how intently she thought about it, she couldn't seem to sort out the mess. It was frustrating her beyond belief. There were two Oscars sitting on a shelf above her desk, and a Golden Globe she'd won just before the year she'd taken off when Sean got sick. Hollywood still hadn't forgotten her, but Mike Appelsohn assured her they'd give up on her eventually, if she didn't go back to work. She had run out of excuses for him, and given herself till the end of the year to start the book. She had two months left, and was getting nowhere. She was beginning to feel panicked about it every time she sat down at her desk. She heard a door open gently behind her, and turned with an anxious look. She didn't mind the interruption, in fact she welcomed it. The day before, she had reorganized her bathroom closets instead of working on the book. When she turned, she saw Stephanie Morrow, her assistant, standing hesitantly in the doorway of her office. She was beautiful, a schoolteacher by profession, whom Carole had hired for the summer, fifteen years before, when she first came back from Paris. Carole had bought the house in Bel Air, accepted parts in two films that first year, and signed on for a year in a Broadway play. She got deeply involved in women's rights, had publicity to do for her movies, and needed help organizing her kids and staff. Stephanie had come to help her out for two months, and stayed forever. Fifteen years later, she was thirty nine years old. She lived with a man, but had never married. He was understanding about her work and traveled a lot himself. Stephanie still wasn't sure if she ever wanted to marry, and was clear she didn't want children. She teased Carole and said she was her baby. Carole reciprocated by saying Stephanie was her nanny. She was a fabulous assistant, handled the press brilliantly, and could talk her way in or out of any situation. There was nothing she couldn't manage. When Sean was sick, she had done everything she could for Carole. |
| 82 |
And decide to redo the kitchen. Carole had come up with every possible distraction and excuse to avoid starting the book, again. She had been doing it for months. "Maybe you need to take a break," Stevie suggested, and Carole groaned. "My whole life is a break these days. Sooner or later, I have to go back to work, either on a movie, or writing this book. Mike is going to kill me if I turn down another script." Mike Appelsohn was a producer, and had acted as her agent for thirty two years, since he discovered her at eighteen, light years before. A million years ago, she had been just a farm girl from Mississippi, with long blond hair and huge green eyes, who came to Hollywood more out of curiosity than real ambition. Mike Appelsohn had made her what she was today. That, and the fact that she had real talent. Her first screen test at eighteen had blown everyone away. The rest was history. Her history. Now she was one of the most famous actresses in the world, and successful beyond her wildest dreams. So what was she doing trying to write a book? She couldn't help but ask herself the same question over and over again. She knew the answer, just as Stevie did. She was looking for a piece of herself, a piece she had hidden in a drawer somewhere, a part of her she wanted and needed to find, in order for the rest of her life to make sense. Her last birthday had affected her deeply. Turning fifty had been an important landmark for her, particularly now that she was alone. It couldn't be ignored. She had decided that she wanted to weave all the pieces of her together, in ways she never had before, to solder them into a whole, instead of having bits and pieces of herself drifting in space. She wanted her life to make sense, to herself if no one else. She wanted to go back to the beginning and figure it all out. So much had happened to her by accident, in her early years particularly, or at least it seemed that way. Good luck and bad, though mostly good, in her career anyway, and with her kids. |
| 83 |
The suite at the Ritz was as beautiful as she hoped it would be. All the fabrics were silk and satin, the colors pale blue and hushed gold. She had a living room and a bedroom, and a Louis XV desk where she plugged her computer in. She sent Stevie an e mail ten minutes after she got there, while she waited for croissants and a pot of hot water. She had brought a three week supply of her own vanilla tea with her. It was coals to Newcastle since it came from Paris, but this way she didn't have to go out and buy it. Stevie had handed it to her as she packed. The e mail said that she had arrived safely, the suite was gorgeous, and the flight had been fine. She said it was raining in Paris, but she didn't mind. And she mentioned that she was turning off her computer and wouldn't be writing to Stevie again for a while, if at all. If she had a problem, she'd call on her assistant's cell. She thought about calling her children after that, but decided not to. She loved talking to them, but they had their own lives now, and this trip belonged to her. It was something she needed to do for herself. She didn't want to share it with them yet. And she knew they'd find it odd that she was wandering around Europe on her own. There was something faintly pathetic about it, as though she had nothing to do, and no one to be with, which was true, but she was comfortable about this trip. And she sensed now that the key to the book she was trying to write was here, or one of the keys at least. And she knew her children might worry about her, if they knew she was traveling alone. Sometimes Stevie and her children were more aware of her fame than she was. Carole liked to ignore it. The croissants and tea arrived, delivered by a liveried waiter. He put the silver tray on the coffee table, already laden with small pastries, a box of chocolates, and a bowl of fruit, with a bottle of champagne from the manager of the hotel. They took good care of her. She had always loved the Ritz. Nothing had changed. |
| 84 |
It was small and cramped for her, both kids, an assistant, and a nanny, and eventually they had moved to a hotel briefly. She had enrolled the kids in an American school, and after the film was finished, when she decided to move to Paris, she had found this house, just off the rue Jacob. It had been a little gem, on a private courtyard, with a lovely garden behind it. The house had been just big enough for them, and had endless charm. The children's rooms and the nanny had been on the top floor with oeil de boeuf windows and a mansard roof. Her room on the floor below it had been worthy of Marie Antoinette, with huge, high ceilings, long French windows that looked out over the garden, eighteenth century floors and boiseries, and a pink marble fireplace that worked. She had an office and a dressing room near her bedroom, and a huge tub where she took bubble baths with Chloe, or relaxed on her own. On the main floor there was a double living room, a dining room and kitchen, and an entrance to the garden, where they ate in spring and summer. It was an absolute beauty of a house, built in the eighteenth century for some courtesan or other. She had never learned its full history, but one could easily imagine it being very romantic. And it had been for her as well. She found the house easily, and walked into the courtyard, as the doors were open. She stood looking up at her old bedroom windows, and wondered who lived there now, if they were happy, if it had been a good home for them, if their dreams had come true there. She had been happy there for two years, and then at the end very sad. She had left Paris with a heavy heart. Just thinking back to that time, she could feel the weight of it even now. It was like opening a door she had kept sealed for the past fifteen years, and remembering the smells and sounds and feelings, the thrill of being there with her children, of making new discoveries, and establishing a new life, and then leaving finally to go back to the States. |
| 85 |
It had been a hard decision to make, and a sad time for her. She still wondered at times if she had made the right decision, if things would have been different if they'd stayed. But standing here now, she somehow felt she had done the right thing, for her kids, if nothing else. And maybe even for herself. Even fifteen years later it was hard to know. She realized now that this was why she had come. To figure it out again, to be sure she had been right. Once she knew that, in her soul, she would have some of the answers she needed for the book. She was traveling backward on the map of her life, before she could tell what had happened. Even if the book was fictionalized, she needed to know the truth first, before she could spin it into a tale. She knew too that she had avoided these answers for a long time, but she was feeling braver now. She walked slowly out of the courtyard with her head down, and bumped into a man walking through the gates. He looked startled to see her, and she apologized to him in French. He nodded, and walked on. Carole walked around the Left Bank after that, looking into antiques shops. She stopped at the bakery where she used to take the children, and bought "macarons," which she carried out in a little bag, and ate as she walked. The neighborhood was filled with bittersweet memories for her, which rushed over her like an ocean at high tide, but it wasn't a bad feeling. It reminded her of so much, and suddenly she wanted to go back to the hotel and write. She knew what direction the book should take now, and where she should start. She wanted to rewrite the beginning, and as she thought about it, she hailed a cab. She had been walking for nearly three hours, and it was already dark. She gave the driver the address of the Ritz, and they headed toward the Right Bank, as she sat back in the cab, thinking about her old house, and the things she'd seen that afternoon as she walked. This was the first time she had wandered around Paris and allowed herself to think of those things since she left. |
| 86 |
Bodies littered the tunnel floor, survivors moaned, and those who could walk, run, or crawl emerged, many with their hair and clothes on fire. It was a total nightmare, as news teams arrived for coverage of the scene, and to interview survivors. Most were in a state of shock. As yet, no known terrorist group had taken responsibility for it, but from everything people who'd been in the tunnel had described, it had clearly been a bomb, and more likely several. It was after midnight when firemen and police told reporters they believed they had gotten all the survivors. There were still bodies trapped in vehicles, or among the wreckage and debris, but it would be several more hours before they could put out the fire, and extricate the bodies. Two firemen had died in the blaze, trying to rescue people, when yet more cars exploded, and several rescuers had been overcome by fumes and flames, as had paramedics who were trying to assist people, or tend to them where they were trapped. Women, children, men had died. It was a spectacle beyond belief, and many were brought out alive but unconscious. Victims were being sent to any of four hospitals, where additional medical personnel had been brought in to help them. Two burn centers were already overcrowded, and people burned less severely were being sent to a special unit on the outskirts of Paris. The rescue efforts had been extraordinary and impressively coordinated, as one of the newscasters said, but there was only so much they could do in the wake of an attack of that nature. It had presumably been done by terrorists, and the force of the bombs used had even taken out sections of the walls of the tunnel. It was hard to believe that anyone had survived, when one saw the fierce blackness of the smoke, and the fire still raging in the tunnel. In the end, Carole had landed in a little alcove of the tunnel, which, by sheer luck, had protected her as the fire advanced. She had been one of the first to be found by the firefighters who went in. |
| 87 |
She was literally hovering between life and death. The only thing that seemed to have saved her was the alcove she'd been blown into, which had provided an air pocket for her, and a shield against the fire. Otherwise, like so many others, she would have been burned alive. The neurosurgeon went to get some sleep at noon, on a gurney in a closet. They were treating forty two patients from the bombing in the tunnel. In all, police at the scene had reported ninety eight people injured, and they had counted seventy one bodies so far, and there were still more inside. It had been a long, ugly night. The doctor was surprised to find Carole still alive when he came back four hours later. Her condition was the same, the respirator was still breathing for her, but another CT scan showed that the swelling to her brain had not worsened, which was a major plus. The worst of her injury seemed to be located in the brain stem. She had sustained a Diffuse Axonal Injury, with minor tears from severe shaking of her brain. And there was no way to assess yet what the long term effect of it would be. Her cerebrum had also been impacted, which could ultimately compromise her muscles and memory. The gash on her cheek had been stitched up, and as the neurosurgeon looked at her, he commented to the doctor checking her that she was a good looking woman. He knew he'd never seen her before, but there was something familiar about her face. He guessed her to be about forty or forty five years old at most. He was surprised that no one had come looking for her. It was still early. If she lived alone, it could take days for anyone to realize that she was missing. But people didn't stay unidentified forever. The following day was Saturday, and the trauma unit teams continued to work around the clock. They were able to shift some patients to other units of the hospital, and several were moved by ambulance to special burn centers. Carole remained listed among their most severely injured patients, along with others like her in other hospitals in Paris. |
| 88 |
On Sunday her condition grew worse, as she developed a fever, which was to be expected. Her body was in shock, and she was still fighting for her life. The fever lasted until Tuesday, and then finally subsided. The swelling of her brain improved slightly, as they continued to watch her closely. But she was no nearer to consciousness than she had been when she came in. Her head and arms were bandaged, and her left arm was in a cast. Her cut cheek was healing, although it was going to leave a scar. Their worst concern for her continued to be her brain. They were keeping her sedated, due to the respirator, but even without sedation, she was still in a deep coma. There was no way to assess how great the damage would be to her brain long term, or if she would even live. She wasn't out of the woods yet by any means. Far from it. On Wednesday and Thursday nothing changed, and she continued to cling to life by a thin thread. On Friday, a full week after she came in, the new CT scans they took looked slightly better, which was encouraging. The head of the trauma unit commented then that she was the only Jane Doe who had not been identified yet. No one had come to claim her, which seemed strange. Everyone else, whether dead or alive, had been identified by then. On the same day, the day maid who cleaned her room made a comment to the head housekeeper at the Ritz. She said that the woman in Carole's suite hadn't slept there all week. Her handbag and passport were there, and her clothes, but the bed had never been used. She had obviously checked in, and then vanished. The housekeeper didn't find it unusual, since guests sometimes did strange things, like rent a room or a suite, to have a clandestine affair, and only appeared sporadically, rarely, or not at all, if things didn't work out as planned. The only thing that seemed odd to her was that the guest's handbag was there, and her passport was on the desk. Clearly, nothing had been touched since she checked in. Just as a formality, she reported it to the front desk. |
| 89 |
He told her what he was doing, but warned her not to mention it to either of his children. The official version was that he had to go to an emergency meeting in Chicago. And five minutes later he left his office and hailed a cab. He was at his apartment on the Upper East Side twenty minutes later, and threw his clothes into a suitcase. It was two o'clock, and he had to leave the city at three for a six o'clock plane. The next hour was agony as he waited to leave. And it was worse once he got to the airport. There was a surreal quality to all of it, he was going to see a woman in a coma in a Paris hospital, and praying it wouldn't be his ex wife. They had been divorced for eighteen years, and he had known for the last fourteen that leaving her had been the biggest mistake of his life. He had left her for a twenty one year old Russian model, who had turned out to be the biggest gold digger on the planet. He had been madly in love with her at the time. Carole had been at the height of her career, doing two and three movies a year. She was always on location somewhere, or promoting a film. He was the whiz kid of Wall Street then, but his success was small potatoes compared to hers. She had won two Oscars in the two years before he left her, and it got to him. She'd been a good wife, but he realized later on that his ego had been too fragile to survive that kind of competition. He needed to feel like a big deal himself, and in the face of Carole's stardom, he never did. So he fell in love with Natalya, who appeared to worship him, and then took him to the cleaners, and left him for someone else. The Russian model was the worst thing that had ever happened to them, and to him surely. She was staggeringly beautiful, and she'd gotten pregnant weeks after they started their affair. He'd left Carole for her, and married Natalya before the ink was dry on the divorce. She'd had another baby the following year, and then left him for a man with a lot more money than Jason had at the time. |
| 90 |
It was too late to explain that they were divorced, since he had referred to her as his wife, and maybe it was better this way. He wasn't sure what kind of rights ex husbands had in France as next of kin, probably none, like anywhere else. "She was traveling, and this may not be her. I hope it's not. I flew over to see." She seemed to approve of that and nodded at him, and then said something to the nurse at the desk, who pointed to a room with a closed door. The doctor beckoned Jason to follow her, which he did. She opened the door to the room, and he couldn't see the patient in the bed. She was surrounded by machines, and there were two nurses standing next to her, blocking his view. He could hear the whoosh of the respirator and the whir of machines. There seemed to be a ton of apparatus in the room as the doctor led him in. He felt like an intruder suddenly, a medical voyeur. He was about to view someone who might not be anyone he knew. But he had to see her. He had to be sure she wasn't Carole. He owed this to her, and their kids, even if it seemed like a crazy thing to do. It did, even to him, like the far extremes of paranoia, or maybe just guilt. He walked behind the doctor, and saw a still figure lying there, with a respirator in her mouth, her nose taped shut, and her head tilted back. She was completely still, and her face was deathly pale. The bandage on her head looked huge, there was another on her face, and a cast on her arm, and at the angle he approached her, it was hard to see her face. He took another step forward to get a better look, and then caught his breath as tears filled his eyes. It was Carole. His worst nightmare had just come true. He stepped up close to her, and touched the fingers sticking out of the cast, which were black and blue. Nothing moved. She was in another world, far from them, and looked as though she would never return. There were tears running down his cheeks as he stood and looked at her. The worst had happened. She was the unidentified victim from the tunnel bombing. |
| 91 |
The prospect of what might happen was too devastating to both of them. His next call was to Chloe, which was infinitely worse. She burst into tears and got hysterical as soon as he told her. The good news was that she was only an hour away. When she finally stopped crying, she said she'd be on the next plane. All she wanted now was to see her mom. At five o'clock that afternoon Jason picked his daughter up at the airport. She was sobbing and in his arms the moment she came through the gate, and they went back to the hospital together. Chloe stood clutching her father's arm, as she looked at her mother and cried when she saw her. It was upsetting for both of them, but at least they had each other. And at nine that night, after talking to the doctor again, they went back to the hotel. There was no change in Carole's condition, but she was holding on. That was something at least. Chloe cried for hours when they got to the hotel. Jason put her to bed finally, and she fell asleep. He went to the minibar then and poured himself a scotch. He sat drinking it quietly, thinking of Carole, and their children. It was the toughest thing they'd all been through, and all he kept hoping for was that Carole would survive. He fell asleep on his bed, fully dressed, that night, and woke up at six o'clock the next morning. He showered, shaved, and dressed, and was sitting quietly in the living room of the suite, when Chloe woke up, and came out to find him with her eyes swollen. He could tell that she felt even worse than she looked. She still couldn't believe what had happened to her mom. They met Anthony's plane at seven o'clock, got his bag, and went back to the hotel for breakfast. Anthony looked somber and exhausted, in blue jeans and a heavy sweater. He needed a shave, but didn't bother. They hung around the room until Stevie arrived at the Ritz at twelve thirty. Jason ordered a sandwich for her, and at one o'clock they left for the hospital together. Anthony fought valiantly, but broke down as soon as he saw her. |
| 92 |
And whether or not she breathed on her own would tell them if her brain was repairing. It was going to be a terrifying moment for all of them when the tubes came out of her mouth and they turned off the respirator and waited to see what would happen. Chloe stared out the window of the car, with silent tears running down her cheeks, as her brother held her hand tightly. "She's going to be okay," he whispered to her softly, and she shook her head and turned away. Nothing was okay in their world anymore, and it was hard to believe it would ever be again. Their mother had been a vital force in their lives, and the hub of their existence. Whatever Chloe's differences had been with her, they no longer mattered. All she wanted now was her mommy. And Anthony felt the same. There was something about her being so reduced and in such danger that made them both feel like children. They felt vulnerable and frightened beyond belief. Neither of them could imagine a life without their mother. Nor could Jason. "She'll do fine, guys," their father tried to reassure them. He tried to exude a confidence he didn't feel. "What if she doesn't?" Chloe whispered, as they approached the hospital and passed the now familiar Austerlitz train station. "Then they'll put her back on the respirator again until she's ready." Chloe didn't have the heart to pursue her line of thinking any further. Not out loud at least, she knew the others were just as worried as she was. They were all dreading the moment when the doctor would turn the respirator off. Just thinking about it made Chloe want to scream. They got out of the car at the hospital, and Stevie followed silently behind them. She had been through a similar experience once before, when her father had open heart surgery. The crucial moment had been unnerving, but he had survived. Carole's case seemed more delicate somehow, with the extent of her brain damage unknown, and what long term effects it might have. She might never be able to breathe on her own. |
| 93 |
The group looked gray faced and wide eyed as they rode up in the brightly lit elevator to her floor, and filed soundlessly into her room, to wait for the doctor to arrive. Carole looked about the same, her eyes were closed, and she was breathing rhythmically with the help of the machine. A few minutes later the doctor in charge walked in. They all knew why they were there. The procedure had been explained to them earlier that day, and they watched in terror as a nurse took the sealing tape off Carole's nose. Until then, she could only breathe through the tube in her mouth. But now her nose was open, and after asking them if they were ready, the doctor gestured to the nurse to take the tube out of Carole's mouth, and with a single gesture he turned off the machine. There was a hideously long moment of silence as everyone stared at Carole. There was no sign of breathing, as the doctor took a step toward her, with a brief glance at the nurse, and then Carole began to breathe on her own. Chloe let out a sharp cry of relief and burst into tears, as tears rolled down Jason's cheeks and Anthony choked on a sob. Instinctively, Chloe buried herself in Stevie's arms. Stevie was laughing and crying all at once, as she held Chloe in a tight hug. And even the doctor smiled. "That's very good news," he said with a reassuring look. For an instant, he thought she wouldn't do it, and then just as they all began to panic, she did. "Her brain is telling her lungs what to do. It's a very good sign." They also knew that it was possible for her to stay in a coma forever, even with the ability to breathe on her own. But if she hadn't been able to, her chances of recovery would have been even slimmer than they were now. It was a first step back toward life. The doctor said that they would be watching her closely through the night to be sure that she continued breathing without assistance, but there was no reason to think that her independent respiration would stop again. With every passing moment, her condition was more stable. |
| 94 |
Although no longer young, it was easy to see that he had once been a handsome man, and still was. And he moved and spoke like someone who was accustomed to command. There was an aura of authority about him. His name was Matthieu de Billancourt, and he had once been the Minister of the Interior of France. He had his overcoat on, and was out the door and in his car within twenty minutes of reading the article in the paper. He was shaken to the core by what he'd read. His memories of Carole were still crystal clear, as though he'd seen her yesterday, when in fact it had been fifteen years since he had last seen her, when she left Paris, and fourteen years since he had spoken to her. He had had no news of her since, except what he read of her in the press. He knew she had married again, to a Hollywood producer, and he had felt a pang even then, although he was happy for her. Eighteen years before, Carole Barber had been the love of his life. Matthieu de Billancourt arrived at the hospital, and parked his car on the street. He strode into the lobby, and asked the woman at the desk for Carole's room. He was stopped instantly and told that no bulletins could be issued about her, and there were no visitors allowed to her room. He asked to see the head of the hospital, and handed the woman at the desk his card. She glanced at it, saw his name, and immediately disappeared. Within three minutes the head of the hospital appeared. He stared at Matthieu as though to verify that the name on the business card was real. It was the card from Matthieu's family law firm, where he had been now for the last ten years, since he retired from government. He was sixty eight years old, but had the look and step of a younger man. "Monsieur le ministre?" the head of the hospital asked nervously, wringing his hands. He had no idea what had brought him here, but Matthieu's name and reputation had been legendary when he was Minister of the Interior, and one still saw his name in the press from time to time. |
| 95 |
He needed exercise to deal with the intense tension they were under. Stevie was longing for a swim herself. She finally got them rounded up and out the door of the room, with a nod to the nurse. It was no mean feat to move them, since none of them really wanted to leave Carole, nor did she, but she knew they had to keep their spirits as buoyant as they could. There was no telling how long this would go on, and they couldn't afford to fall apart. They would be of no use to Carole if they did, Stevie was well aware of that. So she made it her responsibility to take care of them. It took forever to get them to the elevator. Chloe had forgotten her sweater, and Anthony his coat. They went back one by one, and then finally got into the elevator, promising each other that they would be back in a few hours. They hated leaving her alone. From his seat in the private waiting room, Matthieu saw them leave. He didn't recognize anyone in the group, but knew who they were. He heard them speak to each other in American accents. There were two women and two men. And as soon as the elevator doors closed, he approached the head nurse again. Normally, all visitors were forbidden, but he was Matthieu de Billancourt, venerated former Minister of the Interior, and the head of the hospital had told her to do whatever Matthieu wished. It was clear that the rules didn't apply to him, and he didn't expect them to. Without saying a word, the head nurse led him into Carole's room. She lay there like a sleeping princess, with IVs in her arm, as a nurse watched over her, and checked the monitors attached to her. Carole lay perfectly still and deathly pale, as he looked at her, and then gently touched her face. Everything he had once felt for her was in his eyes. The nurse stayed in the room, but discreetly turned away. She sensed that she was seeing something deeply private to both of them. He stood for a long time, watching her, as though waiting for her to open her eyes, and then finally, his head bowed, with damp eyes, he left the room. |
| 96 |
But there was also no way to assess how much memory loss she'd sustained, or to predict how many of her normal brain functions would return. Only time would tell. She was still acknowledging people when they spoke to her, and had said a few more words that afternoon, most of which related to her physical state and nothing else. She had said "cold" when the nurse opened the window, and "ow" when they took blood from her arm, and again when they readjusted her IV. She was responsive to pain and sensation, but she looked blank when the doctor asked her questions that went beyond yes and no. When they asked her her name, she shook her head. They told her it was Carole, and she shrugged. It was of no apparent interest to her. And the nurse said that when they called her by name, she didn't respond. And since she didn't know her own name, it was unlikely that she remembered theirs. More important, the doctor was fairly certain that for the moment Carole had no recollection of who they were. Jason refused to be discouraged by it, and when he reported it to Stevie later on, he said it was just a matter of time. He had a firm grip on hope again. Maybe too firm, Stevie thought. She had already acknowledged to herself the possibility that Carole might never be the same again. She was awake, but there was a long way to go before Carole would be herself, if she ever would be again. It was still a question with no answer. There was a leak to the press at the hospital again that day, and the next morning, the press reported that Carole Barber was out of her coma. She had already been off the critical list for several days. She still remained a hot news item. And it was obvious to Stevie that someone at the hospital was getting paid for news about Carole. It wouldn't have been unusual, even in the States, but it seemed disgusting to her anyway. It came with the territory of being a star, but seemed like a high price to pay. There were allusions in the article to the fact that she might be permanently brain damaged. |
| 97 |
And Chloe felt she had to get back to her job. Jake had also called her several times. There was nothing anyone could do for Carole, and they all knew she was out of danger. The rest of her recovery process was liable to be slow, and was a matter of time. The children were coming to Los Angeles for Christmas, and she was expected to be out of the hospital and able to fly home by then, in another month. Carole invited Jason to join them for the holidays, and he accepted gratefully. It was an odd arrangement, but they felt like a family again, in some form. He was taking the kids to St. Bart's over New Year's after all, and invited her to come along, but she couldn't travel after she got back to L.A. The doctors didn't recommend it. She was still too fragile, and it was confusing for her. She wasn't walking yet, and with no memory, everything she did was harder work. She wanted to stay home once she got there. But she didn't want to deprive her children of the trip with their father. They had all been through so much since Carole's accident. She knew the vacation would be good for them. Jason spent an hour alone with Carole on his last night in Paris, and said he knew it was too soon to talk about it, but he wondered if, once she recovered, she would be open to trying things with him again. She hesitated, still remembering none of their history, and she knew she had feelings of deep affection for him. She was grateful for the time he had just spent in Paris, and could see the good man he was. But she felt nothing more for him, and doubted that she would in time. She didn't want to lead him on, or encourage him to hope for something she couldn't give him. She had to concentrate on getting well now, becoming whole again, and she wanted to spend time with her children. She was in no condition to think about a man. And it sounded like their history was too complicated. They had come to a good place before her accident, and she didn't want to spoil or risk that again. There were tears in her eyes when she answered him. |
| 98 |
For once, it made sense to him that she was there with Carole. He was supportive of the stress she was going through, and didn't complain. Stevie loved him for it. There were times when Alan really was a good guy, no matter how different their needs and goals were, or their views about marriage. Anthony came to see his mother at the hospital before he left for New York, spent an hour with her, and told her, as Jason had, how grateful he was that she'd survived. Chloe had said the same thing to her, when she came to say goodbye to her mother an hour before, on her way to the airport. They were all so deeply relieved that she was alive. "Try to stay out of trouble, at least for a little while, until I get home. No more crazy trips like this on your own. At least take Stevie with you next time." Anthony wasn't sure it would have changed anything, if she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the thought that he had almost lost his mother in a bomb blast in Paris still made him shudder. "Thanks for inviting Dad to spend Christmas with us. That was nice of you." He knew that otherwise his father would have been alone. There hadn't been an important woman in his life for quite some time. And it was the first holiday the four of them would be spending together in eighteen years. The last one they had shared as a foursome was a dim memory for him, and he wasn't sure it would happen again after this year, so it meant a lot to him, and to his father as well. "I'll behave," Carole promised, looking proudly at her son. Even though she no longer remembered the details of his childhood, it was easy to see he was a fine young man, just as his father had said. And his love for his mother shone brightly in his eyes, as did hers for him. They both cried when they hugged for the last time, even though she knew she'd be seeing him again soon. She cried easily now, and everything seemed more emotional to her. She had so much to learn and absorb. It was truly like being reborn. |
| 99 |
Her current signature bore no resemblance to her normal one. The bomb had done that too. Writing by hand was still hard for her. "I am looking for you," he said simply, as their eyes met. She knew she had never seen him before, and yet there was something about his eyes that she remembered. She could see a car in her mind's eye, and his face in the window, staring at her. And then she knew. She had seen him in the tunnel, in the car next to hers, before the bombs went off. He had jumped out and run away, and then everything exploded into fire and seconds later went black for her. At the same time she saw the vision in her head, she saw him take a knife out of his jacket. It had a long, ugly curved blade and a bone handle, and was an evil weapon. She stared at him, as he took a single step toward her, and she leaped out of bed on the other side. "What are you doing?" She was terrified, as she stood in her hospital gown. "You remember me, don't you? The newspaper said your memory came back." He looked almost as terrified as she did, as he wiped the blade on his jeans. "I don't remember you at all," she said in a shaking voice, praying her legs would hold her up. She was within inches of an emergency button on the back wall that was for a code blue. If she could get to it, they might save her. If not, he was going to slit her throat. That she knew as an absolute certainty. The boy had murder in his eyes. "You're an actress and a sinful woman. You're a whore," he shouted in the silent room, as Carole backed away from him and he lunged. Without warning, he slid across the bed, swinging the knife at her, and in the same instant she hit the black button as hard as she could. She could hear an alarm go off in the hall, as the boy reached out and tried to grab her hair, calling her a whore again. She threw her lunch tray at him, which caught him off balance, and at the same instant four nurses and two doctors charged into the room, expecting to find a code blue, and saw the boy with the knife instead. |
| 100 |
As impressive as he was, Matthieu de Billancourt didn't frighten her. She was only worried about her patient, and the horror that could have happened to her at the young Arab's hands. "That boy came to kill her. He was one of the terrorists who bombed the tunnel. He must have seen that stupid article in the paper yesterday about her memory coming back. I want two guards on her door now, day and night." He had no authority in the hospital whatsoever, but even the doctor knew that what he was saying made sense. "And if you can't defend her properly, send her back to the hotel." "I'll take care of it," the doctor reassured him, and almost before she could say the words, the head of the hospital walked in. Matthieu had summoned him immediately, as soon as he saw the boy being led out in handcuffs and the police told him what had happened. Matthieu had run up the stairs to Carole's room. He had been coming to visit her. And he had raised hell when he discovered what the boy had almost done. If she hadn't been able to reach the bell, she would have been dead. The head of the hospital asked Carole if she was all right, in broken English, and he bustled out again a minute later to bang some heads. The last thing they needed was an American movie star being murdered in their hospital. It would make for some very bad press. The doctor left again then, with a warm smile at Carole, and a cool glance at Matthieu. She didn't like being told what to do by laymen, whether retired ministers or not, although in this case she knew he was right. Carole had very nearly been killed. It was a miracle that the boy hadn't succeeded in his mission. If he had found her asleep, he would have. A dozen ugly scenarios came to mind. Matthieu sat down in the chair next to her bed and patted her hand, and then he looked at her with a gentle expression that had nothing to do with the way he had spoken to the hospital personnel. He had been outraged at how badly they had protected her. She could so easily have been killed. |
| 101 |
His attack had brought it all clearly into her mind again. The images were very sharp. Other memories were returning too. Often they were out of sequence and made no sense to her. She could see her father's barn in her mind's eye, and she remembered milking the cows as though it were yesterday. She could hear her father's laughter, but no amount of concentration could help her recall his face. The meeting with Mike Appelsohn in New Orleans when he discovered her was a blank to her, but she recalled the screen test now, and working on her first movie. She had woken up thinking of it that day, but meeting Jason and her early days with him had vanished into thin air. She remembered their wedding day and the apartment in New York where they'd lived after they were married, and she had a vague memory of Anthony's birth, but nothing of Chloe's, the movies she'd made, or the Oscars she won, and she still had very little memory of Sean. Everything was disjointed and out of sequence, like clips from a movie that had landed on the cutting room floor. Faces would come to mind, or names, often unrelated, and then whole scenes would appear and be crystal clear. It was like a crazy patchwork quilt of her life, which she tried constantly to sort out and organize, and put into sequence again, and just as she thought she had it right and knew what she was remembering, she would remember another detail, face, name, or event, and the whole story changed again. It was like a kaleidoscope, constantly shifting, changing, the colors and shapes altered and moving. It was exhausting trying to absorb it all and make sense of it. For hours at a time now, she had total recall, and then for many more, her mind seemed to shut down, as though it had had enough of the sifting and sorting process that occupied her every waking hour. She was trying to force herself to remember it all, and asked a thousand questions as things came to mind, trying to make the focus more acute in the lens of her mind's eye. |
| 102 |
Matthieu stood watching her face as they questioned her, and was surprised to hear how much she did remember, as were they. She was able to recall many details that had eluded her entirely before. This time she didn't mind Matthieu being there. It was comforting to have someone familiar close at hand, and he no longer frightened her. She thought her initial fear of him when he visited her came from the fact that she sensed that he had been important to her, but she had no idea why. Now she knew, and oddly, she remembered more details about their life together than she did about other people and events. The high points of her time with him were sharply etched in her mind, emerging from the seas that had covered them, and she remembered a million small details as well, important moments, sunny days, torrid nights, tender moments, and the agony she had felt over his not leaving his wife, the arguments they'd had over it. His explanations and excuses stood out in her mind, even their sailboat trip in the South of France. She remembered almost every conversation they'd had while they drifted lazily near Saint Tropez, and his inconsolable sorrow when his daughter had died a year later. Their joint grief and disappointment when she miscarried. The memories of him overwhelmed her, and seemed to drown out all else. She could remember the pain he had caused her as though it were yesterday, and the day she had left France. She had given up all hope of a life with him by then. Knowing all that, it was odd being in a room with him now. Not frightening, but unsettling. He had an austere, unhappy look about him, which was what had seemed ominous to her at first, but now that she recalled their history, his somber air was familiar to her. He didn't look like a happy man, and seemed tormented by his own memories of the time they'd shared. He had wanted to apologize to her for years, and now fate had given him that chance. Carole looked exhausted when the police and officials left her room. |
| 103 |
She had been shocked to see their weapons, and yet reassured at the same time. Like Matthieu's presence next to her, it seemed both a curse and a blessing. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly, and she nodded, as she sipped the tea he held for her. She was shaking all over. It had been an upsetting morning, but less so than the day before, when the boy with the knife entered her room. It was an event and a sensation she knew she would never forget. She had been certain she was going to die, even more than when she was flying through the tunnel. This was far more personal, and specifically meant to harm her, like a missile aimed straight at her. When she thought of it, she was still frightened. Looking at Matthieu calmed her. He seemed very gentle as he sat there. There was a kind side to him she had not forgotten. It was in full evidence as he sat beside her bed, and his love for her shone in his eyes. She wasn't sure if it was the memory of it for him, or a fire that had never gone out, and she had no desire to ask him. Some doors were best left closed forever. What lay behind that door was too painful for both of them, or at least that was what she thought. He had given her no insights into the present, only the past, which was enough for her. "I'm okay," she breathed with a sigh, as she laid her head back on the pillow and met his eyes. "That was hard," she said, referring to the investigation, and he nodded. "You did very well." He had been proud of her. Carole had stayed calm, clear, and made every effort to pull every detail from her shattered memory bank. She had been impressive, which did not surprise him. She had always been a remarkable woman. She had also been extraordinary to him when his daughter died, and at a million other times, and never failed him in any way, as he had her. He knew it all too well, and had played it over countless times in his mind in the years since. He had been haunted by her face, her voice, her touch, for fifteen years, and now he was sitting next to her. |
| 104 |
In a way, she was there now too. Her children were much younger than his. She knew his oldest son must be well into his forties, and not much younger than she. He had married young and had children early, so he wasn't tied to relatively young children, as she was. But even hers were out of college, allegedly grown up, and lived in other cities. Without Stevie to keep her company every day, her house would have been a tomb. There was no man in her life, no children at home, no one to answer to or spend time with, or take care of, no one who cared what time she ate dinner, or if. She was nearly twenty years younger than he was, but she was unfettered now too. It was what had led her to pursue the book, and the trip roaming around Europe, to find the answers that had eluded her till then. "What about you?" He turned to her, with the same questions in his eyes that he saw in hers. "You haven't made a movie in a long time. I think I've seen them all." He smiled again. It had been his treat to himself, to sit in a darkened theater, watching her and listening to her. He had seen some of them three and four times, and then watched them again on TV. His wife had never commented, and left the room quietly when Carole was on the screen. She knew. Right till the end. It was a subject they no longer touched on in the last years of their life together. She accepted his love for Carole, and the fact that he had never loved her in the same way, and never would. His feelings for his wife had been very different. They were about duty, responsibility, companionship, and respect. His feelings for Carole had been born of passion, desire, dreams, and hope. He had lost the dreams, but not the hope or the love. They were his forever, and he kept them locked in his heart, like a rare, precious jewel in a safe, out of harm's way, and out of sight. Carole could feel the emotions he still had for her, as they sat in her hospital room and talked. The room was alive with all that was unsaid, and still felt, by him at least. |
| 105 |
She remembered fearing that it was too soon to throw in the towel, she had wondered for years if she should have stayed, if things would have ended differently if she had, if she might have won him in the end. She had finally let it go when she met Sean and got married. Until then she had blamed herself for leaving Matthieu too soon, but two and a half years seemed long enough for him to do what he had promised, and she had become convinced he never would. There had always been some excuse, which wasn't believable after a while. He believed them, but Carole no longer could. She had given up. And his gift to her, when they spoke of it since her accident, was to tell her she had been right. Even with her scrambled memory, it was an enormous relief to hear him finally admit that to her. Before, in conversations on the phone the year after she left, he always blamed her for leaving too soon. It wasn't, she knew now. It was right. Even fifteen years later she was grateful to know that, just as she was for the things Jason had told her about their marriage. She was beginning to wonder if, in some odd way, the tunnel bombing had been a gift. All of these people had come to her from her past, and opened their hearts. She would never have known any of this otherwise. It was exactly what she had needed for her book, and her life. "You should rest," Matthieu finally said to her, as he saw her eyes grow tired. The police investigation had drained her, and talking about their past was taxing for her too. And then he asked her a question that had haunted him since he had found her again. He had drifted in to see her several times, seemingly casual and politely concerned, but his interest in seeing her was far less offhand than it seemed. And now that she was fully conscious and remembered what they had once meant to each other, he respected the fact that she had a choice. "Would you like me to come and see you again, Carole?" He held his breath as he asked, and she hesitated for a long time. |
| 106 |
Her appetite had improved, and Matthieu could see that the walk had done her good. She looked tired but happy as she stretched her legs out and they talked, as they always did, about a variety of things, philosophical as well as practical. In the old days, he had loved talking politics with her, and valued her opinions. She wasn't up to that yet, nor was she current on French politics. He didn't stay as long this time, and as promised, there was no kiss. The snow of the night before had brought back an avalanche of memories, and with them feelings that had surprised her and lowered her guard. Her boundaries were back in place now, and he respected her for it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. She was vulnerable and frail, and only newly returned to life. He didn't want to take advantage of her, just be with her, in any way she would allow. He was grateful for what they had. It was hard to believe there was anything left, after the scorched earth of the past. "Another walk tomorrow?" he asked before he left, and she nodded, looking pleased. She was enjoying the time she spent with him too. She stood in the doorway of the suite, as he looked down at her with a smile. "I never thought I'd see you again," he said, savoring the moment. "Neither did I," she agreed. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said softly, and then let himself out of her suite. He greeted the two guards on the way out, and walked out of the Ritz with his head down, thinking of her, and how nice it had been just to walk beside her, with her hand tucked into his arm. The next day he met her at three. They walked for an hour, and then drove till six. They parked for a while in the Bois de Boulogne, and talked about their old house. He said he hadn't seen it in years, and they agreed to drive by on the way back to the hotel. It was a pilgrimage she had already made, but now they would make it together. The door to the courtyard was open again, and with the guards waiting discreetly outside, they walked inside side by side. |
| 107 |
Walking in the Luxembourg Gardens with Matthieu brought back a flood of memories for Carole, of all the times she'd been there with her children, and with him. She had come here with him the first time, and a hundred times with Anthony and Chloe after that. They laughingly remembered silly things the kids had done, and other times that had escaped her until then. Walking around Paris with him was bringing back many things she wouldn't have remembered otherwise, most of them good times, and tender moments they had shared. The pain he had caused her seemed a little dimmer now, in contrast to the happiness that came to mind. They were still chatting easily and laughing, when they got out of his car at the Ritz. She had invited him up for dinner in her suite, and he had agreed to come. He was handing his car keys to the voiturier, with her arm tucked into his, when a photographer snapped their picture with a flash of light in their faces. Both of them looked up, startled, and Carole smiled the second time, while Matthieu looked dignified and stern. He didn't like having his photograph taken at the best of times, but particularly not by paparazzi for the gossip press. They had always been careful when they lived together, but now they had far less at risk. They had nothing to hide. It was just unpleasant to be photographed and talked about, and not his style. He was complaining about it as they walked into the hotel. They were using the front door these days, it was easier than having the rue Cambon side opened for her every time. She had been wearing gray slacks and Stevie's coat when they photographed her, with her dark glasses in her hand. They recognized her, obviously, but seemed not to know who Matthieu was. She mentioned it to Stevie when they went upstairs. "They'll figure it out" was all Stevie said. She was worried about the time Carole was spending with Matthieu. But they looked happy and relaxed, as Carole regained her strength day by day. Spending time with him was not hurting her at least. |
| 108 |
Matthieu stayed, talking to her, until ten o'clock that night. They always had a lot to say to each other, and never ran out of topics that interested them both. She had been contacted by the police again, for a further statement about the tunnel bombing. They wanted to know if she remembered anything more, but she didn't. She had been unconscious very quickly, as soon as the car next to her exploded. But they had a mountain of statements from others. The police seemed to feel that, with the exception of the boy who'd come to the hospital, all of the bombers had died. There were no other suspects. Matthieu told her about the cases he was working on at the law firm, and he still insisted he wanted to retire. She thought it was a poor decision, unless he found something else to keep him busy. "You're too young to retire," she insisted. "I wish I were, but I'm not. What about your book?" he asked. "Have you thought any more about it?" "I have," she admitted, but she wasn't ready to go back to work yet. She had other things on her mind, him for instance. He was beginning to fill her head day and night. She was trying to resist it. She didn't want to become obsessed by him, just enjoy him until she left. She realized it was a good thing she was leaving soon, before things got out of hand between them, as they had before. They kissed again before he left that night. It was as much about the past as the present. It was habit mixed with longing, joy and sadness, love and fear. The rest of the time they talked of his work, her book, her career, their respective children, and whatever else came to mind. They never seemed to stop talking, and both of them loved their exchanges of ideas. It challenged her to speak intelligently to him, and forced her to stretch her mind to what it once had been. She still had to struggle for a word or a concept sometimes. And she had not yet figured out how to work her computer. The secrets to her book were still locked in it. Stevie had offered to help her, but she insisted she wasn't ready. |
| 109 |
Stevie was upsetting her, which was exactly what she hoped to do, but she didn't think she was getting through to her. The two women went back to reading the news papers, frustrated with each other. It was rare for them to disagree to that extent. Neither of them spoke to each other until the doctor came to see Carole at noon. She was pleased with Carole's progress, and with all the walking she said she'd done. The muscle tone in her legs was better, her balance was good now, and her memory was improving exponentially. The doctor was confident Carole would be able to go back to Los Angeles when she'd planned to. There was no medical reason why she couldn't. The doctor said she'd come back to see her again in a few days, and told her to continue what she was doing. She said a few words to the nurse, and then left to go back to the hospital. Stevie ordered lunch for Carole after the doctor left, but she left her alone at the table, and ate lunch in her own room. She was too upset by what Carole had said to her to be able to make chitchat with her over lunch. She thought Carole was making the biggest mistake of her life. Love didn't come along every day, and if it had landed in Carole's lap again, Stevie thought it was a crime to waste it. Worse yet, to run away because she was afraid to get hurt again. Carole got bored alone at the lunch table. Stevie had said she had a headache, which Carole suspected wasn't true. She didn't challenge her about it, and after pacing around the living room of the suite for a while, she finally called Matthieu in his office. She thought he might be out to lunch, but called him anyway. His secretary put her through to him immediately. He was eating a sandwich at his desk, and had been in a rotten mood all day. He had bitten his secretary's head off twice, and slammed the door to his office after talking to a client who had annoyed him. He was obviously not having a good day. She had never seen him like that. And she was cautious when she told him who was on the phone. |
| 110 |
They didn't care if they were in the papers. They had nothing to hide. He walked her back to her room and kissed her again in the living room of her suite. Stevie had already gone to bed, after packing up the last of their things. Carole's computer was still on the desk, but she wasn't planning to work that night. "I'm still addicted to you," he said passionately, as he kissed her again. He was looking forward to the discoveries they were going to make when he came to California to stay with her. He remembered only too well how wonderful that had been before. "Don't be," Carole said softly, in response to his comment. She didn't want the craziness of what they'd shared in the past. She wanted something peaceful and warm, not the agonizing passion they had experienced before. But looking at him, she was reminded that this wasn't Sean. It was Matthieu. He was a powerful, passionate man, always had been, and still was, despite his age. Nothing about Matthieu was quiet or lukewarm. Sean hadn't been either, but he had been a different kind of man. Matthieu was a driving force, and a perfect match for her. Together their energy could light the world. It was what had frightened her at first, but she was growing used to it again. They were both wearing their Christmas presents from each other, and they sat in the living room of the suite for a long time and talked. It was one of the things they did best, and the rest would come soon enough. Neither of them had dared to brave any greater physical involvement. She had been too recently injured, and the doctor had suggested she wait, which seemed wiser to both of them. He didn't want to do anything to put her at risk, and he was worried about the flight. Matthieu was coming to take her to the airport in the morning. They were leaving at seven, and she had to check in by eight o'clock for a ten o'clock flight. The neurosurgeon who was traveling with them had promised to be at the Ritz at six thirty, to check her before they left. |
| 111 |
Collectors came there by appointment, through the enormous bronze doors into the courtyard. Straight ahead was the main gallery, to the left the offices of Simon de Suvery, the owner. And to the right was his daughter's addition to the gallery, the contemporary wing. Behind the house was a large elegant garden filled with sculptures, mainly Rodins. Simon de Suvery had been there for more than forty years. His father, Antoine, had been one of the most important collectors in Europe, and Simon had been a scholar of Renaissance paintings and Dutch masters before opening the gallery. Now he was consulted by museums all over Europe, held in awe by private collectors, and admired although often feared by all who knew him. Simon de Suvery was a daunting figure, tall, powerfully built, with stern features and dark eyes that pierced through you right to your soul. Simon had been in no hurry to get married. In his youth, he was too busy establishing his business to waste time on romance. At forty he had married the daughter of an important American collector. It had been a successful and happy union. Marjorie de Suvery had never involved herself directly in the gallery, which was well established before Simon married her. She was fascinated by it, and admired the work he showed. She loved him profoundly and had taken a passionate interest in everything he did. Marjorie had been an artist but never felt comfortable showing her work. She did genteel landscapes and portraits, and often gave them as gifts to friends. In truth, Simon had been affected but never impressed by her work. He was ruthless in his choices, merciless in his decisions for the gallery. He had a will of iron, a mind as sharp as a diamond, a keen business sense, and buried far, far beneath the surface, well concealed at all times, was a kind heart. Or so Marjorie said. Though not everyone believed her. He was fair to his employees, honest with his clients, and relentless in his pursuit of whatever he felt the gallery should have. |
| 112 |
He only socialized when he felt he had to, entertaining clients in one wing of the house. They decided to have children late in their marriage. In fact it was Simon's decision, and they waited ten years to have a child. Knowing how Marjorie longed for children, Simon had finally acceded to her wishes, and was only mildly disappointed when Marjorie gave birth to a daughter and not a son. Simon was fifty when Sasha was born, and Marjorie thirty nine. Sasha instantly became the love of her mother's life. They were constantly together. Marjorie spent hours with her, chortling and cooing, playing with her in the garden. She nearly went into mourning when Sasha began school, and they had to be apart. She was a beautiful and loving child. Sasha was an interesting blend of her parents. She had her father's dark looks and her mother's ethereal softness. Marjorie was an angelic looking blonde with blue eyes, and looked like a madonna in an Italian painting. Sasha had delicate features like her mother, dark hair and eyes like her father, but unlike both her parents, Sasha was fragile and small. Her father used to tease her benevolently and say that she looked like a miniature of a child. But there was nothing small about Sasha's soul. She had the strength and iron will of her father, the warmth and gentle kindness of her mother, and the directness she learned early on from her father. She was four or five before he took serious notice of her, and once he did, all he spoke to her about was art. In his spare time, he would wander through the gallery with her, identifying paintings and masters, showing her their work in art books, and he expected her to repeat their names and even spell them, once she was old enough to write. Rather than rebelling, she drank it all in, and retained every shred of information her father imparted. He was very proud of her. And ever more in love with his wife, who became ill three years after Sasha was born. Marjorie's illness was a mystery at first, and had all their doctors stumped. |
| 113 |
He had no patience with illness or weakness, and thought that anything physical could be mastered and overcome. But rather than overcome it, Marjorie became weaker with time. It was a full year before they got a diagnosis in London, and a confirmation in New York. She had a rare degenerative disease that was attacking her nerves and muscles, and ultimately would cripple her lungs and heart. Simon chose not to accept the prognosis, and Marjorie was valiant about it, complaining little, doing whatever she could for as long as she was able, spending as much time as she had the strength for with her husband and daughter, and resting as much as possible in between. The disease never snuffed out her spirit, but eventually, as predicted, her body succumbed. She was bedridden by the time Sasha was seven, and died shortly after she turned nine. Despite all the doctors had told him, Simon was stunned. And so was Sasha. Neither of her parents had prepared Sasha for her mother's death. Sasha and Simon had both grown accustomed to Marjorie being interested in all they did, and participating in their lives, even while in bed. The sudden realization that she had disappeared from their world hit them both like a bomb, and fused Sasha and her father closer together than they had ever been. Other than the gallery, Sasha then became the focus of Simon's life. Sasha grew up eating, drinking, sleeping, loving art. It was all she knew, all she did, and all she loved, other than her father. She was as devoted to him as he was to her. Even as a child, she knew as much about the gallery, and its complicated and intriguing workings, as any of his employees. And sometimes he thought, even as a young girl, she was smarter about it, and far more creative than anyone he employed. The only thing that annoyed him, and he made no bones about it, was her ever increasing passion for modern and contemporary art. Contemporary work irritated him particularly, and he never hesitated to call it junk, privately or otherwise. |
| 114 |
Miraculously, both her babies managed to arrive in the summer, right after she finished her classes. She hired a nanny to help her with them while she was in school and working at the museum. She had learned how to keep many balls in the air, while watching her father run the gallery when she was a child. She loved her busy life, and adored Arthur and her two children. And although Simon was a somewhat hesitant grandfather at first, he warmed to it quickly. They were enchanting children. Sasha spent every spare moment with them she could, singing the same songs and playing the same nursery games her mother had played with her. In fact, Tatianna looked so much like her maternal grandmother that it unnerved Simon at first, but as Tatianna grew older, he loved just sitting and watching her, and thinking of his late wife. It was like seeing her reborn as a little girl. True to his word, Arthur moved the entire family to Paris when Sasha finished her two year internship at the Met in New York. The investment bank was literally giving him the Paris office to run, at thirty six, and had full confidence in him, as did Sasha. She was going to be even busier there than she had been in New York, where she'd been working only part time at the museum, and spent the rest of her time caring for her children. In Paris, she was going to work at the gallery with her father. She was ready for it now. He had agreed to let her leave by three o'clock every day, so she could be with her children. And she knew she would have a lot of entertaining to do for her husband. She returned to Paris, victorious, educated, excited, and undaunted, and thrilled to be home again. And so was Simon to have her home, and working with him at last. He had waited twenty six years for that moment, and it had finally come, much to their mutual delight. He still appeared as stern as he had when she was a child, but even Arthur noticed, once they moved to Paris, that Simon was softening almost imperceptibly with age. |
| 115 |
He even chatted with his grandchildren from time to time, although most of the time, when he visited, he preferred to just sit and observe them. He had never felt at ease with young children, not even Sasha when she was small. By the time they moved back to Paris, he was seventy six years old. And Sasha's life began in earnest from that moment. Their first decision was where to live, and Simon stunned them by solving their dilemma for them. Sasha had been planning to look for an apartment on the Left Bank. Their small family was already too large for the apartment the bank owned in the sixteenth arrondissement. Simon volunteered to move out of his wing of the house, the elegant three floor domain he had occupied for his entire marriage, and the years before and after. He insisted it was far too big for him, and claimed the stairs were hard on his knees, although Sasha didn't quite believe him. Her father still walked for miles. He volunteered to move to the other side of the courtyard, on the top floor of the wing they used for additional offices and storage. He quickly set to work remodeling it with charming oeil de boeuf windows under a mansard roof, and put in a funny little motorized seat, which sped up and down the stairs, and delighted his grandchildren, when he let them ride it. He walked up the stairs beside them while they squealed with excitement. Sasha helped him with the decorating and remodeling, which instantly gave her an idea. Not one he liked at first. It was a plan she'd had for years, and had dreamed of all her life. She wanted to expand the gallery to include contemporary artists. The wing that had previously been used for storage was perfect for her plan. It was across the courtyard from their offices and her father's new home. Admittedly, opening the ground floor would cramp their storage space, but she had already consulted an architect to build highly efficient storage racks upstairs. At her first mention of selling contemporary work, Simon went through the roof. |
| 116 |
Although gentler in style, Sasha was as tough as he was, and had held her ground. Once the plan was agreed to, she didn't even dare meet her new artists in their main offices because her father was so rude to them. But Sasha was as stubborn as he was. A year after they moved back to Paris, she opened the contemporary arm of the gallery with style and fanfare. And much to her father's astonishment, to unfailingly great reviews, not just because she was Sasha de Suvery but because she had an eye for good, solid contemporary work, just as her father did in what he knew best. Remarkably, Sasha kept a foot in both worlds. She was knowledgeable about what he sold so competently and brilliant about newer work. By the time she was thirty, three years after she had opened Suvery Contemporary on his premises, it was the most important contemporary gallery in Paris, and perhaps in Europe. And she'd never had so much fun in her life. Nor had Arthur. He loved what she did, and supported her in every move, every decision, every investment, even more than her father, who remained reluctant though ultimately respectful of what she'd accomplished with contemporary work. In fact, she had brought his gallery into the present with a bang. Arthur loved the contrast between her business life and his own. He loved the playfulness of the art she showed, and the zaniness of her artists, in contrast to the bankers he dealt with. He traveled with her frequently to other cities when she went to see new artists, and loved going to art fairs with her. They had transformed their three floor wing of the house into nearly a museum of contemporary art by emerging artists. And the work she sold at Suvery Contemporary was far more financially accessible than the Impressionists and Old Masters sold by her father. Their business thrived on both. Sasha had been running her arm of the business for eight years when they faced their first real crisis. The bank Arthur had become a partner of years before insisted that he come back to Wall Street to run it. |
| 117 |
She felt like an orphan a month later, when she finally flew home to New York. The stores and streets decorated for Christmas seemed like an affront after the loss she had just sustained. It was a long hard year for her. But in spite of that, both branches of the gallery flourished. The ensuing years were peaceful, happy, and productive. She missed her father, but slowly put down roots in New York, as her children grew up. And she still returned to Paris twice a month, to continue to oversee the gallery there. Eight years after her father's death, both galleries were strong and equally successful. Arthur was talking about retiring at fifty seven. His career had been respectable and productive, but he privately admitted to Sasha he was bored. Xavier was twenty four, living and painting in London, and showing at a small gallery in Soho. And although Sasha loved his paintings, he was not ready for her to show. Her love for him did not blind her to the progress he still needed to make. He was talented, but as an artist not yet fully mature. But he was passionate about his work. He loved everything about the art world he was part of in London, and Sasha was proud of him. She thought he would be a great artist one day. And in time, she hoped to show his work. Tatianna had graduated from Brown four months before, with a degree in fine arts and photography, and had just started a job as the third assistant to a well known photographer in New York, which meant she got to change film for him occasionally, bring him coffee, and sweep the floors. Her mother assured her that that was the way it worked at first. Neither of her children had any interest in working at the gallery with her. They thought what she did was wonderful, but they wanted to pursue their own lives and work. Sasha realized how rare it had been to learn all she had from her father, the opportunity he had given her, and the priceless education she'd had of growing into the business with him. She was sorry she couldn't do the same with her children. |
| 118 |
At her core she was still French. Arthur wasn't opposed to the idea of living in Paris again once he retired, and they had been talking about it more seriously that fall. It was October and the very last of the hot weather, on a sunny Friday afternoon, as Sasha made a brief inspection tour of some paintings they were planning to sell to a museum in Boston. They kept their Old Masters and more traditional work on the brownstone's two upper floors. The contemporary work they were also now famous for was on the first and second floors. Sasha's office was tucked away in a back corner on the main floor. After her tour of the upper floors, she put some papers in her briefcase, and looked out at the sculpture garden behind her office. Like most of their contemporary work, it was a reflection of Sasha's taste. She loved looking out at the pieces in the garden, especially when it snowed. But snow was still two months away, as she picked up her bulging briefcase. She was going to be out of the gallery the following week. She was leaving on Sunday morning for Paris, to check on things there. She still made a routine visit every two weeks, as she had since her father's death eight years before. She was a hands on dealer, in both cities, and was used to the commute by now. It seemed easy to her. She managed to have a life, and friends, as well as clients, in both cities. Sasha was as much at ease in Paris as New York. She was thinking about the weekend ahead, as the phone rang, just as she was about to leave her office. It was Xavier, calling her from London, as she glanced at her watch and realized it was nearly midnight there. She smiled the moment she heard his voice. Both her children were precious to her, but in some ways she was closer to Xavier. He had always been easier for her. Tatianna was closer to her father, and also like Sasha's father in some ways. There had always been something hard and judgmental about her, and she was less inclined to bend and compromise than her older brother. |
| 119 |
It was one of those rare times in their lives when she felt their life in flux. It had seemed that way to her since Tatianna graduated and moved to her own place. Sasha's life felt empty at times now with the children gone. Arthur teased her about it whenever she said it, and reminded her that she was one of the busiest women in New York, or anywhere else. But she missed the children anyway. They had been an integral and vital part of her life, and she felt sad at times, diminished and less useful now that they were gone. She was grateful that she and Arthur enjoyed traveling and spending time together. If possible, they were even closer now than they had ever been, and even more in love. Twenty five years had not diminished their love and passion for each other. If anything, familiarity and time had added a bond to them that attached them more and more to each other with age. Arthur was waiting for her at the apartment when she got home, and smiled the moment he saw her. He was still wearing the white shirt he had worn to the office, with his sleeves rolled up. His jacket was casually tossed over the back of a chair. He had already put a few things into a bag for the weekend at their house in Southampton. She was planning to toss a salad and put some cold chicken on a plate. They liked leaving after the traffic; it was murder on summer and fall weekends. "How was your day?" he asked, planting a kiss somewhere on the top of her head. She wore her dark hair pulled back in a knot, as she had for her entire lifetime. In the Hamptons on the weekends, she wore it down her back in a long braid. She loved wearing old clothes, jeans, tattered sweaters, or faded T shirts. It was a relief not to have to be dressed as she was in the gallery every day. Arthur loved to play golf and walk on the beach. He had been an avid sailor in his youth, as their children were, and he loved playing tennis with her. Most of the time, on the weekends, she did some gardening, or curled up with a book. |
| 120 |
The honoree had been widowed the previous year, and was going out with a new man no one seemed to like. She had dated several people in the last year, none of whom was a hit with her friends. Everyone was very fond of her, and hoped the latest new man would vanish soon. Her late husband had been one of Arthur's closest friends, and had died a long, slow death from cancer. He had died at fifty two, and his widow was the same age. She made bad jokes about how depressing it was to be back on the market after twenty nine years of marriage. Arthur and Sasha both felt sorry for her, so they put up with her grim dates. Sasha knew better than anyone, from their conversations, how lonely she was. "I'll try to come home Thursday, otherwise Friday. I want to see Xavier and it depends when he can come." Sasha filled him in on her plans. "Give him my love," Arthur said, and they chatted for a few more minutes. She made herself a salad after they hung up, went through some papers the gallery manager had left for her to look at, and opened her Paris mail. There were invitations to several parties, a flood of announcements of art openings, and a letter from a friend. She rarely went to dinner parties in Paris, except when given by important clients, where she felt she had to go. She didn't like going out without Arthur, and enjoyed the quiet life they led, except for art events, or dinners with close friends. She called Xavier, as promised, and he was out. She left a message on his machine. She was in bed by midnight, asleep shortly after, and in the morning awoke at eight to the sound of her alarm. It was raining and misty, and looked like the heart of winter. She put on her raincoat to run across the courtyard to the gallery at nine thirty, and met with her manager at ten o'clock. The gallery was closed on Mondays, which gave them all a peaceful day to work. She and Bernard, the manager, were planning shows and ad schedules for the following year. She ate at her desk, and the afternoon sped by. |
| 121 |
Sasha couldn't even get her mind around it, and didn't want to try. Her secretary and her gallery manager drove her to the airport, and after hovering over her like worried parents, they put her on the plane. They discreetly explained to the agent at the gate what had happened, after she boarded. They were both afraid of how she would be on the plane. Bernard, her manager, had offered to fly with her, but Sasha had bravely declined, and regretted it the moment the plane took off. She was overwhelmed by a wave of panic so powerful, she was afraid she would have a heart attack herself. One of the flight attendants told another that Sasha had literally turned green and broken out in a sweat. They covered her in blankets, asked the passenger next to her to move to another seat, and the purser had sat next to her for a short time. They asked her if she had tranquilizers with her and she said she didn't, and never took them. But she had never before lost her husband, either. She hadn't even felt this way when her father died, which was bad enough. But he had been eighty nine years old, and he himself had warned her frequently that it would happen one day, and she knew it would. She had been prepared for it, more or less. But not for this. Not Arthur. He had told her he loved her only the day before. She had left him asleep in bed in Southampton, and now he was gone. It wasn't possible. It wasn't happening. Except it was. The only time she remembered feeling this way, totally out of control and frightened, was when her mother had died when she was nine. Now she felt like a child again. An orphan. She cried all the way to New York. And after a call from Bernard in Paris, Marcie had come to the airport, and was waiting for Sasha as she came through customs. She had left Tatianna with a friend at the apartment. Marcie didn't ask her how she was. She didn't need to. Sasha could hardly talk. She was the most capable woman Marcie had ever known, and she looked utterly destroyed. |
| 122 |
They finally ate pizza that night, and nothing else. Tatianna went to sleep in her old bedroom, Xavier went out with friends and came home drunk. Sasha sat in the living room staring into space. She couldn't stand going back to their bedroom, all she wanted was him. And when she finally went to bed that night, too exhausted to sleep, she could smell his aftershave on his pillow, and burrowed her face in it and sobbed. Marcie stayed and slept on the couch, faithful friend that she was. She spent hours that night calling their friends and telling them about the funeral. She called the gallery in Paris. Everyone there was coming. Marcie ordered the flowers, Sasha picked the music. Friends began to drop by and offered to help. Ushers were chosen from among Arthur's partners and best friends. Sasha felt as though she would die when she had to pick his clothes. And somehow they all got to the funeral dressed, and on time. People came to the house afterward. And long after, Sasha admitted that she remembered absolutely nothing. Not the music or the flowers, or the people who were there. She had no recollection of who had come to the apartment. She had appeared normal and sane, and as composed as was possible. But essentially, she was in shock. And so were her children. They clung to each other like people off a ship that sank, and were drowning. And Sasha was. The hardest part came the day after. Real life, without Arthur. The day to day horror of living without him. The pain of it was beyond belief. Like surgery without anesthesia, Sasha could not believe what it was like waking up every day, knowing she would not see him and never would again. Everything that had once been dear and wonderful and easy was now agonizing and excruciatingly hard. There were no rewards to getting through the days without him, no point getting up in the morning, nothing to look forward to, no reason to stay alive, except for her children. Xavier went back to London after two weeks. He called his mother often. |
| 123 |
It was May before she felt even halfway human again. By then, it was seven months since Arthur's death. All she had done since then was travel to Paris once a month, where she sat huddled and freezing in the house at night, finished her work as quickly as possible, and flew back to New York. She delegated as much as possible to both her gallery managers during those months, and she was grateful for their help. Without them, she would have been utterly and totally lost, and nearly was. Sundays were the worst days of all for her, in either city, because she couldn't go to work. She hadn't been to the house in the Hamptons since he died. She didn't want to go back without him, nor did she want to sell it. She just let it sit there, and told her children to use it whenever they wanted. She wasn't going to. She had absolutely no idea what to do with the rest of her life. Other than work, which was now completely devoid of joy for her, but it was the only saving grace she had. The rest looked like a wasteland of despair. She had never felt as lost or without hope in her entire life. Both of her gallery managers, and even Marcie, were urging her to see friends. She hadn't returned any calls, except for those from the gallery, in months. And even those calls she handed off to others whenever she could. She hadn't wanted to talk to anyone since Arthur died. In May, she finally felt a little better. Much to her own amazement, she accepted a dinner invitation from Alana in June, and regretted it as soon as she did. She regretted it even more when the night arrived. The last thing she wanted was to put on clothes and go out. Marcie had told her that Arthur would want her to go out. He would have been devastated if he could see the state she was in. She had lost nearly twenty pounds. People who didn't know her well said she looked fabulous, and had no idea why. To them, being emaciated from grief looked fashionable and trim. So, on a fateful night in June, she went out for the first time. |
| 124 |
She felt oddly detached these days and rootless. She spent the rest of the month in the house in Paris, feeling like a marble in a shoebox. The whole world felt too big for her now without Arthur. Her life was like a pair of shoes that no longer fit. She had never felt so small in her entire life. Even when her father died, she had Arthur around constantly to buffer it for her. Now she had no one, except memories of him, and occasional visits with her kids. She went back to New York at the end of August, and was finally brave enough to go to Southampton over the Labor Day weekend. It was the first time she had been back in nearly a year, and in some ways it was a relief. It was like finding a piece of him again, a piece she had sorely missed. The closet was still full of his things, and when she looked at their bed, she remembered the last time she had seen him. He had whispered that he loved her the morning she left, she had kissed him, and he went back to sleep. The memories were overpowering here, and she spent hours thinking of him and walking on the beach. But here, finally, she felt the healing begin. She went back to the gallery looking better after the Labor Day weekend. For nearly a month now, she had been toying with an idea. She hadn't made a decision yet. It was something she had planned with Arthur. And now it made even more sense to her than before. She wanted to go home. Being in New York without him was too hard for her. September sped by with an opening for a new artist, which she curated, and another solo show. She curated all their shows, choosing which work to hang, and where to hang it, seeking contrasts and combinations that would set each painting off to its best advantage. She had an instinctive knack for it and always loved it. She also met with several old, familiar clients, sat on her museum boards, and was planning a memorial service for Arthur, to mark the first year since his death. Xavier had promised to fly in for it. The service was, predictably, a somber moment for all of them. |
| 125 |
The gallery was doing a booming business. She met with many of their most important clients, who seemed to want to make important purchases, or sell part of their collections, before the end of the year. And she spoke to Xavier in London nearly every day. She had arranged a skiing trip for herself and both her children. They were leaving the day after Christmas for St. Moritz. She also had several important clients there. Her social life in Paris was far more formal than it normally was in New York. Her clients in New York were successful but often more informal, and many of them had become friends over the years. The people she liked there were interesting and varied in their origins and lines of work. In Paris, there were certain social lines drawn that were more typical of Europe. Her major clients came from aristocratic, often titled, backgrounds, or fortunes that had been established for generations, like the Rothschilds, and others who entertained lavishly, many of whom had been her father's friends as well. The parties she was invited to were infinitely dressier and more elaborate than those she went to in New York, or did when Arthur was alive. And here the invitations were harder to turn down, since many of the people who invited her had bought important pieces of work from her. She felt obliged to go. She complained about it to Xavier, and he insisted it would do her good. But even at her age, she was often by far the youngest person in the room, and more often than not, she was bored. For business reasons, if no other, she went anyway. And was always happy to go home. In mid December, working in her office on yet another gray foggy day, her secretary told her that a client had come to see her. She had met him at a dinner party the night before. He was interested in buying an important piece of Flemish work, and she was pleased that he had followed up on their conversation. She left her office to see him, and showed him several paintings that he seemed to like. |
| 126 |
Both of them met people they went out with at night. And more often than not, Sasha ate dinner in her room alone. She didn't mind. She had brought several books with her, and she didn't want to be part of the nightlife. She was rested, happy, and relaxed, when they went back to Paris. Tatianna only stayed a few days, she wanted to get back to New York to find a job, and Xavier lingered a day or two after she left, and then went back to his studio in London. Before he left, his friend Liam Allison's slides arrived. And much to her surprise and chagrin, they were even better than Xavier had promised. Sasha was impressed, although in order to make a decision about representing him, she needed to see his paintings in the flesh. "I'll try to come over next week, or maybe the week after," she told Xavier, and meant it. But it was the last week in January when she finally went to London, to see three of her artists, and meet Liam. She fitted him into her schedule on her last afternoon in London, with some trepidation. The adventures and bad behavior Xavier had described to her did not make her anxious to represent him, but his talent was impossible to ignore. She felt she had to see him. And once in his studio, she was glad she'd come. Liam let her into the studio himself with a look of anxiety, and a nervous smile. Xavier had accompanied her, and patted his friend on the shoulder to give him courage. He knew how anxious Liam was. Sasha seemed cool and businesslike when she walked in, and almost stern. She had worn black jeans and a black sweater, black boots, her hair looked almost as black as the sweater, and as she often did, she had pulled it tightly back and wound it into a bun. And even as small as she was, Liam thought she looked terrifying when he shook her hand. He knew that whatever she said, or thought, about his work would have an impact on his life forever. If she dismissed it as inadequate, or decided it wasn't worthy of being represented by her gallery, he would feel it almost like a physical blow. |
| 127 |
As he watched her cross the studio, he felt vulnerable and afraid. She thanked him politely for inviting her to come. He had no way of knowing, despite everything Xavier had said, that what appeared to be coolness to him was in fact that she herself was shy. What interested her was the art, even more than the person. But undeniably, Liam himself was hard to ignore. She had heard too many stories about him from her son. She knew what an outrageous, often badly behaved, person he was. The only mitigating factor, she hoped, was his wife and three children. She thought that he couldn't be totally irresponsible and without merit, if he had a wife and family. Xavier had never suggested that he was promiscuous, only that he was "irrepressible" and a prankster of the first order, and he didn't like being told how to behave. He resisted any effort to modify his behavior, or expectation of his acting like a grown up, as a form of "control." According to Xavier, he leaned heavily on the fact that he was an artist, and felt it gave him license not to live by anyone else's rules, and to do anything he wanted. It was a style she wasn't unfamiliar with, but she often found people like him hard to deal with. They worked when they wanted to, played when they didn't, and usually missed their deadlines for shows. Men like him wanted to be treated like children. Apparently, his wife was willing to do that. Sasha wasn't, no matter how handsome or charming he was. If he was serious about his work, to some extent at least, she expected him to act like an adult, or at least pretend to be one. Given all she'd heard, she wasn't at all sure that Liam was prepared to grow up. And in the end, charming or not, his work would have to speak for itself. She walked slowly across the studio to where he had hung several large, bright paintings. There were three more smaller paintings set up on easels. Liam's work was stunning and powerful, his use of colors was strong, and the size of his larger canvases made the work even more so. |
| 128 |
She knew from the bio he had sent her with the slides that he was thirty nine. Looking at him, she would never have believed it. He had studied with some very important artists, and had had a few minor shows at small galleries. But he looked like a kid. Everything about him seemed loose and free and young. He was tall, lanky, and handsome. He had straight blond hair that hung down his back most of the time. He had tied it in a ponytail to meet her. But his face was smooth and youthful. He had powerful shoulders, long graceful hands, and he bounced around his studio like a teenager in sneakers, blue jeans, and T shirt, all covered with paint. He towered over her like an anxious child, as he begged her for the contract. "It's at the hotel," she told him reassuringly, suddenly sounding like a mother. Now that he was about to become one of her artists, she felt protective of him. "I'll drop it off before I leave, or send it by messenger. I'm not going to change my mind, Liam. I never do that," she said gently. Her voice was calm, and it touched her that he was so excited. He said this was one of the defining moments of his life. She didn't think it was, but she was happy it meant so much to him. That was what she loved best about showing emerging artists. She was able to give them a chance. She had always loved that about that side of the business, working with young artists like him. Although Xavier was right, he wasn't that young, but he looked it. Everything about him was boyish. He was only nine years younger than she was, but he acted about fourteen, and looked somewhere in his mid twenties, not thirty nine. He seemed no older than Xavier to her, and made her feel maternal toward him. "Do you want to show the contract to your wife?" The studio was such a mess it was obvious he didn't live there, and there was no sign of the wife and three children that Xavier had mentioned. She imagined that they lived somewhere else, although his clothes seemed to be strewn everywhere, covered with paint. |
| 129 |
They looked like two boys in a clubhouse to Sasha, and she just hoped he behaved at Harry's Bar that night. You couldn't always tell with artists, which was why she rarely took them there. But she decided to take a chance on Liam. There was something innocent and enchanting about him, and if he got out of line, or loud and boisterous, she would tell him to behave. Her artists were like children to her, sometimes even the old ones. She felt like their surrogate mother, which was a lot of work, but it was part of what she loved about her job. The artists were her little chicks, and she the mother hen. And although she wasn't that much older than he, Liam looked like he needed a mother, like Peter Pan. "Let's have dinner at eight. I'll have my driver pick you up at seven thirty, and you can pick me up at the hotel. I'll be downstairs," she said as she and Xavier left. "Don't forget to bring the contract," he reminded her as they started down the stairs. It had been a productive afternoon for both of them, and Liam was excited about dinner. He wanted to talk to her about the show, and the amount of work she wanted. He was willing to work like a galley slave for the next year to produce the best work he'd ever done. He wasn't going to let her down. This was his big chance, and Liam knew it. He had worked all his life for this moment. And however badly he allowed himself to behave in his private life, or on his evenings out with Xavier, Liam had always been serious about his work. He had known from his childhood that he had been born to paint. It had set him apart and isolated him even as a child, and later as a teenager and young man. He had always known he was different, and didn't really mind. His mother had always encouraged him, and told him he had to follow his dreams. The rest of his family hadn't been nearly as enthused, and even his own father had treated him like a freak. It had created a chasm between them forever. It was as though only his mother was able to see his special genius. |
| 130 |
As promised, she was waiting downstairs, and slipped into the car next to Liam when they arrived. He was wearing a decent looking black suit, and a red shirt he had painted himself that had once been white. He had forgotten that was what he had done with his other good shirt, the one he had not used to wax his car. He painted it one night when he was drunk, and thought it was funny. Now, as he had discovered that night, it was the only shirt he had. He hoped Sasha liked it. She didn't, but didn't comment. He was an artist. So was her son, and if he had worn something like it to Harry's Bar, she would have killed him. But Liam was not her son. Without appearing to, she glanced at his shoes, which were almost respectable, but not quite. They were serious, grown up black shoes, meant to have laces, and for some obscure reason, he had thrown the laces out. He realized while he dressed that he had probably used them for something, maybe to wrap a package he had sent somewhere, but he could no longer remember what. He thought the shoes looked better without laces anyway, and he preferred them that way. He was clean shaven, freshly showered, smelled delicious, and had impeccably clean hair, tied with a plain black ribbon he had wound around the rubber band on his long blond ponytail. He looked handsome and immaculate, and except for the shirt and absence of laces in his shoes, he would have looked respectable, but he was an artist after all. Liam didn't follow the rules, and never had. He saw no reason to follow anyone else's rules but his own, which was partly why his wife had stayed in Vermont, and hadn't seen him since July. In spite of the painted red shirt and ponytail, there was something distinctly handsome and aristocratic about him. He was a beautiful man, and a man of contrasts. In another lifetime or profession, he could have been an actor or a model, a lawyer or a banker, but the shirt he had painted red said that he was not only an artist but a rebellious child. |
| 131 |
She didn't want to hurt his feelings, and the shirt was, after all, a work of art. She didn't notice the lack of shoelaces until they were standing in Harry's Bar. And as he hopped onto a stool at the bar, she saw that he wasn't wearing socks either. The headwaiter knew her well, and without saying a word, he handed Liam a long black tie, which actually looked fine with his shirt, once he put it on. She helped him tie it, as she had for Xavier when he was a child. Liam said he hadn't worn a tie in years and had forgotten how to tie one. He looked completely unconcerned. The fact that everyone else in the room was exquisitely dressed, the men in beautifully tailored suits and shirts custom made in Paris, the women in cocktail dresses by important designers, didn't bother him at all. One thing Liam didn't lack was confidence, except where Sasha was concerned. He wanted to impress her, and was not at all sure how. She looked so capable and confident, so quietly poised as she chatted with him, that he suddenly felt like the innocent he was. She treated him like a child. She told him he looked fine when he asked, and she walked into the restaurant proudly beside him, and acted as though every man in the place should have looked like that. It made Liam almost giddy to walk beside her, and he felt like Picasso when he sat down. He had already asked her about the contract twice in the car. To spare his nerves and her own, she handed it to him at the table. He signed it without looking at it, despite her warnings to do otherwise, and then he beamed at her. He was a Suvery artist now. It was all he had wanted and dreamed of for the past ten years of his life. It had finally happened, and he was going to savor every moment of it. He knew this was a night he would never forget, nor would Sasha. She suspected that one day they would laugh about this evening, when he had walked into Harry's Bar in a shirt he had painted himself. Despite his youth and zany looks, there was an aura of greatness about him. |
| 132 |
She drank two glasses. Then, without batting an eye, Liam finished the rest. By then, he had told her that he was the black sheep of his family. His father was a banker and lived in San Francisco, his two brothers were a doctor and a lawyer, and they had both married debutantes. Liam said he had always been different right from the start. His brothers had tormented him by telling him he was adopted, which he wasn't. But right from the beginning, he'd been different. He hated all the things they loved, hated sports, didn't do well in school, while they were brilliant students. They were both captains of the varsity teams they played on, in football, basketball, and hockey. Instead, he had sat alone in his room, painting. And they teased him cruelly, by throwing away his paintings. Liam told Sasha that his father had let him know early on that he was a severe disappointment and an embarrassment to them. For a brief nightmarish year, to punish him for bad grades, he had been sent to military school. He had snuck into the cafeteria one night, and painted caricatures of all the teachers on the wall, some of them pornographic, which had been his clever plan to get expelled, which, he told Sasha with a broad grin, had been very effective. And once he got home, the torture at the hands of his family continued. Finally, not knowing what else to do with him, they ignored him completely. They acted as though he didn't exist, forgot to call him to dinner at night, and didn't bother to speak to him when he was in the same room with them. He became a nonperson in his own family, and eventually a total outcast. The worse they treated him, the worse he got, and the more he misbehaved. Since he didn't fit in, or comply with their rules and plans for him, they completely shut him out. More than once, he had heard his father say he had two sons, instead of three. Liam didn't conform to the way his family did things, so they shunned him. And eventually, he acted out his outcast role in school as well. |
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But the rest of the time, no one paid any attention to him, in school or at home. The other students referred to him as "the wacky artist," which had been a deep insult at first, and then he decided that he liked it, and played it to the hilt. Sometimes, as a teenager, he wondered if he was insane. "I figured out that if I let myself be just what they said I was, a wacky artist, I could do anything I wanted, so I did. I did whatever I felt like." And eventually, since he never bothered to study, he got expelled from one school after another. He had dropped out of school finally in his senior year, and never bothered to graduate, until his wife forced him to get his diploma once they were married. But school had meant nothing to him. It was just a place where he was tortured for being different. According to Liam, no one except his mother had ever recognized or cared that he had talent. Art was not an acceptable occupation in his family. Only sports and academics mattered, and he didn't qualify in either, or even attempt to. Sasha wondered if he had had an undetected learning disability to be so resistant to school. Many of her artists did, and it had been a source of deep unhappiness for them, compensated for by their artistic talent. But she didn't know Liam well enough to ask him, so she didn't, and just listened to his story with compassion and interest. He insisted that he had known he wanted to be an artist from the moment he came out of the womb. Once on Christmas morning, before everyone got up, he had painted a mural in their living room, and after that he painted the grand piano and the couch. The shirt was obviously just a more recent version of the same form of art. He had been seven on that fateful morning, and couldn't understand why no one liked or appreciated what he'd done. His father had spanked him, and in a somewhat disconnected but emotional recital, he explained that after that, his mother had gotten very sick. She died the following summer, and from then on, his life was a nightmare. |
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His only protector, and the only person who loved and accepted him, had vanished. Some nights, they didn't even bother to feed him. It was as though he had died with her. And art became his only comfort, and outlet, his only remaining bond with her, since she loved all that he did. He told Sasha that for years and sometimes even now, he felt as though he was painting for his mother. There were tears in his eyes when he said it. Everyone else in his family acted as though he was crazy, and still did. He said he hadn't seen his father and brothers in years. He had met his wife, Beth, during a ski trip to Vermont, after he left home at eighteen and was painting in New York. He had married her at nineteen, when he was painting and starving in Greenwich Village. She had worked like a dog, according to Liam, and supported him ever since, much to her family's chagrin. They were as conservative as his family and didn't like him either. They hated him for his lack of responsibility and inability to support their daughter. He and Beth had three children, two boys who were seventeen and eleven, and a little girl who was five. They were the light of his life, and so was Beth, until she went back to Vermont, to her family, the previous July. "Do you think she'll come back?" Sasha asked with a look of concern. There was something so gentle and vulnerable about him that it made her want to put her arms around him and fix everything for him. But she knew from experience with other artists that the messes they created in their lives were often damn near impossible to fix. His relationship with his family sounded as though it was beyond salvation, and probably not even worth trying. But it tugged at her heart when she listened to him talk about the lonely childhood he'd had and then about his wife and kids. He seemed lost without them, and Sasha sensed much left unsaid. Liam looked at her honestly in answer to her question about Beth returning, hesitated for a moment, and then shook his head. |
| 135 |
She knew it wasn't. She slept fitfully that night, thinking of him, and was at her desk at nine the next morning. It was only eight o'clock in London. She wondered what Liam was doing, and if he would try to call her. It was Saturday, and she didn't need to be at work, but she had nothing else to do. She had turned down several invitations to dinner parties and luncheons for that weekend. The weather was terrible, and it was too depressing just sitting in her house. She'd rather be working. He called her at four o'clock that afternoon, and she didn't take it. She asked the young woman working in the gallery to tell him she was out, and to call Bernard on Monday. Bernard, very sensibly, did not work on weekends. He had a wife, three children, and a house in Normandy where he took them on the weekends. When Arthur had been alive, she hadn't worked on weekends either. Now it was all she had to fill her days and distract her. Ever since Arthur's death, the weekends were brutal. They closed the gallery at six, and she went back to her house at seven. She had brought a stack of art magazines home with her, and turned on the lights. It was dinnertime, and she wasn't hungry. She reminded herself yet again, as she made a cup of tea, that there was no point thinking about Liam. It would get her nowhere, except miserable and crazy. The doorbell rang as she poured the tea. It rang endlessly, which told her that the guardian was out. She ran across the courtyard to the big bronze outer door, with no idea who it could be. No one ever rang their doorbell at night. She looked through the peephole and could see no one there, and then hit the buzzer to open one side of the big bronze door. Maybe someone had left something outside. As she pulled the door open and looked around, she saw Liam standing in front of her, drenched, in the pouring rain. He was carrying a small bag, and wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. He was wearing a pair of old cowboy boots, and his long blond hair was plastered to his head in the rain. |
| 136 |
If anything, she had gotten firmer in her resolve not to get involved with him, despite the dog, which was a lovely gift, but still didn't convince her that he was the man for her. "Don't call me, unless it's about gallery business. I don't want to discuss this with you again. We just go around and around, and drive each other crazy." But he drove her even more so when she was near him. She had never been as physically attracted to any man in her life. It was hard for her to understand and even harder still to resist. "I'll call you this week," he said, but didn't, which Sasha felt was a relief. It pained her to do it, but she believed she had finally persuaded him to let it go. No matter how much she wanted to be with him again, she knew she couldn't. The one consolation in her life that week was the joy of the puppy Liam had sent her. Socks was adorable, and despite frequent accidents on her carpets, Sasha was enchanted with her. It had been the best gift he could give her. The next best gift was leaving her alone, which he did. The weather was awful in Paris again that weekend, gray wintry days that seemed relentless. Foggy mornings, rainy nights, and depressing afternoons with bitter winds that chilled you to the bone. She worked late on Friday, went to bed early, and was at her desk at the gallery by nine the next morning, with the dog. Everyone was in love with Socks, even Bernard. Sasha worked in the gallery all day Saturday, and she was sitting alone in her house with the puppy on Saturday night. Liam hadn't called her since Monday, and in some ways, she was relieved. In others, she was sad. She was crazy about him, but in every way that mattered, he was forbidden fruit. A fruit she was determined not to touch or eat, whatever it cost her. He was a sacrifice she had to make. It was nine o'clock on Saturday night when her doorbell rang. It wasn't the outer door, but the one to her house. Sasha assumed it was the guardian, since she hadn't heard the bell ring on the big bronze outer door. |
| 137 |
He had upset her terribly walking in on her client meeting. As far as Sasha was concerned, it didn't bode well for the future. It had unnerved her. In spite of that, she took him to dinner at Le Voltaire that night. It had become his favorite restaurant too. He didn't have to get dressed up to go there. He could wear his jeans, leather jacket, and cowboy boots, even though some of the most stylish and sophisticated people in Paris went there. He was in a much better mood after a great bottle of wine. But she was still uneasy after their brief but heated quarrel that afternoon. He had felt disrespected, and she had been outraged at his cavalier behavior while she was conducting business. He was going to have to learn the ground rules very soon. Something had to give, and he was it. If not, they were going to run aground very quickly. It took her the rest of the evening to calm down, and by the next day she did. For the rest of the week, everything went smoothly between them. Bernard commented to Sasha that Liam seemed to be staying in Paris for a long time, but she didn't think he suspected why. She told him that Liam couldn't afford to stay in a hotel, and was using Xavier's room, which made sense to him. But if he stayed with her often, and for long enough, she knew that sooner or later their secret would come out. They had an easy, fun weekend. They went to the movies, had lunch at the Brasserie Lipp on Sunday, and coffee afterward at the Deux Magots. She tried to take him to the bar at the Ritz for a drink, but they wouldn't let him in wearing jeans, unless he was staying at the hotel, which Liam said was dumb. It was, but they had rules, too. Liam had very few. His were about being decent and kind and affectionate, not about behaving properly. And he was always loving to her. There was no doubt in her mind that she loved him, but she was nonetheless worried that he would do something alarming to expose their situation, and she wasn't ready for that to happen yet. |
| 138 |
He was a boy, not a man, and acted like one. At times he was age appropriate, at others he was an unruly teenager. She expected more of him at nearly forty. He really was Peter Pan. She thought Bernard was being sarcastic with his comments at first, and curious about their relationship. And then she realized he was sincere in what he'd said about her houseguest. He thought Sasha had been an incredibly good sport to let him stay there for so long. Apparently, their secret was still safe. It would never have occurred to Bernard that Sasha was involved with Liam. And in any case, it looked like the relationship was over. She sat and waited for the phone to ring at night, once Liam went back to London. It never did. He never called, nor did she. They had come to an impasse over his ridiculous demands and childish behavior. She hadn't expected their affair to last forever, but she had expected it to last longer than it had. There was no point calling him, since he had made his terms clear to her. Either she would take him out in public in the circles that she moved in, no matter how proper, and no matter how he behaved, or the deal was off. The conditions he had set were impossible for her, whether or not she loved him. She had no compromise to offer him, other than what she had said to him before he left Paris. At the end of the month, she stopped waiting for the phone to ring. She knew he was gone. And as he sat waiting to hear from her in London, he knew the same. It had taken weeks, instead of years, but they had parted ways. She had been right from the day they met. It was impossible. She reminded herself that it was better to face it sooner than later. But as she waited for the call that never came, she was sad anyway. As childish as he was at times, there was an appealing side of him, and she truly missed him. It took two months for Sasha to make her peace with it, and even then she was still sad about his disappearance from her life. But there was no one to tell. |
| 139 |
He had created a very awkward situation for her, in fact for both of them. She was glad that she hadn't introduced him to her world. His absence now would have been embarrassing to explain. The dinner party she was going to that night was being given by the American ambassador to Paris. He had invited several important artists and dealers, an American writer who was visiting Paris, and someone had told her there was a famous actor coming, too. It sounded like a motley crew to her, and she wasn't in the mood. For reasons known only to herself and Liam, she had been testy and short tempered with everyone for the past two months, although lately she had been in a slightly better mood. She wore a black lace dress to the dinner party at the ambassador's residence, her hair in a bun as always, and a new pair of very sexy shoes, although most of the time, she wondered why she bothered. She hadn't gone out with anyone, nor did she want to, since she and Liam had had their brief, ill fated fling. She had known right from the beginning that their affair was doomed. She felt stupid for having allowed him to convince her to try it. But in private moments, she admitted to herself that she had wanted it as much as he said he did, and in her heart of hearts she had hoped it would work. It was too bad it didn't. He was a talented artist, but a totally immature man. It was no surprise to her now that Beth had left him, and taken their kids. Being married to him for twenty years must have been a nightmare for her. She forced him from her head, as she had for two months, as she walked into the ambassador's residence that night. With the exception of a rock star and two actors, Sasha knew everyone there. In its own way, Paris was a very small town. The whole world was these days. At the dinner table, Sasha was seated next to one of the actors, who was completely self involved, and had nothing to say to her. He was far more interested in the woman on his right, who was married to a Hollywood producer. |
| 140 |
Much to her surprise, they had a perfect evening. It was everything a first date should be. Polite, courteous, interesting, intelligent, and amusing. He was a nice man and good company. He'd had an interesting career, loved to travel, and had friends in many places. He played tennis and golf, read voraciously, had a serious interest in art, and was obviously deeply attached to his children and grandchildren. Sasha felt no great chemistry for him, but she enjoyed the evening. She found it was a relief to feel none of the things she had felt for Liam. What she experienced in Phillip's company was easy and peaceful. She didn't even care if she sold him a painting. They had dinner at Mark's Club, and afterward he took her to Annabel's. She was home in good order, shortly after midnight. He said he was going to Holland the next day to see about a sailboat he had ordered, and he would call her as soon as he got back to Paris. It was a delight to be with someone so intelligent and pleasant. There was none of the excitement or torture she had been through with Liam. She slept peacefully that night, saw an artist the next day, visited two galleries, and went shopping. She got back to the hotel in time to change into jeans to meet Xavier and Liam. She felt as though she were going out with her two boys. The pub Liam had chosen was as noisy and crowded as she feared it would be. They could hardly hear each other as they shouted across the table during dinner. Afterward, they went to the bar, where Xavier flirted with assorted women, and Liam tried to have an intelligent conversation with Sasha. She couldn't wait for the evening to end, and instead it seemed to go on forever. It was odd for her being there with Liam. The women crowding around them, and lusting after him openly, were all in their early twenties. As she looked at them, and at him, she knew she didn't want to be there. Ten minutes later, she told them both that she had a splitting headache. She left them there, happy and drinking. |
| 141 |
They were the happiest days they'd ever shared. From Venice, they rented a car and drove to Florence, where she was meeting with four artists. They did the same things in Florence they had done in Venice, and had lunches and dinners with the artists in between. She liked two of them very much, and thought their work was right for the gallery. She was uncertain about the third, and said she needed to think about it. They were unusual sculptures and possibly too big for her space. And the fourth artist was charming, but she disliked his work immediately. She told him kindly that she couldn't do him justice, and their gallery wasn't worthy of his work. She liked letting people down gently. There was no point hurting their feelings, or crushing them with unkind rejection. As Liam watched and listened, he liked how she did things. She was a good person and a nice woman, and he loved sharing what she did. They went to Bologna and Arezzo, spent a week in Umbria, driving through the country and staying in small inns. A few days in Rome. A visit to an artist on the Adriatic Coast, near Bari, and they spent the last days of the trip in Naples, visiting an artist whom Sasha had warned him was utterly insane, but she was also very charming, had six children, cooked them a fabulous dinner, and Sasha adored her work, as did Liam. She did enormous paintings in vibrant colors, which would be a nightmare to ship. But by the time Liam and Sasha left her, they were all in love with each other, including the artist's Chinese lover of twenty years who was the father of her six kids. They were beautiful children. And it was a fabulous trip, for both of them. They spent their last weekend in Capri, in a small romantic hotel. They were both sad at the prospect of going back to real life, and their own worlds. She loved waking up with him in the morning, going to sleep in his arms at night, discovering things together, meeting people, and sometimes just walking around while they shared pieces of their history, or laughed. |
| 142 |
They had both had difficult, somewhat lonely childhoods. He because he had been a talented artistic misfit in a supremely conservative and unimaginative family, and she because her father had been a cold taskmaster much of the time, although he loved her very much. It was only once she was an adult that he had come to respect her, and her opinions. Liam's family never had, and he still paid a high price for the ridicule and rejection he had suffered at their hands. They had both been shortchanged by not having their mothers present as they grew up. Liam remembered his as a warm, wonderful woman who adored him, and in whose eyes he could do no wrong. He was still looking for the unconditional love he had gotten from her and no one else, and sometimes Sasha felt that he expected her to mother him now. That kind of unconditional love was a lot to expect from anyone who had entered his life later on. Love between adults and lovers was always somewhat conditional, and often fell short of expectations, particularly when not all needs were reciprocally met. She had similar memories of her own mother, and she sometimes wondered if people always believed that those who had died had loved unconditionally. Perhaps they hadn't, or wouldn't have later on. But her memories of her mother were as sweet and gentle as his recollections of his. She wondered sometimes what it would be like if her mother were alive now, although she would have been very elderly, eighty eight years old. Sasha had turned forty nine on their trip. Liam had woken her up that morning singing happy birthday to her, and she groaned thinking of it. He had given her a simple gold bracelet he had bought for her in Florence. She never took it off once he put it on her wrist, and knew she never would. The age difference between them still bothered her at times. There was no avoiding it. They seemed to have more in common than she once thought, the loss of their mothers, their passion for art, the things they enjoyed doing when they were relaxed and had more time. |
| 143 |
No matter how fit and attractive she was, young bodies were undeniably more appealing than hers. "I like looking at young women sometimes, all women in fact," he admitted readily, "but I love talking to you and being with you. You turn me on more than any woman I've ever known. I don't give a damn how old you are." She smiled at him, tossing the last of the gelato away. He was still licking the stick, and then wiped his hands on his jeans, which made an even bigger mess. She sat looking at him with a rueful grin. It was his childlike style that made her feel old sometimes, not her age. "I love you, Sash. You're a beautiful woman. And yeah, okay, so you're not twenty two. Who cares? Twenty two year olds don't get it, don't interest me, and don't understand me. You do." She didn't tell him that at times she wasn't sure she did either, but she knew what he meant and what he expected of her: tolerance, nurturing, and understanding above all else. He was very needy sometimes, and self centered, as children are, and he liked the way she nurtured him. Sometimes, when she treated him like a child, it worked best. At other times, he wanted respect, and made a lot of sense when he expressed himself. They seemed equal at times, and not at others. In truth, they were not equal. She was older, more successful, more powerful in the art world than he was, she was respected and important, she had more money. But he was just as talented and smart. He could hold his own, even in her world, if she let him. So far they had not ventured into her world together. And when they did, he would still be viewed as a young artist, and she was one of the most respected art dealers in the world. It was a huge difference between them. People paid more attention to her than to him, which she knew would annoy him. Liam liked being the center of attention, which he always was with young girls. People her age expected more of him than great paintings, good looks, and blond hair. They expected him to be a serious person, and at times he wasn't. |
| 144 |
Tatianna was amused by it when she called her mother in Florence, and laughed, saying that she had asked for Sasha Boardman and they said all they had was an Allison Boardman, which was obviously the right person but the wrong first name. It meant nothing to her. If it had happened to Xavier, he might have wondered. But Tatianna made no association between her mother and Liam, except that she knew Sasha represented him. So it never occurred to her, that he was there. Sasha laughed along with her at the stupidity of operators in hotels, even good ones, to screw up her name. She wasn't aware of it at the time, but the same thing had happened to Bernard, when he called her from the gallery in Paris. He had corrected the error of the first name, and they had insisted, and then corrected it themselves to Mr. Allison and Mrs. Boardman, which had stunned him, but he said nothing to Sasha about it until she got home. It was her first day back, and she was working her way through the mountain of correspondence, files, and slides from aspiring artists that had accumulated on her desk during her three week absence. It was overwhelming, but the price she had to pay for her trip. Bernard had stopped in her office for a minute, sat down across the desk from her, and looked at her cautiously, wondering if it was the wrong time to broach it, or if he even should. But he was always concerned about her, like an older brother. He had been trained by her father, just as she was, and had worked for the gallery for more than twenty years. He had started there before she moved back to New York and opened the gallery there. He was ten years older than Sasha, but in an odd way, she had always felt as though they had grown up together, and they had, in the art world. He sat looking at her across the desk for a long minute, as she glanced at some slides. She had told him all about the artists she'd visited, and the one she particularly liked in Naples. Sasha was enamored with her work, and the artist herself. |
| 145 |
He said he had made his peace with it, and Sasha was convinced he had. They had both moved on. But the children still needed him, in her opinion, as he did them. Maybe more than he thought, or was willing to acknowledge. In Sasha's opinion, he seemed all too amenable to letting Beth handle them, and staying out of the way. "Why don't you go over and see them this summer, Liam?" she encouraged him, as he threw a stick for Socks, who retrieved it. He had taught her a few tricks as well, and she had turned out to be a lovely dog. Sasha was crazy about her, even more so because she had been a gift from him. "I have to spend time with my kids in August." They all had time then, and she loved spending every minute with them that she could, particularly when she and her two children could go away on vacations, which was becoming rarer and rarer as they got older and had ever busier lives. She knew that one of these days they would have serious significant others, and it wouldn't be possible at all. These were her very last chances to do it, and each year seemed like the last one. "Maybe we could go away somewhere this summer after we both spend time with our kids." She was always organizing him, which annoyed him at times and amused him at others. He knew it was just what she did. For everyone. She was a classic mother hen, which he also loved about her, especially when she mothered him. "I don't even know if they want to see me," Liam said honestly. He said often that they were angry at him for staying away for so long, which was what Sasha had feared. He called them infrequently, and when he did, the conversations were difficult. They blamed him openly for the demise of the marriage. Beth had told them enough to upset them, without the gory details, but none of them had forgiven him. It made calling them hard, and the distance had taken its toll as well. Sasha was afraid that if he waited too long to see them, the damage would never be undone, or not for years. She had warned him of that, too. |
| 146 |
She had treated him to the ticket, and they settled into first class seats side by side. He looked like a kid at a birthday party, and took advantage of everything they offered. Caviar, champagne, he ate his lunch and most of hers, reclined the seat into a bed, covered himself with the duvet, and took a nap. He even changed into the pajamas, and for a moment, wearing the plastic bag on his head like a hat, he showed distinct signs of slipping into his previous unruly behavior. He watched two movies, ate a snack, used everything in the toiletry kit, and invited Sasha to join the mile high club in the bathroom. "I think we may have to sedate you for the next flight." She grinned at him, after declining his offer to join the mile high club. "We did that to Xavier once, because he always got airsick as a little kid. He had an adverse reaction to the medicine, and took off like a jet engine out of control. I've never seen a kid so hyper. After that, we just let him throw up on the flight till he outgrew it." But she had never seen anyone enjoy a flight so much, or appreciate it as vocally, as Liam. He didn't stop thanking her from takeoff to landing. "I always thought it was normal to sit with my knees wrapped around my ears, and my neighbors' elbows in my chest. This is a hell of a lot better," he said, looking ecstatic, as he laid the seat back again and stretched his legs out. He was still in great spirits when they went through customs in New York, and joked with everyone in sight. As usual, he made friends with all the flight attendants, most of whom Sasha knew and who knew her from previous flights. He called the customs inspector by his first name, and had an animated conversation about baseball with their skycap, while she located her car and driver. "Exuberant" didn't begin to describe it. But mostly he was just happy and grateful and excited to be there. And in spite of his acting like a spinning top, Sasha loved being with him. He calmed down finally when they got to her apartment. |
| 147 |
She finally dragged him away long enough to show him her bedroom. She had a moment of hesitation herself, because she had never shared it with any man but Arthur. But it was time now. She was ready to open her doors and her life to Liam. She asked him to put his things in the guest room, just in case one of her children turned up at some point, and she didn't want to shock the maid who came to clean daily, and had during most of her marriage. Liam didn't seem put off by her asking him to do that. He dropped his bag in the room down the hall and then wandered into her bedroom with a dish of ice cream. He looked perfectly at home as he sprawled out in Arthur's favorite chair, flipped on the TV, and caught up on the baseball game in progress. And then he looked up at Sasha with the boyish grin that turned her knees to mush, and burst out laughing. "Boy, is this cool, Sash. I feel like I died and went to heaven." He had grown up with money too, though perhaps not quite this much, but his family was prominent and solid. The only difference was that they had always treated him like a misfit and an outcast because he was artistic and different from them. He felt completely at ease and welcome in her apartment, and lately in her life. It made all the difference in the world to him, and now to Sasha. They were both in high spirits and enjoying the relationship they shared. She suggested they go to a nearby restaurant that night. She checked in with Tatianna before they left, and as she had suspected, Tatianna was busy with friends, had a thousand plans that week, and told her mother she'd stop in to see her at the gallery when she had a free moment, more than likely on her lunch break. Sasha felt completely secure when she settled into bed with Liam that night. The housekeeper wasn't coming in till noon, and by then she and Liam would be long gone, she at the gallery, and he to visit his friends in SoHo. Their secret was safe here. And for all anyone would know, if discovered, Liam was nothing more exotic than a houseguest. |
| 148 |
It had been difficult with his oldest son at first. Tom blamed Liam entirely for the divorce. Beth had finally told him the ugly details of the incident with Becky, and Liam was livid about it when he called Sasha. She told him to calm down and try to work it out with his son. It was better by the end of the week. They had spent a tearful night talking about it, and both father and son felt better in the morning. His twelve year old, George, had been happy to see him, but had developed a nervous twitch in the course of the year, and was on medication, which Liam thought he didn't need and wouldn't give him. He had called Beth about it, and she had threatened to pick them up at the cabin if Liam didn't give George his medication, so finally he did. And Charlotte was adorable and easy, thrilled to see her daddy, and the only mishap was that she fell off her bike and sprained her wrist. But other than that, everything had been fine. A typical weekend with kids, particularly kids he hadn't seen in a year. None of it surprised Sasha, although some of it shocked Liam. He had been in denial about the fallout of his absence during the entire time. Seeing them again woke him up. "It's hard to walk into their lives after a year, and pick up where you left off," he said to Sasha late one night when he called her. "Everything is changed, they're all different," he had complained. But they were still his kids, and she had given him all the advice she could whenever he called her. He was grateful for her support, and looked exhausted but happy when he arrived back at her apartment late Friday night. He had just gotten off the train. And he looked delighted to see her. He had his baseball cap on backward, his jeans were torn at the knees, and he hadn't shaved all week. Other than the beard stubble, he looked like a boy coming home from camp. She ran a bath for him, made him something to eat, handed him a bowl of ice cream, and he lay in bed and looked at her like an angel who had just come down from heaven. |
| 149 |
Liam was excited about the show at her gallery that week. It was going to give him a sense of what they'd be doing for him in six months. And he liked the artist whose show it was. He was a young man from Minnesota whom Sasha had discovered at the art fair in Chicago the year before. He did powerful, provoking work. She had been at the gallery till two in the morning the night before, hanging his paintings, standing back and looking at them, then moving them around again, until she liked it. She was a perfectionist in all things. Liam had stuck around till midnight to watch her do it. She was so lost in thought and concentration, she hardly talked to him, and finally he left. He was sound asleep in her bed when she got home. The next day Sasha was at the gallery all day. She showered and changed her clothes there, and was greeting guests when Liam walked in for the party at six o'clock. She looked beautiful in a white linen suit, in stark contrast to her jet black hair, dark eyes, and summer tan. Her eyes were a deep sable brown, and sometimes looked almost black. She smiled at him the moment she saw him walk in. She introduced him to the artist, and several more people, and then left him to greet others. He was wearing black slacks, a white shirt, his loafers, no socks, no jacket or tie. But in the uptown arty group, what he had worn seemed appropriate and didn't stand out. The artists wore all manner of dress, her clients wore suits and ties. There were several well known models there, a famous photographer, who bought her work frequently. Writers, playwrights, art critics, museum people, and others who just came for the free ride and the champagne and hors d'oeuvres. It was a standard New York art opening, only better, because Suvery Gallery was top of the line. Tatianna walked in at eight o'clock, the crowd was thinning out by then, but there were still plenty of people scattered through the exhibition rooms. She was on her way to dinner somewhere, and came because she had said she'd stop by. |
| 150 |
She was wearing a simple turquoise silk summer dress and sexy high heeled silver sandals, and she looked striking as she walked in. With her halo of almost white blond hair and big blue eyes, she looked nothing like her mother. Liam saw her stop to talk to Sasha and wondered instantly who she was, and then he saw her kiss her mother, as the two women exchanged a warm hug. He knew then it was her daughter, but nothing about their appearances, nor their style, would have suggested to anyone that they were related. Tatianna was slinky and sexy, and everything about her was standoffish and cool. Sasha was far warmer and more animated, introducing people to each other, smiling, and talking. The essence of Sasha was warm and inviting. To Liam, the core of Tatianna seemed cold. Sasha had told him that Tatianna was shy. She stood apart from everyone for a moment, as her eyes swept the room. He could tell from looking at her that she was used to men admiring her. At twenty four, striking in her youth and beauty, she was at the height of her game. Her mother was much humbler, and although she was striking too, part of her charm was that she was unaware of her beauty, and always had been. Sasha had tremendous charisma and charm. Liam found Tatianna daunting, just watching her from the distance. He kept his eyes on her as people came to talk to her, and then as though sensing him, she turned her head and her eyes met his. He had the feeling she didn't like him, even from across the room. He waited a while before going over to talk to her, so she wouldn't suspect anything. He didn't want to appear anxious, or as though he were pursuing her. He nearly bumped into her as he walked by her, and helped himself to an hors d'oeuvre from a passing tray. She was standing, looking aloof, while three young men crowded around her, and she sipped a glass of champagne. He decided to join the group. "Hello," he said pleasantly, "I'm Liam Allison. Nice show, isn't it?" She looked at him as though he had said something rude. |
| 151 |
But even their friendship had done nothing to impress her. Liam was convinced nothing would. They left for dinner after that. Sasha had invited a number of people she thought he'd enjoy, along with the artist whose show it was. There were fourteen of them for dinner at a long table at La Goulue, where everyone fussed over them, and Sasha. She kept a motherly eye on everyone, and saw to it that every detail was attended to, and everyone had a good time. Her caring manner defined what Liam loved about her. She was warm and nurturing and attentive to everyone. Girls like her daughter were only interested in themselves. Sasha made a real effort to make Liam feel important, comfortable, and welcome, and he loved her for it. It was what he needed most from her. Nothing in her behavior that night suggested to anyone that there was something going on between them. She gave nothing away, not a look or a touch, or anything she said. She made it clear that he was important to her as an artist, and nothing else, and she was the attentive dealer. She was every bit as kind to the others as she was to him. He complimented her on it when they got back to her apartment, where he felt totally at home now. Tatianna would have been incensed to see him sprawled out, smoking a cigar, in her father's favorite chair in their bedroom. But fortunately, she couldn't see it. To Tatianna, everything that had been her father's was sacred, including her mother. She had frequently said that she was glad Sasha wasn't dating and hoped she never would. Her older brother was far more realistic. All he wanted was for their mother to be happy, whatever and whoever it took. "Sasha, you are amazing," Liam said, smiling at her through his smoke rings. She even let him smoke there, and said she liked the smell, which in fact, she did. Arthur had also had a fondness for good Cubans. "The opening was terrific. You managed to make everyone feel important, even me. Hotchkiss loved it." Hotchkiss was the artist they'd been showing. |
| 152 |
Liam and Sasha spent the Fourth of July weekend in Southampton. It was blazing hot and sunny every day. They cooked, went out to dinner, lay on the beach, swam, and on the Fourth they were invited to a big party that night. It was a barbecue given by people she knew, but not well, and they both agreed it sounded like fun. She had accepted, and at six o'clock that night they went, in jeans and T shirts and sandals, just as the invitation said. She had bought them both red, white, and blue bandanas, and they tied them around their necks. He smiled when he looked at her as they went out. He said he was the happiest he'd ever been. "Now we look like twins," he commented, which was funny. He was as fair as she was dark, he was tall, she was tiny, and she was beginning to forget about their age. Marcie and Xavier had both helped a lot, giving her their approval and support. She hadn't heard from Tatianna since their horrifying encounter in Southampton the week before. Sasha was still letting her cool off. There were two hundred people at the party, long tables of food, a giant barbecue, line dancers to entertain everyone, and a tent filled with carnival games. Everyone was having a ball, and so were they. They were sitting next to each other on a log, eating hamburgers and hot dogs, when Sasha realized for the first time that Liam was slightly drunk. Not disgustingly so, but just enough to be slightly out of control. Halfway through dinner, he said he was hot, took off his shirt, and threw it in the fire, with a grin at Sasha. The uncontrollable boy in him began to emerge, and as the night wore on, it got worse. Much worse. She tried to get him to go home with her, but he insisted he was having fun and wanted to stay. By then he was too drunk to notice she wasn't enjoying herself at all. He had started out with rum punch, switched to beer, and then wine with dinner. Afterward someone suggested he try a mojito, and she was horrified to watch him down three of them, without pausing for breath. |
| 153 |
He could see how miserable his mother was from the look in her eyes, even when she tried to be a good sport and pretend otherwise, which she did most of the time. And when she went to her room at night, she cried herself to sleep. She missed him beyond belief. She knew there was absolutely nothing she could do to bring him back. All she could do now was accept it. She couldn't call and invite him to St. Tropez. Tatianna would have walked out. Sasha didn't want to risk it. They were invited out by friends several times, and Sasha agreed to go when they had children the age of her own, or were clients. But having to sit there and talk to people made her want to crawl out of her skin. She had never felt like that in her life. After Arthur's death, she had remained in seclusion for months. Now she was out in the world, pretending to be fine, which was almost unbearable for her. Nothing she did gave her relief. Day and night she ached for Liam, and knew she couldn't have him. She didn't call, and he never called her. Night after night she imagined him in bars, chasing young women. She felt half crazed with grief by the time they got on the boat they'd chartered. It was a relief when they pulled up anchor, left St. Tropez, and headed out to sea. Xavier and Tatianna had both invited friends, at her suggestion. They all enjoyed each other. She didn't need to entertain them. She could lie on deck with her eyes closed, near the bow of the boat, thinking of him, and aching with grief. She stayed on board when the young people went ashore at night. She said she didn't want to spoil their fun. In truth, she just didn't have the strength to talk to anyone. She needed time to grieve. They went to Portofino, and she went ashore there for a short time. They had dinner at the Splendido, and she agreed to go with them that one time. But in spite of her best efforts, she looked so miserable that night that Tatianna asked her brother what was wrong with her after her mother went back to the boat, claiming a headache. |
| 154 |
Sasha sent him on ahead with Karen and Marcie, while she rounded up the others. Some of the people she'd invited to dinner were his friends, others were clients she wanted to introduce him to, and who had bought his work that night. She had a table for twenty reserved, with Liam at the head, and herself at the opposite end, at the foot. She had surrounded him with his friends. For Sasha, it was awkward being there with him. But she had to do her job now, and do it well, no matter how she felt about him. Several of the artists he'd asked her to invite were women, she had met most of them before, and then, at least, they had only been friends. She had no idea whom he was involved with now, and didn't want to know. The only people her age at the table were clients. The rest of the dinner guests were considerably younger than Liam. Some things didn't change. There was no reason for them to now. He was back in his own familiar world. He no longer needed to make adjustments for her, or even behave himself. But he was very circumspect that night, either because he wanted to be, or in deference to her. This was an important night, and a huge victory for him. Sasha had an announcement to make at dinner. One of the clients seated at her end of the table had just decided to buy his two remaining paintings. On the opening night, they had sold out his show. Standing at her end of the table, sharing the news with everyone, she toasted Liam again. And this time, he just sat where he was, and looked at her. He made a garbled toast to her and the client, and said he didn't know what to say, except thank you to everyone, especially Sasha, Karen, Marcie, and the clients who had bought his work. He looked truly undone, and Sasha was touched. She smiled at him once or twice from her end of the table, but there was no deeper meaning to the looks she gave him. She was just happy for him that the show had been a success. That had been the purpose of their alliance right from the beginning. |
| 155 |
It was a miracle she hadn't been killed. Sasha hoped, as he did, that the damage wasn't as bad as they feared. "Drive safely, sweetheart... call me when you get there, if you can." He called her several times that night, with bulletins he got from Beth about Charlotte. She was in critical condition, but hanging on. They were going to operate that morning when he got there. Sasha felt sick thinking of what they all had to go through. It was a nightmare. She couldn't think of anything worse than a badly injured child. Liam got there at nine in the morning, as Sasha sat, waiting to hear from him. She'd been up all night, with him. She had talked to him every half hour all night. She hadn't left him for a minute. And when he didn't call her, she called him. She was grateful they were back together, so she could at least support him through the ordeal. She didn't hear from him then till lunchtime, while Charlotte was in surgery. They said she wouldn't be out till evening. And Liam just sat at the other end and sobbed, when he described the condition she was in. Sasha was in tears herself as she sat at the gallery, waiting for news. The results of the surgery sounded promising. It wasn't quite as dire as they had feared, but it was very bad. And when they had a chance to talk about it, Liam said that the man who was about to marry Beth was beside himself with guilt and grief. Charlotte had been with him, looking at where her room was going to be, and he had turned away for a minute to show her something, and that was when she fell. Liam said that Beth was blaming him, but no more than he did himself. It sounded like an excruciating scene for all of them. Tom, Liam's older son, was flying home from college to be with his sister. At least the family was together, or would be. Sasha was only sorry she couldn't join them. She thought of flying up to stay in a hotel near the hospital, so she could support Liam, but he said they were sleeping in Charlotte's room and on cots in the hallway. |
| 156 |
They had to cancel the wedding, which was in three weeks. They were putting it off till January, till they knew how Charlotte was. Everyone's life was suddenly upside down, and Charlotte's still hung in the balance. She was nowhere near out of the woods yet. The days droned on interminably, and by the end of a week, they knew she wouldn't be quadriplegic, but they still weren't sure about her legs. It all depended on how her spinal cord repaired. There was a distinct possibility that she would walk again, but nothing was certain, and if she did, it would take months or even years to get her on her feet again, and she had several surgeries ahead of her. Sasha hated to ask, but was relieved to hear they had good insurance, otherwise it would have been a financial catastrophe for them as well. It was going to take years and cost a fortune to put the little girl back together, and she had a lot of hard times ahead of her, as did Beth, who would be taking care of her. Liam sounded guilty when he talked about it on the phone. But someone had to take care of Charlotte, and he couldn't be there. He lived in London, and would be with Sasha in Paris. He was worried about missing Christmas with her, but that was the least of their concerns. Listening to him, Sasha decided to spend it in New York. If there was any chance he could get away even for a day to spend Christmas with her, it would be a lot easier to get to her there than in Paris, where she had planned to spend it. And they could manage fine at the gallery in Paris without her, they always did, thanks to Bernard. She called Xavier and told him what had happened, and he felt terrible for Liam, as she did. Xavier knew Charlotte, he had met her many times before Beth left. It broke his heart to think of her paralyzed, and hoped it wouldn't happen. He told his mother to give his best to Liam, and said he'd go to church to pray for his little girl. Sasha had lit a candle for her only that morning, and had gone to mass to pray for her, which wasn't something she did often. |
| 157 |
There was no question he'd have more fun there. He said he really appreciated it, and promised to spend it with her next year. Hopefully, by then Tatianna and Liam would be with them. But there was too much going on to worry about Christmas this year. The bulletins from Liam continued for the next two weeks, and they were within days of Christmas by then. Christmas had ceased to exist for all of them at the hospital as they worried about Charlotte, and waited for the prognosis, which was better, but never completely reassuring. It was a relentless strain for all of them. Liam was so tired he was beginning to get testy with her, and he called less often, because he was sitting with Charlotte for eight hour shifts, to relieve Beth a little. After that, sometimes he fell asleep on the cot in the hallway, before he had time to call. Sasha understood the pressure he was under, or tried to. She was worn out hearing about it from the distance, she could only imagine what it was like for all of them, sitting in the trauma unit day and night, supporting the little girl. Liam said she was in a lot of pain, which agonized him to see. It was a nightmare for all of them. Her heart ached for him every time she talked to Liam. He kept promising to come to New York to see her as soon as he could. She couldn't even imagine when that would be, and never asked. She wanted to lighten his burdens for him, not add to them. Two days before Christmas, the doctors gave Charlotte and her family the best gift of all. They told them that it would take a long, long time, but she would walk again. Maybe with a halting gait, or a limp, or with braces, but she would walk. Her spinal cord had escaped total destruction, although she would not come out of it totally unscathed. It was going to be a long haul, but it was a better fate for her than they'd all feared. She was going to be in the hospital for at least three months, maybe longer, but they thought she'd make a good recovery in the end, and she wouldn't be mentally impaired. |
| 158 |
Tatianna was away. And Xavier was in London. She was going back to Paris the following week. But she was looking forward to spending her last weekend at the beach before she left. It was still chilly, but spring was in the air, and when she left the gallery on Friday night, Marcie thought she looked better. Sasha was under constant scrutiny now, and all her loving observers consulted with each other as to how they thought she was. Her constant insistence that she was fine convinced no one but herself. As she drove to Southampton that Friday night, the holiday traffic made the trip take forever. And as she sat at a dead stop from time to time, she thought of Liam. It was a luxury she rarely allowed herself anymore. She knew she couldn't afford it. And although the others couldn't see it, she was making efforts to get better. It was a rare indulgence for her to just sit back and think of him. He was still on her mind when she let herself into the house four hours later. By then, it was after eleven, and when she went to bed, it was midnight. She fell asleep, thinking about him, and in the morning, she felt better. It was almost as though allowing herself to bask in the memories for a few hours had relieved some of the pressure. Navigating the shoals of grief had become familiar to her. She knew from losing Arthur that losing someone was a process, you didn't let go all at once, you let go inch by inch, or millimeter by millimeter. It had taken her a year after Arthur to feel human again. And it had been five months now since Liam. She knew that one of these days she'd get there, and wake up one morning without feeling as though she had a bowling ball on her chest. Little by little, the bowling ball was shrinking. She wondered from time to time how it was for him, or if he'd already forgotten. He had other things now to keep him busy, and she was happy to hear from Marcie that he had reported that Charlotte was so much better. She couldn't help wondering too if he was happy with Beth. |
| 159 |
There was no way for her to know, and maybe it didn't matter. He was hers now, for better or worse, whichever happened. She knew he would never leave her. He would never have left her the first time. He was the kind of man who stayed forever, once committed. It had been different with them because, however much they loved each other, the commitment had never been made. Just as she had predicted in the beginning, it had been impossible for them, just not for the reasons she'd expected. It had never even remotely dawned on her that he might go back to Beth. Without Charlotte's near fatal accident, she knew he wouldn't have. Fate had intervened. She forced him from her head again that night at sunset as she walked down the beach. She let her mind drift to other things, like Arthur and her children. Tatianna had had a serious boyfriend since February, one whom Sasha actually approved of. And Xavier was talking about living with the woman he'd been dating since Christmas, which was a huge change for him. It was time. He was twenty seven. She felt peaceful and comfortable for the first time in a long time as she sat down in the shelter of the dune grass to watch the sunset. The air was still chilly, but the sun had been warm all day. She lay down on the sand then, thinking about her children, the times they'd shared, the things she'd accomplished, the wonderful moments they'd had together. She had chartered another boat for them that summer. But it was at the beach that she had her private moments. She cherished them as well. They were times to think, and be grateful for her life, which she was starting to be again. She knew that in spite of the losses she'd suffered, she had many blessings, and was grateful for them all. She was watching the sun go down quickly and wondered if she'd see the green flash as it hit the horizon. She loved watching for it, and as she lay there, she savored the moment. She wanted nothing more than she had right then. She needed nothing, wanted no one. |
| 160 |
At four in the afternoon, it seemed as though half the neighborhood was standing around in the heat, talking and watching the kids. And suddenly, at four ten, shots rang out in the noise of the talk and laughter and the sound of rushing water. They weren't an unfamiliar sound in that part of town, and everyone stopped as they heard them. People seemed to pause motionless for a moment, waiting for what would come next. They pulled back into doorways, shrank against walls, and two mothers ran forward into the geyser of water from one of the hydrants and grabbed their children. But before they could regain the safety of the doorway, another burst of shots rang out, this time louder and closer, and three young men ran into the midst of the crowd standing near the hydrant. They knocked over kids as they ran, and hit a young woman so hard she fell sprawling in the water, and suddenly there were screams as two cops appeared, running around the corner, in hot pursuit of the young men, guns drawn, bullets flying into the crowd. It all happened so fast, no one had time to clear a path for them, or to warn each other, and in the distance there were already sirens. And over the distant wail of police cars approaching the scene, there was another round of gunshots, and this time one of the young men fell to the ground, bleeding from his shoulder, at the same time one of his companions wheeled and shot a police officer cleanly through the head, and suddenly a little girl screamed and fell to the ground in the fierce spray from the hydrant, and everyone nearby was shouting and running in all directions, as her mother ran to her from the doorway where she'd been watching in horror, as the child fell. And an instant later, the chase was over. Two of the young men were lying facedown on the ground being handcuffed by a flock of policemen, an officer lay dead, and the third suspect was being tended to by paramedics. But only a few feet away, a child lay dying from the bullet that had hit her. |
| 161 |
And people stood on the street looking stunned by what had happened. A second ambulance took the injured suspect from the scene, and blue and white cars seemed to come from everywhere as they heard on the radio that an officer was down. People in the neighborhood knew what it would mean for them once word got out that he had been killed. Tempers would flare, and smoldering resentments would burst into flame. Worse yet, in the deadly heat, anything could happen. This was Harlem, it was August, life was tough, and a cop had been murdered. And in the ambulance, as it sped downtown, Henrietta Washington clung to her child's hand, and watched in silent terror as the paramedics fought for her life. But for the moment, it didn't look like they were winning. The little girl was gray and still and her blood was everywhere, the floor, the sheets, her arms, the gurney, her mother's face and dress and hands. It looked like a slaughter. And for what? She was another casualty in the endless war between the cops and the bad guys, gang members, drug dealers, and narcs. She was a pawn in a game she knew nothing about, a tiny sacrifice among warriors whose goal was to destroy each other. Dinella Washington meant nothing to them, only to her friends and neighbors, her sisters, and her mother. She was the oldest of four children her mother had had between sixteen and twenty, but no matter how poor they were, nor how tough life was for them, or the neighborhood in which they fought to survive, her mother loved her. "Is she gonna die?" Henrietta asked in a strangled voice, her huge eyes looking into those of a paramedic, and he didn't answer. He didn't know. "We're doing what we can, ma'am." Henrietta Washington was twenty one years old. She was a stereotype, a number, a statistic, but she was so much more than that. She was a woman, a girl, a mother. She wanted more than this for her kids. She wanted a job, wanted to work, wanted to be married to a good man one day, who loved and took care of her and her children. |
| 162 |
Without a word, he walked away from the operating table, and pulled his surgical mask off with a look of fury. He hated days like this, hated losing anyone, particularly a child who was nothing more than an innocent victim. He had even hated losing the boy who had shot three people before they killed him. He hated all of it. The uselessness of it. The waste. The despair. The pointless destruction of human life. And yet when he won, as he often did, it all seemed worthwhile, the long hours, the endless days that ran into even longer nights. He didn't care how long he stayed or how hard he worked as long as he won some of the time. He threw away his surgical gloves, washed his hands, took off his cap, and looked in the mirror. What he saw was the fatigue of the last seventy one hours he had spent on duty. He tried to work no more than forty eight hour shifts of being on call and on duty. It was a nice thought, but it rarely worked out that way. You couldn't exactly punch a time clock in the trauma unit. And he knew what he had to do now. He had to tell the child's mother. A muscle tensed in his jaw as he walked out of the surgical area, and headed toward where he knew the child's mother would be. He felt like the Angel of Death as he walked toward her, knowing that his was a face she would never forget, at a moment in time that would haunt her for the rest of her life. He remembered the child's name, as he did all of them for a time, and knew that he would be haunted as well. He would remember the case, the circumstance, the outcome, and wish it could have been different. As little as he knew his patients, he cared about them above all. "Mrs. Washington?" he asked, after a nurse at the desk had pointed him in her direction, and she nodded, her eyes full of fear. "I'm Dr. Whitman." He had done this for a long time, too long he thought sometimes. It was all becoming too familiar. He knew he had to say it fast, in order not to hold out a hope he could no longer give her. |
| 163 |
All that mattered was that it had killed her child. Another casualty in the hopeless war they lived. Another statistic. "I'm so sorry." She was clutching at him then, her eyes wild, fighting to breathe after the impact of the news he had just dealt her like a blow. It was as though he had hit her with a fist in her solar plexus. "Why don't you sit down for a minute?" She had stood up to hear the news as he approached her, and now she looked as though she were about to faint. Her eyes rolled, and he lowered her back into the chair, and signaled to a nurse to bring her a glass of water. The nurse brought it quickly, and the child's mother couldn't drink. She made terrible, airless, strangled sounds as she tried to absorb what he had told her, and Steve Whitman felt as though he had been the killer, instead of the man with the gun. He would have liked to be the savior, and sometimes he was. There were wives and mothers and husbands who threw themselves around his neck with gratitude and relief, but not this time. He hated the losses so much. And too often, the deck was stacked against him. He stayed with Henrietta Washington for as long as he could, and then left her to the nurses. He'd been paged again, for a fourteen year old who had fallen out of a second story window. He was in surgery for four hours with her, and at ten thirty he walked out of the operating room, hoping he had saved her, and finally made it to his office for the first time in hours. It was the quiet part of the night for him, usually the really bad cases didn't start to come in till after midnight. He grabbed a cup of cold coffee off his desk, and two stale Oreo cookies. He hadn't had time to eat since breakfast. He'd been on duty officially for forty eight hours, and had done another forty eight as a favor to one of his colleagues whose wife was in labor. He was long overdue to go home, but hadn't been able to break away until then. He had a stack of papers on his desk to sign, and he knew that as soon as he did, he could go home. |
| 164 |
Going home to Meredith was like being on another planet from his work and all the responsibilities he had there. She was a refuge for him, a breath of fresh air and normalcy and health, a safe haven from the brutality and violence he dealt with every day. And he could hardly wait to see her. He didn't want to come home and find her asleep or working. "I promise you will have my full attention, Doctor. Just get your ass home." She grinned and he smiled, envisioning her, as beautiful and sensuous as ever. "Pour yourself a glass of wine, Merrie, and I'll be there in a few minutes." He was always optimistic about time, but she knew that about him. As it turned out, he walked in the door of their apartment nearly forty minutes later. The chief resident had needed a quick consultation with him before he left, about a broken hip and pelvis on a ninety two year old woman, and the fourteen year old who'd fallen out the window had developed complications. But Steve knew better than anyone that it was time for him to go home. He was beyond exhausted. He finished the paperwork on his desk, and signed out for the weekend. He didn't have to be back on duty at the trauma unit until Monday, and he could hardly wait to get out, he'd had it. Enough was enough. He was so tired by the time he left, he could hardly think straight. He hailed a cab just outside the hospital and was home ten minutes later, and as he let himself into the apartment, he could hear soft music playing, and smell Meredith's perfume. It was like coming home to Heaven after three days in hell. His time with Meredith was what he lived for, but she knew he loved his work too, just as he knew how much she loved what she did. "Merrie?" he called out to her, as he unlocked the door of the apartment, but there was no answer. She was standing in the shower when he found her, long and lanky, and blond and incredibly beautiful and graceful. She had modeled for extra money when she was in college. They had both gotten through school on scholarships. |
| 165 |
She was respected at her firm for it, although Meredith sometimes felt she didn't get the same opportunities the men did. She'd been a partner of the firm for the past four years, but more often than not, she did the lion's share of the work, and the truly creative things, and one of the male partners got the glory. It was something that had irked her for years, but it was also the nature of some of the firms on Wall Street. She worked for what was called a "white shoe" firm, where the men kept the control of the power in their exclusive little world. It was a very old guard way of doing business, and she knew it had its limitations for her. She had chosen to work in a man's world, and to conquer their mountaintops, and they didn't always thank her for it. In fact, she was going to the West Coast with one of the more senior male partners the next day, and she was annoyed that he had insisted on coming with her. At first, no one else had wanted to work on this deal with her, and now that they sensed how important it was going to be, they were trying to climb on the bandwagon with her. But at least Callan Dow knew she had championed his cause right from the beginning. Meredith and Steve talked about some of his problems at the hospital over coffee. He had been the number two man in the trauma unit for the last five years, and he was itching to run it. Harvey Lucas, the man in charge, threatened regularly to move on, but he seemed to be going nowhere. He'd been talking about moving to Boston for several years, but he just couldn't seem to tear himself away, and Steve's hands were tied until he did. He had to content himself with being the assistant head of the department. But it was the best trauma unit in the city and he had no desire to leave. And Lucas was a good friend to him. After lunch, Steve and Meredith took a leisurely stroll through the park, listening to the Steel bands and the jazz musicians, as they wandered past the model boat pond, and watched the children play. |
| 166 |
She had a better grasp of what he did, and considerably more interest in it. But at the same time, he had a healthy respect for the fact that she earned a better living. She earned a big salary, which was something he knew he never would in his line of work. And she chafed at the fact that she didn't make more than she did, and felt she should have. But they had more than enough for their comfortable lifestyle. They had lived in the same apartment for the past five years, it was a co op and Meredith had paid for it in full when she became a partner. Steve would have liked to contribute to it, but just plain couldn't. The disparity in their incomes had never been an issue between them, it was something they both understood and accepted. Unlike other couples, they never fought about money, just about whether or not to have kids. She read until nearly midnight that night, and Steve was asleep in front of the TV when she finally finished. He had drunk half a bottle of wine, and was feeling relaxed and content. Meredith packed her suitcase before she woke him. It was one o'clock by then, and he was in a sound sleep when she kissed him, and he stirred. "Let's go to bed, sweetheart. It's late. And I have to get up early tomorrow," she said softly. She knew he had called a friend that afternoon, and was going to play tennis with him after she left for the airport. Steve followed her sleepily into the bedroom, and a few minutes later, they were in bed, with their arms comfortably wrapped around each other. And five minutes later, he was snoring. They both slept soundly until six A.M., when the phone rang. It was the hospital for him. Harvey Lucas, the head of the trauma unit, was in surgery with the chief resident and two other doctors, working on four victims of a head on collision, and they needed Steve to come in. He could refuse if he wanted to, since he wasn't on call, but he knew from what they said that they needed someone there right away, and he didn't want to let them down. |
| 167 |
They were used to it and most of the time it didn't upset them. "Hold the thought... I'll see you Wednesday night when I get back from the office. I'll try not to stay late." She knew he was coming off duty then. "That's a date." He smiled at her, clipped his pager on his belt, and ruffled his hair with one hand rather than combing it. He had brushed his teeth, but didn't bother shaving. His was not a job that required him to look elegant or well groomed, and most of the time he didn't bother to try. He had more important things to think of. "Have a good trip," he said with a last wave from the doorway, and an instant later she heard the front door close, as she lay in their bed, thinking about him. He was exactly as he had been fourteen years before when they met and he was a resident. His whole life revolved around what he was doing, just as hers did. And as she lay there, she began thinking of the company she was going to be taking public, and everything she still had to do to assure that it would go smoothly. She got up and brought a stack of papers back to bed with her, and read for two hours before she got up, and she was satisfied that she was nearly prepared for her meeting in California. She still had a few last questions to ask, and mostly she wanted to brief Callan Dow on what to expect when they went on the road. He had never taken a company public before, he was a novice at all this and he looked to her entirely for advice and information. In some ways, it made her feel both competent and important, and then for an instant, she felt a little guilty for it. She wondered sometimes if she enjoyed what she did because it made her feel powerful and independent. She loved what she did and the world of high finance she existed in. It was a world she had reveled in since the first moment she'd been in it, just as Steve was passionate about what he did. In some ways, they were so different, and yet they both loved their jobs, and knew they were doing something that mattered to people. |
| 168 |
The phone rang while she was getting dressed, and it was Steve. He had just come out of surgery with the child with the broken neck, and the orthopod had said that he'd be fine eventually. He'd been very lucky, and Steve had assisted in the surgery and said he was going to hang around for a while. They had lost the mother shortly after he got there, and the older child was still in a coma. It was the usual drill, although every case that came along seemed like the most important one in his life, and she smiled as she listened to him. He was as excited about what he was doing as she was about going to California to go over the prospectus and the road show with Callan Dow. "I'll miss you, Merrie," he said, and she smiled, thinking about him. "Me too." She said and meant it, and he laughed when he heard her. He knew her better. "Yeah, for about ten minutes. All you're going to be thinking about is your red herring and your book and your road show. I know you." "Yeah, you do, don't you." While she was getting dressed, she couldn't help thinking of what he'd said. He knew her as well as she knew him, their respective passions for their work, their goals, their weaknesses, their fears. Their total involvement in their work, which was why they had never had children. Where was the place for them, with him at the hospital for three days at a time, and her traveling all over the place for business? What would a baby get out of a life like theirs? Not much, she felt sure, which was why, so far at least, she had refused to have one. She was good at what she did, she was sure of that, and she was a lot less sure that she would be a good mother. Maybe later, which was what she always told Steve. But much later would be too late, and they both knew it. She wondered if she'd regret putting it off one day, but for the moment, she just couldn't see it. And as she put the rest of her papers back in her briefcase, and buttoned the jacket of her suit, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. |
| 169 |
Even with the air conditioning on full blast, it was still warm in the apartment. It had been over a hundred degrees all week, and still in the nineties at midnight, and several times that week they'd had a brownout in her office, but she and her associates worked right through it. Only the hospitals were unaffected by it, as they had their own generators and couldn't afford to lose power, in the midst of surgeries, and with all their essential life preserving equipment. "What do you want to do this weekend?" he asked, looking at her lovingly, and running a hand gently over her pale blond hair. He was dead tired, but he couldn't help noticing that she looked sexy and pretty. She never looked like an investment banker to him, just a very beautiful woman. Her professional expertise was purely coincidental, and about as unimportant to Steven as her income. He was proud of her, but he had never cared about how much money she made. When he married her, when she was in business school at Columbia, she had been on a full scholarship, and didn't have a penny. And all the good fortune, and rich rewards that had come her way since seemed nice to him, but he wouldn't have cared if they'd been starving and living in a studio apartment somewhere on the Upper West Side, which they would have been, if they had been living on his wages. But the financial disparity between them had never been an issue to either of them. She made a huge salary, and had made some excellent investments over the years, but he regarded it as a bonus for them, and in truth, it was of no real importance to him. "I'd love to go to a baseball game," she admitted with a grin. She was an avid baseball fan, when she had time, and so was he, but for once he was less than enthusiastic about the suggestion. "In this heat? I love you, but I think you're crazy. How about a movie... after I spend the next twenty four hours in bed with you. First things first, Mrs. Whitman." He smiled at her lasciviously and she laughed. |
| 170 |
They had not only blown his night all to hell, but his weekend, and possibly his entire week. "You'd better turn on the news. Some fucking crazies tried to blow up the Empire State Building at four o'clock, just in time to get everyone still in their offices, and all the tourists. Nearly a hundred people were killed, over a thousand injured. They're sending us somewhere between two and three hundred critically injured people. They're splitting up the rest of the minor injuries between hospitals all over the city. I have seventy five trauma beds available, and over a hundred people in the halls now, with paramedics, and another hundred coming in, in the next hour. They're calling in medical personnel from Long Island and New Jersey. There goes our weekend. I'm sorry, baby." He looked like his best friend had died, but in fact a lot of people's best friends had died, and husbands and wives, and children. It sounded like the Titanic. Meredith flipped on the TV while he dressed and there were bulletins about it on every channel. There was a gaping hole in one side of the building, from what they could see, and so much smoke surrounding the building, from fires the bomb had caused and the explosion itself, that it looked like a volcano. They both stood staring at it for a moment, and then the cameras panned to the snarl of ambulances and fire engines on the street below, people still being ushered from the building, some of them having crawled down a hundred flights of stairs in smoke and darkness, covered with blood and lacerations, and then there were some grisly shots of tarp covered bodies. It was an abysmal example of what the human race was at times capable of, and what gave Steve his business. "How can anyone do something like that?" Meredith asked in a choked voice as Steve pulled the drawstring on his scrub pants, and stuck his bare feet into clogs. At least he had slept for two hours, and felt human again. It was going to be a long haul for him now, and they both knew it. |
| 171 |
He knew he'd be dealing with chaos for days, and when he called her again later that night, things hadn't improved much. And she didn't hear from him again after that until late Sunday morning. And by then, he sounded exhausted. He said he'd managed to sleep for a couple of hours the night before, but other than that, he hadn't slept since he left her. He was living on black coffee. "You've got to get some sleep, Steve." She worried about him being too tired to make sense, or making poor decisions, but that never seemed to happen. He tried to keep his hours within a reasonable time frame most of the time, but in major emergencies all limits and guidelines went right out the window. And in a case like this, she knew he'd stay at the hospital as long as he had to. He seemed to be able to stay on his feet forever, and in truth, she knew he thrived on it. He didn't like what had happened to his patients to bring them to him, but once they were his, he gave them his all, and would have died for them. It was what made him so good at trauma. He had the stamina of a warhorse. "I'm going to sleep for a couple of hours now," he promised her. "I'm scheduled for surgery again in a few hours. But Lucas is here, and he's covering for me." They were a great team, and Meredith was sure that they had saved countless lives since the explosion. Earlier that day, a group of militant lunatics had taken responsibility for it, but so far, none of the perpetrators had been apprehended. "I'll call you before you leave tomorrow." It was hard to believe it was already nearly Monday. Even to her, her trip seemed mundane by comparison, and so shockingly unimportant in the face of this tragedy that had claimed so many innocent people. "You'd better get to the airport early tomorrow, sweetheart," he warned, "they're going to be tightening security everywhere, and it may take you awhile to check in." It was a good reminder, and she made a mental note to leave early, although she was only going to Chicago. |
| 172 |
What he had said was ridiculous. She had the kind of valid reasons women used all the time not to make a terrible mistake, in having children when they didn't want them, or if they weren't ready. Her career was as important to her as his was to Steve, and in its own way, hers was equally demanding. Unless she wanted to cut back radically, or leave the firm, there was no way she could reconcile her business life with having babies. Even Steve understood that, and she couldn't imagine why Callan Dow didn't. Just because he had three kids didn't mean that everyone else was suited to it, or would even enjoy it. God knows his wife certainly hadn't, and what she had done seemed worse to Meredith, having them, and then giving them up and virtually abandoning them for a man, a career, and a life in another country. That was something Meredith would never consider doing, once she had them. She preferred not to put herself in the same bind Charlotte Dow obviously had, and then renege on her responsibilities as a mother. Meredith would have had her tubes tied before that, and had often thought about it, but she knew that Steve would be upset if she did that. He had in fact begged her not to. But she couldn't understand why she couldn't convince Callan Dow that she was completely committed to her marriage, and the simple reality that she didn't want kids certainly didn't mean she didn't love Steve. On the contrary, she loved him so much, she didn't want to share him. She was still upset by what he'd said when she got into bed that night, and after lying in the dark for half an hour, stewing over it, she decided to call Steve, just to tell him she loved him. The nurse answering the phones at the trauma unit said she didn't know where he'd gone, she'd seen him only ten minutes before, but she thought he was on another floor, picking up some X rays, so Meredith paged him. She punched in her number at the hotel and waited for his call. But twenty minutes later, he hadn't called, and she wondered if he was back in surgery again. |
| 173 |
Cal offered her a glass of wine, and the children went back to their friends then. And half an hour later, as he and Meredith sat on the patio, drinking wine and chatting, the last of the friends left, and his kids went upstairs to change for dinner. "Your children are beautiful," she said after they'd gone in, "and they all look just like you." "Charlotte always said that Andy looked like my clone, even as a baby. And both of the girls look just like my mother. I think it was actually part of why Charlotte never bonded with them." But from everything else he had said to her by then, Meredith suspected that there were more severe reasons for her not bonding with them, mostly her long term affair with another man, and the fact that she had never wanted children. "They're not used to seeing anyone come home with me. They've only met one or two of the women I've gone out with." "Why is that?" She was startled by what he said, and it explained why they had seemed so suspicious of her. "I don't think that part of my life is any of their business," he said bluntly. "There hasn't been anyone serious enough in my life to warrant introducing them to the children." It was hard to believe that in the eight years since his divorce he hadn't been seriously involved with a woman. It made her wonder about him, and come to the same conclusion she had come to before, that he was commitment phobic ever since his wife's betrayal, although he claimed to have recovered. They sat outside for a while, enjoying the balmy evening, and then he invited her to come inside to the large elegant living room, filled with English antiques and handsome works of art. And a few minutes later, the housekeeper told them dinner was ready. And like clockwork, the kids trooped downstairs, and then stood in the door of the living room, staring at her. She felt like an animal in the zoo, as the two girls glared at her, and she couldn't help wondering what they were thinking. Callan got up, and walked slowly toward them. |
| 174 |
She seemed too beautiful and too glamorous to be spending time in a laundromat, or over a hot washing machine anywhere. He couldn't imagine her doing housework. "Someone has to do it, and Steve draws the line at cooking. I'm not sure I blame him." "I'll have to meet this guy one of these days. He sounds too virtuous to be true, saving lives, and doing the cooking. The perfect husband." "Pretty damn close," she smiled at him. He left her in the lounge with her briefcase, and half an hour later she boarded the plane. And shortly after takeoff, she took out her laptop. But she only worked for an hour, and then she finally put it away, and lay back against the seat and closed her eyes. She was thinking of Cal. She couldn't imagine the kind of woman he was drawn to. She wondered if they were just pretty faces, or great minds, bimbos, or soul mates. With his aversion to marriage and long term relationships, it was hard to envision who he went out with. But she also realized, as she thought of it, that it was none of her business. It had been a long week, and she was tired. And she could hardly wait to see Steven. As she thought of him, she drifted off to sleep, and the flight attendant woke her when they landed. She was one of the first to disembark, pick up her bags, and hail a taxi. And at ten minutes to seven on Saturday morning, she was letting herself into their apartment. She set her bags down in the front hall, took off her shoes, and walked on tiptoe into their bedroom, so as not to wake him. He was sound asleep in their bed, naked as usual, and she peeled off her clothes, and slipped under the covers beside him. He stirred slightly and pulled her close to him, as though she had been there all night, next to him, and then he opened an eye and realized what had happened. "You're back," he whispered, and she smiled as she nodded and then kissed him. "I missed you," he said, pulling her even closer, and she could feel the warmth of his flesh next to hers, as he kissed her. |
| 175 |
She hung up, and got caught up in her office all afternoon, and when she got home at six o'clock, Steve was waiting for her. He swept her off her feet as soon as she walked into the living room, twirled her around, and kissed her. "Boy, have I missed you." "I've only been gone a week, you goof." "It seemed a whole lot longer. To me at least." He smiled and kissed her again, poured them both a glass of wine, and an hour later, after they chatted for a while, he started dinner. He had been hungry to talk to her, and see her, and feel her next to him in bed at night. He made pasta for them, salad, and garlic bread, and halfway through the meal, he got amorous with her, and the rest of the meal went untouched as he carried her into their bedroom. They never got up again that night, and when she got up the next morning, she threw the remains of their dinner away and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Steve was still asleep, and when she checked The Wall Street Journal, the tombstone she had proofed the day before looked exactly as it was meant to. She left for the office quietly, and Steve called her at the office when he woke up at noon, and for once she managed to go home early. Steve was waiting for her in the living room, he already had dinner on, and as soon as they finished, they went to the movies. In every possible way, it was an idyllic weekend. They talked and laughed and went for long walks in the park. The weather was still warm and balmy, it was that perfect time of year in New York that felt almost like spring, that happened nearly every year in the last weeks of September. And on Saturday night, they went out to dinner at a neighborhood restaurant they both liked. It was a far cry from Harry's Bar where she'd spent the previous Saturday night with Callan, but this was just what she wanted. She and Steve managed to spend uninterrupted time with each other for the first time in months. He was off call all weekend, and she lived up to her promise to him not to touch her briefcase. |
| 176 |
That and the fact that he was smart, had a great sense of humor, worked like a dog, really cared about what he was doing, and had the best body she'd ever seen, and she still found him incredibly sexy. It was an unbeatable combination, no matter how different their jobs were. And besides, she liked that part. It stimulated both of them that their careers were so different. "Thank you, baby, you don't know what this means to me," she said gently. "Listen, maybe this will be the best thing that ever happened to us. Maybe we'll even decide to have kids in California." She made no comment and he didn't push it. She felt she had enough to think about, just worrying about his job and Cal's company, without adding babies to it. And as she hung up the phone, she felt as though an irresistible force were propelling her forward, almost as though this had been meant to happen. It frightened her a little bit, but it was also incredibly stimulating. She spent all of Thursday with Cal again, following him to meetings, and talking to key employees. She had a better sense of his organization and staff than she'd ever had before, and so far she still liked everything about it. She checked in with her office that afternoon, but nothing much was happening, and they had no idea what she was doing. She had told them that she had to go away to attend to family business. "Would you like to come to dinner at the house tonight?" Cal asked as they wrapped up at six o'clock. Everyone else was gone, and she noticed that most people didn't work as late as they did in New York. It was never unusual to see people working till nine or ten o'clock in her office, and sometimes considerably later. But as Cal had pointed out to her from the first, the quality of life in California was considerably different. People seemed to care more about their health, their personal lives, their time off. And after work, they went home, or out to play tennis, or work out. It seemed a healthier, happier, more well balanced existence. |
| 177 |
Charlotte didn't look like anyone's dream mother. They talked about business again then and the children never reappeared. When Cal went for a swim, Meredith watched him. He had a long powerful body, and said he'd been on the swimming team in college. He looked a lot younger than his fifty one years, and there was no denying that he was very attractive. But Meredith was anxious to see Steve, and when it was time for her to leave to pick him up, Cal called her a cab, and renewed his offer to take her. But Meredith insisted that she wanted to take a taxi, and Cal didn't want to force himself on them. They had a lot to talk about, and he didn't want to push it. He invited them to dinner the following night, and Meredith accepted and told him that Steve was anxious to meet him. She didn't tell him why, that Steve was minimally nervous about him, because for the most part she thought Steve was teasing about it. But she did think it was important, for a variety of reasons, that Steve meet him. And she trusted Steve's insights and opinions. She suspected, and hoped, that the two men would like each other, and she respected each of them, though for different reasons. When she met Steve at the gate, he came off in wrinkled khaki pants and a shirt that looked like it had never been ironed, and he was still wearing the clogs he wore at work. He had come straight from the hospital to the airport. And the old tweed jacket he'd brought had holes in both elbows. It was like watching a kid come home from boarding school, and wondering what he'd done with the decent clothes you'd sent with him. "Why on earth did you bring that jacket?" she asked. She had hidden it, two years before, at the back of the hall closet. But no matter what she did with it, he always seemed to find it. And she'd never had the courage to just give it away. She'd done that with a favorite pair of pants of his once, and she'd never heard the end of it. But she couldn't believe he had actually brought this relic to San Francisco. |
| 178 |
She left Steve at the hotel the next day. She was going to meet clients with Cal, and Steve had rented a car to go to his assorted appointments. She had suggested he use a car and driver, which wasn't his style. He had gotten a couple of maps from the place where he'd rented the car, and said he was sure he could find the hospitals where he was going. Meredith kissed him when she left, and promised to meet him at the hotel at the end of the day. She wished him luck and rushed off to Dow Tech to meet Callan. It was another extraordinary day with him. They visited three of his most important customers, and had a tour of one of the hospitals where his diagnostic equipment was in greatest use. It was a fascinating afternoon for her, and Cal was pleased with her reaction. And when she left him at the end of the day, he reminded her to be at his house at seven thirty. "I can't wait to meet Steve, I feel like we're already old friends," he said warmly. She had talked about him so much during the due diligence tour that he honestly did feel as though he knew him. And when Meredith met Steve back at the hotel, he looked relaxed and sounded surprisingly enthusiastic. He had been impressed with all three hospitals he'd seen, and had been given a referral to a fourth one that handled only the most extreme trauma cases. They had a helipad, and apparently ran a trauma unit very similar to the one where he worked, and he could hardly wait to visit it on Monday. He already had an appointment with the director. The hospitals where he'd been had been interesting, and very interested in him, but they had no openings that were suitable for him, although they'd been very impressed with his credentials, and they promised to keep him in mind if anything came up. But he was too senior and too experienced for them to offer him less than the top job and none of theirs was open. He said he could have been happy in any one of them, but he had his hopes pinned on the one in the East Bay that he was visiting on Monday. |
| 179 |
They talked about other things then, and he told her some funny stories about past retreats, and the crazy things people did when they were in an environment as totally different as this. Charlie McIntosh had gotten drunk and actually slept with one of the hula girls years before, and never lived it down. The story had circulated for years, and he always denied it, but everyone knew it was true, except his wife. "I'll try to behave," she said, laughing over it with Cal, and then he looked at her pensively for a long moment, and she was suddenly reminded of Christmas. "I hope not," he said softly. She didn't answer him, but they were so close sometimes that it frightened her. In some ways, Cal filled the role that Steve had, when they were living in the same city. There was nothing she didn't tell Cal. And whatever lack of ease had developed between them over the foolishness on Christmas Eve, had been dispelled when she came back after New Year. They were back to their comfortable friendship. But there were moments when the strength of his personality was like a magnet that drew her to him, not necessarily romantically, but she had a sense more often than not, that they were soul mates. It was as though they had been destined to meet and work together, and build an empire. They were like two halves of one entity that fit perfectly, and at times, she didn't understand it. It was hard to believe they hadn't known each other all their lives. It felt that way sometimes, even more so than with Steve. In some ways, she and Cal had more in common, they shared the same goals, the same needs, the same drive, the same passion for business. Steve lived in a different world, his motives seemed purer to her, he was a different kind of human being. And he cared absolutely not at all about money. He didn't understand the work she did, and he really didn't want to know about it. He just wanted to know that she was enjoying what she did. How she did it, and why, was of no importance to him. |
| 180 |
They had been talking about it for months, but he wasn't thinking of that now as he looked at her, and as he had six weeks before, he leaned over, unable to resist the pull he felt, and kissed her. He felt an electric current go through him as he did, and a sense of panic that he was doing the wrong thing, but he couldn't help himself, and neither could she. Her arms went around his neck, and she kissed him, and they sat that way for a long time, holding tightly to each other. He knew he should apologize to her again, but this time he couldn't bring himself to, because he knew the apology wouldn't have been honest. "I shouldn't say this to you," he whispered finally, "but I love you, Merrie." It was a cry from his heart, his soul. He had known it for a while. And she knew it too. She had known it without knowing, and she nodded. That was the force she had felt pulling her away from Steve. It was Callan. "I love you too, Cal," she said softly. It wasn't just desire that raged between them. It was so much more. It was as though they were part of one body, one soul. And whatever happened next, she knew that for this one moment in time, she was his right now. He took her in his arms again, and held her, and every inch of him hungered for her. He had longed for her for so long. She kissed him with a passion she had never felt before for anyone, not even her husband. Her hands slipped beneath his shirt, and felt his chest, and he gently slipped her white silk dress off her shoulders. And as she stood up, it fell to her feet, and she stood there in all her glory, in white satin bikini pants, and her high heeled sandals. She took his breath away as she had on the beach, and a moment later, he picked her up and carried her into his bedroom. He laid her gently on the bed as she kicked off her shoes, and he took off his shirt and his trousers, and then he slipped off her underwear and admired her beauty. "You're incredible," he whispered. "I've never done this before," she said softly, sounding frightened. |
| 181 |
This was sweet and pure and simple and honest, and as he touched her, he could feel her longing and her passion. She had no illusions about him, wanted no promises from him. Whatever she did want from him was there for the taking. "Let's go to my bedroom." Cheating on Meredith was something he had never done before, and yet with Anna, it seemed fair, and he wanted her very badly. He followed her to a room the size of a closet. It was barely bigger than the bed, and there was a single light, next to the bed. She turned it on for a minute so they could get their bearings, and then turned it off and locked the door. He undressed her in the dark, and lay on the bed with her, and he could feel and sense her more than see her. But there was just enough light from the street lamp for him to see the silhouette of her beauty. There were no words between them, no promises, no lies, only the sheer raw desire they had for each other, and as he took her, she moaned and moved and aroused him unbelievably. He felt completely overcome with passion. Being with her was like being exploded from a cannon, and when he lay spent in her arms afterward, they said nothing for a long time, and then she gently stroked his hair, like a child, and held him close to her. It was the happiest he had been in a long time, longer than he could remember. "I don't want to hurt you, Anna," he said sadly. "This could have a lousy ending for us." It was almost sure to. "So can life. It's good for now. If you can live with it, I can." She wanted so little from him, wanted to take nothing from him, and all she had to give him was in his arms at that moment, but it was a lot more than his wife was willing to give him. "Just tell me when it's over, or you want out. You don't have to slam the door. You can close it softly." But there were no doors he wanted to close now. He was still opening them, and as he explored her again with his hands and his tongue, she did the same to him, and what she gave him was a night he would long remember. |
| 182 |
And when Cal got back from Europe after four weeks, it got worse again. He treated her like an enemy and a stranger. It was as though in the past four weeks, he had closed the door on her forever. She had hoped they could be friends, the way they had been in the beginning. But she realized now that too much had happened between them. Too much love and hope and loss and disappointment. And Cal was obviously angry at her for the way it had ended. For him, disappointment had turned to fury. And he had spent the four weeks in Europe seething about it. It was almost a relief to him to take it out on her every day. He seemed to enjoy it. He picked on her constantly, asked for reports and projections ten times a day, and quarreled with all of her conclusions and opinions. They almost had an open fight in one of the board meetings, which had never happened to them before, and she gave him hell about it later, and felt like a shrew when she said it. "I don't give a damn if you disagree with me, Cal. You can discuss it with me privately, you don't have to humiliate me in public." "You're overreacting, Meredith," he said curtly, and stormed out of her office. But so was he. That much was obvious to everyone. Their colleagues didn't know why, but they were beginning to wonder if he was going to fire her, and so was she. He seemed to have a vendetta against her. The real vendetta he had was with himself for not asking her to marry him earlier, but he had been too afraid of commitment to do that, and so grateful to just let the affair roll along. He doubted now if it would have changed anything for her because of her loyalty to Steve, but he wondered if he would have felt better. And more than anything, he hated losing. "You look like you're in a great mood," Steve commented to her sarcastically when she got home that night, and it was just one straw too many on the proverbial camel's back, and the dam broke before she put down her briefcase. "Actually, I'm not," she said nastily. |
| 183 |
Callan was as disagreeable to her as he always was now, and she said nothing to him. Her personal life was no longer his problem. And she had nothing to say to him, except about what concerned his business. As the shock of Steve's departure settled a little bit, she began to realize he had been right. They had been carrying a dead body around for seven months, and it needed to be buried. And as she calmed down, she felt better able to deal with business. Steve had called from New York, to make sure she was all right, and he said he was staying with friends, and left her the number. But as lonely as she felt at night, she didn't call him. He had a right to his new life, and she knew she needed to recover. She was thinking of quitting her job at Dow Tech and going back to New York. But she had decided to wait a month, and see if things got any better with Callan. He still seemed angry with her, but she was firmer with him now, and when he was unreasonable with her, she pushed back, and he was slowly backing off and getting the message. The respect that they had once shared seemed to be returning, if not the friendship. And three weeks after Steve left, he asked her to help him entertain some analysts from London. She wasn't anxious to go out with him at night, but he said he was taking them to dinner in the city, and it was easy for her to join them. He told her he'd made a reservation at Fleur de Lys, and he'd pick her up on the way. She said she'd rather meet him there, but he insisted. The dinner went very well, and he seemed to relax. She wore a new dress, and had her hair cut that morning, and she was finally beginning to feel like her old self, not the one who'd been in love with Cal, but the person she'd been even before she'd met him. And he seemed to sense it. He was respectful of her at dinner that night, and almost pleasant, but not quite. And after dinner, he drove her back to her apartment. "How's Steve?" he asked politely as he pulled up in front of her building. |
| 184 |
Steve made a sudden choking sound, and instinctively touched the bell he had been about to ring, and fell slowly down the stairs of Anna's building toward the sidewalk. He lay there facedown, unable to move, and one by one windows began to open, and he could hear people far above him, shouting, but by then the men had run away and there was no one to stop them. He could hear voices far away, and after a while, there was someone pulling at him, but as they turned him slowly to survey the damage, he slid slowly into blackness. He was unconscious as the people in the building ran down, and he never knew that they had gone to get Anna. Everyone in the building knew she was a doctor. She found him in the midst of a small crowd, and she was carrying her medical bag. They had told her someone had been wounded. She had heard the shot, but at first thought nothing of it. She thought maybe a truck had backfired. But as she looked at him, she heard sirens. Someone had called for an ambulance, and as she saw the wound, and then his face, and knew who it was, she realized with horror that he had come to see her. She was holding a bandage to his gut when the paramedics arrived, and she told them what she needed. They got him on a gurney as quickly as they could, and she told one of her neighbors to watch Felicia. "Are you going with him?" The paramedics looked startled, as she gave them the name of the trauma unit where she worked, and they agreed to take him there. Steve was still unconscious and bleeding profusely. And as they ran an IV into him, and she kept pressure on the gaping wound, she wondered why he had been there. She had heard nothing from him in three months, and hadn't expected to see him. His blood pressure was dropping as they reached the hospital, and luckily, Lucas was on duty. Anna explained what had happened to him, or what she knew of it, and Harvey ran to surgery to get ready. Anna was still with Steve, and the trauma team had taken over from the paramedics. |
| 185 |
The thought of how far they had come and how much they had accomplished, and that they had freed the Paris of his dreams left him breathless. And the shouts from the people who lined the streets only made him cry more, as the troops marched from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame for a service of thanksgiving. Sam realized he had never been as grateful for anything in his life as he was for having survived the war this far, and having come to this remarkable city to bring freedom to its people. After the services at Notre Dame, Arthur and Sam were deeply moved as they left the cathedral and they walked slowly down the rue d'Arcole. They were free for the rest of the afternoon, and for a moment Sam couldn't even think of what he wanted to do, he just wanted to walk and drink it all in and smile at the people. They stopped for a cup of coffee at a tiny bistro on a corner, and were given a small steaming cup of the chicory everyone drank, and a plate of tiny biscuits by the owner's wife as she kissed them on both cheeks. When it came time to leave she wouldn't let them pay, no matter how much they insisted. Arthur spoke a little French, and Sam could only gesture his thanks and kiss the woman again. They knew only too well how short of food everyone was, and the gift of biscuits was like bars of gold, offered to a stranger. Sam was speechless with awe again as they left the bistro. Maybe the war hadn't been so bad after all. Maybe it was all worth it. He was twenty two years old, and he felt as though he had conquered the world, or at least the only part that mattered. Arthur smiled down at him as they walked. For some reason, Rome had moved him more. Perhaps because he had also spent time there before the war, and Rome had always been a special place for him, the way Paris seemed to be for Sam, even though he had never been there. "I don't ever want to go home, you know that, Patterson? Sounds nuts, doesn't it?" As he said it, he noticed a young woman walking ahead of them, and he was distracted when Arthur answered. |
| 186 |
He could hardly adjust to any of it, not even the little hotel where he stayed on the West Side, and he was desperately lonely for Arthur and Solange as he pounded the pavement, going to agents and acting schools, and looking for jobs that would help him keep body and soul together in the meantime. The army had given him one hundred and fifty four dollars when he was discharged and his funds were dwindling rapidly. It was a huge relief when Arthur came home two weeks later and Sam could move in with him and his mother. He hadn't wanted to impose on her before that. But it was a joy to be with him again, not just because of the money he was saving but because at last he had someone to talk to. They talked for hours in the bedroom they shared, like two kids. Although Arthur's mother often complained that she could hear them, and she wore a disapproving look whenever she spoke to Sam, which was not often. It was as though the war had somehow been Sam's fault, and their laughter and remembered tales only helped to prove that they'd been having a good time, and had stayed away just to cause her anguish. She seemed to view Sam as a constant, unhappy reminder of a difficult time and it was a relief when Arthur found a place of his own, and let Sam stay with him there. By then, Sam had a job as a waiter at P. J. Clarke's on Third Avenue, and had enrolled in an acting school on West Thirty ninth, but he hadn't been offered any parts and he was beginning to wonder if it was all a hopeless dream, when someone finally auditioned him for an off Broadway show. He didn't get the part, but he felt a little closer than he had before, and he knew where he had gone wrong. He discussed it at length with his acting coach, and when he auditioned a second time in late July, this time he got a walk on part in an off Broadway show, and he wrote about it to Solange as a major victory. But it was far more exciting to both of them when, in September, he finally sent her enough money to come over. |
| 187 |
And now they had lost both Solange and Sam. Arthur thought about it all the way back to the office that afternoon, after he left Sam. And on his own, he decided to call their godparents and see if he could arouse any interest. With Sam in jail, and Solange gone, they had no one now except Arthur. But the godparents they had chosen had been chosen for their important names and pretty faces, well known actors most of them, and none of them had any real interest in the children. They were much more interested in talking about the news with Arthur, why had Sam done it, had he gone crazy, had Solange done something to provoke him, what was going to happen now, when was the trial... but absolutely nothing about the children, which left him right back where he started, as the only person they had to depend on, in Sam's absence. He was going to hang on to their aunt's name, just in case, but in the meantime, he was going to follow Sam's instructions and not call her. The next thing he did was to check into Sam's bank accounts, so he could handle his affairs. And he was horrified at what he found there. The balance was infinitely less than he had expected. Sam spent everything he made, mainly on his life style and his girlfriends. In fact, he had already borrowed ahead against future salary in his next play, and aside from the small amount of cash in his checking account, he was in debt up to his eyeballs. There was barely enough to pay the maid's and nurse's salaries over the next few months, until the trial was over. It was a hell of a spot to put the children in, and Arthur remembered Solange saying as much to him years before. She had always wanted Sam to think of the girls, and save some money. But instead he bought her diamond bracelets and fur coats, and God only knew what he spent on his other women. He was known to be a generous man, and he had never skimped on anything, once he could afford to. But now it left him with ten thousand dollars in the bank and ten times that in debts. |
| 188 |
It wasn't that she was jealous. It was more that she disapproved of her fawning French ways, and the fact that Sam was an actor, no matter how successful. Sam had no contact whatsoever with the girls that Christmas. He was not allowed to call them, and wouldn't have anyway, he was too depressed to think of anyone, except Solange and why he had killed her. He couldn't even bear thinking of the children. Arthur had tried bringing photographs of them to Sam, but he was totally withdrawn these days, talking only of Solange and the past, and chronicling his sins and mistakes and transgressions endlessly. He was like an old man, whose entire life was behind him. And Arthur was having a hard time getting him interested in the case. He seemed to have no excitement about his defense, and often said that he deserved to be punished, which was hardly encouraging for Arthur. The rest of the winter slid by agonizingly. Hilary seemed to be running the household more than adequately, and the younger children were doing well, although Hilary had a constant look of pain and anguish around her eyes, which frightened Arthur. But she wanted no comfort from him, in fact, since her mother's death she hadn't come near him. He reminded her that he was her godfather and that he loved her very much, but she stood politely listening, and never responded. She was an odd, distant girl, unusually quiet now that Solange was gone, and she spoke of her father as though she no longer knew him, as though he had died years before her mother. It was obvious that she was deeply affected by what had happened, and it was difficult to remind oneself that she was only nine years old. She seemed so marked by tragedy and it was painful to realize how much it had aged her. Arthur tried to have dinner with them as often as he could, and he was growing worried about paying for the help, their schools, their food, and the apartment. Little Megan had been sick several times, and there were doctor bills, and new shoes. |
| 189 |
And their meager funds were dwindling. And there were times when he wondered if Hilary knew it. She was forcing everyone into economies, and had even learned to mend her own clothes, much to Arthur's amazement. Megan had already begun to regard Hilary as her mother. By the spring, Sam had lost thirty pounds, and all the psychiatric evaluations had been completed. The doctors who saw him all said that he was suffering from a deep depression. They were also willing to say that he had acted, in killing Solange, under the passion of the moment, and had perhaps been insane while he did it, although they all found him sane, normal and intelligent. His only problem was his very understandable depression. Arthur almost felt as though he couldn't reach him, and Sam did nothing to help prepare his own defense. He seemed uninterested in all of Arthur's efforts, and Arthur worked all night on his defense for months, looking up similar cases in the past, searching for improper technicalities, and desperately seeking new angles. But the trial itself was a nightmare. The prosecutor was swift and sure, and he had found every tramp, whore, and starlet whom Sam had ever slept with. There was a parade of women dragged through, testifying to the fact that he drank too much, was sometimes violent when he was drunk, and had no morals whatsoever. And the portrait of Solange painted by the prosecution was one Arthur could hardly disagree with. They described a woman of intelligence and wit and charm and almost saintly devotion to her husband, anxious to do anything possible for him, to help further his career, and keep him happy, while taking extraordinarily good care of their three daughters. She was said to have kept a lovely home, kept aloof from all the Broadway and Hollywood mischief most stars' wives seemed to get into, and it was bluntly said that despite extensive research on the subject, the prosecution had been unable to find anyone who was able to say they thought Solange had ever cheated on her husband. |
| 190 |
She was thought to have been entirely faithful to him, in fact everyone spoken to said that Solange Walker had adored her husband. The prosecution also pointed out that he had absolutely no reason whatsoever to kill her. There was no "crime passionel," there was no justification she had given him for becoming crazed, or temporarily insane, he had simply wantonly, carelessly, wickedly killed her. They even tried to ask for a charge of murder in the first degree, suggesting that it was premeditated, and that he wanted to be free of her to pursue all his floozies. While Arthur, on the other hand, tried to maneuver a manslaughter charge, indicating that it had all been an unfortunate accident. But in the end, after less than a day's deliberation, and more than three weeks of trial, the jury convicted him of murder. Arthur felt as though a stone wall had fallen on his head, and Sam was led from the courtroom looking glassy eyed and vague. It was obvious that he was in shock, and his depression had worsened considerably during the trial. It had been difficult to get any real feeling from him when he was on the stand, or to believe that he had actually loved his wife. But he was so far gone in his own guilt and depression that he could no longer depict any semblance of real emotion, and Arthur had feared that would hurt him terribly with the jury. Arthur asked to see his client in the holding cell immediately after the verdict, but Sam had refused to see him, and a request from Arthur to see him in his cell had been denied. Arthur left in total despair and frustration, feeling that he had failed Sam terribly. But he had warned him, and begged him to get a criminal attorney. Arthur flailed himself all the way back to his apartment for having allowed Sam to force him into defending him. He had two stiff drinks, thought about going to see the girls, and then decided that he couldn't face it. Marjorie had left a message that she wouldn't be home for dinner. As he sat at his desk in the dark he decided it was just as well. |
| 191 |
And it was difficult to believe that this was Sam Walker's sister. He had been so impeccably groomed, such a handsome man, he had had such presence and power and magnetism about him. One had felt instantly drawn to Sam, and together with Solange they had made a dazzling couple. But this woman was a parody of all that was cheap and beaten and ugly. She looked well beyond her thirty nine years, and the ravages of booze had taken their toll on her early. She might have been attractive once, but anything pleasant in her looks was long gone. She only looked hard and bitter and ugly. Her dyed hair was thin and dirty and unkempt, cut just below her ears, and hanging limp and greasy. She had Sam's brilliant blue eyes, but there was a dullness to them, with terrible bags beneath them from excessive drinking. Her skin was sallow, and her waist was thickened by beer, while her legs looked like two little toothpicks. She was totally foreign to everything the girls had ever seen, and Arthur realized that Hilary was staring at her in shock and horror. "This is Hilary." He tried to encourage her forward to shake the woman's hand, but she wouldn't budge. "And Alexandra," who sniffed the stale beer that seemed to permeate the air, and made a face as she looked up at Hilary's obvious disapproval, "and Megan." He indicated the baby, who glanced at the battered blonde with wide eyes. She was the only one who didn't seem worried by her summer home or her hostess. The other two looked terrified, and Hilary had to fight back tears when she saw the room they were to be given to sleep in. Eileen Jones walked them back to it without ceremony, waved in the direction of the sagging, narrow bed that stood unmade in one corner. The room itself was a narrow cell without windows, barely big enough for the bed it held, with a crib folded against one wall that looked as though she had fished it out of someone else's garbage, which is precisely where Eileen had found it, shortly after Arthur had called her. |
| 192 |
Arthur looked around him with a lump in his throat, hating to leave the girls there. And for a moment he hated his wife for condemning the children to this. How could she do this? But she didn't know, he reminded himself, as he fought back his own guilt and resentment. He had to force himself not to think about it and remind himself that this arrangement was only for the summer. And then... that was the real problem. And then what? Marjorie was intransigent. And he had already put out feelers everywhere, for people who would help, people who might want to take them in, people who had large families of their own, or people with no children of their own, but who might be willing to have them. He had spoken to all of his partners at the law firm. Hilary was still standing awkwardly in the doorway of what was to be their room, staring with dismay at their new quarters. There was no closet, no chest for their things, there wasn't even a chair or a lamp or a table. There was a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, which dangled near the doorway. "You got the money?" Eileen turned to him, and feeling awkward handing it over to her in front of the girls, he reached into his jacket for an envelope. "That includes a reasonable amount for their expenses." Being far less genteel than Arthur, she opened the envelope and thumbed through it. He had given her a thousand dollars, including the fee, and if she played her cards right, and fed them nothing but macaroni and cheese for the next two months, she'd have plenty of money left over. She smiled happily at the girls, took a swig of her beer, and saluted Arthur as she tossed her cigarette into the sink with perfect aim. She did it often. "That's just fine, Mr. Patterson. We have any problems, I'll call you." "I thought I might come up to see them in a few weeks, if you and your husband don't mind, to see how they're doing." Hilary stared at him unbelievingly. He was actually going to leave them in this place, with the filth and the beer bottles and the unmade bed. |
| 193 |
She would never have let something like this happen to them. Never. She would have read Eileen the riot act, taken her children home, and somewhere, somehow, she would have made a home for them, and that was just what Hilary had to do. And she knew it. She had to find a way, and a place to go... and enough money to do it. She wasn't going to let anything happen to her little sisters. She would do anything to protect them. And in the meantime she just had to keep them away from Jack and Eileen, keep them amused, outside in the weed choked yard, or in their room. She'd make their meals, give them their baths, take care of their clothes. She lay in bed and planned everything until she fell asleep, and she didn't wake up again until morning, when Megan woke her up at six fifteen with a dirty diaper. She was a good natured child with her mother's red hair, which hung in loose coppery curls, and she had her father's big blue eyes, just as Hilary herself had her father's dark hair and her mother's green eyes. But it was Alexandra who really looked like their mother, and it tore at Hilary's heart sometimes to see her looking so much like Solange, and she sounded just like her whenever she giggled. She made the girls' breakfast before Jack and Eileen woke up, and she took them outside to play, after dressing them in matching blue gingham dresses. She wore a red dress herself with a little apron. Her mother had bought it for her before she died, and she still loved it best of all. And it comforted her to wear it now, and think of her mother. It was noon before Eileen Jones appeared in the doorway to glare at them. She looked as though she were sick, and had they been older, they would have known she was desperately hung over. "Can't you brats shut up? You make enough noise for a whole neighborhood. Christ!" The screen door slammed and she went back inside, and they didn't see her again until after lunch. She stayed inside all day and watched television and drank beer, and Jack seemed to go somewhere else to do his drinking. |
| 194 |
George Gorham was nearing retirement age, but only the year before, he had married an extremely attractive young socialite in her early twenties. Margaret Millington had been one of the prettiest debutantes of the year when she came out, and after that she had impressed everyone by doing extremely well at Vassar. But after that she had left the expected mold, and instead of marrying one of the young men her parents expected her to, she had gotten involved with George Gorham. A widower, he was forty years older than she, and perfect for her in every way. Except that he was unable to have children. He had been honest with her and she insisted that it didn't matter. But he was afraid it might someday, and he didn't want to lose her. And little Alexandra would fill the only void between them. He had discussed with Margaret adopting all of the Walker children and keeping the family intact, and although it seemed a noble deed, it seemed a little excessive to them. He didn't feel young enough to take on a child of Megan's age, and a child as old as Hilary when she was adopted could present problems. But a five year old sounded ideal to them, and Margaret was ecstatic. And on the same day that George approached Arthur about adopting Alexandra, David Abrams had privately come to see Arthur. He was only thirty four, and he and his wife Rebecca were both attorneys, although Rebecca worked for another firm with more liberal leanings. They had been married since their senior year in college and had been attempting to have a baby since their last year in law school, with no success. And they had finally been told that the situation was hopeless. Rebecca was unable to have children. It had been a tremendous blow to both of them, particularly as they had hoped to have several children, but now they found they would be grateful for one, which was really all they could afford at the moment. Like the Gorhams, they had briefly thought of adopting all three, but they felt unable to take on that large a burden. |
| 195 |
But that left Hilary with nowhere to go, except where she was, with the Joneses in Boston, if they would even keep her. There was going to be about ten thousand dollars in Sam's estate after everything was sold, and Arthur thought about the possibility of offering that to the Joneses for the care and feeding of Hilary for as long as it lasted. It was better than nothing, but not much, and he was unhappy with the solution as he made the final arrangements for the others. The papers were drawn up, and both couples were wildly excited. Rebecca planned to take a month off from work, and Margaret and George planned a trip to Europe in the fall with their new daughter. George had already ravaged F.A.O. Schwarz and Alexandra's new room looked like a toy store, whereas Rebecca's mother had bought enough sweaters and snowsuits and underwear for quintuplets. They were two very lucky little girls and their arrivals were anticipated with breathless excitement. But it was Hilary who continued to worry Arthur. In mid August, he had a brief conversation with Eileen Jones, and explained the situation to her. And she bluntly said that for ten thousand dollars, she'd keep her indefinitely, but she didn't see why she had to adopt her. She could just live with them. And cook and clean, although she didn't fill in those details for Arthur. It was like having a live in maid, she was already having her do everything, and Hilary was so deathly afraid of her that she did whatever she told her. She had struck Alexandra once hard, across the face, for some minor infraction she never explained, and she had hit the baby more than once, whenever she touched the television or the radio, or ventured out of their room at all, and it was difficult not to. It was a tiny room for the three of them, particularly a baby who was not quite two yet and didn't understand that she was being confined to her quarters. But in any case, Eileen agreed to keep Hilary, as long as she got the ten thousand dollars in cash. |
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His last wife had had three of them, and they had driven him crazy. "But if you want to take care of her, she's your problem, not mine. Just so she don't bug me." "If she does, just whack her." "Yeah." That seemed to mollify him, and he agreed to let Eileen keep her. And that night she locked herself in the bathroom, checked that her other money was still there, and figured that with the eight she got to keep from the check for Hilary, she'd have close to ten thousand dollars hidden among her garter belt and nylons. It gave her a good feeling, in case she ever decided to walk out on her husband. And maybe she'd take the kid with her, and maybe she wouldn't. Depends if she was any use to her or not, otherwise let Jack worry about feeding her, or let the lawyer take her back. She didn't owe the kid anything. But the kid owed her. After all, she had agreed to keep her, hadn't she. She owed her a lot, from Eileen's point of view. And Eileen owed her nothing. Arthur came up looking somber with a nurse he had hired for the day, and he was startled to see Hilary looking so thin and the others so pale after their months in Boston. They looked like little waifs and he found himself hoping that they were all healthy. And he asked Hilary to come outside with him so they could talk for a while. He wanted to know how she really was, but when she went outside, she told him nothing. It was as though she had put an even greater distance between them, and he didn't even suspect how much she hated him for leaving them in this hellhole. She had spent two months trying to eke out enough sustenance for her sisters, barely able to feed them, let alone herself, on the meager allotment Eileen gave her. She had washed, scrubbed, cooked, and baby sat, and constantly protected them from the threatened beatings of their aunt and uncle. And at night she sang them to sleep and held them when they cried for their mother. And Arthur knew none of that as he watched Hilary's face and wondered why she was so distant. |
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But he had no grip on Hilary now, no idea how she was, since Eileen did not keep him informed, and Hilary wouldn't speak to him on the phone. He went to Boston to see her once, just before Thanksgiving. But Hilary sat in the living room as though numb. She had nothing to say to him, and he left with a feeling of guilt and quiet desperation. He felt as though he had destroyed the child, and yet what choice did he have, and Eileen was her aunt after all. He told himself a thousand stories to calm his conscience as he drove home again, and it was Christmas when he called again, but this time no one answered, and after that he was busy with his own life. George Gorham had died suddenly, and quite unexpectedly David Abrams had decided to move to California, which meant that a great deal more work fell to Arthur. There were, of course, several other partners in the firm, but Arthur was among the senior men there and a great many decisions fell to him, particularly about George's estate which was very involved. He saw Margaret at the funeral of course, but she had decided not to bring Alexandra. It was spring before Arthur saw Hilary again, and he found her even more withdrawn, with a bleak look of despair that was frightening. The house was immaculate, which was at least some relief to him, at least Eileen was making more of an effort. He had no idea that she used Hilary as a full time maid now. At the age of ten, it fell to her to do everything, including pull the weeds outside, wash and iron her aunt's and uncle's clothes, clean, cook, and do laundry. It was remarkable that she got decent grades in school, but somehow she always did, in spite of everything. She had no friends, and no desire to make any. What did she have in common with them? The other kids in school had normal homes, they had mothers and fathers and sisters. She had an aunt and uncle who hated her and drank too much, and a thousand chores to do before finishing her homework and going to bed around midnight. |
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They moved to Jacksonville, Florida, the following October, and by then Eileen was very sick. She could hardly eat or walk, and by Christmas she was bedridden, and Hilary instinctively knew that she was dying. Jack seemed to take no interest in her, and he was out constantly, drinking and carousing, and sometimes she saw him around the neighborhood, coming out of someone's house, and kissing another woman. And it was her job to take care of Eileen, to do everything that had to be done for a dying woman. She didn't want to go to a hospital, and Jack said they couldn't afford it. So Hilary did everything, from the time she got home from school, until the next morning. Sometimes she didn't sleep at all. She just lay on the floor next to Eileen's bed, and tended her as she was needed. Jack didn't sleep in her room anymore anyway. He slept on a big sleeping porch at the back of the house, and came and went as it suited him, without even seeing his wife for days sometimes. And Eileen cried and asked Hilary where he was at night, and Hilary would lie to her and say he was sleeping. But even Eileen's illness didn't bring out any kindness in her, no gentleness, no gratitude for the impossible tasks Hilary was performing. She expected it of her, and even as weak as she was, if she thought Hilary could do more, she would threaten to beat her. It was an empty threat now, but Hilary still hated her, she had from the first day she saw her. Eileen lived for another year and a half after they reached Florida, and when Hilary was twelve, she finally died, staring at Hilary as though she wanted to say something to her, but Hilary was sure it wouldn't have been anything kindly. And life was simpler in some ways after that, and more complicated in others. She didn't have to provide nursing care anymore. But she had to steer clear of Jack, and the women he dragged in with him. He had told her bluntly the day after Eileen died that he was willing to let her stay under his roof as long as she didn't cause any trouble. |
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She'd be able to do that, with the windfall she'd found hidden among Eileen's nylons. It was the only nice thing her aunt had ever done for her, and even that she hadn't meant to do. But it didn't matter now. The money was in Hilary's suitcase and she intended to guard it with her life. To her, it was an absolute fortune. The social worker came for her, as promised, in the morning, and after a brief appearance in court took her to a family in a battered looking house in a poor suburb of Jacksonville. The woman opened the door wearing a warm smile and an apron, there were five other kids inside varying from about ten to fourteen from what Hilary could see, and the place instantly reminded her of the house Eileen and Jack had lived in in Boston. It had the same fetid smell, worn out furniture, and battered look. But with half a dozen kids living there, it was hardly surprising. The woman's name was Louise and she showed Hilary to her room, a room she was to share with three other girls, all of them living on narrow army cots Louise had bought from army surplus. There was a black girl sitting on one of them, she was tall and thin, with big black eyes, and she glanced over at Hilary with curiosity as she walked into the room and put down her things as the social worker introduced them. "Hilary, this is Maida. She's been here for nine months." The social worker smiled and disappeared, back to Louise and the mob of children in the kitchen. The house looked busy and full but wasn't welcoming somehow, and it gave Hilary the feeling that she had just been dropped off at a work camp. "Hilary... what kinda name is dat?" Maida stared at her with hostility now that the social worker was gone and looked her over from the collar of her ugly dress to the cheap shoes Eileen had bought her. It was not a pretty outfit, and it was a far cry from the organdies and velvets of her childhood, forgotten luxuries by now. And with her serious green eyes, she looked at the black girl and wondered what life would be like here. |
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She knew Hilary would have no weapons in her room that night, and of course she didn't. They did the same thing to her again, and the next day Hilary looked glazed. There was no escaping them, and when the social worker came back in a week she looked at Hilary and asked her if she was working too hard. Hilary hesitated and then shook her head. Georgine told her that if she complained she'd wind up in juvie, and everyone did it there, sometimes they even used lead pipes and soda bottles... "not like me and Maida." And Hilary believed them. Anything was possible now. Any anguish. Any torture. She only nodded and told the social worker everything was fine, and went on living her silent nightmare. It went on for seven months, until Georgine turned sixteen and was released as an emancipated minor, and Maida's mother was paroled from jail, and Maida went back to her, which left Hilary the only girl with three boys, while they waited for two new girls to replace the others. But for several days, Hilary was alone with the boys next door, but Louise figured one girl and three boys was not a dangerous combination, so she didn't bother locking Hilary's door, which left her no protection. The boys came stealthily one night, and Hilary lay wide awake, terrified, as she saw them enter her room and silently close the door behind them. She fought them like a cat, but she lost to their strength and they did exactly what they'd come for, and the next morning, Hilary called the social worker and asked to be transferred to juvenile hall. She offered no explanation, and Louise seemed not to care when they took her two days later. Hilary had stolen a knife and fork from the dinner table and the second time she was well prepared for her midnight callers. One boy almost lost a hand, and they retreated in terror. But she was still glad when she left Louise's care, and she said nothing to the social worker of what had happened. At juvenile hall, they put her in solitary, because all she did was mope and wouldn't answer anyone's questions. |
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And it had taken all these years to come home, but she had done it. The juvenile authorities of Florida had given her two hundred and eighty seven dollars to start her life, and she had the ten thousand from Eileen. The first thing she did was go to a bank on Forty second Street. The second thing she did was go to a hotel room. She took a room in a small, seedy hotel in the Thirties on the East Side, but her room was simple and spare and no one bothered her when she went in or out. She ate at a coffee shop on the corner, and read the want ads for jobs. She had taken a typing class in high school, but she had no other skills and she had no delusions about what lay ahead. She had to start at the bottom. But she had other plans as well. She wasn't going to stop there. The specters of the women she'd seen in the past nine years had left their mark. She was never going to be like them. She was going to work and go to college at night, and do everything she had to. And one day she was going to be important, she promised herself. One day she was going to be Someone. On her second day in New York, she went to Alexander's department store on Lexington Avenue and spent five hundred dollars on clothes. It seemed like a terrifying portion of her fortune, but she knew she would have to look right if she was going to get a job. She selected dark colors, simple styles, a few skirts and blouses, and patent leather pumps and a matching bag. She looked like a pretty young girl as she tried her things on in her room downtown, and no one would have suspected the horrors she had endured since her parents died. She went on her first job interview and was told she was too young, and then three more which required stenography skills she didn't have, and finally a job in an accountant's office where she was interviewed by a bald, obese man, perspiring profusely with a damp handkerchief clutched in one hand. "You type?" He leered at her, as she sat watching him. She had dealt with worse than that and he didn't frighten her. |
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His was a house of great nobility and dwindling wealth, until he married the lovely daughter of old Comte de Borne fourteen years before. The house on the Avenue Foch had been a wedding present from the count, and as a gift to Henri, Alexandra had restored his family seat for him, a handsome chateau in Dordogne, and a hunting box in Sologne as well. And since then they had bought a summer house in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, where they went every year with their children. It was a life of considerable luxury, and endless grace. It was the only life Alexandra de Morigny had ever known, and she played the perfect wife at all times for her husband. She ran his house, planned his dinners, entertained his friends, followed his instructions, and brought up their two daughters, Axelle and Marie Louise to perfection. The girls were the greatest joy in her life, and she sat at her desk with a quiet smile, thinking of them that afternoon. They would be home from school very soon, and she would walk the dogs with them in the Bois. It was a good chance to talk, to find out what was going on, who they liked, who they "hated," who might be having trouble at school, and then they would come home for the girls to do their devoirs, have their bath, dine and play and go to bed. Alexandra always stayed with them until her own dinner with Henri. They were six and twelve, as different as night and day, and they were the joy and the laughter in her life. Marie Louise was serious and a great deal like Henri, but Axelle was just as she had been as a child, a little bit shy, totally trusting, and enormously affectionate. It was wonderful just being with her, stroking her pale red curls and looking into those huge blue eyes. Alexandra's heart sang just thinking of it. And she sat smiling as she stared into space, and didn't hear his step on the highly polished parquet floor as he entered the room and watched her. He was almost in front of her before she awoke from her reverie, and she looked up to see the tall, handsome man she had married. |
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And she respected him. She had fallen in love with him at nineteen, and they had been engaged for two years. Her father had wanted to be sure that she was not making a mistake or acting on an impulse. Henri was twenty four years older than she after all, but she had been absolutely certain. She wanted someone just like her father, the old Comte de Borne. He had been sixty when she was born, or he would have been. He had adopted her when she was six years old, and he worshiped her. He had never had children of his own, and he had just lost his wife of forty years when he married her mother. He had gone to the south of France, to grieve, and instead he had met Margaret Gorham, doing precisely the same thing after the death of her husband. She was twenty seven years old and it was a whirlwind romance and within six months they were married, and Pierre de Borne adopted Alexandra. And only he and Margaret shared the secret that she'd been adopted once before when she came to Margaret and George Gorham at the age of five in New York. It was not something anyone needed to know, and it was no longer important. She was Alexandra de Borne, and she was as dear to the count's heart as though she had been his natural daughter. Perhaps more so. She grew up cosseted and spoiled and adored as few children are, and in return she worshiped the man she knew as her father. It was to Pierre that she turned with every woe, or wish, or dream, sharing all her secrets with him, confessing her misdeeds, of which there were few, while Margaret looked on, content in every way, filled with love for her husband and child, and full of mischief of her own. Margaret was, in effect, the child of the family, pulling pranks on both of them, hiding unexpectedly, wearing ridiculous costumes to make them laugh. She was an oversized child who loved to laugh, and enjoy every moment. And Alexandra was oddly enough more like Pierre, affectionate, shy, and filled with admiration for Margaret's wild schemes and irresistible laughter. |
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And it worried Margaret considerably because she thought Henri took advantage of it to control her. And in some ways he treated Alexandra like a child, someone to be scolded, and spoken to in firm tones and told what to do, as though she didn't know herself. In Margaret's eyes, he was more a father than a husband, and Alexandra did everything to please him, no matter how trivial or foolish. He had aspirations toward politics and it made him maniacal about appearances. Everything had to be perfect, constantly circumspect, Alexandra had to be impeccable at all times, the children had to be ten times more polite than any others. Margaret found it exhausting just having tea with them, and it worried her at times that Alexandra seemed to think it was all normal. Anything was all right, as long as it pleased her husband. "That's just the way he is, Maman. He doesn't mean any harm. He's a serious man and he wants everything to be perfect." Alexandra's own father had never been as demanding of his daughter or his wife, and he had had a marvelous sense of humor. Margaret found Henri a dead bore, in comparison to her late husband, but she never said it in so many words. All she wanted was Alexandra's happiness, it was all Pierre had ever wanted for her too. And he left her most of his fortune when he died, leaving Margaret more than enough to amuse herself with for another forty years. She was only forty five when he died, and in many ways she seemed far younger, mostly because she enjoyed herself so much, and she was still very attractive. She was three years younger than Alexandra's husband. Margaret de Borne always had a good time, something amusing to say, something outrageous and entertaining to do. She was pursued by every eligible man in Europe, and she had no desire whatever to remarry. She had been happy with George years before, and she had had everything she wanted with Pierre. There was no point trying to top that, she knew she never could and didn't want to try it. |
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He detested everything she brought and everything she said, and was grateful Alexandra was nothing like her. He could never imagine why the old count had married a woman like her. And he thanked God every day that Alexandra was so much more restrained than her mother. Alexandra was intelligent and kind and discreet, and still very shy, and obedient, which was one of the qualities he liked most about her. He looked down at her as she sat at her desk, and smiled at her in a quiet, distant way. He was not a man to show his emotions, but although he expected a great deal from her, and showed no romance, he nonetheless had deep feelings for her. He knew that without her his life would not be the same, not only financially but in subtler ways that were even more important. She ran a beautiful home for him, she had elegance and style, and her impeccable breeding showed in countless ways. Alexandra de Borne de Morigny was every inch a lady. "You look as though you're dreaming, Alexandra." He spoke to her quietly, with only slight reproach. He never raised his voice to her or anyone, he had no need to. People ran to obey his orders from just a single glance, as did Alexandra. He was distinguished and powerful, with dark eyes and gray hair. He had been extremely handsome and virile and athletic in his youth, and he had aged admirably. He still had a powerful frame and handsome face, and he did not look fifty nine years old, anymore than Alexandra looked thirty five with her big innocent blue eyes, and the silky strawberry blond hair that she usually wore up in elegant French twists and chignons. "Have you organized everything for the dinner next week?" He handed her a checklist of things for her to go over again. She had a secretary to assist her with such things, but she preferred doing most of it herself. That way she could assure him of the perfection he expected. "Everything's done." She smiled up at him with respectful eyes filled with admiration, and he looked serious, as he always did, and a little distant. |
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There would be Cristalle champagne, and Chateau d'Yquem afterward, and eventually poire and a host of other liqueurs as the men smoked their cigars, and the ladies withdrew to another drawing room reserved for their use while the gentlemen enjoyed their cigars and brandy and allegedly ribald stories. It was a custom few people still used, but Henri liked the old customs, and Alexandra always did things the way Henri liked them. It would never have occurred to her to suggest something different to him. She had always done things his way. Always. And to perfection. She sat quietly in her study, after the girls left, thinking of her husband and wondering where he was going that night, and then thinking of her daughters. She heard their voices in the garden outside, and knew they were playing with the nurse. They would soon be out of school, and they would be going to Cap Ferrat as they always did for the summer. It was good for the children there, and Henri would join them in a few weeks, after settling things at his office in Paris. They would undoubtedly join friends on their yacht, and perhaps go to Italy or Greece for a few days, leaving the children alone with the nurse and the other servants. It was a golden life, the only one Alexandra had ever known, and yet sometimes, once in a great while, Alexandra allowed herself to wonder what life would have been like if she'd married a different man, someone easier, or perhaps younger. And then feeling guilty for the thought, she would force it from her mind, and realize how fortunate she was to be married to her husband. When she saw Henri again that night, just before he went out, he looked handsome and impeccable in a beautifully tailored dark blue suit, with a perfectly starched white shirt and dark blue tie, his sapphire cuff links glinting discreetly at his wrists, and his eyes were bright and alive. He always seemed full of energy, full of some secret reserve and strength that belied his almost sixty years, and made him seem much younger. |
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She had changed into a pink satin dressing gown with matching mules, and her hair was piled on her head with a cascade of curls loosely falling from it. She looked beautiful, but it was obvious from the look in her eyes that she was totally unaware of it. "Thank you, my dear. I won't be back late." His words were banal, but the look in his eyes was gentle and loving. He knew she would wait up for him as she always did, in her own room, with the light on, and if he wished, he could come to see her. In most instances, he would knock softly on the door, and come in for a visit before he went to bed, in his own bedroom next door to hers. He preferred separate bedrooms. He had insisted on them since they were married. She had cried about it for weeks at first, and tried to change his mind on the subject for the first several months, if not years. But Henri was firm with her. He needed his own space, his own privacy, and assured her she would need hers in time as well. And he meant it. It was just a habit he had, like so many others. Eventually, she had grown used to it. They had connecting doors which gave easy access to the rooms, and the door between them didn't keep him from appearing in her room in his dressing gown, late at night, with a frequency that always pleased her. And he still felt desire when he looked at her, as he did now. But there were other women who appealed to him too. He always tried to be discreet, although he suspected that occasionally she knew, by instinct if nothing else. Women had an uncanny knack for things like that. He had discovered that in his youth, and he had a great respect for it. "Have a good time." She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and went down to the smaller dining room to have dinner with the girls. She heard his car pull away moments afterward, and turned to help Axelle cut her meat, trying not to think of where he was going. "Why does Daddy go out alone?" Axelle asked casually with a mouth full of food, and Marie Louise frowned disapprovingly. |
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Her heart always seemed to give a happy little leap as she saw the house, and the caretaker opened the gates so they could drive into the court, and then there was still that moment of sadness, that tiny jolt, as she realized that her father would never be there again. After all these years, she still felt his absence sorely. But the prospect of seeing her mother was a comfort and a joy, and it was a homecoming each time she saw her. Their old butler was standing smiling beside the front door, holding it open wide in welcome. And beyond, Alexandra could see the priceless artifacts her parents had collected. Beautifully inlaid pieces of furniture, Louis XV chests covered with rich pink marbles and dripping with handsome bronzes. Urns they had bought at auction in London. And Renoirs and Degas and Turners and Van Goghs, and the Cassatts her mother was so fond of. It was a house filled with beautiful things, all of which would one day be hers, which was a prospect she didn't even like to think of, but the only one that consoled Henri for the exasperation of being related to Margaret. "Darling, are you here?" the familiar voice called from upstairs, from the sitting room overlooking the garden that she was so fond of. And Alexandra hurried up the marble staircase, feeling like a child again, with a happy smile, anxious to see her mother. She found her sitting on a couch, doing needlepoint with her glasses on the very end of her nose, and a glass of wine on the table next to her, and her Labrador retriever stretched out in front of the fire. Axelle and Marie Louise loved the dog, who was old and good natured, but Henri always cringed as she slobbered and licked and kissed and left her hair all over everyone who touched her. "Darling!" Margaret dropped her needlepoint and stood to her full six feet, a pretty woman with blond hair and blue eyes not unlike Alexandra's, in a bright pink Chanel suit with a navy blue blouse and matching shoes, and ruby earrings the size of doorknobs. |
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But she was filled with trepidation. She had avoided children for years, and she was not anxious to get to know his, or grow too attached to them. She had had her fill of children long since. The only two she had ever loved had been taken from her. They arranged a meeting place in Central Park, and on Sunday morning she wore jeans, and a T shirt, and went out to meet him. He had promised to bring the baseballs and the picnic and the children. And as she spotted them beneath a tree, the littlest one on his lap, and the six year old sitting beside him, she felt something stir in her heart that was so long gone she almost couldn't bear it. She stopped in her tracks and wanted to run, but she couldn't do that to him. But as she approached it only grew worse. What she saw in his eyes was the kind of love she had had for Megan and Axie. She never made it to lunch. She watched them throw baseballs for half an hour, and then she pleaded a terrible headache. She ran from the park in tears, and went all the way back to her apartment without stopping for a light or a car or a person. She lay in bed all day and sobbed, and then forced herself to realize again that Megan and Alexandra were gone from her life forever. She had to make herself remember that. There was no point hanging on to them. No one knew where they were anyway and it would have been close to impossible to find them. There was no point torturing herself now. And they were no longer children, they were women. Alexandra would have been twenty two by then, and Megan would be seventeen. But there was no point thinking about them anymore. They were no longer lost children, and she was never going to see them again. But she didn't want to see any other children either. She couldn't bear it. And when the phone began ringing that evening, she quietly took it off the hook and left it there. The next day she acted as though nothing had happened. She was pleasant and businesslike and friendly, and distant and Adam never knew what had hit him. |
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She had no one to talk to, nowhere to turn. She was left only with her own guilt and confusion and panic. She wanted desperately to keep the baby, but couldn't imagine how she could, but more importantly, she was terrified that one day she would lose it, that somehow, someone would take it from her, and she never wanted to love anyone that much again. It was that fear that was the deciding factor. It was too much to ask of her, the rest she could handle, but not the terrible fear of loss, she knew too well the agony it would cause her. She could never risk that again, with children of her own, or anyone else's. She would sacrifice this child in the memory of Megan and Axie. There would never be children in her life and heart again. And as she walked into the doctor's office that Friday afternoon, she thought she was going to faint as she walked through the doorway. She gave the nurse her name, and signed a form with trembling hands, and then they let her sit in the waiting room for an hour. She had taken the afternoon off from work, and she had lain awake the night before. Some part of her was shrieking at her to save the life of this baby. But the voice of the past was too important to her. It outshouted all else and reminded her of the terrible pain of losing Megan and Alexandra. She kept thinking of the day they'd driven away, and the unbearable agony of it... but the agony of tearing this child from within her was no smaller. The nurse led her down a corridor and into a small room as she felt her knees grow weak. She was instructed to take off her clothes, put on a gown and paper slippers and report to the nurse across the hall. "Thank you," Hilary whispered almost inaudibly, wishing somebody would stop her before it was too late. But there was no one to do it. The nurse across the hall looked at her as though she had committed a federal offense, and handed her a clipboard with more forms to sign. Just glancing at them made Hilary feel ill, and she sank onto a narrow wooden bench. |
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She didn't want to eat too much before rehearsal that afternoon, but she was still hungry. He had just ordered blini, and she was tempted but that was too heavy for her when she was dancing. "Maybe I'll have a salad." She told the waiter in Russian and he nodded and disappeared as she told John about her woes of the morning. She asked him nothing about his case. She never did. All she ever thought of was dancing. "Are you rehearsing tonight?" he asked with eyes full of understanding. He was a kind man, and he didn't mind their life revolving around her work. He was used to that. His ex wife had been a writer, and he had sat patiently for seven years while she churned out mysteries that had eventually become major best sellers. He had respected her as a woman and a friend, but it hadn't been much of a marriage. Everything had come second to her work, even her husband. She had been a difficult woman. The whole world had to come to a shrieking halt when she started a book, and she expected John to protect her from any possible interruption. And he had done a fair job of it, until the loneliness of his life with her overwhelmed him. Her only friends were her characters, every plot she wrote became real to her, and she wouldn't even speak to him while she was working. She worked from eight in the morning until midnight, every day, and then went to bed, mute with exhaustion. In the morning, she'd start again, but she didn't talk to him over coffee because she was already thinking about the book. It had been lonely being married to Eloise. She wrote under the name of Eloise Wharton. And when she wasn't working on a book, she was either in a major depression because she wasn't working, or she was on tour in thirty cities in forty five days, pushing her latest epic. He figured out before he asked her for a divorce that they spoke to each other on the average something like thirty hours a year, which was something less than what he needed for a happy marriage. They loved each other, but she loved her work more. |
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They would have thought her too limited, and extremely difficult, inadequately educated and ill informed, and yes, it would matter to them that she wasn't "social." It wasn't something that mattered to him a great deal, but he knew that to them, it was important. Eloise had been something else. She and his mother had never really gotten along, and she thought his sisters in law unspeakably boring. But she was from an excellent family, and had graduated from Yale summa cum laude. You couldn't fault Eloise's breeding, or her education. And she was intelligent and amazingly witty, none of which had made her a good wife. Far from it. Not that Sasha showed much greater promise. He thought about calling Sasha after she got home, but he was too tired to hunt her down, wake her roommates up, and beg her forgiveness because he was going to Cape Cod to see his mother. Instead he burrowed into the pillow and fell asleep, and didn't wake up until the alarm rang the next morning. He showered and shaved, made himself coffee and left for work, and he noticed when he read the newspaper on the subway that Eloise had a new best seller. Good for her. It was all she had in life, and he knew how happy it made her. He envied her sometimes. He would have liked to be as fulfilled, as obsessed, as totally enthralled with what he did that it didn't matter what else happened in his life. He loved his work, but he wanted so much more than that. And so far, he hadn't found it. It was one of the reasons why he was excited about the Patterson case. There was something about it that excited him and he hadn't been this excited about his work in aeons. The first thing he wanted to do was find the oldest one, Hilary. There was something about her that haunted him. And God only knew what had happened to her after Arthur had abandoned her in Charlestown. He knew from her visit to Arthur's office in later years that she had wound up in Jacksonville, Florida. Somehow, but how or when or why, neither of them knew, and maybe it wasn't important. |
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He sighed deeply and put the clipping back in the file with a notation. Later, he would have to call and tell Arthur. But two of his associates were anxious to speak to him in the meantime. Three of their biggest cases were coming to court, and they had gotten the goods in all three. It was very rewarding. And at noon, John looked at his watch and made a decision. He had handled pretty much everything he wanted to, the rest could wait till Monday. His parents weren't expecting him till dinnertime. And if he caught the two o'clock commuter flight out of La Guardia, he'd be in Boston at three, and he could stop in Charlestown on his way to his folks. He'd still be there in plenty of time, and he wanted to see if he could turn up anything on Hilary Walker. He had what he needed to go straight to Jacksonville on her, but he still liked to be thorough in his investigations. And a trip to Charlestown might turn something up on one of the others. It was worth a look in any case, and he was going in that direction. He told his secretary where he'd be in case she needed him, and took a cab back to his apartment. It took him ten minutes to pack a bag. He knew exactly what he needed for a weekend with his family. And by one o'clock he was already on his way to La Guardia. He bought a seat on the commuter flight, arrived at three ten, and rented a car at the airport. And from there it was a thirty minute drive to Charlestown. He checked the information in the file again and made sure he had the correct address, and cringed inwardly as he began driving down the streets of Charlestown. It was one of those areas that had been ugly forty years before, and had not improved with age. There were other sections that had been lucky in recent years, and were being restored by loving hands, but these houses were not among them. And if they had been ugly when Hilary lived there, they were worse now. They were truly awful. Filthy, broken down, with paint peeling everywhere, and many of the houses boarded up and crumbling. |
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Moments later, Philip arrived, looking very tan after a European vacation. He and his family lived in Connecticut, and he played tennis constantly. He had a son and a daughter and a wife with blond hair and blue eyes and freckles. She looked exactly like what she was, the childhood sweetheart he had married in college. He was thirty eight years old, and so was she, and she won all the tennis tournaments in Greenwich. They were truly the perfect family, except for John, who had never quite fit into the mold, and never done what was expected. And bringing Sasha up here would have complicated things even further. Eloise had been difficult enough. When she wanted to be sociable, she was great, and when she didn't, she would bring a type writer, and insist on working till lunchtime, which drove Leslie nuts, and made his mother worry that she wasn't having a good time. Eloise was definitely not easy. But Sasha would have really been a shock to them with her leotards and her skintight blue jeans and her fits of petulance and her scenes of defiance. The very thought of her made him grin to himself as he looked at the ocean. "What's so funny, big brother?" Philip clapped him on the back, and John asked him all about Europe. The hardest thing of all was that they were all such nice people, and he loved them, but they bored him to death, and by Sunday afternoon, it was a relief to be driving to the airport. He felt guilty for thinking it, but they all led such normal, suburban lives. By the end of a weekend, he always felt like a misfit. At least his mother had had a nice time. Each of her sons had given her something special that was important to her. John had bought her a beautiful antique diamond pin with a matching bracelet, and it was just the kind of thing he knew his mother loved. Charles had given her stock, which John thought was an odd gift, but she seemed to be pleased with it, and Philip had given her something she had said she wanted for years, but never bought herself. |
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In Jacksonville, he went directly to the juvenile hall, asked for the senior administrator, and explained his investigation. It was unusual in cases like that to lay files open to anyone, but so many years had passed, and the girl would be thirty nine years old. There could be no harm in looking back into the past now. And John assured them of his total discretion. The signature of the judge assigned to the juvenile court had to be obtained, and John was told to come back the following morning. In the meantime, he checked into a motel downtown, and wandered the streets aimlessly. He spent some time going through the phone book and found five Jack Joneses, and then on a whim, he decided to call them. Three of them were black, and the fourth one didn't answer. But the fifth said his father had grown up in Boston and he thought he'd been married to a woman named Eileen who died before his dad married his mother. He said he was eighteen years old, and his dad had died of cirrhosis ten years before, but he'd be happy to tell him anything he could. John asked him if he knew where his father used to live, say twenty five years before, if maybe his mother knew, but the answer to that was simple. "He's always lived in the same house. We still live here." Chapman's interest rose sharply and he asked if he could come out and see it. "Sure." He gave him the address, and John was not surprised to discover that it had much the same feeling of their neighborhood in Charlestown, the same seedy, depressing kind of area, near a naval yard, only this one was mostly black, and there were young boys on motorcycles cruising the area, which made Chapman nervous. It was not a nice place to be, and like the Charlestown place, it looked as though it never had been. Jack Jones Jr. was waiting for him, with a motorcycle parked in his own front yard, and he looked as though Chapman's visit made him feel important. He rattled on briefly about his dad, showed him some pictures, and invited him inside to meet his mother. |
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She came out at exactly five fifteen, and John recognized her at once, even without the receptionist's good night as she sped past. "Good night, Miss Walker." Hilary turned to glance at her sharply and then nodded, she didn't seem to notice anyone else in the waiting area, or John as he followed her to the bank of elevators and stepped into one beside her. He almost felt weak at the sight of her, he could see every strand of the shining black hair twisted into a knot, the graceful hands, the long neck, he could even smell the crisp scent of her perfume. She walked with a sure step, a long stride, and when he bumped into her once, she looked up at him with green eyes that pierced straight to his soul, eyes that said don't touch me, don't even come near me. She got on a bus on Madison Avenue, instead of fighting for a cab, and she got out at Seventy ninth Street. She walked two blocks farther north, and then he realized she was going to a doctor's appointment. He waited patiently outside, and then followed her again when she took a cab and went to Elaine's where she met another woman. He sat in a booth close to theirs, and was intrigued by what might be said. The other woman was a well known anchor from the network, and she looked upset. She started to cry once, and Hilary looked unmoved. She watched her, unhappy, but not sympathetic. And then finally John remembered as the two women shook hands outside the restaurant, that the woman who was the anchor had been fired when he was in Paris. It had created an enormous stir, and she was either pleading with Hilary for her job, or telling her side of the story. Her firing had supposedly come from higher up, but maybe she thought if she could gain Hilary's ear, she might get back in. But it was obvious from the unhappy look on Hilary's face as she walked slowly downtown alone, that she couldn't help her. She stopped to glance in shop windows once or twice, and walked with a purposeful stride, yet a feminine sway to her hips, which kept him riveted as he watched her. |
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He had to change planes twice, and a jeep met him and took him over three hours of bumpy roads into the mountains, until he was deposited at a "motel" with a single room and an outdoor toilet. He sat huddled in his room that night, listening to the owls outside and sounds he had never heard before, and he wondered what Megan would be like when he met her the next morning. He slept fitfully, and woke early. He walked to the town's only restaurant and ate fried eggs and grits, and a cup of truly awful coffee. And the jeep came for him again after lunchtime, with a toothless driver, who was only sixteen years old, and drove him to the hospital, high up in the mountains, under tall pine trees and surrounded by shacks where assorted families lived, most of them with a dozen children running around barefoot in what could only be called rags, followed by packs of mangy dogs hoping to find some crumbs, or leftover food the children might have forgotten. It seemed difficult to believe that this godforsaken outpost could be huddled in such beautiful country, and only hours away from places like New York, or Washington or Atlanta. The poverty John saw was staggering. Young boys who looked like bent over old men from poor working conditions, bad health, and acute malnutrition, young women with no teeth and thin hair. Children with swollen bellies from lack of food. John wondered how she could stand working there, and walked into the hospital, not sure of what he'd find there. He was directed to a clinic around the back, and he went there, only to find twenty or thirty women, sitting patiently on benches, surrounded by screaming kids, and obviously pregnant again with what in some cases was their eighth or ninth child even though they were only twenty. It was an amazing sight, and when he looked toward the desk, he saw a head of bright red hair, braided and in pigtails, worn by a pretty girl in jeans and hiking boots, and as she walked toward him, he knew without a doubt, it was Megan. |
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She knew exactly who she was, where she was going, and why she wanted to go there, not unlike the people who had formed her. David and Rebecca had lived by their beliefs too, and they were exactly the kind of parents she needed. Decent, intelligent, filled with integrity and love for the people and causes they believed in. And Megan knew it too. She had told her mother that before coming back here. "She'll be all right. I promised to call her after it was all over. I think they'll probably visit me after that, if I know my parents." They both laughed, and John watched her eyes. They were filled with light and life and excitement. She was a girl who loved what she was doing and felt fulfilled, and it was exciting just being near her. She was so different from girls like Sasha, who were so totally wrapped up in themselves. This girl thought of no one but the needy people around her. And halfway through the afternoon, she had to leave him to do an emergency cesarean section. She was back in two hours and apologized for the delay. "This is supposed to be my free afternoon. But it's always like this, that's why I don't get too far." And then she invited him to dinner at her place. She lived in a simple shack, with simple furniture and beautiful quilts she had bought from some of her patients. She cooked up a plain pot of stew and they relaxed and talked about her youth and her parents and the people she had met. She seemed to love her parents deeply and she was grateful for all they had done for her, yet at the same time it seemed to intrigue her to think that she had once belonged to entirely different people. She smiled once over her glass of wine, and looked very young and girlish. "In a funny way, it's kind of exciting." He laughed and patted her hand. In a way she seemed the least distressed, the most secure, the happiest of the three women. She was doing exactly what she wanted. And afterward she drove him back to where he was staying in the jeep her father had given her when she'd moved to the mountains. |
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All of it. The uglier and the ugliest, and the tragic and the brutal. But it helped to share it with them, and whereas she had once been the one who protected them, they comforted her now, and Alexandra held her hand, as Megan told her story, of sit ins in Mississippi, and the time her father had been shot on a rainy night in east Georgia, of what decent people they were, and how totally they believed in their causes, and how much she loved them. And then Alexandra told them about Margaret, and Pierre before he died, and her life with Henri, and how she was afraid that now he would divorce her. "He'd be a damn fool if he did." Hilary spoke up, as she flung her long black hair over her shoulder, in a gesture that struck a chord of memory for Alexandra as she watched her. "He is so obsessed with his lineage, and you have to admit, ours is a bit exotic for someone like my husband." The three of them laughed and the sun came up as they talked. They went to bed amid yawns and kisses and hugs and promises to meet again in the morning. They all slept until noon, and Alexandra was the first one to get up. She called her mother and the children at the hotel, but they were out, and she left a message that all was well and she would be home on Sunday night. And then she thought about calling Henri, but she didn't know what to say, so she went back upstairs and showered and dressed, and when she came back downstairs again, Megan was wearing a clean pair of jeans and a white blouse with a ribbon in her hair. And she looked more like a little girl than a doctor, and Alexandra said so. The two of them chatted over coffee and hot biscuits, and one of Arthur's nurses informed them that he had had a difficult night, so Megan went upstairs to check on him, just as Hilary came downstairs in shorts and a silk shirt, her black hair pulled severely into a bun, and her feet bare as she came to breakfast. She looked somehow much younger than she had the night before, and Alexandra realized that they all did. |
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Her life at the Chateau de Marmouton was over, and whether or not he said it, she knew it. She looked around desperately before they left, as though trying to take it all with her. And Sophie was still sobbing uncontrollably as they drove away, and she promised to write to Marie Ange daily. The car was already gone when the old woman fell to her knees in the courtyard, sobbing in anguish. And after they left, she went into the kitchen, and then back to her cottage, and packed her things. She left it immaculate, and took a last look around, and then she walked outside into the September sunshine, and locked the door behind her. She had already made plans to stay with her friends at the farm for a while, and then she would have to go to Normandy to stay with her daughter. On the long drive to Paris, Marie Ange did not speak a single word to her parents' lawyer. He made a few attempts at conversation at first, and finally gave up. She had nothing to say, and he knew that there was little, if anything, he could say to console her. She would just have to learn to live with it, and make a new life with her great aunt in Iowa. He was sure that in time, she would be happy. She could not remain disconsolate forever. They stopped for lunch along the way, but she ate nothing at all, and when he offered her an ice cream at the airport late that afternoon, she shook her head and declined it. The blue eyes looked huge in her face, and the curls looked slightly disheveled. But Sophie had put her in a pretty blue dress, with a smocked front, that her mother had bought her in Paris. And she was wearing a little matching blue sweater. She was wearing her best patent leather shoes, and the gold locket that had been her last gift from her brother. It would have been impossible to guess, from looking at her, that she had spent the entire summer running barefoot and bedraggled through the orchards. She looked like a tragic little princess as she boarded the plane, and he stood for a long time watching her, but she never turned to wave. |
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She didn't say anything except a polite "Au revoir, Monsieur," when she shook his hand, and the stewardess led her away to board the plane that would take her to Chicago. He had explained to them quietly that she had lost her entire family, and was being sent to relatives in Iowa. It was easy for them to see that she was desperately unhappy. The chief stewardess had been overcome with sympathy for Marie Ange, and had promised to keep an eye on her on the flight, and to get her safely on the next flight once they reached Chicago. He thanked her politely, but it made his heart ache to think of what Marie Ange had been through. And he was glad that she had a great aunt at least to take her in and bring her comfort. He stayed until the plane left the ground, and then went out to begin the long drive back to Marmouton, thinking not only of the child, but of the work he still had to do, disposing of their belongings, the chateau, and her father's business. And he was grateful, for her sake at least, that her father had left his affairs in good order. Marie Ange stayed awake most of the night on the flight, and only after they urged her several times did she pick at a small piece of chicken, and take a few bites of bread. But other than that, she ate nothing, and she said nothing to them. She sat staring out the window through most of the night, as though she could see something there, but there was nothing to see, nothing to dream of now, nothing to hope for. At eleven, she felt as though her entire life were behind her. And when she closed her eyes at last, she could see their faces as clearly as if she had seen them in the locket. She had a photograph of Sophie with her, as well, and her daughter's address. Marie Ange had promised to write to her as soon as she reached her great aunt's farm, and Sophie had promised to answer. They reached Chicago at nine P.M. local time, and an hour later, she was on a flight to Iowa, with her three huge suitcases checked in with the baggage. |
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Marie Ange knew those things weren't beautiful, but Sophie had said they would be useful for school, and Marie Ange thought now that Carole had put them aside because they were ugly. Without saying a word to the child, she zipped the suitcases up again, and told her to put the things on the bed in the narrow closet. Marie Ange was confused by what she was doing, and then her Aunt Carole told her to go outside and find Tom so she could learn her chores from him, and then she disappeared to her own bedroom far down the dark hallway. The foreman was waiting for her outside, and he took her to the barn, and showed her how to milk a cow, and the other minor tasks that were expected of her. They didn't seem too hard to Marie Ange, although there were a lot of things her great aunt wanted her to do, and Tom said that if she couldn't finish in the morning before she went to school, she could do some of the cleaning up in the late afternoon before dinner. It was a full two hours before he returned her to her Aunt Carole. Marie Ange was surprised to see her dressed and sitting on the porch in her wheelchair, waiting for them. She spoke to Tom, and not the child, and told him to get Marie Ange's bags, and drive them into town, as the child looked at her in terror. All she could think of was that she was being dropped off after all at the state institution. And as she followed them to the pickup truck she'd ridden in the night before, she saw the foreman throw her bags behind them into the truck. Marie Ange said nothing and asked no questions. Her life now was one long, endless terror. There were tears bulging in her eyes as they drove into town, and Carole told the foreman to stop at the Goodwill store. He set up her wheelchair for her, and helped her into it, and then she told him to take the suitcases inside, as Marie Ange continued to wonder what would happen to her. She had no idea where they were, where they were going, or why they had come here with her suitcases, and her aunt had offered no explanation to reassure her. |
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And it never occurred to Marie Ange to think of the hundreds of dollars of credit Carole had just gotten at the Goodwill store in exchange for Marie Ange's wardrobe. In fact, for the moment at least, Marie Ange was profitable, rather than costly. For the rest of the day, Marie Ange went about her chores, and didn't see her aunt again until dinner, and that night the meal was spare again. They had a tiny meat loaf Carole made and some boiled vegetables that tasted awful. The big treat for dessert was green Jell O. Marie Ange did the dishes afterward, and lay awake in her bed for a long time that night, thinking about her parents, and everything that had happened to her since they died. She could no longer imagine another life now, except one of terror, loneliness, and hunger, and the grief of losing her entire family was so acute that there were times when she thought she couldn't bear it. And suddenly, as she thought about it, she understood exactly what her father had meant when he called his aunt mean spirited and small minded. And she knew that her mother, with all her joy and love and vivaciousness, would have hated Carole even more than he did. But it did her no good to think of that now. She was here, and they were gone, and she had no choice but to survive it. They went to church together the next day, driven by Tom again, and the service seemed long and boring to Marie Ange. The minister talked about hell and adultery and punishment, and a lot of things that either frightened or bored her. She nearly fell asleep at one point, and felt her great aunt shake her roughly to rouse her. Dinner was another grim meal that night, and her great aunt informed her that she would be going to school in the morning. Carole had been relieved to realize that although she had a noticeable accent when she spoke, Marie Ange's English was certainly fluent enough for her to go to school and follow what they were saying to her, although Carole had no idea if she could write it, which she couldn't. |
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Except for her rare visits to his parents' farmhouse. It was even harder for them during the summer, when they weren't in school together. Instead, they would both ride bicycles to a meeting place they had found the year before, and sometimes spent hours by a small stream, sitting there and just talking to each other, about life, their families, their hopes and dreams and their futures. She always said she wanted to go back to France when she was eighteen, and planned to get a job as soon as she was old enough so she could afford to. And once he had said that he wanted to come with her, although for him, the dream was even less likely and more distant. They rolled along after that, as they had always been, devoted friends and buddies, until the following year in the summer, when they met at their secret hiding place. She had brought a Thermos of lemonade with her, and they had been talking for hours, when he suddenly leaned over and kissed her. He was fifteen, and Marie Ange had just turned fourteen, and they had been best friends for nearly three years then. And once again, she was startled, when he kissed her, but she didn't object quite as violently as she had the year before. Neither of them said anything, but Marie Ange was worried, and the next time they met, she told him she didn't think it was a good idea for them to do anything to change their friendship. She told him in her innocent way that she was afraid of romance. "Why?" he asked gently, touching her cheek with his hand. He was growing into a tall, handsome young man, and sometimes she thought he looked a little like her father and brother. And she loved to tease him about his freckles. "Why are you afraid of romance, Marie Ange?" They were speaking English, because hers was still far superior to his French, although she had taught him well, and he even knew all the important slang expressions, which he knew was going to impress his French teacher in high school. They were both starting high school, at the same school they'd been, in September. |
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It made him a little sad when he thought about it, but he was happy for her. And after the hard life she'd led on her great aunt's farm for the past seven years, he knew better than anyone how much it meant to her. And finally, an hour after she arrived, she got up and had to leave for school, but she promised to come by the following morning. They saw a lot of each other during her college days, far more than either of them had expected. The commute ate up her time, and she eventually got a job in town as a waitress in a local diner on the weekends, which helped her with expenses, and allowed her to repay the book money she'd borrowed from the foreman. Her Aunt Carole had always refused to give her any money, and told her that if she wanted it badly enough, she'd work for it. But in spite of that, and the chores she still had to do on the farm, she managed to stop and see Billy daily. He came to the diner for a meal occasionally, and now and then they even went to a movie. During her sophomore year, Billy had a girlfriend, but he always made it clear to Marie Ange that she was far more important to him than any other girl and always would be. Their childhood friendship had blossomed into a bond like no other, and she even liked his girlfriend, but by Christmas that year, Billy had tired of her. She didn't have the spark or fire of Marie Ange, the energy, the brains, the style, and bored him in comparison. Marie Ange had spoiled him. He turned twenty one as Marie Ange started her junior year, and it was a hard year for her. Aunt Carole was sick much of the time, she seemed to be getting old and frail and slowly failing. She was seventy nine years old by then, and in many ways, she seemed as tough as ever, but it was more bravado than real these days, and from time to time Marie Ange felt sorry for her, although Billy said he didn't. He had always hated the way she treated Marie Ange, her hard heart, and mean spirit. Marie Ange knew by then that her father had not been wrong in his assessment of her. |
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Everyone in the area was still talking about his new Porsche, and he drove it every chance he got. His father had teased him that he spent more time in it than on the tractor. And his girlfriend Debbi was in love with it. But it meant the most to Billy because Marie Ange had given it to him. He had finally stopped arguing with her about it, and agreed to accept it, although he said he shouldn't have, but he couldn't bring himself to part with it. It was his dream car, and her thank you for getting her to college in the Chevy. "I'll call you from Paris, when I can," she promised him that night when he took her home. She had left the Chevy with him, and asked him to store it for her, in case she came back to finish college. She didn't want to sell it, it meant too much to her. It was the only thing she wanted to keep from her years with Aunt Carole. There were no other happy memories for her, only sad ones, except those that involved Billy. Billy promised to pick her up in the morning and drive her to the airport. And as she wandered the house alone, thinking of the ten years she had spent there, it seemed eerie and agonizingly lonely. She wondered how her great aunt was at the home, but Carole had told her not to bother calling, so she didn't. She slept fitfully that night, and did no chores when she got up, for the first time in more than ten years. And it was strangest of all to realize that soon she would be in Paris, and then back at Marmouton. She couldn't even imagine what she would find there. Billy picked her up promptly at nine, and put her one small bag in the car. She had almost nothing to take with her. She had no souvenirs, no photographs, except of him, no mementos, except the things he had made her over the years, for her birthdays and at Christmas. The only other things that meant anything to her were the photographs of her parents and Robert, and the locket she still wore and treasured. They were both quiet in the car, on the way to the airport. There was so much to say, and no way to say it. |
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She thanked the woman at the bakery and left, promising to return, and she drove slowly the rest of the way to the chateau, and when she reached it, she found, as the woman had said, that the gates were open, which surprised her, particularly if the owner was more often than not absent. Marie Ange parked her rented car outside the grounds, and walked slowly through the gates, as though she were reentering Paradise and was afraid that someone would stop her. But no one came, there was no sound, no sign of life. And Alain Fournier was nowhere in sight. The chateau looked abandoned. The shutters were closed, the grounds were somewhat overgrown, there was a sad look to the place now, and she could see that part of the roof was in disrepair. And beyond the house, she saw the familiar fields and trees, woods and orchards. It was precisely as she had remembered. It was as though, just seeing it, she was a child again, and Sophie would come looking for her at any moment. Her brother would still be there, and her parents would come home from their activities in time for dinner. And as she stood very still, she could hear birds, and wished that she could climb a tree again. The air was cool, and the place, even in its disrepair, was more beautiful than ever. For a moment, she wished that Billy could see it. It was exactly as she had described it to him. She walked out into the fields, with her head bowed, thinking of the family she'd lost, the years she'd been away, the life she had loved so much and that had ended so abruptly. And now she was back, and it belonged to someone else. It made her heart ache to know that. She sat on a rock in the fields, reliving a thousand tender memories, and then as night fell slowly in the cool October air, she began to walk back slowly toward the courtyard. She had just passed the kitchen door, when a sports car pulled in at full speed, and stopped near her. The man behind the wheel looked at her with a puzzled expression, and then smiled at her and got out. |
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She went back to the chateau, and that night she and Bernard went out again. And the following morning, his friends arrived. They were a lively group, the women were sophisticated and fashionable, and all of them were well dressed, and extremely nice to Marie Ange. Bernard explained who she was, and that she and her family had lived at the chateau when she was a child. One of the men recognized her name, and knew of her father's enterprise. He commented that John Hawkins had been an extremely respected and successful man. She told Bernard how her parents had met, and he was touched by it, but even more impressed by what his friend had said about her father's success in exporting wines. And she realized that men were more intrigued by business than romance. It was an idyllic weekend for all of them, and when she packed her bags after the weekend, Bernard begged her not to go. But she knew she had been there long enough, and had told him all she could about the chateau. It was definitely time for her to leave, and she wanted to visit the Sorbonne, but she would cherish the memory of the ten days she had spent at Marmouton with him, and she thanked him profusely before she left, and was touched when he kissed her on both cheeks and told her how sad he was to see her go. She drove back to Paris that day, and had dinner alone at her hotel, thinking of him, and the days she had just spent in what had once been her family's chateau. It was a precious gift Bernard had given her, and she was deeply grateful to him. The next day, she wrote him a long thank you note, as she sat at the Deux Magots. She mailed it that night. In the morning she went to the Sorbonne to see about classes. She still hadn't decided whether to enroll, or go back to Iowa to finish her last year of college there. And she was thinking seriously about it, as she took a walk along the Boulevard Saint Germain that afternoon to decide what to do, and ran smack into Bernard de Beauchamp on her way back to her hotel. |
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It was small but beautiful and filled with wonderful antiques. In January, she discovered she was pregnant, and Bernard was ecstatic. He kept talking about how old he was, how much he wanted a child with her, and that he hoped it would be an heir for his title. He desperately wanted a son. And within days of her announcing to him that their first child was on the way, the renovation on Marmouton began, and within weeks the chateau was a shambles. Suddenly, they were redoing everything, the roof, the walls, the long French windows were being enlarged, the height of the doorways. He had a spectacular new kitchen planned, a brand new master suite for them, a nursery that he promised her would look like a fairy tale, and a movie theater in the basement. The entire electrical system was being revamped, along with the plumbing. It was a massive undertaking that far exceeded Marie Ange's understanding of what he'd planned, and it was easy to figure out that it was going to be staggeringly expensive. He was even planting endless acres of new vineyards and orchards. But Bernard told Marie Ange that he wanted her home to be perfect for her. The work was being designed by his architect friend from Paris. And there were dozens of workers everywhere. And Bernard also promised her that much of the interior work would be done by the time she had the baby in September. And when she called Billy again, she told him she was pregnant. "You sure didn't waste any time, did you?" he said, still sounding worried about her. Everything seemed to be happening to her with the speed of sound, and she told him that Bernard was anxious to start a family with her, as he was so much older than she was, and had lost his only son. She had also written to her Aunt Carole to tell her about the changes in her life, but she had had no answer. It was as though her great aunt had closed the door on her and moved on. By March, the chateau was covered with scaffolding, there were workmen everywhere, and they spent more time in Paris. |
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They had them for the month of July, and by August they planned to be in Marmouton again, as by then, she would be eight months pregnant, and wanted to slow down. She was going to have the baby at the hospital in Poitiers. The time they spent in the South of France seemed like magic to her. They went out, saw his friends, and the villa was constantly filled with houseguests from Rome, Munich, London, and Paris. And everyone who visited them saw how happy they were and was delighted for them. Her time with Bernard had been the happiest nine months of her life, and they were both excited about the baby. The nursery was ready when they got back to Marmouton, and Bernard had hired a local girl as a nanny for her. And their sumptuous master suite was completed for them at the end of August, but the rest of the chateau was still a work in progress. But so far, despite the amount of work they'd done, there hadn't been a single problem. Everything was going according to plan. It was on the morning of September first, as she was folding tiny little shirts in the nursery, that the local contractor came to find her. He said he had some questions to ask her about the ongoing work on the plumbing. Bernard had put in fabulous new marble bathrooms, with Jacuzzis, enormous tubs, and even several saunas. But she was startled when, at the end of his conversation with her, the contractor seemed reluctant to leave the room and looked awkward. There was obviously something on his mind, and when she asked him pointedly what it was, he told her. His bills had not been paid since the work began, although the count had promised him a payment in March, and another larger one in August. And all of the other suppliers who were working for them were encountering the same problem. She wondered if Bernard simply hadn't had time to get to it, or had forgotten while they were on the Riviera. But what she discovered, as she questioned the man, was that no one had been paid since the beginning of the project. |
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She stared at him in astonishment as he told her the numbers. She had never thought to ask Bernard what he was paying to restore the chateau, and even improve it. When he was through, it was going to be impeccable outside, and state of the art inside. But it had never occurred to her what it would cost him to restore the chateau for her. "Are you sure?" Marie Ange asked the contractor in disbelief. "It can't be that much." How could it be? How could it possibly cost that much to redo the chateau? She was embarrassed that Bernard was planning to spend that much on it, and felt guilty for all the changes she had approved. And she promised the contractor to discuss it with her husband that night, when he got back from a brief business trip to Paris. He hadn't actually worked in the past year, although he went to Paris for meetings several times a month, but she knew that they were to meet with his advisers on his own investments. He had told her he was loath to go back to working at the bank, he wanted to spend time with her, and concentrate on the construction they were doing. And in the fall, he wanted to spend more time with her and the baby, and she was flattered and pleased that he wanted to do that. But that night, when he got home, she mentioned her meeting with the contractor, and was embarrassed to bother him about it. She said simply that some of the suppliers had not been paid, and she wondered if his Paris secretary had somehow forgotten to send the payments. And much to her relief, Bernard didn't seem worried about it. She also told him how sorry she was that the renovation was costing him so dearly. "It's worth every penny of it, my love," he said with a tenderness and ease that touched her deeply. He begrudged her nothing. In fact, he constantly spoiled her, with small gifts and large ones. He had bought a beautiful Jaguar for her in June, and himself a new Bentley. And he told her now that he had been waiting for some investments to clear before he paid the contractor a large balloon payment. |
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In fact, he said, with a look of mild embarrassment, he had been thinking about asking her to use some of her funds temporarily, as everything she had was fairly liquid, and he would repay her when some of his investments matured, in early October. It was a matter of a month or six weeks, but would satisfy their creditors, and Marie Ange saw no problem with it. She told him to do whatever he wanted to handle it, she trusted him completely. He said he'd handle it with her bank, and would have her sign whatever was needed to make the transfers. But she was still apologetic to him about what it would eventually cost him, and offered to alter some of what they'd planned so it would be less expensive. "Don't worry your pretty head about it, my love. I want everything to be perfect for you. All you have to think about is having the baby." Which was what she did for the next two weeks. She put the entire matter of the construction bills out of her mind, particularly after he had her sign the papers to make the transfer from her account to his. And the contractor assured her the following week that everyone was satisfied now. It didn't even worry her that she had advanced a million and a half dollars to cover it, because Bernard was going to reimburse her shortly. It still amazed her to be talking about that kind of money, and she had assured the head of the trust department at her bank, when he questioned her, that it was only a temporary transfer. She spent the next two weeks taking long walks with Bernard in the familiar woods she loved, and going out to dinner with him. Everything at the chateau was ready for their baby, although the rest of the work still continued. The baby came on schedule, late one night, and Bernard drove her to Poitiers when the pains got strong enough. He took her to the hospital in style, like a queen, in his new Bentley. And he was pleased that the delivery was quick and easy, and the baby, a little girl, was beautiful and healthy. She was the portrait of her mother. |
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Although what Bernard had planned for it was certainly grandiose, he assured her that in the end, the house would be a historical monument, and a permanent legacy for their children. On that basis, it was hard to deny him, and she didn't. They spent July in the South of France again, with a larger yacht, and the usual army of visiting friends, but this time Marie Ange felt less well before the birth of her baby. They were moving around a lot, between Paris and the chateau, overseeing the work of Herculean proportions they were doing in Paris, and Bernard had taken her to Venice for a party, the week before they left the South of France. And she was tired when they finally got back to Marmouton. The weather was hot, and she could hardly wait for the baby to come. This one was far larger than the first one. It came, in the end, a week after it was due, and she and Bernard were spending a quiet weekend at the chateau. And this time she managed to fulfill his dreams. The baby was a boy, and although she didn't say it to him, she hoped that he would make up for his lost son. Bernard was ecstatic over him, and even more so over her. They named the baby after her brother Robert. Marie Ange recovered more slowly this time, the birth had been difficult, because the baby was bigger than Heloise had been, but by mid September she was back in Paris with Bernard, overseeing the work at the house on the rue de Varenne. She hadn't said anything to Bernard about it, but he had never reimbursed her for a penny of the funds she had advanced to him, and she had given him every cent she had available to her through her trust, and the bills were continuing to roll in without mercy. She assumed Bernard would take care of them eventually, along with the funds he owed her. She was in Paris, at the new house, and had both of her children with her, when the architect surprised her by what he said. Bernard had told her categorically that he wasn't buying anything for the house, until they had paid their existing bills. |
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They were planning to be married the following summer. "Well, since you wouldn't marry me, Marie Ange," he teased her, "I had no choice but to go out and fend for myself." His fiancee was finishing college herself that year, and they were hoping to get married after she graduated. He told Marie Ange he hoped she'd come, and she said she'd try to. But she'd been so nervous about the pile of bills she'd found that for once she didn't enjoy talking to Billy. She was still thinking about Billy when she hung up, and of how wonderful it would be to see him again. But as much as she loved him, she had her own life now, a husband and family. She had her hands full, and she was worried about their mountain of unpaid bills. She wasn't sure how to broach the subject to Bernard, and needed some time to think about it. She was sure that there was some explanation of why he had been less than honest with her about the things he had in storage. Maybe he wanted to surprise her. She wanted to believe that his motive had been a good one, and she didn't want a confrontation with him. She still hadn't broached the subject to him when they went back to Marmouton the following week, when she made a discovery there that truly shocked her. A bill had come to him for an expensive ruby ring that had been delivered to someone at a Paris address. And the woman who bought it was using Bernard's last name. It was the second time in a matter of a week that Marie Ange began doubting him, and she was obsessed by her own terrors. She was so frightened of what it meant, thinking that he'd been unfaithful to her, that she decided to drive to Paris with her babies. Bernard was in London visiting friends and taking care of some of his investments, and she stayed at the apartment in Paris, while she pondered the problem. Marie Ange felt terribly guilty, but she called her bank and asked them to refer her to a private investigator. She felt like a traitor when she called, but she needed to know what Bernard was doing, and if he was cheating on her. |
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She wondered if this woman was a girlfriend of his, and had been brazen enough to use his name and pretend to be married to him. Or far more happily, maybe it was only a coincidence of last names, she was a distant relative, and her purchase had found its way onto Bernard's bill entirely by mistake. She wasn't sure what to believe or how it had happened, and she didn't want to expose herself by asking the store for information. It broke her heart now to doubt him, but given the amount of money he was spending, and the ruby ring she couldn't account for, she knew she needed some answers. Marie Ange still wanted to believe there was an acceptable explanation for it, perhaps the woman who had bought the ring was psychotic. But whatever the explanation for the ring, she was still worried about why he had lied to her about the items in storage. And none of it solved the problem of the unpaid bills that were accruing. They could be dealt with at least, but what she wanted to know most was that she could trust him. She didn't want to discuss any of it with him until she knew more. If the matter of the ring was all an innocent mistake, and the things in the storage vault were a surprise for her, gifts he intended to pay for himself, then she didn't want to accuse him. But if something different surfaced in her investigations, then she would have to face Bernard with it, and hear his side of the story. In the meantime, she wanted to believe the best of him, but there was a gnawing fear in her heart. She had always trusted him, and thrown herself wholeheartedly into her life with him. They had had two babies in less than two years. But the fact was that she had ended up paying entirely for the renovations at the chateau, and now at the house on the rue de Varenne. All told, they had spent three million dollars of her money to do it, they owed another two on the house in Paris, and there were more than a million dollars currently in unpaid bills. It was a staggering amount of money to have spent in less than two years. |
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She could tell Marie Ange that herself, for whatever it was worth. But the investigator had been impressed by her. "That's a terrible thing to say," Marie Ange looked outraged. "Perhaps she feels she has to blame someone. Maybe she can't accept the fact that it was an accident and her son died." But that still didn't explain the fact that she was alive, and that Bernard had never told her the boy wasn't really his son, or that he'd been divorced from this woman. Her mind was suddenly reeling, filled with doubts and questions, and she didn't know if she was grateful or sorry that the investigator had found Louise de Beauchamp. Odd as it seemed, she was relieved that at least she wasn't his mistress. But it was hardly comforting to think she believed he had killed her son. And why was her story so different from Bernard's? She wasn't even sure she wanted to see her, and open that Pandora's box, but after the investigator left her, Marie Ange went for a long walk in the orchards, thinking about Louise de Beauchamp and her son. It was difficult to sort it all out. And she was worried too about how they were going to pay for their bills, and despite Bernard's advice to do it, she didn't want to attempt to overturn her trust and access the rest of her funds. That sounded far too risky to her, particularly if they spent all her money. Leaving her trust intact was at least protection against that. Her mind was still reeling when she came back from the orchard to feed the baby, and after she put him down in his crib, sated and happy, she stood for a long moment, staring at the phone. She had put the phone number the investigator had given her in her pocket, so Bernard wouldn't find it, and she slowly pulled it out. She thought of calling Billy and talking to him about it, but even that was a disturbing thought. She didn't really know the truth yet, and she didn't want to accuse Bernard unfairly. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to admit that he was divorced, and had loved the boy as his own son. |
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He hadn't said anything to her, but it turned out that he had forgotten to pay for the rental of their summer house and the yacht that went with it, and she had to pay the bill herself. But at this point, it seemed like a small sin to her. The house on the rue de Varenne was almost finished, and although there were a stack of bills still waiting to be paid, she had finally decided to borrow some money against her trust to pay them off. His investments that had been promising to "mature" for two years so he could sell them off had never materialized, and she had long since stopped asking him about them. There was no point. She was no longer even entirely sure that they were there. Perhaps he had lost the money, or had less than he said. It didn't matter to her anymore. She didn't want to embarrass him. And they had her trust to live on. They had two beautiful houses, and two healthy children. And although she thought of her meeting with Louise de Beauchamp from time to time, she pushed it out of her head and said nothing to him about meeting Louise. She was sure that the woman had maligned him, and accused him unfairly. It was just too terrible to believe that she actually thought he had killed her child. But Marie Ange forgave her for what she'd said about her husband, because she was sure that if she had lost one of her children, she would have gone quite mad herself. Bernard and her babies were all she lived for now. And it was obvious to her that Louise de Beauchamp was deranged by grief. And when Bernard talked about buying a palazzo in Venice, or a house in London, she scolded him now like a little boy who wanted more candy, and told him they had enough houses. He had even talked about going to Italy, to look at a yacht. He had an insatiable appetite for luxurious items and houses, but Marie Ange was determined to keep an eye on him, and keep his extravagances in check. And by the time Robert was three months old, Bernard was already talking about their having another child. |
| 238 |
She had to think of her future, and her children. And if she couldn't restrain her husband, they were more than willing to do it for her. But Bernard was like a caged animal over it for the next several days. He ranted and raved at her, and behaved like an angry, spoiled child, but there was nothing she could do. They sat through meals in stony silence, and by the weekend, when Bernard came back from a brief trip to Paris, he finally sat down with Marie Ange in his study, and told her that in view of her obvious distrust of him, and her bank treating him like a gigolo, obviously at her direction, he was thinking of leaving her. He was not going to tolerate being treated this way, or living in a marriage where he wasn't trusted, and was treated like a child. "I have had your best interests at heart since we met, Marie Ange," he said, looking wounded. "My God, I let you stay here when I didn't even know you, because I knew how much it meant to you. I spent a fortune restoring the chateau because it's a relic of your lost childhood. I bought the house in Paris because I thought you deserved a more exciting life than being hidden away here. I have done nothing but work for you, and for our children, since the day we met. And now I discover that you don't trust me. I cannot live this way anymore." She was horrified by what she was hearing, and even more so at the thought of losing him. She had two small children, and she might be pregnant again. The idea of his leaving her, and leaving her alone in the world again, with her children, filled her with terror, and made her want to give him everything she had. It also never occurred to her that the expensive restoration he was claiming, she had actually paid for herself, or that the "fortune he had spent" was hers. She had paid for the house in Paris, after he had bought it without even asking her before he made the commitment, just as he had committed to the promissory note for a million six hundred thousand dollars now, without ever asking her. |
| 239 |
She was only twenty three, and they knew how grasping Bernard would look in those circumstances, and how suspicious to the court, but they did not say that to her. And when she reported the conversation to Bernard, he said coldly that he would let her know what he decided to do. But she had been warned. He had already threatened to leave her if she did not cover the debt. And it was a matter of less than two weeks before he had to pay. She was still beside herself over it the night of their Christmas party, and Bernard hadn't spoken to her in days. He felt humiliated and mistrusted and abused, and he was making her pay for it in spades. And she looked very nervous as she greeted their guests. He looked, as always, elegant, dignified, and cool. He was wearing a new dinner jacket he had had made in London, and a pair of custom made patent leather shoes. He was always exquisitely dressed, and she was wearing a red satin gown he had bought her at Dior. But she felt anything but festive, and she was worried sick that he would leave her by the end of the year, when she couldn't cover his debt. He acted hurt that she didn't feel he was doing everything for her. He said not a word to her as they led their guests into the dining room for dinner, and later on when the music struck up, he danced with every woman in the room, save his wife. It was a painful evening for Marie Ange, in every way. And all but the last guests had left, when someone in the kitchen commented that they smelled smoke in the house. Alain Fournier, their caretaker, was washing dishes in the kitchen, and helping the caterers clean up, and he said he'd take a look around to see what it was. At first the caterers insisted it was the oven they were cleaning, and someone thought it might be the candles lit throughout the house, or the cigars the guests had smoked. But just to be on the safe side, Alain wandered upstairs to look around. And on the second floor, he found a candle that had leaned too far toward the heavy new damask curtains. |
| 240 |
Alain tore it off the rod, threw it on the floor, and stamped it out, but only then did he notice that the row of fringe at the top of the curtains had carried the flames to the other side, and now they were blazing too as he began to shout, but no one heard. He tried desperately to put the fire out before it spread any further, but because of the music downstairs, his cries for help were drowned out, and like a nightmare, the flames danced from one curtain to another, and within what seemed like instants, the entire second floor hallway was on fire, and the flames were darting toward the stairs. And without knowing what else to do, he rushed back downstairs to the kitchen, and told them to bring buckets and water and come upstairs to help, as one of the caterers ran to call the fire department, and then into the living room to warn the remaining guests. And the moment Marie Ange heard it, she ran upstairs, heading for the second floor hall, where Alain was throwing water at the flames. By the time they got there, the fabric on the walls leading from the second floor to the third had created a tunnel of flame, but she knew she had to go through it, since both her children were asleep upstairs. But as she attempted to pass through the flames, powerful arms held her back. The men who had come up from the kitchen to fight the fire knew she would turn into a human torch in her billowing red dress, as the walls blazed. "Let go of me!" she said, screaming at them, and trying to fight her way past them. But before she could wrench herself free of them, she saw Bernard run past her, and he was already at the top of the stairs as she pushed free of the men and ran up the stairs as quickly as she could behind him. She could see the door to the nursery just ahead of them, and the hallway was already full of smoke, as she saw him pick the baby up and then run into the room where Heloise was sleeping in her own crib. Heloise woke the moment she heard her parents, and Marie Ange reached down and grabbed her. |
| 241 |
And as Marie Ange looked behind her, she saw the stairs to the third floor alight with flame, and she knew that the windows on the third floor were tiny. Unless they could get back downstairs through the flames, there would be no escaping, and she looked at Bernard in desperation. "I'll get help," he said, looking panicked, "you stay with the children. The firemen are coming, Marie Ange. If you have to, go to the roof and wait there!" And then, he set Robert down in Heloise's crib and made a dash down the stairs, as Marie Ange watched him in terror. He stopped for only an instant on his way down, at the door to the roof, and as she watched him, she saw him slip the key to the door into his pocket, and she screamed after him to throw the key back to her, but he only turned once at the foot of the stairs, and vanished, gone to get help, she was sure, but he had left her alone on the third floor with her babies, in a sea of flames. Bernard had told her he didn't want her to try to get through the flames on the stairs, she was safer waiting upstairs, he'd said. But as she watched the flames drawing closer to them, she knew he was wrong, and it was small consolation as she heard sirens in the distance. Both her children were crying by then, and the baby was gasping in the thick smoke that had begun to choke them. She was expecting to see firemen, or Bernard with a bucket brigade, coming up the stairs to save them at any moment. She couldn't hear the voices downstairs anymore, the roar of the fire was too loud, and a moment later she heard an enormous crash, and when she looked, she saw that a beam had fallen and was blocking the stairway. And there was still no sign of Bernard coming back to them, as she sobbed, and held both her babies. She put them in Heloise's crib for a moment, and ran to check the door to the roof, but it was locked, and Bernard had taken the key with him. And suddenly she remembered a voice in her head, and a scarred face, and everything Louise de Beauchamp had said to her. |
| 242 |
He had tried to lock them in her son's room. And now he had left her here, with no access to the roof, and no way to escape the fire and save her children. "It's all right, babies. It's all right," she said murmuring frantically to them, running from one small round window to another, and then as she looked out one of them, she saw him standing there, down below in the courtyard, sobbing hysterically and waving his arms in their direction. He was describing something to the people below, and shaking his head, and she could just imagine now what he was saying, perhaps that he had seen them dead, or that there was no way for him to get to them, which was true now, but it hadn't been when he left them, and slipped the key to the roof into his pocket. She opened all the windows she could, so they could breathe fresh air, and then rushed from room to room as embers fell and pieces of flaming wood flew all around them. And suddenly, she remembered a tiny bathroom they never used. It was the only room on the third floor with a slightly bigger window, and when she got to it, she saw that it could open. She rushed back to Heloise's room and grabbed both of them, and then rushed back to the bathroom and began screaming from the open window. "Up here! I'm up here!... I have the children!" She screamed above the din, waving one arm out the window, and at first no one saw her, and then suddenly a fireman looked up and noticed her, and ran quickly for their ladder. But as she watched the men below, she saw Bernard look up at her with a look she had never seen on his face before. It was a look of pure jealousy and hatred, and she had no doubt at that moment that he'd done this. He had set the fire probably, on the second floor, where no one would notice, close enough to the stairs to the third floor so that it would devour his children. And he had known what Marie Ange would do, she would go to them, and be trapped with them. It was no accident of hysteria that the door to the roof was locked, he had taken the key with him. |
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The firemen had put their ladders to the walls of the chateau, and found they would not reach up far enough for them to reach her. And as Bernard watched, he began to sob hysterically, just as Louise had described the night her son died. Marie Ange felt a chill of terror rush over her, she could not see how she was going to save her children. And if they all died, Bernard would inherit everything, if they lived and Marie Ange didn't, he would have to share the estate with his children. His motive for killing all of them was a thought so disgusting and unbearable that Marie Ange felt as though her chest had been torn open and her heart ripped out. He had tried to murder not only her, but their children. And as she looked below and watched him cry, she held the children as close to the window as she dared, to keep them breathing. The door to the tiny bathroom was closed behind them, and the roaring sound from beyond it was deafening. She couldn't hear what anyone was shouting to her from below, but three of the firemen were holding a net for her, and at first it was not clear what they were saying. She watched their mouths as intently as she could, to read their lips, and finally one of the men held up a single finger. One, he was saying to her. One. One at a time. She sat Heloise down on the floor at her feet, as the child clung to her dress, and sobbing hysterically, she kissed Robert's tiny face, and held him out as far as she could, as the firemen rushed beneath her and held the net firm. It was an unbearable moment as she let go, and watched him fall and bounce into the net like a little rubber ball, and then finally she watched one of them as they held him. But he was still moving. He waved his arms and legs as Bernard rushed to him, and took him in his arms, as Marie Ange looked down at him with hatred. And then she did the same with Heloise, while the child kicked and screamed and fought her and Marie Ange shouted at her to stop, and then kissed her and threw her. |
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Their friends had long since departed, and Marie Ange was left with the caretaker, the men who had come up from the farm, the firemen, and her babies. They had given oxygen to Robert, and he was shivering, but calm by then, and Heloise was fast asleep in the arms of a fireman, as though nothing had happened. Alain offered to let them stay with him that night, and as she watched the last of the fire burn, Marie Ange realized that once again she was starting from nothing. But she was alive, and she had her children. That was all she cared about now. She stood outside for a long time, as the firemen continued to put out the last of the fire, and they stayed all night to watch the embers. She took the children into the caretaker's cottage with Alain, and in the morning two policemen came to the door and wanted to see her. Alain's mother had come up from the farm shortly before that, to help her with her children. "May we speak to you, Comtesse?" they asked discreetly, and she stepped outside with them. She didn't want Alain to hear what she had to say about her husband. They questioned her extensively, and told her that the firemen had found traces of kerosene in the second floor hall, and on the stairs leading to her children. There would be a full investigation made, and as things stood now, they were prepared to bring charges against Bernard. She told them then about Louise de Beauchamp, and they thanked her. She took a room for herself in a hotel in town that night, and they set up two cribs for her children, and Madame Fournier came with her. She was there for a week, to answer questions for the police and firemen, and after the fire cooled, she went back into the house to see what could be saved. Some silverware, some statues, some tools. Everything else had been destroyed or ruined, but the insurance people had already been there to see it. There was some question as to how much or if they would pay her anything, if it could be proven that Bernard had set the fire himself. |
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When the plane from Chicago landed at Charles de Gaulle, Marie Ange was waiting for it, with Robert in her arms, and Heloise in the stroller. She was wearing slacks and a warm coat and heavy sweater, and her babies were bundled up in matching little red coats that reminded her of her childhood. And she was holding a single rose for Billy. She saw him as soon as he got off the plane, and he looked just the way he always had when they rode to school on the school bus. Except he wasn't wearing overalls, he was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and a heavy jacket, and brand new loafers his mom had got him. And he sauntered toward her just the way he always had, when she waited for him on her bike, in the places where they used to meet and talk during the summer. And he smiled the minute he saw her. Without saying a word, she handed the rose to him, and he took it and looked at her for a long moment, and then he hugged her close to him, and felt the silk of her hair on his cheek, as he always had. It was like a homecoming for both of them, they were each the best friend the other had ever had, and even after two years, it was old and comfortable and sure that they loved each other. It was the way things ought to be, and seldom were. It was the same way Frangoise had felt the first time she saw John Hawkins again when she saw him in Paris, but neither of them knew that. And after Billy had hugged her, he stopped to look at her kids. They were both beautiful, and he said they looked just like her. And as they walked toward the baggage claim, she told him how the first hearing had gone. They were charging Bernard with three counts of attempted murder, and they were reopening the investigation about the death of Charles, Louise's son. The prosecutor said that given the new evidence against him, it was more than likely he would be charged with murder. "I hope they hang him," Billy said with a vehemence she didn't remember about him, but he couldn't stand thinking about what she'd gone through. |
| 246 |
Matthew Billings was older than Alex by a dozen years, he was in his mid fifties, and one of the firm's most respected partners. He rarely asked for help from anyone, but it was not unusual for him to ask Alex to sit in on a deposition. He liked to pick her brain, admired her style, her sharp eye for the opponent's fatal weakness. And Alex was merciless and brilliant once she found it. She seemed to have an instinctive sense for where the point of the dagger would do the most damage. She smiled at him now, and he liked what he saw in her eyes. She had heard just what they needed. A different answer from the time before. The very merest inflection. She slipped him a note on her yellow pad, and with a serious frown, he nodded. The case was an extraordinarily complicated one, and had already been in process for years. It had been to the New York Supreme Court twice, with various motions, and involved the careless dispersal of highly toxic chemical pollutants by one of the most important corporations in the country. Alex had sat in on these depositions for Matt before. And she was always glad that this particular case wasn't her problem. The suit was being brought collectively by some two hundred families in Poughkeepsie, and represented millions of dollars. The case had been referred to Bartlett and Paskin years before, just after she had become a partner. She liked her cases tougher, shorter, and smaller. Two hundred plaintiffs were not her cup of tea, although more than a dozen attorneys had worked on it, under Matthew's direction. Alexandra Parker was a litigation attorney too, and she handled an interesting assortment of difficult cases. She was the firm's first choice when the fight was going to be hard and dirty, and you needed an attorney who knew case law and was willing to spend a million hours doing meticulous research. She had associates and younger partners to help her of course, but Alex wanted to do as much of the work as she could herself, and she had a remarkable rapport with most of her clients. |
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Alex Parker was a remarkable lawyer. She was efficient, intelligent, capable, wily in just the right ways, and beautiful in the bargain, not that she seemed to care about her looks particularly, or notice the attention they brought her. She seemed to be completely unaware of herself, and most people liked that about her. She left the room quietly, with a brief wave at him, as the defendants came back into the room, and one of the attorneys glanced admiringly at her retreating figure. Unaware of it, Alex Parker hurried down the hall, and down several corridors to her office. Her office was large and well decorated in quiet grays, with two handsome paintings on the wall, a few photographs, a large plant, some comfortable gray leather furniture, and a splendid view up Park Avenue from the twenty ninth floor where Bartlett and Paskin had their offices. They occupied eight floors, and employed some two hundred attorneys. It was smaller than the firm where she'd worked before, on Wall Street, when she'd first graduated from law school, but she'd liked this a lot better. She'd worked with the antitrust team there, and she'd never really liked it. It was too dry, although it taught her to pay attention to details and do thorough research. She glanced through half a dozen messages when she sat down, two from clients, and four from other attorneys. She had three cases ready to go to trial, and six more she was developing. Two major cases had just settled. It was a staggering workload, but it wasn't unusual for her. She loved the pace and the pressure and the frenzy. That was what had kept her from having children for so long. She just couldn't imagine fitting children in, or loving them as much as she did her law work. She adored being a lawyer, and thoroughly enjoyed a good fight in the courtroom. She did defense work primarily, she enjoyed difficult cases, and it meant a great deal to her protecting people from frivolous lawsuits. She loved everything about what she did. And it had eaten most of her life up. |
| 248 |
He was a venture capitalist, with one of the hottest young firms in New York. He had come into it right at the start, and the opportunities had been remarkable. He'd already made several fortunes, and lost some money too. Together, they made healthy salaries. But more than that, Sam Parker had a powerful reputation. He knew his stuff, took amazing risks, and for twenty years now, almost everything he touched turned to money. Big money. At one point, people had said he was the only man in town who could make fortunes for his clients with commodities. But he was smarter than that now. Sam was never afraid of a risk, and he rarely lost funds for his clients. He'd been deeply involved in the computer world for the past dozen years, had made huge investments in Japan, done well in Germany, and had major holdings for his clients in Silicon Valley. Everyone on Wall Street agreed, Sam Parker knew what he was doing. And Alex had known what she was doing when she married Sam. She'd met him right after she graduated from law school. They'd actually met at a party given by her first law firm. It was Christmas, and he'd arrived with three friends, looking very tall and handsome in a dark blue suit, his black hair flecked with snow, his face bright from the frigid air outside. He'd been full of life, and when he stopped and looked at her, she felt weak in the knees as she watched him. She was twenty five years old, and he was thirty two, and he was one of the few men she'd met who wasn't married. He tried to talk to her that night, but she'd been distracted by another attorney from the firm, and Sam had been called away by his friends to talk to someone they knew, and their paths hadn't crossed again, until six months later. Sam's firm had consulted hers on a deal they were trying to put together in California, and she'd been called in with two other associates to help a senior partner. She'd been fascinated by him then, he was so quick and so smart and so sure. It was hard to imagine Sam being afraid of anything, or anyone. |
| 249 |
He laughed easily, and he wasn't afraid to walk a tightrope of terrifying decisions. He seemed to be unafraid of any risk, although he was fully aware of the dangers. And it wasn't his clients' money he was willing to risk, it was the whole deal. He wanted it his way, or to walk away from the deal completely. At first, Alex thought him a brazen fool, but as the weeks went on, she began to understand what he was doing, and she liked it. He had integrity and style, and brains, and that rarest of all things, courage. Her first impression of him had been correct, he was afraid of nothing. But he was intrigued by her too. He was fascinated by her intelligent, thoughtful analyses, her perception of a situation from three hundred and sixty degrees. She saw all sides and expressed the risks and the advantages brilliantly. Together, they had put together a most impressive package for his clients. The deal had been made, and the company had done brilliantly and been sold for an astronomical amount five years later. By the time Sam and Alex met, he had a reputation for being a young genius. But she was gaining a powerful reputation too, though she was building solidly and more slowly than Sam was. Sam's business allowed for more glitter and dazzle, and he liked that about it. He thrived on the high life, and the enormous power of his high flying clients. In fact, the first time he took Alex out, he borrowed one of his clients' private jets and took her to Los Angeles for the world series. They'd stayed at the Bel Air, in separate rooms, and he'd taken her to Chasen's and L'Orangerie for dinner. "Do you do this for everyone?" she had asked, amazed at all his little attentions. She was more than a little in awe of Sam. She'd had one serious relationship with a boy her own age at Yale, and nothing but a series of meaningless dates during her brutally hardworking years in law school. The relationship while she was at Yale had dissipated by her junior year, and he had long since gotten married. |
| 250 |
And this was a doozy. "So what do we do?" "I don't know." She cried when she thought about it. She didn't want an abortion, or a baby. And after two weeks of agonizing about it, they decided to go ahead and have the baby. Alex didn't feel that they had a choice, morally, and Sam agreed, and they tried to be philosophical about it, but they were anything but enthusiastic. Alex was depressed every time she thought about it, and Sam seemed to forget about it completely. And when they did discuss it, which was as seldom as possible, they sounded as though they were discussing a terminal illness. This was certainly not anything they looked forward to. It was something that had to be faced, but they were clearly dreading everything about it. Exactly four weeks later, Alex came home from the office early one afternoon, throwing up uncontrollably, and with such acute pains in her abdomen that she was literally doubled over. The doorman helped her out of the cab, and carried her briefcase inside for her. He asked if she was all right, and she insisted that she was, although her face was the color of paper. She got upstairs in the elevator, and let herself into the apartment, and fortunately her cleaning lady was there, because half an hour later, Alex was hemorrhaging all over their bathroom and barely conscious. She had taken Alex to the hospital herself, and called Sam at his office, and by the time he got to Lenox Hill, Alex was already in the operating room. They had lost the baby. They both expected it to be an enormous relief. The source of all their anguish was gone. But from the moment Alex woke up in a private room, crying miserably, they knew that it wasn't that easy. They were both consumed with guilt and grief, and everything she had never allowed herself to feel for their unborn child, she felt now, all the love and fear and shame and regret and longing she had never felt before. It was the worst experience of her life, and taught her something about herself she had never known or suspected. |
| 251 |
They talked about the baby as though it were real, and already part of their lives. She had an amnio, and as soon as they knew it was a girl, they decided to call her Annabelle, after their favorite club in London, but it was a name that Alex had always loved, and it had good memories for them. This pregnancy was completely unlike the first one. It was as though they had learned an important lesson the first time, and felt as though they had been punished for their indifference and hostility to that baby. This time, there was no question of anything but unbridled excitement. Alex's partners gave her a shower right after the New Year, and she left the office reluctantly that week, only two days before her due date. She had wanted to work right up until she went to the hospital, but it didn't make sense to continue working on cases she couldn't complete, so she left on schedule, and went home to wait for their little miracle, as they called her. Alex was afraid that she'd be bored, but found that she enjoyed setting up the nursery, and was surprised herself at how much time she spent folding little undershirts, and arranging diapers in neat stacks in the changing table. For a woman who struck fear into most lawyers' hearts when she entered a courtroom, she seemed to have changed in a single instant. She even worried sometimes that it might dull her skills when she went back, maybe she wouldn't be as tough, or as focused, but in spite of her concerns about that, all she could think of now was the baby. She could imagine holding it, feeding it, she wondered if she would have red hair like her own, or dark, dark hair like Sam's, blue eyes, or green. Like a long awaited friend, she could hardly wait to see her. They had arranged to have the baby in a birthing room at New York Hospital, Alex wanted everything to be natural. She was planning to savor every moment of the experience. At thirty nine, she couldn't imagine doing this again, so she didn't want to take any of it for granted. |
| 252 |
The doorman had found them a cab instantly. It was four a.m., and she could hardly walk when they got her to the hospital. The doctor was already waiting for them there, and the labor nurses were well pleased with Alex's progress. She, on the other hand, was a lot less pleased with the process they referred to happily as "transition." She sounded like someone Sam didn't even know as she shouted for drugs, and got hysterical with each contraction. But as labor progressed, she calmed down finally, and two hours after they'd gotten to the hospital, Alex was hard at work pushing out their baby. She'd had an epidural finally, and was calmer, as Sam held her shoulders and everyone in the room cheered her on. It seemed to take forever, but it was only half an hour before Annabelle's little face appeared. She had bright red hair, and she let out a huge yell, and then as though she'd surprised herself, she looked up at Sam, as tears coursed down her parents' cheeks. Annabelle just stared at Sam, as though she had been looking for him for a long time and had finally found him. She was introduced to her mother then, and Alex held her, overwhelmed by emotions she had never even dreamed of. She felt complete in a way she had heard people talk about, but never believed, and she couldn't even imagine what her life would have been like if she'd missed this experience. Within an hour, she was holding Annabelle as though she were an old hand at it, and happily nursing her baby. Sam took a thousand photographs of them, as he and Alex cried, unable to believe the blessing that had been bestowed on them, the miracle they had almost missed, and fortunately hadn't. They had been spared from their own stupidity, they felt, by a wiser Power who had showered them with good fortune. Sam spent the first night in the hospital with them, and he and Alex spent most of it staring down at Annabelle, taking turns holding her, wrapping her and unwrapping her, changing her diapers and her nightgown, and Sam watched raptly as Alex nursed her. |
| 253 |
He would have loved a son, but another little girl would be fine too. Their little girl was so perfect and so beautiful. He kept touching her tiny toes, and Alex kept kissing her tiny fingers. They were completely enamored with their daughter. It remained a passion with them once they got home, and Annabelle flourished in the unbridled adoration of her parents. Sam came home early as often as he could. And Alex went back to the office, with regret, when Annabelle was three months old. She tried to continue nursing her even after that, but it became impossible with the pressures of her schedule. What she did instead was come home for lunch as often as she could, and she made a promise to herself to leave promptly at five, whenever she wasn't in trial, and work at home at night after Annabelle went to bed. And on Fridays, she left at one o'clock, come hell or high water. It was a system that worked for them, and she was religious about coming home promptly whenever possible. And in exchange for their love and efforts, and their incessant appreciation of her, Annabelle adored her Mommy and Daddy. She was the light of their lives, and they were all that mattered to her. Carmen took care of her in the daytime, but Sam and Alex took care of her themselves the moment they got home from work, and Annabelle lived for that moment. She would squeal with excitement and delight whenever she saw them. Carmen liked working for them. She was crazy about Annabelle, and they were nice people. She bragged a lot about Alex and Sam, about how important they were, and how hard they worked, and how successful. Sam was in the financial columns a lot. He had made a big splash early on, and had continued to make news frequently with record making deals for important clients. And Alex had been on television more than once, with exceptionally newsworthy or landmark cases. Carmen loved that. And there was no question in Alex's and Sam's minds that Annabelle was not only beautiful, but absolutely brilliant. |
| 254 |
As busy as she was, without a good associate to work for her, she'd have been lost in a sea of cases. She had an excellent assistant too, a law clerk who spent as much time with Brock as he did with Alex. They were a good team, and they all knew it. "I'll see you at eight thirty tomorrow. Thanks for the diligent preparation." But it was nothing new for him, it was his style, just as it was Alex's. He was thorough and smart, and a nice guy. And it also helped that he wasn't married. He had lots of spare time to spend on work, late at night, over holidays, on weekends. He was willing to do what he had to to build an important career. At times, he reminded her of her and Sam in their early days. They worked just as hard now, but differently, there wasn't that blind hard push that kept you in the office till midnight, as it had for them years before. Now they had Annabelle and each other, and they wanted more out of life than just careers. But fortunately for her, Brock Stevens wasn't there yet. She knew he had seen someone in the firm for a while, another associate, a very attractive girl who'd gone to Stanford, but Alex also knew that Brock valued his career too much to risk getting too involved with anyone from the law firm. There were rules against that, and getting serious with another associate, or a partner, might keep him, or her, from making partner. And Alex knew that both he and the other associate were too ambitious, and too sensible, to let that happen. She met with the new client shortly after that, and she was very llikewarm about what she heard from him. It was an ugly case, and she was not at all convinced that the plaintiff in this case wasn't lying. Generally, she preferred defense work. She told him that she'd think about it and discuss it with her partners, but that she felt that her own schedule at the moment, and the number of cases she had pending trial, could well keep her from giving him the kind of attention she felt he deserved, and was certain he wanted. |
| 255 |
She said she'd be home for lunch, and she would take her to ballet. She just had an errand to do on the way home. And Carmen said it was no problem. Alex left Dr. Anderson's office then and walked briskly down Park Avenue to Sixty eighth Street between Lexington and Park, and into what looked like a very busy office. A dozen women were sitting in the waiting room, and several technicians appeared frequently in the doorway to call their names and keep them moving. Alex gave her name to the receptionist, and hoped it wouldn't take too long, as two more women arrived. They seemed to be doing a booming business, and she noticed that with the exception of only one fairly young girl, most of the women were her age or older. She glanced absently at a magazine, looked at her watch several times, and ten minutes after she'd arrived, a woman in a white coat came to the doorway of the waiting room and called her name. There was something very loud and impersonal about the way she said it, but Alex followed her without a word. There was something strangely invasive about having people search you for disease, as though you were carrying a concealed weapon. There was an implication of guilt just by being here, and as Alex unbuttoned her blouse she realized that she felt both angry and frightened. It was terrifying. What if there was something there? What if they found something? But as her mind started to play tricks on her and convince her she was doomed, she forced herself to realize that this was just routine. It was no more ominous than her Pap smear. The only difference was that it was being performed by strangers instead of by people she knew, but other than that, there was no difference. The woman in the white coat stood by while she undressed, and she offered her a gown, and told her to leave it open down the front, but other than that, there was no conversation. She pointed to a sink and some towels and told Alex to wipe off any deodorant or perfume, and then pointed to a machine standing in a corner. |
| 256 |
Sam's assessment of the situation. He told her that the shadowy area they saw was clearly a tumor deep in her breast in an area, and of a shape that almost always indicated a malignancy. Naturally, they couldn't be sure until they did the biopsy, but in his experience what they were going to find would be a tumor, and not a good one. After that, it would depend on the stage it was in, the degree to which it had infiltrated, whether it was hormone receptor negative or positive, and if there was metastasis. He was cold and matter of fact, and he painted anything but a pretty picture. "What will all of that mean?" "I won't know till we get in there. At best, a lumpectomy. If not, you may want to follow a more extreme course, which would mean a modified radical mastectomy. It's the one sure way of being certain that you've eliminated the disease, depending on the stage of the tumor, of course, and the extent of the involvement." He showed her a chart that meant absolutely nothing to her, which had letters and numbers on it and covered a variety of contingencies, all of them completely confusing. "Is a mastectomy the only way to wipe out the disease?" she said in a strangled voice, realizing that he'd been right. She was completely confused, and felt utterly stupid. She was no longer the trial lawyer, she was merely the woman. "Not necessarily," he answered her, "we may want to add radiation or chemotherapy. Again, this will depend on other factors at the time, and the extent of the involvement." Radiation or chemotherapy? And a modified radical mastectomy? Why didn't they just kill her? It wasn't that she was so enamored with her breasts, but the idea of being completely disfigured and desperately ill from chemo or radiation made her want to vomit just thinking about it. Where was Sam now with his cheerful prognosis, and warnings about surgeons fearing malpractice? She couldn't even remember it now. What Herman said was so much more real, and so utterly terrifying, she could hardly think straight. |
| 257 |
To everyone else, it seemed like a very ordinary occurrence. An easy choice. Get rid of the breast, and the problem. It was all so simple, as long as they were the doctors, and not the patient. To them, it was a matter of theories and statistics. To Alex, it was her life, her breast, and her future. And none of the choices were easy. She was disappointed to realize that having gotten a second opinion, she was no more certain of what would happen to her, no more reassured about the outcome or the options. She had somehow hoped that Dr. Wallerstrom would allay all her fears, and tell her that everyone else was overreacting and being foolish. Instead, she had only heightened Alex's fears, and made her feel even more frightened and lonely. The biopsy would still have to be done, the situation and the tumor analyzed, and the ultimate decision would have to be hers, and her surgeon's. There was still the chance, of course, that the tumor would be benign, but after everything they had said to her in the past few days, it seemed less and less likely. Even Sam's cheerful refusal to believe the worst seemed patently absurd now. And with his adamant refusal to discuss the possibilities with her, the pressures of the trial, and the fertility medication she knew she was still reacting to, she felt as though she was barely clinging to sanity during the entire week. She felt as though she were walking underwater. The only thing that kept her from losing her mind completely was incredibly solid support from Brock as they worked their way through the trial, and it seemed like a miracle when the jury absolved Jack Schultz of absolutely everything the plaintiff wanted. They denied the plaintiff everything, and Jack must have thanked her a thousand times. The trial only took six days, as it turned out, and they were finished at four o'clock on Wednesday. Winning had been the only good thing that had happened. She sat in the courtroom, feeling drained, but looking pleased, and she thanked Brock for all his help. |
| 258 |
She knew nothing more than she had before, except that her visit to Dr. Wallerstrom had confirmed Peter Herman's assessment. And Sam had literally refused to discuss any of it with her again. He said it was a big fuss about something that would never happen. She hoped he was right, but for the moment, he seemed to be the only one who thought so. She tried to feel victorious about the trial, and Jack Schultz sent her a magnum of champagne, which she took home with her, but she wasn't in the mood to celebrate. She was nervous and depressed, and very frightened about Monday. The day after the trial ended, she went back to see Peter Herman, and this time he didn't pull any punches. He told her in no uncertain terms that if a tumor that big and that deep turned out to be malignant, she would have to have a modified radical mastectomy, and extensive chemotherapy, and it was best to face it. He explained that she had two choices. She could have the biopsy, under general of course, and then discuss the options with him again afterwards. Or she could sign a permission slip before the biopsy, which would allow him to do whatever he felt was necessary, after he'd done the biopsy. It would mean being put under general anesthesia once instead of twice, and trusting him completely. It was unusual, he explained, to do the procedures in one step rather than two, but he also correctly sensed that Alex wanted to get it over with in a single operation. The only complication would be if she was pregnant. And he said that, whether she was or not, he'd understand perfectly if she preferred doing the procedures in two stages. But, as with the lumpectomy versus the mastec tomyi; she had to be the one to make the decision. She had to choose if she wanted to do the biopsy by itself, or in tandem with the actual operation. To Alex, as she discussed it with him, it seemed simpler to deal with it all at once, rather than prolong the agony, and go back to the hospital again for a mastectomy, if the tumor was malignant. |
| 259 |
And she had already made the most difficult choice of all since seeing Dr. Wallerstrom. Although the prospect of doing only a lumpectomy was very tempting to save her breast, even the vaguest hint of greater safety by eliminating the entire breast won her over. Both views were heatedly debated by equally respected surgeons, and yet it was clear to her which Peter Herman preferred, and much as she ached at the prospect, she decided to follow his thinking. She had already agreed to the modified radical mastectomy he had described to her, if the tumor proved to be malignant. And to chemotherapy, if he felt it was needed. But they would make that decision later. But the real agony for her was what she would do if she was pregnant. She knew what she owed Sam and Annabelle, but she also knew how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to give up an unborn baby. Dr. Herman explained very clearly as she stared at him that in the first trimester of pregnancy, mastectomies were always performed rather than lumpectomies, because of the inadvisability of doing radiation. Having a lumpectomy automatically meant the necessity for radiation. But in the case of a mastectomy, if chemotherapy was advised, it would almost certainly cause a spontaneous abortion. It would do the same in the second trimester as well, so if chemotherapy was necessary, it would more than likely kill her baby. It was only in the third trimester that they felt they could afford to wait, and treat the cancer after the baby was delivered. He said very honestly that he thought there was almost no chance at all that her mass would prove to be benign. He had just seen tumors like it too often. What he was hoping for her was that it would not have infiltrated, or metastasized, and that there would be minimal node involvement. And he also hoped, of course, that it would be nothing more than a Stage I tumor. She felt herself blanking out on him again, and forced herself to listen and understand what he was saying. |
| 260 |
She had intimated only that she had a medical problem that needed to be worked out, and it could take anywhere from two days to two weeks, but they were prepared to accept that and help her out as much as possible. Brock said he hoped it was nothing serious, and Matthew didn't even think of it, and wondered if she was going to have a nose job, or her eyes done. His wife had done it the year before and he didn't think Alex needed anything of the sort, but he also believed that all women were a little crazy about their looks, and Alex looked so healthy, it never dawned on him that she might have a serious problem. "How soon do you really think I'll be able to go back to work?" she asked the doctor honestly. "Possibly in two or three weeks, depending on how you do. And then of course it'll depend on how you do with the chemo. We'd be starting that approximately four weeks after surgery. Some women do very well, others have more problems." To him it was already a foregone conclusion. She had cancer, the breast was coming off, and she was going to have chemo. Maybe Sam was right and it was just a factory that lopped off boobs to pay the rent, but it was hard to believe that. From what Peter Herman said, it was a lot easier to believe she had a serious problem. He wanted her to go to the hospital that weekend for blood tests and a chest X ray, and they had discussed the impossibility of her giving her own blood on such short notice. But he had told her that even radical mastectomies rarely required transfusions, and if need be, after the surgery, he would call her office to organize donor specific blood, and other than that, there was nothing left to say, until Monday. He told her that he wanted to hear from her over the weekend if she discovered she wasn't pregnant, and she agreed to call him. And eventually, she left his office feeling wooden. She went back to her office for the rest of the afternoon, and home to Annabelle and Sam for dinner that night, and only Carmen noticed how quiet and withdrawn she was. |
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Sam was still asleep too, and it was so odd looking at both of them, knowing she'd be gone soon, for a few hours, or a few days, to win or lose a battle that could take her away from them forever. It was unthinkable, as she stood staring into Annabelle's room. How could she ever leave her little girl? What would happen to them? She couldn't begin to fathom what was about to happen to her that morning. She was careful not to eat or drink anything, although she longed for a cup of coffee, and as she brushed her teeth, she suddenly found she had to fight back tears. There was an overwhelming urge to run away, to hide from all of it, but there was no hiding now from the treachery of her own body. Instead, she stood up and looked at herself, with tears running down her cheeks, her toothbrush in her hand, as she stared into the mirror. She set the toothbrush down and dropped the straps on her nightgown. The silky gown fell easily to the floor without a sound, and she stood looking at herself, the small firm breasts that she had always taken for granted. The left was a fraction larger than the right, and she remembered suddenly with a smile that Annabelle had always preferred it to the other when she nursed her. She couldn't help but appreciate the symmetry of her breasts, and the long, graceful lines of her body. She had long legs, a small waist, she had always had a good figure and never thought much about it. And what would happen now? Who would she be, if she lost the breast today? Would she be someone else? Would she be so hideously deformed that Sam would no longer want her? She had wanted to talk about it with him, to hear him say that he didn't care if she had one breast or two. She needed to hear the words, but he hadn't been able to face even the idea of it, and he had told her all week that nothing was wrong with her and she was being morbid. And now, she stood looking at herself, and she cried as she realized what might happen to her. She couldn't even imagine it. |
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The cab stopped in front of the hospital, and Sam paid for it and grabbed her small tote bag. She had brought only a few things, in the hope that Sam would be right, and it wouldn't be a long stay. And he could bring her the rest of what she'd need if she had to stay longer. But packing her tote had reminded her of when she'd gone to the hospital to have Annabelle. It was a happier time, and it seemed only moments ago, although she was almost four years old now. They followed the arrows to the registration desk, but Alex had preregistered, when she'd gone in for her blood work and chest X ray the day she saw Dr. Herman. They gave her a slip to take upstairs, and gave her a room number on the sixth floor, and a little plastic tub that held a toothbrush and a cup, soap, and toothpaste, and just holding it depressed her. She felt suddenly like an inmate in a prison. They went silently upstairs, amid the hubbub of the hospital, and Sam looked uncomfortable and pale, and Alex looked terrified as they got off the elevator, and walked past two people with IVs, asleep on gurneys. The nurses at the nurses' station told her where to go, and they walked into a small ugly room, painted in pale blue, with a poster on the wall, and a hospital bed that seemed to eat up the entire room. Nothing about it was pretty, but at least she was alone and didn't have to talk to anyone, except Sam, who was making idle chitchat about the view, and how incredibly expensive hospitals were getting, and how socialized medicine wasn't working at all for Canada or the U.K. She wanted to scream at him, but she knew he was making a frantic effort to cope, even if he wasn't helping. He was too unnerved himself just from being there even to try to help her. A nurse hurried in to make sure she'd had nothing by mouth since midnight the night before, and an orderly shoved an IV pole into the room, and tossed a gown on the bed for her, and said he'd be back in a minute, and suddenly as she stood there, Alex started to cry helplessly. |
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That wasn't the issue for her, who had decided what or why. This was a body factory, a warehouse for bodies in disrepair, and she had to get them moving as fast as they could, to make room for the next ones. The IV burned as it went into Alex's arm, but the nurse said that it would stop in a few minutes. She took Alex's blood pressure, listened to her heart, made a notation on a chart, and flipped a switch that turned a light on in the hallway. "They'll know you're ready to go now. I'll call upstairs. They should be taking you to the O.R. in a few minutes." It was already eight thirty, and her biopsy was scheduled for nine. She had been there since seven thirty. "Any calls you want me to make while I'm waiting for you here?" Sam asked casually as she lay there, watching her IV and looking unhappy, as a nurse came in with a clipboard. "No, thanks. I think I've got everything pretty much taken care of at the office," she said as she glanced at the paper the nurse handed her to look at and sign. Alex had spent the whole week before, preparing to be away for the next two weeks, just in case, and there was nothing left to do now. The paper the nurse had handed her was the consent form she had already discussed with Dr. Herman. She only read a few lines, which explained that anything up to and including a radical mastectomy might be performed, though he had already told her that he rarely did anything more than modified radicals anymore, which meant that he took, along with the breast, the tissue high up in the arm, the minor pectoral muscles, and not the majors. The major ones made reconstructive surgery impossible. With only the minor pectorals gone, you could still do reconstructive work, and add implants, and there was no greater danger to the patient in leaving the major pectorals intact. She couldn't bear reading any farther. She signed and looked up at Sam with tears in her eyes, trying not to think of what was going to happen to her, as she handed the nurse back her clipboard. |
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Sam paced around the small claustrophobic blue room for almost an hour, until nine thirty. He called his secretary, returned some calls, confirmed his lunch date with Simon. They had meetings with their attorneys that afternoon too. Simon was joining their partnership, bringing with him all his important connections, and very little money. His would be a limited partnership, and he would have a smaller percentage in the firm than Sam, Tom, or Larry. But he seemed satisfied with that for now. He said he could always buy in for more later, once he'd proven himself, and the business had grown as a result of his connections. Sam walked down the hall after that, and bought a cup of vile coffee from a machine, which he only took two sips of. It made him ill just being here, with the smells, and the people hobbling down the halls, in wheelchairs, or on gurneys. He still had a dread of hospitals even if the last time he had been there was when Annabelle was born, but Alex needed him then. This time he felt both useless and helpless. She was somewhere else, asleep, unaware of who was there with her, and who wasn't. He could have been anywhere. And by ten thirty, he wished he had been. She should have been back to the room by then, or someone should have called to say when she'd come down. He didn't want to leave without seeing her, or at least talking to her doctor. But he wanted to be at his office by eleven. And he was serving no purpose at all sitting there, and he knew it. He felt like the forgotten man in the tiny blue room. He called his office again, and then strode purposefully out of the room to the nurses' station. "I'd like to check on Mrs. Alexandra Parker," he said curtly. "She was scheduled for a breast biopsy at nine. They said she'd be finished before ten. It's almost eleven now. Could you call and check if there's been a delay. I can't wait around here forever." She raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything. He looked important and well dressed, and he was very good looking. |
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He wasn't God. He was a man. He didn't know. He wished he could give them all guarantees of long life, but he couldn't. "That's hard to know right now. The tumor was deep and large, but the whole purpose of radical surgeries, and aggressive treatment afterwards, is to wipe out the entire cancer. If we even leave point zero one percent, it could eventually do her grave harm. That's why we can't afford to leave the breast once it's diseased to the extent that hers was. And sometimes finding it early enough, and attacking it radically, can mean the difference between success and failure. We hope that we got all of hers, that it was contained, that it has not infiltrated, and that her nodes are not too excessively involved. We hope that, for her, radical surgery was the answer, and chemotherapy will be the additional guarantee she needs. But only time will tell us if we've been truly successful. You're both going to have to be very strong, and very patient." She was going to die then, Sam decided as he listened. They were going to butcher her piece by piece, cut off one breast, then the other, scoop her insides out, and boil her guts with the poisons in the chemo, and then she'd die anyway. He was going to lose her. He couldn't stand it. And he was not going to hang around and watch her die, just as he had his mother. "I don't suppose I should bother asking what your success rate is with these kinds of cancers?" "Sometimes excellent. We just have to be as aggressive as your wife can tolerate. But she's in good health, which is in her favor, and she's a strong woman." But not a lucky one. At forty two, she was going to have to fight for her life. And there was a good chance that she wouldn't win it. He just couldn't believe it. It was like one of those bad movies where the heroine dies, and the husband is left alone with the children. Just like his father, and it had killed him. But Sam already knew he wasn't going to let this kill him. He couldn't let her do that to him. |
| 266 |
Five o'clock came all too soon, and then six, and he couldn't decide whether to go home to Annabelle, or back to the hospital to see Alex. He didn't want to call and wake her, and the doctor had said she probably wouldn't even be in her room until seven. So he went home first to see Annabelle, ate dinner sitting next to her, watching television, and then put her to bed with a story. Carmen asked if he'd heard from Mrs. Parker, and Annabelle complained that Mommy hadn't called her. And Sam explained that she was probably in meetings all day, and couldn't call them, but he looked unusually somber as he said it. And Carmen was watching him with a look of suspicion. She just knew something was wrong. She had noticed the small tote bag too, and the absence of a real suitcase. At eight o'clock he changed into jeans, and seemed to hesitate before going back to the hospital. He knew he had to go, but suddenly he didn't want to see Alex. She would be woozy and sick, and probably in a lot of pain, in spite of what the surgeon had said about "ductal" tumors being less painful. They had lopped off her breast after all, how good could that feel? It made him feel sick again as he thought of facing her. Who was going to give her the news? Or would she just know? Could she feel it? He looked grim when he got to the hospital, and went up to the small, ugly blue room, and much to his chagrin, she was wide awake when he saw her. She was lying in bed, with an IV pole next to her, and an elderly nurse reading a magazine in the light of the single lamp that was lit in the room. Alex was crying softly and staring at the ceiling. But he wasn't sure if she was in pain or if she knew about her breast, and he could hardly ask her. The nurse looked up as he came in, and Alex explained that he was her husband, and then the nurse nodded and left the room as discreetly as she could, and took her magazine with her. She said she'd be just outside in the hallway. Sam walked slowly to her bedside, and stood looking down at her. |
| 267 |
She was going to make a big deal about everything, her scar, her missing breast, her health, and eventually her "treatment," her chemotherapy, and then they were going to have to hear about her hair, or the lack of it, and how sick she was, and then months and years of waiting to hear if her tests were all right, if it had recurred, if she was going to live another year. He just couldn't take it. It was just like his mother. And this was not how he wanted to spend the rest of his days, listening to her daily reports about her cancer. Suddenly he saw her as a tragic figure trying to swallow him alive and ruin his life. The Alex he had known and loved had disappeared, and in her place was this angry, frightened, depressing woman. They spoke twice on Thursday about Annabelle, but they agreed it was better if he didn't come to see her. But Liz Hascomb did. She had come every day since discovering that Alex was there, and what had happened. And on Friday, Sam came at noon to take her home from the hospital. It was the first time he had seen her in two days, and she looked suddenly very fragile when he saw her. She was wearing a dress she had asked him to bring her. It was a loose knit that fit easily over her bandage, and for the most part concealed it. And he had brought her a bright blue coat to wear over it. She hadn't bothered to put any makeup on, but she looked tall and thin, her hair was clean, and falling generously over her shoulders. She looked better than he had expected her to, but she also looked very frightened. Her eyes seemed huge, and her face pale, and he saw that her hands shook, as she put her nightgown away in her tote bag. "Are you feeling all right, Alex? Are you in pain?" He was surprised by how unnerved she looked. She had actually looked better to him on Tuesday and Wednesday, and he wondered if she had had some kind of surgical setback. It made him feel guilty again for not seeing her the day before, but he just couldn't take the pressure. But now she looked so upset and so nervous. |
| 268 |
And much to Alex's surprise, she didn't seem to sense the tension between her parents. She was so happy to have her mother home, she was flying high and full of funny stories and jokes and new songs, and unintelligible tales about her friends. It was a lively dinner. And then they put her to bed, and Carmen cleaned up the kitchen. But when Alex and Sam went to their own room, suddenly the conversation ran dry and she didn't know what to say to him, and he seemed to have nothing at all to say to her. He looked tired and distracted. "Everything okay at work?" she asked, wondering why he was so nervous. "Fine." But he couldn't ask her the same thing. She hadn't been to her office all week. Everything she knew was about her illness. He turned on the television, and sought refuge in it, and eventually he fell asleep, as Alex watched him. She was drained from the emotions of coming home to them, but she was glad she was here. She just didn't know what to do with Sam. But Liz had reassured her again, when she called her that afternoon, and told her to be patient. She said she'd had the same problems with her husband at first too, the awkwardness, the fears about her illness, the resentment too, but eventually he had adjusted. Sam woke up after the late news, stirred, and looked up at her, as though surprised to see her there next to him, and then, without a word, he went to change into his pajamas. She had already bathed as best she could, and changed her nightgown again, and then she'd put on a bed jacket so the dressing wouldn't upset him. But when he came back to her after he'd showered, which seemed an eternity to her, he seemed to hesitate before coming back to bed again. He was suddenly afraid of her, as though she might taint him with her problem. She wanted so much from him, and he just didn't know how much he had to give her. His own inadequacy frightened him more than anything. It was easier not to be around her. "Is something wrong?" She looked at him, confused. |
| 269 |
He owed that much to Alex. He wouldn't let her have his soul. But at least he owed it to her to be faithful. It was just bad luck that Daphne had crossed his path at that particular moment. Or maybe it was meant to be that way. Maybe this was his reward for what he was losing. They stood there together in the pantry for a long time, and it was dark when they looked outside. He felt as though days had passed since he had come there. His voice was ragged with desire for her, as he held her for a last time, and then they put their coffee cups in the sink, and she washed them and put them away, and she followed him back to his office. "Are you going to stay?" he asked. He hated to leave, but he knew he had to. He had to get home. And he had done absolutely nothing except paw Daphne. "I'll take my work home," she said easily. He went to her office with her while she got it, and then he kissed her there too. She fell backwards against the desk in his arms, and the temptation to take her right there was almost irresistible, but again he forced himself to remember that he was married. The leggings she wore didn't make it any easier for him. It was like holding her with no clothes on. He could feel every inch of her beneath his hands, and there was nothing that she tried to keep from him. Eventually, he freed her breasts from the shirt she wore, and they were so beautiful he almost cried. They were perfect and round with pink nipples that stood erect in his fingers, begging for him, and she asked for him as he played with her relentlessly and kissed her. It was another half hour before she put her shirt on again, and they finally left the office. It was almost seven o'clock by then, and Sam felt like a kid as they got into a cab, and he told her he'd drop her off and then started necking with her in the backseat while she giggled. "You'd better start locking your office door," he warned. "I'm not sure I can control myself when I see you." It certainly didn't seem like it, but Daphne didn't appear to mind. |
| 270 |
She was wearing a slinky red knit dress. She was wearing a prosthesis now in her bra, which was heavy but looked surprisingly realistic. And Sam couldn't help but admire her figure. Even without the missing breast, she still had sensational legs, and the body of a model. He seemed to be noticing things like that more and more these days, especially on Daphne. He and Daphne had been behaving themselves admirably, though not without enormous effort. Only once, he had given in to the urge to kiss her when they were alone in his office. But otherwise, they had done nothing they shouldn't have, in spite of a number of meetings and business lunches together with clients. She was very helpful on some of their new deals, and remarkably knowledgeable about international finance. Interestingly, he had never mentioned her to Alex. Instinctively, he knew he couldn't. Alex would have sensed instinctively that there was something to this. His partners had wondered about it too, but no one had dared to ask, only Simon continued to make a crack now and then about how appealing English girls were, particularly his cousin. Sam always agreed with him but no one except Daphne knew how infatuated he was with her, or how desperately horny she made him. "You look pretty good," Alex said as she put the last of his Dracula makeup on him. Standing in front of him in the bathroom under the lights was the longest they had been close to each other since her operation. It would have been the perfect opportunity for him to say something to her, or put his arms around her, or even kiss her, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He was too scared of what would happen after that, what she might expect from him, and he might not be able to deliver. Nothing about her turned him on right now. She was intrinsically too ill, her body had changed too much, there was too much fear and too many bad memories for him even to want to try it. She handed him his Dracula teeth, and Annabelle gave a squeal of happy terror when she saw him. |
| 271 |
It was just too unlikely now, with the statistics of sterility after chemo and the importance of not getting pregnant for the next five years. And by then, she'd be forty seven. The prospect of another baby was over. She also knew that, at forty two, she would probably go through menopause, as a consequence of having chemo. It was still difficult to understand the words, to absorb them, to make them hers, mastectomy, malignancy, chemotherapy, nodular involvement, metastasis. It was incredible. Her entire vocabulary had changed in a month, and with it her life and her marriage. There was no hiding from what it had done to them, and to her relationship with Sam. He was completely removed from her now, in all the ways that mattered. But he wouldn't admit to it, of course. He was completely committed to pretending nothing had happened, which made it even harder. How could you fix something no one would admit was broken? "Are you going to bed?" She looked surprised when he got undressed and got into bed after they'd gone trick or treating. It was only ten o'clock and neither of them seemed tired when they got home at nine thirty. "There's nothing else to do," he said as she looked at him. "I thought I'd turn in early." In the old days, that would have meant a little romance, but now she knew he'd be asleep, or pretending to be, before she got out of the bathroom, as indeed he was twenty minutes later. He just couldn't face her, or bear to deal with his "obligations." And that was the last thing she wanted anyway. If he didn't want her, she'd rather do without, forever if she had to. She read late into the night, she was feeling better by then. And she was going back to work on the Monday following the Halloween weekend. She had a lot of work to catch up on and a lot of organizing to do. She had two weeks until she began chemotherapy, two weeks in which to feel pretty good and do all the work she could, two weeks to get her office in order before her life turned upside down again. |
| 272 |
But more to his own amazement, they had continued to abstain even in Hong Kong. It had driven them both crazy, but he still didn't want to cheat on Alex, no matter how great the temptation. But he also didn't want to sleep with Alex now, he couldn't. The only one he wanted physically was Daphne, and he refused to let himself have her. He went back to their bedroom then, and watched TV for a while, but as usual, by the time she went in half an hour later, he was asleep, and she shook her head as she looked at him. He was hopeless. He was so afraid of getting close to her again that he would have done anything to avoid it. "Maybe he's narcoleptic," she whispered to herself as she picked up her briefcase and went back to the study. Whatever he needed to warm up to her again, he was definitely not getting it, and she was just going to have to be patient. A woman in the group had had similar problems with her husband, and they had even separated for a year. He just couldn't face her raw need, and the fear of her dying, so he had shut her out. And she had left him. But now they were back together. And she had been free of the disease for six years. They had been back together for four of them. Hearing those stories gave Alex hope. But it still didn't make it any easier to deal with Sam. And the next day they had a huge fight after Annabelle's bedtime. Just before dinner, Alex had explained to Annabelle that the next day she was going to the doctor and they were going to give her some medicine. And it was going to make her pretty sick. Eventually, it might even make her hair fall out. It was pretty bad stuff, but it was kind of like vaccinations. Taking it was going to make her sick for a while, but then strong again, and it would keep her from getting bad sicknesses. But Annabelle was going to have to be kind of patient with her, because sometimes she'd be okay, but sometimes she'd feel sick, and sometimes she'd be very tired. It was the best she could do, and when she was finished, Annabelle looked very worried. |
| 273 |
The oncologist Dr. Herman had referred her to was located on Fifty seventh Street, and was a woman. Alex had been told to expect to spend an hour and a half with her the first time, and forty five minutes to an hour and a half thereafter. There would be two visits a month, unless of course there were any problems, in which case she would see her more often. Alex had scheduled the appointment at noon, and was expecting to be back in the office at one thirty. Both Brock and Liz knew that she was starting chemotherapy on that day, and of course Sam did too. He had left for the office, after their massive argument the night before, without even bothering to have breakfast. And he never called her in the morning to tell her he was sorry, or wish her luck with the chemo, let alone offer to go with her. She had already figured out one thing, she was going to have to get through this without him. The building was a modern one, off Third Avenue, and the waiting room was well decorated and had an open, airy feeling. It was warmly lit, and decorated in soft yellow, and everything about it was deceptively cheerful. If they had led Alex into a dark tomb, it would have seemed much more appropriate. And for some reason, she was relieved to see that the woman she'd been referred to was her own age. She seemed quiet and capable, her name was Jean Webber. And Alex was pleased to see, from her diploma on the wall, that she had gone to Harvard Med School. They talked in her office for a while at first, and the doctor discussed the pathology reports with her, and what they meant. It was a relief to be treated like an intelligent human being. She explained that the cytotoxic drugs they would use were not "poisonous," contrary to common belief, but that their purpose was to destroy bad cells and spare good ones. She explained also that Alex's tumor had been Stage II, which was not great news, but that other than the four lymph nodes involved, there had been no further infiltration. It had gone no further. |
| 274 |
She had had the optimum outcome. It was a relief hearing about it, except that even with the good news came bad news. The bad news was that she had had cancer at all, and she had six months of chemotherapy ahead of her now, which profoundly depressed her. When they talked about it, Dr. Webber understood. She was a small woman with dark brown hair flecked with gray, which she wore pulled back neatly, and she wore no makeup. She had a sympathetic face, and small, neat looking, immaculate hands, which moved to emphasize what she was saying. She tried to explain to Alex that while the side effects of chemotherapy could be disagreeable, they were not as fearsome as people believed, and with proper treatment they could be managed. And she assured Alex that none of the side effects caused permanent damage. Dr. Webber said she wanted to hear from her if she was having any problems. And the side effects to be expected, and discussed, were loss of hair, nausea, body pain, fatigue, and weight gain. She might also experience sore throats, colds, and problems with elimination. She could expect to stop menstruating immediately, but she told her that it was not impossible that she would menstruate again after chemotherapy. The eventual sterility rate was fifty percent, but that gave her an even chance of still having a baby, if she still had a husband, Alex thought to herself, as she forced herself to listen to the doctor. And Dr. Webber went on to reassure her that there was no evidence of birth defects afterwards. There were potential, but remote, problems with bone marrow, though, and her white count getting too low, but these were less than likely. And bladder irritations were not uncommon. Only the weight gain surprised Alex, it would have seemed that with the nausea and vomiting she would lose weight and not gain it, but the doctor explained it just seemed to be an unavoidable factor, like the hair loss. She suggested that Alex go out and select a wig she liked immediately, even several of them. |
| 275 |
Given the drugs she would be taking, it was almost certain she would lose all or most of her luxurious red hair. But it would grow back afterwards, the doctor reassured her. The doctor was as informative and as reassuring as she could be, and Alex tried to pretend to herself that she was listening to a new client, and had to hear all the evidence before reacting. It was a good system for her and it worked for a while, but as she continued to listen, what she began to hear couldn't help but overwhelm her. The nausea, the vomiting, the loss of hair, the relentlessness of it made her feel breathless. The doctor explained that she would have a physical exam each time she came, a blood test, and regular scans and X rays, all of which could be performed in her office. They had the latest state of the art equipment. She told her that she would be taking an oral drug, Cytoxan, for the first fourteen days of every four week month, and then she would be coming in for methotrexate and fluorouracil intravenously on the first and eighth days of that same four week month. After the intravenous drugs were administered, she could go back to her office. She wanted Alex to be careful to rest more than usual on the day before they were given to make sure that she minimized the problems and didn't lower her white count. "I know it all sounds very confusing at first, but you'll get used to it," she smiled. Alex was startled to realize they had been talking for almost an hour when the doctor led her into the next room for the examination. Alex undressed carefully, folding her clothes on a chair, as though each moment, each gesture mattered, and she found she couldn't control her shaking. Her hands were shaking like leaves, while the doctor looked at the surgical site and nodded approval. "Have you picked out your plastic surgeon yet?" she asked, but Alex only shook her head. She hadn't made that decision. She didn't know if she even wanted reconstructive surgery. The way things were going she wasn't sure she cared. |
| 276 |
There was always something very nice about the way he asked her. It wasn't cloying and intrusive, it was just very obvious that he cared, and that touched her. He was almost like a younger brother. "So far so good. It was scary as hell though." She didn't know him well enough to tell him she'd cried, that she'd been to hell and back, waiting for the injection to kill her. "You're a good kid," he said, "do you want a cup of coffee?" "I'd love one." He was back in five minutes and they worked for an hour, and she left promptly at five o'clock, so she could go home to Annabelle. It had been a pretty good day, but a tiring one, all things considered. "Thanks for all the help," she said to Brock before she left. They were starting a case together for a small employer who was being sued in a bogus discrimination case. This time the woman had cancer, and claimed she was passed over for a promotion. Her employer had done everything he possibly could to help her. He even had set up a room for the employee at work, so she could rest as much as she needed to, and he had given her three days a week off while she was having chemo, and held her job for her. But she was still suing. She claimed she wasn't promoted because of her cancer. What the woman wanted was to make some money, sit at home, and be able to pay for all her treatments and then some with what she made on the lawsuit. The cancer appeared to have been cured, and she didn't even want to work anymore. But she still had a lot of leftover debts from her treatments. And there was no doubt, Alex had discovered herself, that most insurance plans paid only minimum amounts for cancer treatment. If you couldn't afford the very expensive treatments that saved lives, you were in big trouble. Alex's own insurance was picking up very little of her expenses. But still, the plaintiff in her case had no right to take that out on her ex employer. He had even offered to help her, a fact that she had later denied, and that he had no proof of. |
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He had pencils in his pocket, a pen in his teeth, and a foot high stack of papers when he came back to her office, with a box of Saltines for Alex. "Try these." He dropped them on her desk, and sat down with the work they were sharing. And as they made their way through it, he watched her carefully. She looked awful, but she seemed to feel a little better while she was working. It distracted her from her miseries. And Liz kept her well supplied with tea, and she nibbled at the crackers Brock had brought her. "Why don't you lie down for a while during lunch?" he suggested, but she shook her head, she didn't want to break their momentum. They were doing some very detailed work on one of her new cases. And they ordered chicken sandwiches instead, which Alex actually felt well enough to eat by lunchtime. It was fully an hour later when the food caught up with her, and suddenly she looked panicked, as she felt it rising. She had a tiny bathroom adjacent to her office, and without a word to Brock, she disappeared, and vomited horribly and then retched for half an hour while he couldn't help but hear it. It was agonizing listening to her, and after a while he went out, and came back with a cold damp cloth, an ice pack, and a pillow. Without knocking or saying anything, he opened the door, which she hadn't locked fortunately, and she suddenly felt his strong arms behind her, as she knelt huddled over the bowl, and slumped against the wall. For a moment, he was afraid she had fainted but she hadn't. "Lean against me, Alex," he said quietly, "just let yourself go." She didn't argue, she didn't say a word, she was just too sick and too grateful for the help, from any quarter. She slumped back into his arms, as he sat on the floor holding her, the bathroom was barely big enough for both of them with their long legs, but they just made it. He put the ice pack on the back of her neck, and the wet cloth on her forehead. And for an instant, she opened her eyes and looked up at him, but she didn't speak. |
| 278 |
And the night before Thanksgiving, she gave him a hug and told him that she was thankful for him this year. They went downstairs together, and for an odd instant, she felt sad when she left him. She could be so honest and outspoken with him. While she sat throwing up next to him, she had come to rely on him, and on being able to tell him her feelings. Suddenly a four day holiday without talking to him seemed very lonely. And when she got home, she saw the turkey in the refrigerator, and thought of all the work she had to do the next day, making stuffing and yams, and popovers, and vegetables and mashed potatoes. And Sam always liked both pumpkin and mince pie, and Annabelle liked apple. And she had promised to make pureed chestnuts this year, and homemade cranberry sauce. It made her feel ill just thinking about it, but she knew that this year, more than any year, she really had to. She felt as though her relationship with Sam was resting on it, and how much she could prove to him that she could still do it. He had had his own tender partings at the office too. Daphne was going to Washington, D.C., that night to visit friends, and he felt an ache of loneliness when he took her to the train and watched her leave. He was getting more and more attached to her, and more and more unhappy whenever he didn't see her. It frightened him to know he would be alone with Alex for four days, but he acknowledged that maybe it would do them good. But as soon as he got home that night, he realized that it wasn't going to be easy to pretend that things were the way they always had been. She was lying on their bed with an ice pack on her head, and she had just thrown up, Annabelle told him. "Mommy's sick," she said quietly, "will we still have turkey?" "Of course we will," he reassured her, and put her to bed, and then came back to look at his wife, stretched out miserably on their bed. "Do you want to go to a restaurant tomorrow and just forget it?" he asked, with a tone of accusation. |
| 279 |
They had gotten so close over the last two months, but they were just friends. Yet once in a while she thought she saw something different in Brock's eyes, as though he was looking at her like a woman, not just a buddy, and it surprised her. They went right to work and she got a good morning in, and then she lay down on her couch and dozed at lunchtime. Other people were going to Christmas lunches and parties with friends, but all Alex had the energy for was work, and spending time with her daughter. She worked alone at her desk for the rest of the afternoon, and she met with two of her partners before she went home. Brock was going Christmas shopping again, and when she got home, Carmen was wrapping her presents. It made her feel useless and helpless, but she was too exhausted even to offer to help her. Sam came home with a Christmas tree that night, and he stuck around long enough to decorate it, and then he left. And she sat alone, feeling depressed, remembering the Christmas before Annabelle was born, only four years before, and countless others. It all seemed so long ago, and like part of another world. It was incredible how much had changed since then. She sat in her bed that night, reading her mail, and trying not to think of Sam, when she noticed an invitation he had left open on the table. It was a Christmas party given by friends, and she put it aside to regret it. She didn't have the energy to go anywhere, certainly not to parties. It took everything she could muster to take Annabelle to see Santa Claus at Macy's on Saturday, and by the time she got home, she was vomiting again, she was so exhausted. Carmen wasn't there, and after a little while Annabelle wandered into the bathroom to find her. Alex was lying there, on the floor, with her wig off, and her eyes closed. Almost all of her hair was gone now. It had fallen out in a matter of days, and the day before she had cut most of it off, there were just little tufts now, but even those were coming out daily. |
| 280 |
He hadn't asked her to join him. He knew she wasn't up to it anyway, and they weren't going anywhere together. She had even declined an invitation from their closest friends to go caroling in Greenwich Village. She stopped and looked at the shop windows on Madison, and the windows were especially pretty at Ralph Lauren. She was standing there looking at them, when a particularly striking girl came out the door and down the steps, laughing and talking in an English accent. She was wearing a short black coat, and she had fabulous legs in tall black suede boots. And she was wearing a huge sable hat that made her look very romantic. And then she turned to someone and Alex smiled as she saw him stoop to kiss her. It reminded her of years before, and her and Sam. He even looked a little like him. He was wearing a well cut navy blue coat, and their arms were full of packages wrapped in bright red paper with gold bows. There was something achingly bittersweet about the pair, they looked so young and so in love. They kissed again, and then Alex saw the man looking down at the girl in the hat, and as she looked, she realized who the man was. It was Sam. Her mouth opened and she stared at him, realizing suddenly what had happened. He was in love with someone else, and she couldn't help wondering how long it had gone on, and if it had happened even before she got sick. What if it was all a setup? What if he'd used her sickness as an excuse to leave her? She wanted to tear her eyes away from them, but she couldn't bring herself to, as he tucked a hand into the woman's arm and they crossed the street to another store as Alex watched them. They had no idea she was there, and Sam had no clue that she had seen him. They walked into another shop, and Alex felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she realized that it really was all over between them. She couldn't compete with that. The girl looked twenty five, and even Sam looked suddenly younger. At first, looking at him, she had thought he was thirty, not fifty. |
| 281 |
What if a day came when she could no longer take care of her, and Annabelle had to go to live with Sam? What if she lost her, too? Just thinking of it made her feel ill again, and as she sat down, her whole body was shaking. She forced herself to get up again after that, and finish packing the suitcase. She was not going to let anything like that happen, she was not going to lose her to Sam, or that woman. Fearing that made her stay up for dinner with them that night, although she was truly exhausted after all the efforts of Christmas. But she had dinner with them, and then went to bed, and slept until her alarm went off in the morning. She helped Annabelle dress, and reminded her to have a good time, and call when she felt like it, and swim, and have a great time with Daddy. And then she pulled her close to her, and held her as though she were afraid she might never see her again. Sensing her mother's panic, Annabelle started to cry when she left her, and they clung to each other for a long time. Annabelle knew how much her mother loved her, and instinctively felt how alone she was. "I love you," Alex called, with tears in her eyes, as they got in the elevator, and Sam looked at her with the familiar annoyance, as Annabelle cried softly. "She'll be fine," he reminded Annabelle again as they went down in the elevator with their bags, angry that he even had to reassure her. Alex had no business clinging to her and scaring her the way she did. It brought back all the same feelings of resentment he'd had since October, and ever since his own mother had died years before. For Sam it was a relief to get away from her. Just being around her was depressing, no matter how hard she tried. They got in a cab for La Guardia, and by die time they were gone, Alex was standing alone in her bedroom, feeling lost without them. She had seen more of Sam in the last two days than she'd seen of him in the past month, and in some ways it had been pleasant, but in others it was very painful. |
| 282 |
It was like forcing herself to look at something she could no longer have, and reminding herself of all the reasons why she had loved it. Even after he had hurt her so much and failed her so badly, she still had to remind herself to stop loving him now. Caring about him was destructive and having seen him with the English girl, she knew there was no point hanging on. It was a relief now that he was gone. After a little while, she washed the breakfast dishes and made Annabelle's bed. Carmen was not coming in. Without Annabelle, Alex had said she didn't need any help, and she had given her the day off. Alex wandered aimlessly around the apartment, and finally went to her bathroom to take a shower. She was trying to talk herself into getting dressed, and going out for a walk, so she wouldn't feel so lonely. But even thinking of it reminded her of seeing Sam with the English girl only three days before. And suddenly she didn't want to. She wanted to go back to bed, and sleep all day. She had nothing to do anyway, since she wasn't going in to the office. But a certain Spartan spirit told her to at least take a shower and get dressed. And to that end, she pulled off her wig, and happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The last of her hair had just come out, and she was suddenly completely bald, without a single hair on her head. The last of it lay in the wig she dropped on her sink, and as she took off her dressing gown, and slipped her nightgown off, she suddenly stood staring at herself, and realized how she must look to Sam. She was bald, she was scarred. The missing breast was a slab of white flesh now, with a narrow pink scar and no nipple. She didn't even look like a man. She was even less than that. She looked like a nothing, like a mannequin, with no hair and one breast, the kind that you find lying disassembled on the floor in department stores on the day that they change the windows. She started to cry as she saw herself, and realized that not only Sam was gone but Annabelle. |
| 283 |
She had already lost her husband, and eventually she might lose her daughter. It was as though she were being stripped of everything she had ever been or loved or wanted. The only thing left to her was her work, and she couldn't even do that the way she had once done it. She was like a broken bird, limping to earth, stripped, and dying. She felt ugly, useless, and sick. She almost wondered if it wouldn't be easier to die, to just give up now, before she lost even more than she already had. Why wait until the rest was taken from her? Until Sam told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry that girl, and Annabelle fell in love with her. Why wait for them to kill her? Or leave her all alone. She just stood crying, staring at herself, and in the distance, she heard the phone, but she didn't bother to answer. Her stomach revolted finally from all the anguish of her illness and her realizations, and naked, she knelt on the floor and began vomiting, and eventually there was only retching. It was all too familiar now. It was what she had become, a broken machine that could only spew bile. There was nothing left of her. And when it was over, she lay on the floor and cried until finally, she went back to bed, just as she was, and lay curled under the covers. She ate nothing all day, and Sam and Annabelle never called. They were too busy having fun at Disney World. They had moved on, toward life, in a world of sunshine, while she lay alone in the dark shadows of her own winter. She lay crying in the dark, until the emptiness in her stomach made her sick again, and she went back to the bathroom. It was an endless day of vomiting and tears, and always the bald ghost she saw in the mirror. She didn't even bother to turn the lights on, but still she saw her. And then the phone rang again late that afternoon, but she still didn't bother to answer. She was too sick, too tired, too crazy, too willing to die, even to reach out to anyone who would call her. Annabelle didn't need her now. |
| 284 |
They talked about their latest cases on the way back to work. Alex hadn't been to trial in four months, but there was one coming up, and she was trying to decide if she was up to doing it, if Brock helped her. She was tempted to, but she didn't want to give the client less than they deserved. It was a lot to think about while she was in the midst of chemo. And in the end, she decided to give the case to Matthew Billings. In March, Brock invited her to Vermont again, on a weekend that Sam was taking Annabelle away. She went, and they had a lovely time. She tried skiing, and she was a little better. She was stronger, and she only had eight weeks left of chemo. She was looking forward to it desperately, but to her that meant several things. It meant Sam would move out, and move on with his life. And even though she called his friend a bimbo, she suspected that they would probably get married. He was obviously very involved with her, and he was very protective whenever Alex tried to ask him questions. He had never actually acknowledged that there was someone else, but it had become obvious that Alex knew. But he was always a gentleman, and refused to discuss her with Alex. It also meant that Alex had to get on with her life too. She had to face the fact that Sam was gone, even if he still lived in the same apartment for the moment. When the chemotherapy was over, she could go back to trial work again. But she wasn't sure what else she wanted to do. It was suddenly more than a little frightening to be on her own again, although Brock kept telling her that the worst was already over. They were walking back from the chairlifts in Sugarbush when he said it to her again, and she looked up at him pensively, and realized that he was right. Going through chemotherapy without a husband was pretty bad, but then again she had had Brock, and he had been there for her every moment. He had even gone to the doctor with her once so he could understand it better and see what it was like. |
| 285 |
He told Annabelle funny stories, and did silly imitations. They were all good friends by the end of the day. And the next day he took Alex back to Dr. Webber. He wouldn't let her go alone anymore, she was his now. And then it all began again, the vomiting, the fatigue, and then finally the two or three good weeks until the next time. But the time seemed to fly now. They stole what time they could, at her apartment late at night, when Sam wasn't there, which was most of the time, or at his place whenever Carmen stayed. They got hungrier for each other by the day. And once they even got carried away in her office bathroom. He had gone back out with his shirt buttoned wrong and his tie askew and Alex had laughed so hard she could hardly control herself. They were like two kids, but they were having fun, and they deserved it. Alex had paid a high price for all this. And Brock had waited a long time for her. Neither of them had ever been happier, and even Annabelle really liked him, as did Carmen. She was still furious with Sam for all he hadn't done for Alex in the past six months, and it was nice to see her happy now. Even Liz had figured it out and was pleased, although, for their sakes, she still pretended not to notice. They worked together all the time now, even more than before, and consulted each other on everything they worked on. Alex shared all her cases with him, and no one found it unusual, since she had been so sick since the fall, and relied on him so much to help her carry her workload. Everyone seemed very impressed by their system, and their results. It was the perfect relationship, and they were together constantly. There was hardly an hour of the day when they weren't, and neither of them seemed to chafe at the other's constant companionship. On the contrary, they loved it. Even Sam noticed that she was different these days. She seemed happier and more lighthearted, and the rare times they met at breakfast, she joked with him a little bit, and didn't seem quite as angry. |
| 286 |
They were both important to him, they were both important relationships in his life, he needed both of them, and he wanted them at least to like each other. But when Annabelle woke the next day at six a.m., they were still in bed, and Daphne was lying naked in his arms. He had never thought of what might happen in the morning, and he had forgotten to ask her to wear a nightgown. Annabelle wandered into their room without a sound and stood staring at them, her mouth open in horror. Sam was wearing nothing either, and he suggested that Annabelle go downstairs and wait for them, but Daphne was not amused to be woken at that hour, and it put her in a bad mood all morning. The two "girls" went at each other tooth and nail, and Sam finally took Annabelle to the beach to get away from it, but when he came back to take Daphne to lunch, she was furious that Annabelle had to come with them. "What do you suggest I do with her for heaven's sake? Leave her home alone?" "It wouldn't kill her, you know. She's not an infant. I must say, you treat children in America in quite extraordinary ways. They're dreadfully spoiled and the center of everything. It's not even healthy for them. I promise you, she needs to be treated like a child, Sam. She'd be much happier at home, with a nanny or a maid, than dragging around everywhere with you. If her mother wants to do that with her because she has a pathetic little life, then that's fine, but I'm telling you right now, I don't intend to do it. I won't inflict my son on you for more than five days a year, and don't expect me to play nursemaid to yours. I won't have it," she said petulantly, and for the first time in six months, he was both hurt and disappointed in her, and he wondered if something in her youth had made her so disagreeable about children. It was inconceivable to him that anyone would just dislike them. But when he thought about it, he realized that she had more or less warned him right from the beginning. He only hoped that she'd be willing to change now. |
| 287 |
The only reason he was willing to listen was for Alex, but he was not particularly inclined to help him. "You can't hit him till he pays his bill," she smiled back at him. Her life was with Brock now, not with Sam, whatever his problems. "Well, don't forget to ask him the million dollar question." He was reminding her about the divorce, but this was hardly the moment. "Relax. This is business." Sam was there twenty minutes later, looking pale under his suntan. There were dark circles under his eyes, and when he sat across the conference table from Alex and Brock, his hands were visibly shaking. The man was in shock. His reputation was down the drain, and his entire life had fallen apart, seemingly all in six weeks, while he was in Europe with Daphne. Alex had asked him if he minded having Brock in on the meeting with them, and though he wasn't enthusiastic about it, he agreed, if she thought it would be useful. He wanted all the help he could get, and he was very grateful to Alex. He told her she was the best attorney he knew, and he valued her opinion. He did not say more than that but the look that passed between them was old and familiar. They had known and loved each other for a long time, it was hard to forget that. The story he told was not a pretty one, and as he had told her, he didn't yet have all the answers. What appeared to have happened, as far as he could discern, was that Simon had been slowly and steadily introducing unscrupulous clients into their business, and falsifying their histories and reports from various banks in Europe. And then, in ways Sam had not yet completely figured out, Simon had begun juggling money. He had embezzled from them, and stolen money from the legitimate clients, and he had begun laundering huge amounts from disreputable sources in Europe. It had apparently gone on for months, and Sam admitted, without accusing her, that during the time of her illness and the stress between them, he had stopped paying as close attention as he should to his business. |
| 288 |
Annabelle went back to nursery school after Labor Day, and the rest of them went back to their usual routine. Alex had taken on her full workload again, and she appeared in court almost daily. Brock was still helping her, but he had his own cases too, and they didn't work as constantly together as they had while she was in chemo. And they both agreed that they missed it. Several of her partners had commended her for her fortitude in hanging in while she was sick, and she had become something of a legend in the law firm. And in spite of the amount of time they still spent together almost every day, no one had yet figured out that she and Brock were seriously involved with each other. It had remained a well kept secret. Brock spent every night with them after work, but he still kept his own apartment, and most of the time, he slept there. Neither of them thought it would be good for Annabelle to have him living there full time, so he forced himself to get up in the middle of the night and go home, which they both hated. He only spent the night there, in the guest room, on weekends. And both Brock and Alex were anxious to tell Sam about the divorce, and get their life in order quickly, if only to get a good night's sleep, as Brock put it. But Annabelle was crazy about him, and probably wouldn't have minded if he'd moved in completely. In September, Sam's trial was more than two months away. And by October, his meetings at the firm had stepped up radically with Phillip Smith and the team he'd created to mount Sam's defense. It was going to be a tough case to win, and they all knew it. Even Sam had few illusions. He'd closed his office by then, and all of the employees had been discharged. In the end, they had cheated people out of roughly twenty nine million dollars. It could have been a lot worse, but Sam had done what he could to minimize clients' losses, and he was trying to activate whatever insurance policies he could to reimburse people for the difference. But no matter how you looked at it, it was ugly. |
| 289 |
The papers were full of it from the moment they started taking depositions. And by November fifteenth, people were taking bets in the financial community as to who would go to prison, and who wouldn't. Everyone figured that Simon would somehow weasel out of it, he was just too slippery not to. He'd been continuing to do business in Europe while waiting for the trial, and was involved in half a dozen shady deals there, but nothing seemed to stop him. And it was predicted that Larry and Tom were going to go to jail. But Sam was the dark horse that no one could figure. Most people thought he would, but there were a few who thought he wouldn't. He had had an excellent reputation for a long time, and some of the old timers bought his story, though the younger men on Wall Street didn't. They thought he should have known, or did know, and didn't want to hear it, which was what Brock thought too. And when the trial began, Alex was there. She watched the jury selection and conferred with Sam in the halls, just to keep him distracted. He had four attorneys, and there were five others involved in the other three's defense. It was a huge event, and the courtroom was filled with reporters. Alex had asked Brock if he wanted to come too, but he said he didn't. They both knew it was going to be a circus. Brock was still uptight about Sam, still anxious for her to divorce him. He said he wouldn't believe it was for real until she told Sam, and they filed. But she kept promising it was going to happen right after the trial, and she meant it. She and Brock had been physically involved for eight months, and close friends for a lot longer, and she really loved him. But she and Sam had known each other for eighteen years, and loved each other for as long. She owed him something too, and although he didn't like it, she knew Brock understood that. But in spite of himself, and all their reasoning, Brock was extremely jealous. Alex was startled to realize it, but she also found it very touching. |
| 290 |
The final week of trial came in the second week in December, Sam took the stand, and his testimony was emotional and very moving. He had had to stop once or twice, when he became overwrought, as the reporters took rapid note of it, but she believed his story. She knew what a nightmarish time it had been for both of them, they had both been out of their minds in their own way, and his affair with Daphne must have clouded his judgment further. She was surprised at how dispassionate she felt, listening to him, it was a fascinating case, but she couldn't allow herself to think that Sam might go to prison. She couldn't even allow herself to think that she had once loved him. It would have been too painful. Afterwards four of the attorneys addressed the jury, in some cases movingly, and Alex thought Phillip's speech was very clear, and stated the facts clearly. It emphasized what Sam himself had said on the witness stand, that between his wife's illness and his own foolishness, he had allowed himself to be lulled into thinking that what was going on was ethical when it wasn't. But the key was that he didn't know what the others were doing. He had never knowingly defrauded anyone, or been a party to what had happened. He had never knowingly been part of their collusion. The jury took five days to deliberate, and called for evidence and testimony. They recalled everything they could, and then finally, it was over. Sam and the others sat looking very pale and were asked to stand when the jury entered the courtroom. Alex noticed that Simon tried to look contemptuous, but he was too pale for anyone to buy it. Just like the others, he was scared stiff, and the only one Alex felt sorry for was Sam. And poor little Annabelle. What if her Daddy went to prison? Someone at her school had told her about it, and Sam and Alex had tried to explain it to her simply, but it was much too confusing. And no, they didn't know if he was going away or not, but they hoped not. It had been a lousy resolution. |
| 291 |
The foreman was a woman in this case, and she called out their verdicts loudly and clearly. They began with Tom, and named each of the thirteen charges against him, and to each of them she responded with a single word. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. It droned on eternally, and again the same with Larry, and with Simon. There was a huge stir in the courtroom, and the press was going wild as the judge rapped his gavel furiously and called everyone to order. And then it was Sam's turn, and this time, the verdict was "not guilty" to all the charges of embezzlement, but to all the charges relating to fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud, he was found guilty. Alex sat rooted to the spot, as she looked at him. He stood very quietly, listening to the judge, who was saying that they were to return thirty days from that date for sentencing, and he would take their cases, and their probation reports, under advisement until then. They were each being released on five hundred thousand dollars bail, which meant a fifty thousand dollar bond, which Sam had put up for himself as soon as he was arrested. And then the judge reminded each of them that they were not to leave the state or country. He then rapped his gavel, and dismissed the court, and there was an instant uproar. Photographers flashed photographs of all of them and Alex had to fight to get where Sam was standing with Phillip. Sam looked like he was in shock when she got to him, and there were tears in his eyes, understandably. Larry's and Tom's wives were sobbing openly, but she said nothing to them. And Simon left the courtroom almost immediately with his lawyer. "I'm so sorry, Sam," she said, just loud enough for him to hear her, as someone took their picture. "Let's get out of here," he said miserably, and she leaned over to Phillip then to ask him if he needed to talk to his client, but he shook his head. He was very disappointed by the verdict. Now all their efforts would be to reduce sentencing, but there was little chance of that now. |
| 292 |
After all, he was still her husband. But Brock had made such a fuss about him. And it wasn't right for them to be kissing. She was involved with Brock, and she and Sam were divorcing. "I love you," he whispered, and she suddenly drew back from him, as though she realized it could go no further. She didn't want anyone to get hurt, or to let Sam hurt her again. But at the look in her eyes, he pulled her closer, and felt her heart pounding against his. And this time, when he kissed her, it wasn't gentle. It was urgent. In two days he would be leaving for decades, and he would never hold her again, and they both knew it. Gently he unbuttoned her coat and dropped it on a chair behind her, as she reminded herself to resist him. And then ever so carefully, he ran a hand up her right side, feeling the familiar breast that had nursed his daughter. He was careful not to touch the left, and then his hands touched her, he looked startled and she smiled at him, amused at his surprise over the implant. "It grew back," she said wickedly, and he looked embarrassed. It felt surprisingly realistic and he wondered when she'd done it. "Why didn't you tell me?" he reproached gently and then kissed her again. "It was none of your business," she said softly, excited by him, and not wanting to be. And he wanted her desperately, not just for old times' sake, but for the present. They were slowly, deliberately, unbuttoning each other's clothes, and she felt frightened as she did it. Their attraction to each other was irresistible and relentless, and there was no stopping what they were feeling. "You're beautiful." He pulled away and looked at her, and slowly unbuttoned her blouse and her skirt, and she let her clothes fall to the ground around her. In some ways, she knew she was crazy to do this. But he was going away for a long time, and she loved him. It was a way of saying good bye, of letting go, of telling him how much she had once loved him, but she knew that they would never have a future. |
| 293 |
It never dealt the easy hands. The quick wins. There were always the difficult combinations, the tough choices, to deal with. But there were no choices for her now. Sam was going. And Brock would either grow up or he wouldn't. He would either live with her past or he'd leave her. She had a feeling, though, that in the long run, the ten years between them was a chasm beyond bridging, and that Brock knew it too. He seemed ready to go now. In a way, they had healed each other, and perhaps their time together was over. It was sad even thinking of that, but she had learned a lot in the past year about acceptance. And she knew that if she had to be, she could be alone now. But it was odd feeling that she was about to lose both of the men in her life. Maybe it was time for her to be on her own. And as she lay in bed that night, she thought of Brock and all he'd done for her, but it was Sam she thought of constantly until morning, Sam who needed her thoughts and her strength now. Sam who seemed to be woven into her very soul, who seemed to be a part of her forever. And as she realized that, she felt strangely peaceful. There was no fighting it, he had become an unalterable part of her long since, and she had never even noticed. She was up at six o'clock, and dressed in a black suit at seven. She didn't tell Annabelle where she was going, but Carmen knew. And Alex looked serious at breakfast and she left for the courthouse early so she would be there when Sam arrived. She wanted to be there for him. The courthouse was already full when she got there, and she didn't want to crowd the counsel's table, although she could have. There was a huge row going on, because Simon Barrymore had fled the country the night before, and jumped bail, and the judge was in a furor. But once that was taken care of, and a warrant issued for Simon's arrest for jumping bail, the judge was prepared to deal with the others. Once again, Larry and Tom went first. And each was sentenced to ten years in prison, with a million dollar fine each. |
| 294 |
There had always been recognition that Sam's case was different from the others. He had maintained till the end that he hadn't known what they were doing, and due to the extenuating circumstances of his wife's illness, and his own stupidity, not to mention his affair with Daphne, he had been temporarily lulled into paying far too little attention to the practices of his partners. The jury had recognized the merit of that too, which was why they had cleared him of the embezzlement charges, but the charges of fraud had stood and he had been found guilty. The judge looked at him long and hard. And then with a slow, deliberate voice he spoke Sam's sentence. "Samuel Livingston Parker, I hereby sentence you to a fine, paid out of your personal funds, of five hundred thousand dollars, and ten years in prison." The crowd roared, and every photographer in the place pressed toward him, as the judge shouted and continued to rap his gavel. Sam closed his eyes, but only for a split second, and Alex felt so nauseous suddenly it almost felt like chemo. "Ten years in prison," he repeated, glaring at the crowd and then at Sam, for silence, "with your sentence to be reduced as of this date to ten years probation, and the court recommends that you find some other line of work, Mr. Parker. Dog catching, if you like, but stay out of the venture capital business, and stay off Wall Street." Sam stood staring at the judge, as did everyone in the courtroom. For an instant there was silence. Ten years probation. He was free, or as good as. Alex couldn't believe it. And then pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. The lawyers were all shaking hands as Larry and Tom were led away, and Sam stood looking dazed while court was adjourned and photographers from every paper in the country took his picture. Alex couldn't even get to him for the next twenty minutes, and she just stood staring at him in amazement. Phillip Smith had done an incredible job, but so had the judge, and the probation office itself had recommended for probation. |
| 295 |
Kate was fifty one years old, and Joe was sixty three. And in spite of everything he had accomplished, Joe still seemed and looked young to her. There was a vibrancy to him, an energy, a driving force. He was like a shooting star, trapped in the body and soul of one man, always pushing forward, skyrocketing toward unseen goals. He had vision and brilliance and excitement like no one else. She had seen it from the moment they met. Had always known it. She hadn't always understood it, but from the first, without even knowing who he was, she had known he was different and important and special, and very, very rare. Kate had felt him in her bones. Over the years, he had become part of her soul. He was not always the most comfortable part of her, or even of himself, but he was a major part of her, and had been for a long time. There had been clashes over the years, and explosions, peaks and valleys, mountaintops, sunrises and sunsets, and peaceful times. He had been Everest to her. The Ultimate. The place she had always wanted to reach. From the very beginning, he had been her dream. He had been Heaven and Hell, and once in a while purgatory somewhere in between. He was a genius, and a man of extremes. They gave meaning to each other's lives, and color and depth, and had frightened each other profoundly at times. Peace and acceptance and love had come with age and time. The lessons they had learned had been hard won and hard earned. They had each been the other's greatest challenge, embodied each other's worst fears. And in the end, they had healed each other. In time, they fit together like two pieces of one puzzle, with no sharp edges and no seams. In the thirty four years they had shared, they had found something that few people ever do. It had been tumultuous and exhilarating, and the noise had been deafening at times, but they both knew that it was infinitely rare. It had been a magical dance for thirty four years, whose steps had not been easy for either of them to learn. |
| 296 |
Kate was actually a friend of the debutante's younger sister. At seventeen it was unusual for girls to be included, but Kate had dazzled everyone for so long, and was so mature for her age, that their hosts had found it an easy decision to include her. Kate's friend had been jubilant, as had she. It was the most beautiful party she'd ever been to, and the room, when she walked in on her father's arm, had been filled with extraordinary people. Heads of state were there, important political figures, dowagers and matrons, and enough handsome young men to flesh out an army. Every important name in New York society was in attendance, and several from Philadelphia and Boston. There were seven hundred people chatting in the elegant reception rooms and an exquisite mirrored ballroom, and the gardens had been tented. There were hundreds of liveried waiters serving them, a band in both the ballroom and the tent outside. There were beautiful women and handsome men, extraordinary jewels and gowns, and the gentlemen were wearing white tie. The guest of honor was a pretty girl, she was small and blond and she was wearing a dress made for her by Schiaparelli. This was the moment she had looked forward to for her entire lifetime; she was being officially presented to society for the first time. She looked like a porcelain doll as she stood on the reception line with her parents, and a crier announced each guest's name as they entered in their evening gowns and tails. As the Jamisons came through the line, Kate kissed her friend and thanked her for inviting her. It was the first ball of its kind she had been to, and for an instant the two young women looked like a Degas portrait of two ballerinas, as they stood in subtle contrast to each other. The debutante was small and fair, with gently rounded curves, while Kate's looks were more striking. She was tall and slim, with dark reddish auburn hair that hung smoothly to her shoulders. She had creamy skin, enormous dark blue eyes, and a perfect figure. |
| 297 |
Outwardly, nothing changed for them after that, they lived in the same house, saw the same people. Kate still went to the same school, and within days after his death, she started third grade. She felt as though she were in a daze for months afterward. The man she had so trusted and loved and looked up to, and who had so clearly adored her, had left them, without warning or explanation or any reason that Kate could fathom. All she knew and could understand was that he was gone, and in all the profound ways that truly mattered, her life was forever changed. A major piece of her world had disappeared. And her mother was so distraught for the first few months that she all but disappeared from Kate's life. Kate felt as though she had lost two parents, not just one. Elizabeth settled what was left of John's estate with their close friend and banker Clarke Jamison. Like Elizabeth, his fortune and investments had survived the crash. He was quiet and kind and solid. His own wife had died years before of tuberculosis, he had no children of his own, and had never remarried. But within nine months of John Barrett's death, he asked Elizabeth to marry him. They were married fourteen months after John's death, in a small, private ceremony that included only themselves, the minister, and Kate, who watched with wide, solemn eyes. She was nine at the time. Over the years, it had proven to be a wise decision. Although she wouldn't have admitted it publicly, out of respect for her late husband, Elizabeth was even happier with Clarke than she had been with John. They were well suited, shared similar interests, and Clarke was not only a good husband to her, but a wonderful father to Kate. Clarke adored Kate, and she him. He worshiped her, protected her, and although they never talked about him, he spent all the ensuing years trying to make up to her for the father she had lost. Clarke was quiet and solid and loving, and took pleasure in the spirit of joy and mischief that eventually rekindled in Kate. |
| 298 |
And after discussing it with both Elizabeth and Kate, he adopted her when she was ten. At first, Kate had worried that it would be disrespectful to her father, but she confessed to Clarke the morning of the adoption that it was what she wanted most in the world. Her father had slipped quietly out of her life at the moment his own troubles began, when she was six. Clarke provided all the emotional stability Kate had needed after her father's death. There was nothing he denied her, and he was always there for her in every imaginable way. Eventually, all her friends seemed to forget he wasn't her father, and in time, so did Kate. She thought of her own father quietly sometimes, in rare, solemn moments, but he seemed so far away now that she scarcely remembered him. All she remembered now, when she allowed herself to, was the sense of terror and abandonment she had felt when he died. But she seldom, if ever, allowed herself to think of it. The door to that part of her was closed, and she preferred it that way. It wasn't Kate's nature to dwell on the past, or cling to sadness. She was the sort of person who always seemed to be propelled toward joy, and created it for others wherever she went. The sound of her laughter, and spark of excitement in her eyes, created an aura of joy wherever she went, much to Clarke's delight. They never spoke of the fact that Clarke had adopted her. It was a closed chapter in Kate's life, and she would have been shocked if anyone had spoken of it to her. Clarke's fathering of her over the past nine years since her father's death, had become part of her so seamlessly that she no longer even thought about it. He was truly her father now in heart and soul, not only in her mind, but his own. In every possible way, she had long since become his child. Clarke Jamison was a much admired banker in Boston. He came from a respectable family, had gone to Harvard, and was more than content with his life. He had always been happy that he'd married Elizabeth and adopted Kate. |
| 299 |
And once she had married Clarke, after the trauma of John's suicide, Elizabeth and Clarke had treated Kate like a small adult. They shared their lives with her, and traveled extensively abroad. They always took her along. At seventeen, Kate had been to Europe with them every summer, and they had taken her to Singapore and Hong Kong with them the year before. She had been exposed to far more than most girls her age, and as she glided among the guests seeming more like an adult than a young girl, she was enormously composed. It was something one noticed instantly about her. One knew immediately that Kate was not only happy, but totally at ease in her own skin. She could speak to anyone, go anywhere, do almost anything. Nothing daunted or frightened Kate. She was excited by life, and it showed. The gown Kate was wearing to the debutante ball in New York had been ordered for her from Paris the previous spring. It was entirely different from the gowns the other girls were wearing. Most of them were wearing ball gowns in pastel or bright colors. No one else had worn white, of course, in deference to the guest of honor. And they all looked lovely. But Kate looked more than that, she was elegant and striking. Even at seventeen, everything about her said she was a woman and not a girl. Not in an offensive way, but she seemed to exude a kind of quiet sophistication. There were no frills, no big skirt, no ruffles or flounces. The ice blue satin gown was cut on the bias, and seemed to ripple over her like water, it was almost a second skin, and the straps that held it to her shoulders were barely stronger than threads. It showed off her perfect figure, and the aquamarine and diamond earrings she wore were her mother's and had been her grandmother's before her. They sparkled as they danced in and out of her long dark red hair. She wore almost no makeup, just a little powder. Her dress was the color of an icy winter sky, and her skin had the color and softness of the palest creamy rose. |
| 300 |
Her lips were bright red and caught your eye as she constantly laughed and smiled. Her father was teasing her as they left the reception line, and she was laughing with him, with a graceful white gloved hand tucked into his arm. Her mother was right behind them and seemed to stop every five seconds to chat with friends. Within a few minutes, Kate had spotted the sister of the debutante who had invited her to the party, standing amidst a group of young people, and Kate abandoned her father to meet them. They promised to meet up again in the ballroom later, and Clarke Jamison watched his daughter with pride, as she approached the group of handsome young people, and unbeknownst to Kate, all heads turned. She was a stunning girl. Within seconds, he could see them all laughing and talking, and all the boys looking bowled over by her. Wherever she was, whatever she did, he never worried about Kate. Everyone loved her, and was instantly drawn to her. What Elizabeth wanted for Kate was to find a suitable young man and get married, in the next few years. Elizabeth had been happy with Clarke for nearly ten years and wanted the same fate for her daughter. But Clarke had been insistent. He wanted Kate to get an education first, and it had been easy to convince her. She was too bright not to take advantage of that fact, although he didn't expect her to work once she got out of school. But he thought she should have every possible advantage, and was sure it would serve her well. She had been applying to colleges all that winter, and would go to college the following year, when she would be eighteen. She was excited about it, and had applied to Wellesley, Radcliffe, Vassar, Barnard, and a handful of others that appealed less to her. And because of her father's history at Harvard, Radcliffe was her first choice. In every possible way, her father was proud of her. Kate drifted with the others from the reception rooms to the ballroom. She chatted with the young girls she knew, and was introduced to dozens of young men. |
| 301 |
They found her stories amusing, her style exciting, and when the dancing started, they cut in on each other constantly. She never seemed to finish a dance with the same man she had started out with. It was a glittering evening, and she was having great fun. And as always, the attention she got didn't go to her head. She enjoyed it but was very self contained. Kate was standing at the buffet when she first saw him, she had been chatting with a young woman who had started Wellesley that year and was telling her all about it. She had been listening intently, when she looked up and found herself staring at him. She didn't know why, but there was something mesmerizing about him. He was noticeably tall, had broad shoulders, sandy blond hair, and a chiseled face. And he was considerably older than the boys who had been dancing attendance on her. She suspected he was in his late twenties as she stopped listening to the girl from Wellesley entirely, and watched Joe Allbright with fascination as he put two lamb chops on a plate. He was wearing white tie like the other men, and he looked strikingly handsome, but there was something uncomfortable about the way he looked, and everything about him suggested that he would rather have been somewhere else. As she watched him make his way along the buffet, he seemed almost awkward, like a giant bird whose wings had unexpectedly been clipped, and all he wanted was to fly away. He was only inches from her finally, as he held a half full plate, and he sensed her watching him. Looking down at her from his great height, with a serious air, their eyes met. He stopped moving for a minute, as they watched each other, and when she smiled at him, he almost forgot he was holding the plate. He had never seen anyone like her, as beautiful or as vibrant. There was something fascinating about her, like standing next to something very bright at very close range, or looking into a very bright light. Within seconds, he had to look away. He lowered his eyes, but he didn't move away from her. |
| 302 |
The British and Italians were fighting air battles over Malta. And in late June, the Germans had invaded Russia, and taken them completely by surprise. And a month later, Japan had penetrated into Indochina. It was a summer of fierce battles, and bad news from all over the world. When Kate wasn't thinking about the war, she was thinking about going to Radcliffe. It was only days away, and she was even more excited than she let on. A lot of her friends from high school had opted not to go to college. She was more the exception than the norm. Two of her friends had gotten married after graduation, and three more had announced their engagement that summer. At eighteen, she already felt like an old maid. In a year, most of them would have babies, and even more of her friends would be married. But she agreed with her father, she wanted to go to college, although she hadn't decided what to major in yet. If the world had been different, she would have liked to study law. But it was too great a sacrifice to make. She knew that if she chose a law career, it was unlikely that she would ever be able to marry. It was a choice one had to make, and law as a career was not a woman's world. She was going to study something like literature or history, with a minor in Italian or French. If nothing else, she could always teach one day. But other than law, there were no careers that particularly fascinated her. And both her parents assumed that she would get married when she finished school. College would just be something interesting for her to do while she waited for the right man. Joe's name came up after she met him, once or twice in the ensuing months, not as a prospect for her, but for something new or important he'd achieved. Her father took even greater interest in him now that he'd met him, and reminded Kate of him more than once. But she needed no prompting, she had never forgotten him, nor heard from him either. He was just a very interesting person she'd met, and eventually her fascination with him began to pale. |
| 303 |
They had each thought of the other often, but it would have been awkward to admit. "My dad is your biggest fan." Joe still remembered how interested he had been in Joe when he met him, and knew quite a lot about him. Unlike Kate, who had just thought him a nice person, and had had no idea what a hero he was. They finished their hot dogs, and sat down on a log to drink coffee and eat ice cream. It was being served in cones, and Kate was dripping hers all over, while Joe sat back and watched her as he sipped his coffee. He loved looking at her, she was so beautiful and so young and so full of energy and life. She was like a beautiful young Thoroughbred gamboling and prancing, and tossing her mane of dark red hair over her shoulders. Never in his early life had he ever suspected he would know someone like her. The women he had known over the years had been so much plainer and more subdued. She was like a bright shining star in the heavens, and he couldn't take his eyes off her, for fear he'd lose sight of her. "Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked finally, when she'd cleaned up the mess from her ice cream. She nodded as she smiled at him. They walked quietly down the beach for a while, with a nearly full moon shining brightly on the water. They could see everything on the beach, and they walked side by side, comfortably close together, silent for a time. After a while, he looked up at the sky, and then down at her, and smiled. "I love flying on nights like this. I think you'd like it too. It's like being close to God for a little while, it's so peaceful." He was sharing with her what mattered most to him. He had thought of her once or twice when he flew night flights, and couldn't help musing how nice it would have been to have her with him. And then he told himself he was crazy. She was just a kid, and if he ever saw her again, she probably wouldn't even remember him. But she had, and they felt like old friends. It seemed like a gift of destiny that they had met again. |
| 304 |
What frightened him most were his own feelings. He was intrigued by her. And just being next to her drew him like a magnet. He was twelve years older than she, she was from a wealthy family, one of considerable stature, and she was going to Radcliffe. He didn't belong in her world, and he knew it. But it wasn't her world that drew him to her, it was who she was, and how at ease he felt with her. He had never known any woman like her. Not even the ones his own age. In all his years, he had dated a number of women, most of them the ones who hung around airstrips, or girls he met through other pilots, usually their sisters. But he'd never had anything in common with any of them. There had only been one woman he had seriously cared about, and she had married someone else, because she said, she was lonely all the time, he had no time to spend with her. He couldn't imagine Kate being lonely, she was too full of life and too self sufficient, it was that which attracted him to her. Even at eighteen, she was a whole person. From what he could see, there were no pieces missing, no needs he was expected to fill and couldn't, no expectations or reproaches. She just was who she was, and was on her own path, like a comet, and all he wanted was to catch her as she flew by. She told him then about wishing she could go to law school, but having to give up the dream, because it wasn't a suitable career for a woman. "That's silly," he responded. "If that's what you want, why don't you do it?" "My parents don't want me to. They want me to go to school, but then they expect me to get married." She sounded disappointed. It seemed so boring to her. "Why can't you do both? Be a lawyer and get married?" It sounded sensible to him, but she only shook her head, as her hair swirled around her, like a dark red curtain. It added to the sensual quality about her, which he had been fervently resisting. He had done a good job of it, she didn't even sense that he was attracted to her. She just thought he was being friendly and kind. |
| 305 |
He was on his own in the world, and always had been. He had no one to answer to, or to please, but himself. Her life was entirely different. She carried the burdens of all her parents' hopes and dreams on her shoulders, and she would never have done anything to hurt or disappoint them. She couldn't do that to them. Particularly not after what her father had done to them. They sat together in silence for a while longer, just relaxing and enjoying each other's company, and thinking of what they had said to each other. It was all so honest, and open. There was no artifice and no pretense, and as different as they were, and their lives had been, they were powerfully attracted to each other. They were like the opposite sides of the same coin. Joe was the first to speak, as he turned to look at her again, lying peacefully on the sand, staring up at the moon. He hadn't dared to lie down beside her, for fear of what it would make him feel for her. It was better to keep a little distance between them. It was the first time he had ever felt that, but her pull was as strong as the tides, and he knew it, as he sat close to her. "I guess we should go back. I don't want your parents to get worried, or send the police after me. They probably think you've been kidnapped." She nodded, and sat up slowly. She hadn't told anyone where she was going, or with whom, but she knew that several people had seen her leave. She wasn't sure if they'd recognized Joe leaving with her, but she had offered no explanations, and hadn't bothered to go and find her parents to tell them. She'd been afraid that her father would want to come with them, not out of any distrust of Joe, but because he liked him so much. Joe gave her a hand and helped her to her feet, and they walked back quietly toward the bonfire they could still see far, far down the beach. She was surprised at how far they had walked, but it had been easy beside him. And halfway there, she slipped a hand into his arm, and he pressed his arm closer to his side, and smiled down at her. |
| 306 |
She had books to buy, and classes to attend, professors to meet, an advisor to work out her schedule with, and a house full of girls to get acquainted with. It was a huge adjustment for her, but within days, she knew she loved it. She didn't even bother to go home on the weekends, much to her mother's dismay. But at least, she tried to make an effort to call them from time to time. She'd been at school for three weeks before she finally wrote to Joe. It wasn't that she hadn't had time before that, but she had wanted to wait until she had some interesting tales to tell him. And by the time she sat down at her desk, on a Sunday afternoon, she had plenty of stories about school. She told him about the other girls, her professors, her classes, the food. She had never been as happy in her life as she was at Radcliffe. It was her first taste of freedom, and she was loving it. She didn't tell him about the Harvard boys she'd met the week before, it seemed inappropriate, and was not something she wanted to share with him. There was one, a junior, Andy Scott, whom she liked very much, but he paled in comparison to Joe, who had become her standard of perfection for all men. No one else was as tall or as handsome, or as strong, or as interesting, or as accomplished, or as exciting. He was a tough act to compare anyone to, and Andy looked like water to wine, when she compared him to Joe Allbright. But he was fun to be with, and he was captain of the Harvard swimming team, which impressed the other freshman girls. Instead, she told Joe everything she was doing, and how happy she was there. Her letter, when he received it, was excited and exuberant and ebullient, all the things he loved most about her. And he sat down immediately when he got the letter, and answered her, telling her about his latest designs, and his latest victory over a previously insoluble problem. He told her of his most recent test flights. But he avoided telling her of a boy who had died the day before, in a test flight over Nevada. |
| 307 |
She looked vivacious and beautiful and excited to see him. And Joe looked dazed as he followed Kate into the dining room and sat down beside her. And as Clarke drew him out during dinner and urged him to talk about his planes, Kate sat watching him, looking awestruck. Elizabeth looked anything but reassured as she saw the looks of ease and admiration that passed between them, and she very definitely had the impression that they knew each other better than either of them was admitting. They seemed unusually comfortable with each other as they chatted side by side. The letters had created an aura of ease between them that was impossible to conceal from her parents, and Kate didn't try. It was obvious that she and Joe were friends, and equally so that they were attracted to each other. But Elizabeth also had to admit, to herself at least, that he was intelligent, well mannered, and charming, and he treated Kate with kindness and respect. But there was something about him that frightened her mother. There was something cold about him, and withdrawn, and almost frightened, as though he had been wounded at some point in his life, and some part of him was badly hurt. In some ways, no matter how friendly he was, he seemed just out of reach. And when Joe spoke of flying, it was with such passion, that Elizabeth couldn't help wondering if his love for flying was something any woman could compete with. She was willing to believe he was a good man, but not necessarily the right one for Kate. Liz didn't think Joe had the makings of a good husband. His life was full of danger and risk, which wasn't what she wanted for Kate. She wanted her to have a comfortable, happy life, with a man who wanted to do nothing more dangerous than step outside the house to pick up the morning paper. Elizabeth had protected Kate all her life, from danger, from harm, from illness, from pain, but the one thing she couldn't protect her from, she feared now, was heartbreak. Kate had had more than enough of that when her father died. |
| 308 |
And then she heard him tell the cab driver to drive them to a suburb on the outskirts of town. "What's out there?" she asked with a look of surprise. "You'll see." And then, instinctively, she knew. It hadn't even occurred to her that he would take her to see his plane. She didn't ask anything, and they chatted easily on the way He told her how much he had enjoyed the past two days, and wanted to do something special for her. And she knew that in his eyes, showing her his plane was the best thing he could do. She already knew from his letters that he was very proud of it, it was one he had designed himself, and Charles Lindbergh had helped him build it. She was only sorry they hadn't brought her father with them. Even her mother couldn't object to their just looking at a plane. And a short while later, they arrived at Hanscom Field, a small private airport just outside Boston. There were several small hangars, and a long narrow airstrip. And a small red Lockheed Vega was landing as they got out of the cab. Joe paid the driver, and he looked like a kid on Christmas, as he took Kate's hand and walked her quickly to the nearest hangar. He led her in through a side door, and she gasped as she saw the pretty little plane he lovingly patted, and opened the door to show her the cockpit as he beamed. "Joe, it's gorgeous!" Kate knew nothing about planes, and the only flying she had done was on commercial airplanes with her parents. But for the first time, she felt a thrill just looking at the plane and knowing Joe had designed it. It was a beautiful machine. He handed her up into the cockpit, and spent half an hour showing her everything about the plane, and explaining to her how it all worked. He had never shared any of it with a neophyte before, and he was amazed by how quickly she caught on, and how enthusiastic she was. She was listening raptly to every word, and she remembered almost everything he said. She only got two of the dials confused, and it was a mistake many young pilots made when they were first learning. |
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He felt as though doors and windows were opening all around him as he talked to her, and he could show her new vistas into a world she had never even dreamed of. Sharing it with her was even more exciting for him than it was for her. He absolutely loved it, and his heart glowed as he saw the intent look in her eyes as she devoured every word and the most minute details. It was an hour later when he turned to her, and asked if she would like to go up with him for a few minutes, just to see how the plane felt once it was off the ground. He hadn't intended to take her flying, but in light of her acute interest, it was far too tempting, and Kate didn't hesitate. "Now?" She looked startled and as excited as he did. It was in fact the best gift he could give her. She liked just being with him around the small plane. For all his quiet ways and occasional awkwardness when he was on the ground, when Joe got anywhere near a plane, it was as though he could spread his wings and soar. "I'd love it, Joe... can we?" All her mother's warnings and admonitions were instantly forgotten, as Joe went to tell someone what they were doing and came back a minute later with a look of pleasure and a broad smile. Technically, it was a small plane, but it was still of a respectable size, and thanks to some of the adjustments Lindbergh had helped him make, it was able to go a considerable distance. He started the engine easily, and they rolled slowly out of the vast open mouth of the hangar. And within minutes, they were taxiing down the runway, after Joe made the appropriate checks and told her what he was doing as he did. He was just going to take her up for a few minutes so she could get the feel of it, and as they lifted off the ground, he suddenly thought of something that hadn't occurred to him before. "You don't get airsick, do you, Kate?" She laughed and shook her head, and he wasn't surprised. He had suspected she wasn't the kind of girl who would get airsick, and he loved that about her as well. |
| 310 |
It would have spoiled everything if she did. "Never. Are you going to turn us upside down?" She looked hopeful and he laughed at her. He had never before felt as close to her as he did at that moment, flying together. It was like a dream. "I hope not. I think we'll save that for next time," he said as they gained altitude. Joe and Kate chatted comfortably over the sound of the engine for the first few minutes, and then they settled into an easy silence, as she looked around her with awe, and silently watched him. He was everything she had always known he would be, proud, quiet, strong, infinitely capable, in total control of the machine he had built, and master of the skies around him. She had never in her entire life known anyone who seemed as powerful to her, or as magical. It was as though he had been born to do this, and she felt sure that there was no other man alive who could do it better, not even Charles Lindbergh. If she had been drawn to Joe before, he became irresistible from the first moment she saw him fly. It would have been impossible for her not to feel that way. He was everything she had ever dreamed of or admired, and he personified everything her mother wanted her not to see in him. He was power and strength and freedom and joy. It was as though he himself were a proud bird swooping carefully over the countryside, and all she wanted when they finally landed an hour later was to go back up with him again. She had never in her entire life been as happy, or had as much fun, or liked anyone as she did Joe. It was as though they had each been meant to spend that exact moment in time together and it formed an instant bond between them. "God, Joe, it was so perfect... thank you," she said, as he stopped the plane and turned off the engine. Flying was what he did best, and who he had been born to be. And he had shared it with her. It was almost like a profound religious experience for both of them. He looked at her peacefully and said nothing for a long moment. |
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She had known just what to ask, what to say, and when to stay silent and feel the sheer joy and beauty of the sky with him. "One of these days, when we have some time, I'll teach you to fly." He not only made it look effortless with his innate sense for flying, but he also knew how to explain the basics in a way that Kate could understand. But Joe had been particularly impressed by what a natural she was. "I wish we could spend the day here," she said wistfully, as he handed her out of the plane, and Joe looked pleased. "So do I. But your mother would have my head if she even thought I'd taken you up for an hour, Kate. It's safer than driving a car, but I'm not sure she would agree." They both knew she would not. They drove back to town in peaceful silence, and went to the Union Oyster House for lunch. And as soon as they sat down, all Kate could talk about was their brief flight, his impressive ease and skill, and the beauty of his plane. It had been the perfect way for her to get to know him. And once in the restaurant, Joe seemed quiet and somewhat reserved again. He truly was like a bird, one minute soaring effortlessly through the sky, and the next moment waddling awkwardly on land. Once out of his airplane, he was like a different man. But it was the natural pilot and the man of infinite skill whom she had sensed from the beginning, and who drew her irrevocably toward him. But as they sat at lunch, and she told him stories about Radcliffe, he began to relax again. She had an irresistible way of unwinding him, and he felt even more comfortable with her now that she had seen him in his own world. It was what he had wanted to show her ever since the beginning, and now he sensed that she understood, not only how much flying meant to him, but who he was. And as she drew him out, he relaxed and let down his defenses again. It was one of the many things he liked about her, even when he couldn't do it himself, she helped him reach out and open up, no matter how shy he felt. |
| 312 |
She facilitated the process, and he loved that in her. There were so many things he liked about her that sometimes it frightened him. He had no idea what to do about it. She was far too young for him to get involved with, and her family was more than a little daunting. She had sensible, attentive parents, who weren't going to let anything happen to her, and had no intention of letting her have too much freedom. But he didn't want to take anything from her. He just wanted to be with her, and bask in the light she radiated and the warmth she exuded. Sometimes it made him feel like a lizard on a rock, soaking up the sunshine, as he sat next to her. She made him feel happy and warm and comfortable. But even those feelings seemed dangerous to him at times. He didn't want to be vulnerable to her. It would be too easy to get hurt then. He didn't analyze it, he just knew it at his core. He told himself that if she had been older, it might have been different, but she wasn't. She was an eighteen year old girl, and he was thirty, no matter how much he had liked flying with her. In spite of all his resistance, and the walls he'd built up over the years, the time they had spent in his airplane that morning had been magical for both of them. The last day they shared passed all too quickly. They went back to her house for a while, and played cards in the library. He taught her to play liar's dice. She was surprisingly good at it, and actually beat him twice, which delighted her. She clapped her hands and looked like a child as she chortled. And that night he took her out to dinner. They had had a very nice weekend, and when he said goodnight to her, he had no idea when he'd see her again. He was planning to be back in New York by Christmas, but he and Charles Lindbergh had a lot of work to do, on the design for a new engine. Joe knew it would be difficult to garner much of Charles's time. He was so busy making speeches and appearances for the America First movement. And Joe had a lot to do too. |
| 313 |
Her eyes were full of all the things they hadn't said to each other, and which she wasn't even sure she understood yet, and the new bond they had formed in his plane. She still had no idea what he felt for her, if anything, other than brotherly affection. She had been almost certain that the only thing that had brought him to Boston was friendship. He hadn't indicated anything other than that, and he didn't now. Sometimes he was almost fatherly to her. And yet, there was always an undercurrent of something deeper and more mysterious between them. She was not sure if she was imagining it, or if there was something else there that they were both afraid of. "I'll write to you," she promised, and he knew she would. He loved getting her letters. The intricacy of them, and the skill with which she wrote, amazed him. They were almost like short stories, and more often than not they either touched his heart or made him laugh. "I'll try to see you over Christmas. But Charles and I are going to be pretty busy," Joe said as she thought that she would have liked to offer to come to see him, but she didn't dare. She knew her parents would have been deeply upset by it. Her mother was already concerned that she had spent so much time with him over Thanksgiving, and even Joe sensed that. He didn't want to push it, and offend them. "Just take care of yourself, Joe. Fly safely." She said it with a tone of obvious concern, which touched him. She looked so sweet as she said the words. "You do the same, and don't flunk out of school," he teased, and she laughed. And then, with a funny little pat on her shoulder, he opened the front door for her with her key, and then ran quickly down the stairs and waved to her from the sidewalk. It was as though he had to get away from her before he did something he knew he shouldn't. She smiled as she walked through the front door, and closed it quietly behind her. It had been an odd three days with him, they had been times of warmth and ease and friendship. |
| 314 |
And the wonder of flying with him. She told herself, as she walked slowly up the stairs, that she was glad she had met him. One day she would tell her children about him. And there was no doubt in her mind that when she did, they would not be his children. His life was already full, with airplanes and flying and test flights and engines. There was no room for a woman in it, not much anyway, and surely not for a wife and children. He had said as much to her on Cape Cod at the end of the summer, and again over the weekend. People were a sacrifice he was willing to make, for the sake of his passion for flying and planes. He had too little time to give anyone, he had said repeatedly, and she could see that. But at the same time, some deep primal part of her didn't accept that, or believe it. How could he be willing to give up the possibility of a family for his airplanes? But it wasn't for her to argue with him about it, and she knew that. She had to accept what he was saying. And she told herself that whatever she felt for him, or imagined that he felt for her, was only an illusion. It was nothing more than a dream. On Sunday, before Kate left to go back to school, her mother said nothing about him. She had decided to take her husband's advice and wait to see what happened. Maybe he was right, and Joe would never pursue her any further. Maybe it was just a very unusual friendship between a grown man and a young girl. She hoped so. But no matter how hard she tried to believe what Clarke had said, she was not convinced. And once back in the house at school, Kate didn't know why, but she was restless. The girls trickled back one by one, and reported on what they had done over the Thanksgiving weekend. Some had gone home with friends, others to their families. She chatted with her friends, but told no one about the visit from Joe. It was too hard to explain, and no one would have believed that she wasn't infatuated with him. She knew she could no longer say it with conviction herself. |
| 315 |
One of the girls came back from the weekend with her family in Connecticut, and announced that she had gotten engaged over Thanksgiving. It made everything that Kate felt, and insisted she didn't feel, seem even more awkward. She had a crush on a man who was twelve years older than she, and insisted he never wanted to get married. And he didn't even know she had a crush on him. It was ridiculous really. By the time she went to bed that night she had convinced herself that she was being incredibly stupid, and if she wasn't careful, she'd annoy him and lose his friendship entirely, and he'd never take her up in a plane again. And she didn't want that to happen. She was still hoping that one day he would teach her to fly. Much to her amazement, Joe called her the next day. He said he had just landed at the airport. He'd had a tough flight, had to refuel three times, and had flown through two snowstorms. He had even been grounded for a while, due to hail over Waynoka, Oklahoma. Kate thought he sounded exhausted, and the trip had taken him twenty two hours. "It was so nice of you to call me," she said, looking surprised and pleased. She hadn't expected to hear from him, and it confused her a little, but she suspected he was just being kind. What he said next confirmed it. He sounded nonchalant and a little cool. "I didn't want you to worry. How's school?" "It's okay." She had actually been feeling sad since he left, and she was annoyed at herself for it. There was no reason for her to get attached to him. He had offered no encouragement, and had done nothing to mislead her. But she missed him anyway, even if she knew she shouldn't. In her eyes, it was like having a crush on the governor, or the president, or some lofty person who would forever be just out of reach for her. The only difference was that she and Joe were friends, and she enjoyed his company so much, it was hard not to get too caught up in the pleasure of being with him. And she had seen a side of him few people did, high up in the sky. |
| 316 |
He had test flights scheduled all week. Some of them were going to be pretty dangerous, but he wanted to do them himself before he left California, although he didn't say that to her. "I'll be pretty tied up for the next few weeks, but I'll call you when I can." A moment later, he hung up, and Kate went back to her room to study, trying not to think too much about him. She had been wondering about something all weekend. She hadn't said anything to Joe but her parents were giving her a big party at the Copley Plaza for her coming out just before Christmas. She was going to be presented at the debutante cotillion, and her own party was going to be lovely, but not nearly as lavish as the one where she had met Joe. She hadn't dared broach the subject yet, but she was planning to ask her parents if she could invite him. She wasn't sure if he could come, but she at least wanted to ask him and hoped he would. She knew it would be much more fun for her if he were there, but her mother had been so nervous about Joe, that Kate didn't want to push it. There was still time. The party was more than three weeks away, and Joe was still in California. And she was sure that when he did return, his social calendar wouldn't be full yet. As it turned out, a week later, to the day, she was talking to her mother on the phone on Sunday at lunchtime, about the ball, and some of the questions she still had, when one of the girls from her house came running down the hall crying. Kate was sure that something terrible had happened to her, some awful news from home, maybe one of her parents had died. She was saying something unintelligible as Kate continued to listen to her mother. Liz had a long list of questions about cakes and hors d'oeuvres, and the exact dimensions of the dance floor. Kate's dress had been ready since October. It had a plain white satin bodice and a tulle skirt, and she looked incredible in it. And over her shoulders there was a haze of white tulle, through which one saw the shimmering bodice. |
| 317 |
The Japanese had brought it right to their door, and despite all his previous promises, President Roosevelt was going to have to do something radical about it. Kate quickly got off the phone, and hurried back to her room to see what people were saying about the news. They all sat quietly, tears pouring down their faces as they listened to the news on the radio. One of the girls in her house was from Hawaii, and she knew that there were two Japanese girls in an upstairs room. She couldn't even imagine what they must have been feeling, trapped in a foreign country, so far from home. It was later that night when she finally called her mother back, and by then, they had all been listening to the radio all day. It was unthinkable, and easy to believe that within a very short time the nation's young men would be sent far, far from home to fight this war. And only God knew how many of them would survive. All the Jamisons could think of when they heard the news was that they were grateful they didn't have a son. In cities and towns and backwaters everywhere, young men were facing the fact that they had to leave their families to defend their country. It was beyond imagining, and there was considerable concern that the Japanese would attack again. Everyone felt sure that the next attack would be on California, and there was pandemonium spreading there. Major General Joseph Stilwell had sped into action, and everything possible was being done to protect the cities on the West Coast. Bomb shelters were being built, medical personnel were being organized. There was a general state of controlled panic. Even in Boston, people were frightened. Kate's parents asked her to come home, and she said she would the next day, but she wanted to wait and see what they were telling them at school. She didn't want to just leave. As it turned out, classes were canceled and the girls were sent home, until after Christmas vacation. Everyone was desperate to get back to where they lived and be with their families. |
| 318 |
The thought of it terrified her, particularly when she realized that once the Germans knew he had joined the Allied war effort, they'd be gunning for him. With his reputation as a flying ace, he was just the kind of pilot they wanted to eliminate, and she knew they would do everything they could to shoot him down. He was in far greater danger than the others, and just knowing that turned her stomach. It was unbearable thinking of him going away for God only knew how long, and being in danger nearly every moment. She couldn't even begin to imagine how she was going to live knowing that, with no news of him. It was obviously going to be impossible for him to call her. But they still had two days, or as much of it as he could spend with her. They had already both assumed that he would spend as much time with her as possible before he flew to Europe. In a matter of hours, everything between them had changed. The pretense of friendship had already begun to slip away, and their relationship had already begun to evolve into something else. As it turned out, he had to pick up uniforms and more papers, and it was the next day before he could leave Washington. He was flying out the following day at six o'clock in the morning. To be sure he didn't miss the plane, he had to be back in New York by midnight. It was ten in the morning when he took the plane from Washington to Boston, and nearly one o'clock when he landed. His plane to New York was at ten o'clock that night. They had exactly nine hours to spend together. Young couples all over the country were facing the same dilemma. Some got married in the little time they had left, others went to hotels to find what comfort they could with each other. Others just sat in train stations, or coffee shops, or on park benches in freezing weather. All they wanted was to share their last moments of freedom and peacetime, and cling to each other. And as she thought of them, Kate's mother felt even sorrier for the mothers who were saying goodbye to sons. |
| 319 |
Couples all over the country were spending their last hours together, just as they were. "Do you want to go back to the house?" she asked, looking vague. It was hard not to be distracted, or imagine that you could hear a clock ticking. The minutes were drifting away from them, and almost before it had begun, their last day together would be over, and he would be gone. She could feel a shiver of fear run through her at the thought. She wasn't even aware of it, but she hadn't felt as frightened or bereft since her father died. "Why don't we go out for lunch? We can go to the house afterward. I want to say goodbye to your parents." She thought it seemed very respectful of him. And even her mother had stopped overtly worrying about his intentions. Whatever she was feeling about him, she was keeping to herself, and Kate was grateful for that. They all felt sorry for him, and millions of other young men just like him. He took her to Locke Ober's for lunch, and despite the elegant room and the fine meal, Kate could hardly eat. All she could think of was not where they were now, but where he was going in a matter of hours. The effort to have a civilized meal was essentially wasted on her. They were back at her house at three o'clock. Her mother was sitting in the living room, listening to the radio, as she always did now, and her father was not yet back from the office. They sat and talked to her mother for a little while, and listened to the news, and at four o'clock, her father came home, and shook hands with Joe while patting his shoulder in a fatherly way. His eyes seemed to say it all, and neither of them found words to express what they were feeling. And after a little while, Clarke took Elizabeth upstairs, to leave the young people alone. They had enough to think about, Clarke felt, without having to worry about entertaining her parents. And both Kate and Joe were grateful to have some time together. It would have been out of the question to take him to her bedroom, to just relax and talk. |
| 320 |
No matter how well they behaved, the impropriety of it would have offended her mother, so Kate didn't even try to suggest it. Instead, they sat quietly on the couch in the living room, talking to each other, and trying not to think of the minutes ticking by. "I'll write to you, Kate. Every day, if I can," he promised. There were a myriad things in his eyes, and he looked troubled. But he didn't offer to explain what he was thinking, and she was afraid to ask. She still had no idea how he felt about her, if they had just become very dear friends, or if there was something more to it. She was far more clear about what she was feeling for him. She realized now that she had been in love with him for months, but she didn't dare say it to him. It had happened sometime during their exchange of letters since September, and seeing him over Thanksgiving had confirmed it to her. But she had been fighting it ever since. She had no idea if Joe reciprocated her feelings, and it would have been improper to ask. Even she, with all her brave ways, wouldn't have had the courage to do that. She just had to go on what she knew and what she felt, and appreciate that, for whatever reason, he had wanted to spend these last hours with her. But she also reminded herself that he had no one else to spend them with. Other than his cousins whom he hadn't seen in years, he had no other relatives, and no girlfriend. The only person who seemed to matter to him was Charles Lindbergh. Other than that, he was alone in the world. And he had wanted to be with her. It occurred to her as they sat close to each other on the couch, talking softly, that he hadn't had to come to Boston. He had only done that because he wanted to see her, and had stayed in close contact with her, ever since they'd heard the news, when Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Kate told him, as they sat there, that her parents had canceled the coming out party they'd been planning for her. She hadn't told him about it yet, but had planned to. |
| 321 |
It was a cold, clear night, and Joe took her to the airport with him in a cab. Her father offered to drive them there, but Joe preferred to go in a taxi. And Kate wanted to be alone with Joe. There were people milling around the airport everywhere, and boys in uniforms had sprung up overnight. Even to Kate, they all looked like such babies. They were eighteen and nineteen year old boys, and they barely looked old enough to leave their mothers. Some of them had never left home before. Their last minutes together were excruciatingly painful. Kate was trying to hold back tears unsuccessfully, and even Joe looked tense. It was all so intolerably emotional for both of them. Neither of them had any idea if they would see each other again, or when. They knew the war could go on for years, and all Kate could do was hope it wouldn't. It was finally a mercy when he had to get on the plane. They had nothing left to say to each other, and she was beginning to cling to him in desperation. She didn't want him to go, didn't want anything to happen to him, didn't want to lose the only man she had ever loved. "I love you," she whispered to him again, and he looked pained. This wasn't what he'd had in mind when he came to spend the day with her. He had somehow felt that they had a silent pact not to say those kinds of things to each other, but she wasn't sticking to it. She just couldn't. She could not let him go without telling him she loved him. In her opinion, he had a right to know. What she didn't understand was how much harder it was for him once she said the words. Until then, whatever his feelings for her, or how powerful his attraction to her, he had been able to delude himself that they were just good friends. But now there was no hiding from the fact that they weren't. They were far more than that, no matter how strenuously he tried to pretend it wasn't so. Her words were her final gift to him, the only thing she had to give him of any real value. And they brought reality to both of them. |
| 322 |
From the only letter she had had from him so far, his life sounded fairly civilized. He was stationed in Swinderby. He told her only as much about his doings as the censors would allow. Most of the letter had expressed his concern for her, and told her about the people he'd met there. He described the countryside, and how kind the English were being to them. But he didn't tell her he loved her. He had said it once, but he would have been uncomfortable writing it to her. It was obvious to both her parents by then how in love with him she was, and the only consolation to them was the sense they had that he also loved her. But in their private moments, Elizabeth Jamison still expressed her deep concerns to Clarke. They were even more profound now because, if something happened to him, she was afraid that Kate would mourn him forever. He would have been a hard man to forget. "God forgive me for saying it," Clarke said quietly, "but if something happens to him, she'd get over it, Liz. It's happened to other women before her. I just hope it doesn't." It wasn't just the war that worried Elizabeth, it was something much deeper that she had sensed in Joe, from the moment she met him, and she could never quite find the words to express to Clarke. She had a sense that Joe was unable to let anyone in, and to love or give fully. He was always standing back somewhere around the edges. And his passion for the planes he designed and flew, and the world that opened to him, was a way for him to escape life. She wasn't at all sure that, even if he survived the war, he would ever make Kate happy. What she also felt was their unspoken bond, and the deep almost mesmeric fascination they had for each other. They were entirely opposite, each of them was like the dark or light side of the other. But what Kate's mother sensed but could never explain was that in some inexplicable way, they were dangerous for each other. She didn't even know why she was frightened by Kate loving him, but she was. |
| 323 |
It was hard not to think about it, as one looked constantly into saddened eyes and worried faces. The thought of getting a telegram from the War Department chilled everyone's heart. Andy was doing volunteer work in a military hospital that summer. He wanted to do something to make up for the fact that he hadn't been able to go to war with the rest of the able bodied young men. And when he called Kate, he told her horror stories of the wounded men he saw, and the experiences they shared with him. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, except maybe Kate, but as he listened to them, there were moments when he was actually glad he hadn't been able to go to war. Most of the men they saw had been in Europe, the ones who were wounded in the Pacific went to hospitals on the West Coast to recuperate. Many of them had lost limbs and eyes and faces, they had stepped on mines or were filled with shrapnel. And Andy said there was an entire ward filled with men who had lost their minds over the trauma they'd been through. Just thinking about it horrified both of them. And they knew that in the coming months, it could only get worse. After working for the Red Cross for two and a half months, Kate went to Cape Cod, for the last two weeks of the summer, with her parents. It was one of the few places where things seemed the same as they had always been. The community was small, and consisted mostly of older people, so most of the familiar faces she had grown up with were still there. But their grandsons wouldn't be visiting them this year, and most of the boys Kate had grown up with were absent. But many of the girls she knew were there, and on Labor Day, their neighbors gave the same barbecue they always did. Kate went next door with her parents. She hadn't heard from Joe for nearly a week by then. The letters she received had always been written weeks before and sometimes arrived in batches. He could have been dead for weeks and she would still be receiving letters. The thought of it always chilled her when it crossed her mind. |
| 324 |
He had to drive to Boston, and then take a train to Washington. There were no planes available to him. And when he left her, he kissed her long and hard, and promised to see her in Boston in three days. She hated the fact that she had to go back to school while he was there, but her parents insisted that she couldn't start late. She would just have to make the best of the time they had. The only concession they made was that she could stay at the house with Joe and them, as long as she went to classes every day. "I'll take her to school myself, and make sure she stays there," Joe promised them, and she suddenly felt as though she had two fathers, not just one. There had always been something very paternal and protective about Joe, which was part of why she felt so comfortable with him. There were a million reasons why she did, and when he left her to drive back late that night, he held her for a long moment and told her how much he had missed her and how much he loved her. Kate looked at him and savored the words. She hadn't heard them in a long time. "I love you too, Joe. I've been so worried about you." Far more than she could ever tell him. "We'll get through this, baby. I promise. And when it's all over, we'll have a great time together." It was not the kind of promise that her mother was hoping for, but she didn't care. Just being with him was enough. Joe came back from Washington, sooner than expected, in two days, and moved into the house with them. He was courteous, considerate, polite, well behaved, and extremely respectful of Kate, which pleased her parents. Even her mother was impressed by how he behaved. The only thing he hadn't done, which would have pleased them more, was ask for her hand in marriage. Her father skirted the subject delicately one afternoon when he came home early from the office, and found Joe in the kitchen sketching designs for a new airplane. There was no way to get it built now, but when the war was over, it was going to be his dream plane. |
| 325 |
There were Christmas trees everywhere, carolers, and children laughing as they waited for Santa Claus. There were still happy faces, in contrast to the pained, hungry, frightened ones in England. Even the children there looked exhausted, everyone was so tired of the bombs and the air raids. Houses disappeared in the blink of an eye, friends were lost, children were killed. In England, it seemed almost impossible to be happy these days. And yet, the people Joe knew there were very brave. Washington looked like a fairyland to him, and to Kate. After dinner, they walked back to their hotel, and chatted in the living room they provided in the lobby. They sat there for hours because they didn't want to leave each other and go to their rooms. And as the night wore on, the sitting room got increasingly drafty, but she didn't think it proper to sit in either of their bedrooms upstairs. Her parents had wanted to come to Washington with her, not just to chaperone her, but to celebrate Joe at his ceremony. But in the end, they couldn't. Her father had important clients coming in from Chicago, and Elizabeth had to be with him. They trusted her implicitly to go alone, and knew Joe was a responsible person. But in the end, they were both so cold sitting in the lobby, he suggested they sit in his room. He promised to behave, and by then Kate's hands were so cold she could hardly move them, and her teeth were chattering. And outside, it was snowing and bitter cold. They walked up the narrow staircase to their rooms. It was a tiny hotel, and the room rate was dirt cheap for military personnel, which was why they had booked a room for him there. Kate's room was only slightly more expensive. The rooms themselves were simply decorated and tiny, but for two days neither of them cared. All they wanted was to see each other. Seeing him had been the only Christmas gift she wanted, and she hadn't expected to get it. It was the answer to all her prayers. She had missed him terribly since September. |
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He would have vastly preferred not to get the medal and to have them come home with him. It made it hard for him to celebrate the event, or be genuinely excited about the medal. He had already lost so many friends. They were talking about it as he handed her the champagne. The chair Kate was perched on was so uncomfortable that he invited her to sit on the bed with him. She knew they were tempting fate, but she also knew that they could trust each other. They weren't going to do anything foolish just because they were sitting on a bed in a hotel room. And without hesitation, she came to sit beside him, and they went on talking. She only had half a glass of champagne, and Joe had two. Neither of them was a big drinker, and after a while she said she should go back to her room. Before she got up, he kissed her. It was a long, slow kiss filled with all the sadness and longing they had both felt for so long, and the joy they both felt to be together. When he stopped kissing her, she was breathless, and so was he. They both suddenly felt as though they were starving. It was as though all the deprivations of the past year had finally caught up with them, and they couldn't get enough of each other. Kate had never felt as overwhelmed by desire for him, nor had Joe. He wasn't even thinking as he laid her down on the bed when he next kissed her, and gently let himself down on top of her, and much to her own amazement, she didn't stop him. They both needed to catch their breath and stop what they were doing before they went any further, or they weren't going to be able to, and they both knew it. He was whispering hoarsely to her as he told her how much he loved her, and he meant it. More than he ever had before. "I love you too," she whispered breathlessly, all she wanted to do was kiss him and hold him and feel him on top of her, and without thinking, she started unbuttoning his jacket. She wanted to feel his skin, and to nuzzle him. She couldn't get enough of him, and he knew he couldn't restrain himself much longer. |
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He was part of her now, and he was even more tender with her. It was as though he sensed that she was truly his, and all he wanted was to protect her. He warned her a thousand times to be careful on the way home, to take care of herself, not to do anything foolish. He wished he could have stayed there with her, but he had to go back to England to fly his missions. And when he left her, it was agonizing for both of them. For the first time in his life, he had held nothing back. He had been vulnerable and strong at the same time, and just as she had, he had given himself to her. Not because he had slept with her, but because he had taken responsibility for her. And leaving now was excruciatingly painful for both of them. "Write to me every day... Kate, I love you," he said, before he left her. And when he put her on the train at Union Station, she thought her heart would break as it pulled slowly out of the station. He ran beside it for as long as he could, and then he stood on the platform waving, as she waved at him and tears rolled down her cheeks. She could no longer imagine a life without him, and she truly believed that if he died now, it would kill her. She didn't want to live an hour beyond him. And it reminded her once again of the pain of losing her father, as the train pulled away. Joe awoke feelings of love in her she had never before known. And leaving him brought back feelings of loss she had spent half her lifetime trying to forget. She sat silently with her eyes closed for most of the trip. It was Christmas Eve, and she knew that he would be on a plane to England before she got home. She wouldn't be back in Boston until late that night, and she knew her parents would be waiting up for her. But she could hardly speak she was so grief stricken when she got off the train and hailed a cab. She could no longer imagine surviving without him. What he had given her, and allowed her to give him, was the glue that would cement them together forever. It had been the final piece of the puzzle. |
| 328 |
Joe had taken part in the night attack on Wilhelmshaven. He was flying mostly day raids, as the British preferred to do the night flying themselves. But he was nonetheless invited to fly at night with them in the bombing of Nuremberg. It was another week, toward the end of February, when Kate herself began to panic. She had seen Joe eight weeks before, and she had suspected it at first, and been certain for the past month. She was pregnant. It had happened in Washington when he came home to be decorated at the White House. She had no idea what to do about it, and she didn't want to tell her parents. She had gotten the name of a doctor in Mattapan from one of the girls at school, pretending it was for a friend of hers, but she couldn't make herself call him. She knew it would ruin everything if she had a baby now. She'd have to leave school, and it would scandalize everyone, and even if they wanted to, they couldn't get married. Joe had told her recently that he had no hope of coming home on leave anytime soon, and she hadn't told him why she had asked. She just told him that she missed him. But she would never have wanted to force him to marry her, or even ask him to. But she also knew that if she had an abortion, and something happened to him, she would never forgive herself. Married or not, she would want the baby. Rather than making a decision about it, she was letting time pass, and eventually she knew it would be too late to end it. But she hadn't even begun to think of what she would say to her parents after that, or her embarrassment, when she explained her circumstances to school. Andy dropped by to see her in the dining room one night, and asked if she had the flu. Everyone at Harvard had been sick, and he thought she looked ill. She had been violently nauseous since early January, and it was nearly the first of March. She had almost decided to go ahead with the pregnancy by then, she knew she couldn't do otherwise, and in truth she wanted it. It was Joe's baby. |
| 329 |
She was going to wait to tell her parents until she had no other choice. She also figured that if it showed by Easter, she'd have to drop out of school by then. She would have liked to hold out till June and finish her sophomore year, and she could have come back to school in the fall right after she had the baby. But by June, when vacation would begin, she'd be nearly six months pregnant, and there would be no way she could hide it. Sooner or later, she was going to have to face the music. The only amazing thing, as far as Kate was concerned, was that her mother didn't suspect a thing. But once she did, Kate knew, there would be hell to pay, and she knew her parents wouldn't forgive Joe easily. She had said nothing to Joe about it, although she wrote to him every day. She had debated, but didn't want to upset him, or make him angry. He needed all his wits about him to fly his missions, and she didn't want to distract him. So she was facing it entirely alone, retching on her bathroom floor every morning, and dragging herself to classes. Even her housemates had noticed that she slept all the time, and the house mother asked her if she needed to see a doctor. Kate insisted she was fine, just studying too hard, but her grades were starting to slip, and all of her professors had noticed that as well. Her life was rapidly turning into a nightmare, and she was terrified of what her parents were going to say, when she told them she was having a baby in September, out of wedlock. She was worried that her father was going to try to force Joe to marry her when he came back, but she was not going to let him do that. She knew what a free spirit Joe was, and he had been very clear about never wanting to have children. He might adjust one day, and fall in love with the baby, but she was not going to let anyone put a gun to his head to marry her. The only thing she was sure of in the midst of all her worries these days was how much she loved him, and the other thing she knew was how much she wanted his child. |
| 330 |
She was getting excited about the baby, and hoped it would be a little boy, who would look exactly like Joe. "I had the flu," she reiterated, and he had believed her all along. He had no reason to doubt her, or suspect she might be pregnant. It was the farthest thing from his mind. "I'm glad you're over it. Do your paper so we can go to a movie next week," he said, as he hopped on his bicycle, and waved as he rode off, his dark hair ruffled by the wind, and his brown eyes laughing at her. He was a nice boy, and she had grown very fond of him. She wondered at times if things would have been different between them if Joe had never existed. It was hard to say. She had deep feelings of affection for Andy but couldn't even imagine feeling for him what she felt for Joe. There was something warm and cuddly and kind about Andy, but he elicited none of the excitement and passion that she felt for Joe. But she knew that one day, Andy would make someone a fine husband. He was responsible and loving and decent, all the things that women looked for in a man. Unlike Joe, who was awkward and vague, and brilliant, and totally obsessed with airplanes, and had no desire to settle down. She had never expected to fall in love with a man like Joe Allbright, let alone have a baby with him, without even being married. Her life had taken several sharp turns recently, in totally unexpected directions. But with his baby growing in her, she had never been more in love with Joe. She was actually feeling very well that weekend, and not nearly as tired as she had been. She'd finished the work she had to do, and she had three letters from Joe in one day. They tended to arrive in clumps like that sometimes, it had to do with the way the censors sent them, after they cleared them, to make sure that no one gave away sensitive security secrets, or the locations of their missions. Joe's letters to her had never been a problem. He wrote to her about people, and the local countryside, and his feelings for her, all totally safe subjects. |
| 331 |
She had been planning to go home that weekend, and at the last minute decided against it. She went to a movie with a group of friends, and saw Andy there with a girl Kate knew from one of her classes. She was a tall blonde from the Midwest, she had a great smile and long legs, and she had recently transferred from Wellesley. She grinned at Andy when the girl turned away to put her cardigan on, and he made a face at her. Kate and the girls she had gone to the movie with all went back to the house on their bicycles afterward. It was the best way to travel around campus and Cambridge. They were almost home, when a boy on a bicycle came whizzing out of nowhere, cut through the group with a holler and a whoop, and hit Kate so hard she went flying off her bike, fell to the pavement, and was knocked momentarily unconscious. By the time the other girls got off their bikes, she was awake again, but a little groggy. And the boy who had hit her was standing next to her looking panicked and disoriented. It was obvious that he was drunk. "Are you crazy?" one of the girls shouted at him, as two others helped Kate to her feet. She had hurt her arm, and her hip, she had fallen hard on her bottom, but nothing seemed to be broken. But all she could think about as she limped back to her room was her baby. She didn't say anything to anyone, but she went straight to bed as soon as they got back to the house, and one of her friends brought her a couple of ice packs for her arm and her hip. "Are you okay?" Diana asked in her long, slow southern accent. "These northern boys sure don't have manners!" Kate smiled at her, and thanked her for the ice packs, but it wasn't her arm or her hip that was bothering her. She had had cramps for the past several minutes, and didn't know what to do about it. She thought about going to the infirmary but it was too far to walk, and she was afraid that might make things even worse. She thought maybe if she just stayed in bed, it would get better. She had obviously shaken up the baby pretty badly. |
| 332 |
The bleeding was horrific. But it seemed to slow a little as the pains got worse. Neither of them was sure what was happening, but it was easy to figure out that Kate was going to expel the baby. There was no way it was still alive with all that bleeding. It was another hour of excruciating pain before Kate's entire body writhed in agony, and within seconds, she lost the baby. She lost more blood, but as soon as it was out, she seemed to be losing less. Diana was mopping up what she could with towels, and she had wrapped the fetus in a towel and put it where Kate couldn't see it. She was too weak to even be hysterical, and when she tried to sit up, she almost fainted. Diana had her lie down again. It was nearly seven o'clock, and they had been in the bathroom for three hours, before Diana could help Kate back to bed. Everything had been cleaned up, and once she was sure that Kate was safely tucked into bed, she ran downstairs to the garbage room, to dispose of the towel that held the evidence of what had happened to Kate. The bleeding was less out of control, and she was still in pain, but it was tolerable. Diana explained that it was her uterus contracting to stop the bleeding, which was a good thing. The earlier pains had been to expel the baby. And if she didn't bleed too much more, Diana hoped that she would be all right. She had already told Kate that if it got any worse she was calling an ambulance and sending her to the hospital, no matter how much Kate objected. And Kate had agreed, she was terrified and too weak to argue, and in shock from losing so much blood. She was shaking violently, as Diana put three more blankets on her bed, and the other girls began stirring. "Are you okay?" one of them asked as she got up. They had class that morning. "You look kind of pale, Kate. Maybe you got a concussion when that guy knocked you off your bike last night." She was yawning as she headed for the bathroom, and Kate said she had a terrible headache, and was still visibly shaking as she lay tucked into her bed. |
| 333 |
She, Diana, and Beverly had become fast friends after her miscarriage. And that summer she was working for the Red Cross again. They went to Cape Cod at the end of August, but this time Joe didn't appear to surprise her at the barbecue. He hadn't been home in eight months, since the previous Christmas, when they met in Washington. And she couldn't help thinking, as she took long solitary walks on the beach that, if she hadn't lost the baby, she'd be eight months pregnant by then. Her parents never found out what had happened. And her mother was still talking about the fact that Joe had still made no promises about a future with her. She reminded Kate constantly that she was waiting for a man who had promised her nothing. No marriage. No ring. No future. He just expected her to wait for him, and see what happened when he came home. She was twenty years old, and he was thirty two, old enough to know what he wanted to do when he returned. Her mother constantly reminded Kate of it every time she went home, and continued to, as the leaves had begun to turn in late October. Kate was studying for exams, it was her junior year, and the house mother where she lived came to tell her she had a visitor downstairs. Without even questioning it, Kate assumed it was Andy. He was in his second year of law school, and working like a slave. She ran quickly down the stairs, with a book still in her hand, and a pale blue sweater over her shoulders. She was wearing a gray skirt, and saddle shoes, and the moment her foot left the last step, she saw him. It was Joe, looking tall and incredibly handsome in his uniform. He looked very serious as he waited for her, and her breath caught as their eyes met. He seemed to hold back for an instant, and then without a word she flew into his arms and he held her close. She had the feeling as he held her that he had been through some rough times. He couldn't seem to find the words, but she knew that she not only needed him, but he needed her, as well. |
| 334 |
There were other people standing around in the hall. He looked at her with relief, and nodded. He just wanted to lie next to her for a while. And Kate's mind raced, as she made plans. "Why don't you call the Palmer House from the phone booth outside. Or the Statler. I'll be back in a few minutes." She went to the desk to sign out to go home for the night, and she called her mother from the phone in the hall upstairs. She told her she was spending the night at a friend's, so they could study peacefully for exams, and she didn't want her mother to worry if she called. Her mother thought that was sweet of her, and said she appreciated the call. Kate knew it would never even occur to her mother that the story was a lie. Five minutes later, Kate was back in the lobby again, and Joe was waiting for her outside. She had brought a few things in a small bag, and she had packed a diaphragm. Beverly had given her the name of a doctor, and Kate had gone to him and said she was engaged. After what had happened the last time, Kate wanted to be prepared when Joe came home. "They had a room at the Statler," he said nervously. They both felt a little awkward going straight to a hotel, but they had so little time, and they wanted to be alone. He had borrowed a car, and they talked as they drove to the hotel. She couldn't take her eyes off him. He was as handsome as ever, although he was very thin. And he looked considerably older than he had a year before, or maybe just more mature. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, things she felt awkward putting in her letters to him, and so many things he wanted to ask her. As they drove to the hotel, they both started to unwind. It was as though they had seen each other just yesterday, and in another sense, she felt as though she hadn't seen him in years. But the odd thing was that after sleeping with him the last time, and then losing their baby, she felt almost married to him. She didn't need a piece of paper, or a ceremony or a wedding ring. |
| 335 |
No matter what the legalities, she was his. Joe took a small bag out of the trunk of the car when they got to the hotel, and then parked the car in the garage. He met Kate in the lobby and signed in. They were registered as Major and Mrs. Allbright, and they were treated with considerable respect. The desk clerk had recognized his name. And a bellhop offered to carry his bag upstairs. "No, we'll be fine." Joe smiled at him, as the desk clerk handed him the key. Joe and Kate took the elevator upstairs without saying a word, and she was relieved to see when he opened the door that it was a pretty room. She had expected something depressing and small, not that it mattered to them, but there was something a little tawdry about checking into a hotel with a man. She had never done that before, and it seemed very bold to her. But she was not going to miss the opportunity of spending the night with him, particularly if it was the only night he had on leave. Like everyone else in their circumstances, they were living each day as though it were going to be their last, as well it might be. There was a moment of awkwardness again between them once they got to the room, but as Joe sprawled out on the couch with a nervous look and patted the seat next to him, she smiled as she sat down. "I can't believe you're here," she said with a look in her eyes that told him how much he had been missed. "Neither can I," he said. Two days before he had been providing fighter escort cover for bombers over Berlin, and they had lost four planes. And now suddenly, he was sitting in a hotel room in Boston with her, and she was prettier than ever. She looked so young and so fresh and so far from the life he had been leading for nearly two years. They had given him two hours' notice of the trip, and he was lucky they'd given him leave, no matter how brief. On the way over, he had been afraid that he wouldn't be able to see her at all. The night at the Statler was an unexpected gift. And to Joe, at least, it seemed somewhat surreal. |
| 336 |
All she wanted for him was to stay alive. She couldn't think of what she wanted for herself, she just wanted to be with him, when and where she could, for however long. More than that was like asking for a miracle at this point, a childish dream. She knew her mother wouldn't have approved of it, but she didn't understand. An engagement ring on her finger wouldn't have changed anything, and it wouldn't have kept him alive. And Joe asked nothing of her, except what Kate wanted to give of her own free will, and to the best of her abilities, she gave it all. They both slept fitfully that night, holding each other and then drifting apart, and waking with a start when they realized that it wasn't a dream, and they were really together. "Hi," she said sleepily, as she smiled and opened an eye early the next morning. She had felt his warmth next to her all night, and she could feel his strong powerful legs next to her as she stretched, and he leaned over and kissed her. The night he had spent with her had been a far cry from what he was used to now. "Did you sleep all right?" he asked, and put an arm around her as she snuggled closer to him. They were lying on their backs, whispering. She loved waking up next to him. "I kept feeling you next to me, and thinking I was dreaming." Neither of them was accustomed to sleeping with anyone next to them, and it had kept them from sleeping deeply, no matter how happy they were together. "So did I," he smiled, and thought about their love making the night before. He wanted to savor every moment he spent with her and take the memory of it with him. "What time do you have to leave?" she asked, with a sad edge to her voice. It was impossible to forget that these were only borrowed hours. "I have to be on a plane to Washington at one o'clock. I should drop you off at school around eleven thirty" She had cut all her classes that morning, and she wouldn't have cared about the consequences, nothing would have made her leave him earlier than she had to. |
| 337 |
Particularly now that she'd seen Joe. She was almost sorry she'd used the birth control device, she really wished she could have his baby. She wanted that much more than she wanted to be married. Because Joe never talked about their getting married, in order to make her peace with it, she was beginning to tell herself that marriage was something old people did, everyone made such a big deal of it, and her friends that got married all seemed like silly children, or so she said. She claimed to Joe at least that all they cared about were the wedding presents and the bridesmaids, and afterward they complained that the boys they'd married spent too much time with their friends, or drank too much, or were mean to them. They all seemed like kids pretending to be adults. But having his baby was a bond like no other. It was real and deep and important, and had nothing to do with other people. Even knowing the problems it would cause for her, she had loved knowing she was having his baby, when she'd been pregnant. She knew then that she would have a part of him with her forever, and probably the best part. She had been hoping she'd have a little boy, and she was going to teach him all about airplanes just like Joe. Kate was always terrified now of losing Joe to the war. And a baby would be a piece of him that would remain forever hers. Joe could see, as he looked at her, that Kate was having tender thoughts about him, and he reached a hand across the table and took hers, and then lifted it to his lips and kissed it. "Don't look so sad, Kate. I'll be back. This story isn't over. It never will be." He didn't know how prophetic that would prove to be. But she felt exactly as he did. "Just take care of yourself, Joe. That's all that matters." It was up to the fates now. He was over there risking his life every day, and who survived and who didn't was in God's hands. In comparison to that, everything else seemed unimportant to them. After breakfast, they dressed, and they almost didn't leave the room on time. |
| 338 |
He loved Kate, but he had no choice but to keep it all in perspective. He had important things to do that didn't include her. As he drove her back to school, they were both quiet as Kate glanced at him. She wanted to remember what he looked like at this exact moment, to keep her warm in the days to come. She felt as though everything they were doing was in slow motion. And they reached the Radcliffe campus all too quickly. They got out of the car, and she stood looking up at him with tears in her eyes. She couldn't bear seeing him leave again, but she knew she had to be brave about it. The night they had just spent together had been an unexpected gift. "Stay safe," she whispered as he pulled her close to him. "Stay alive" was what she really wanted to say. "I love you, Joe." It was all she could say to him, as she felt a sob strangling in her throat. She didn't want to make this any harder than it was for either of them. "I love you too... and next time something important happens to you, I want you to tell me." There was always the chance that she could get pregnant again, even with birth control, it had happened to plenty of others. But he still appreciated the fact that she hadn't wanted to burden him, and he loved her all the more for it. "Take good care of yourself. And say hello to your parents, if you tell them you saw me." But she didn't plan to. She didn't want them to suspect that she had gone to a hotel with him. She just prayed that no one had seen them entering or leaving the hotel. They clung to each other for a long moment, praying that the gods would be good to them, and then she watched him drive away as tears streamed down her cheeks. It was a familiar scene these days, like so many others. There were wounded soldiers in every city and town, who had come home from the war injured and maimed. There were little flags in windows to honor loved ones who were fighting somewhere. There were soldiers and young girls saying tearful goodbyes to each other, and screams of joy when they returned. |
| 339 |
Kate and Joe were no different than the others, and luckier than some. It was a serious time for everyone, and a time of tragedy for far too many. All Kate knew for certain was that she was lucky to have Joe. She stayed in her room for the rest of the day, and cut the rest of her classes that afternoon. She didn't go to dinner that night, in case he called her. And he did, at eight o'clock, after his meeting. He was just about to leave for the airport, but couldn't tell her how his meeting had gone, what time his flight was leaving, or where he was flying to, it was all classified information. She just wished him a safe trip back, and told him how much she loved him, and he did the same. And then she went back to her room, and lay on her bed, thinking about him. It was hard to believe they had known each other for nearly three years now, and so much had happened since they'd met in a ballroom in New York, in his borrowed tails and her evening gown. She had been seventeen then, and a child in so many ways. At twenty, she felt very much a woman. And better yet, she was his. She went home to her parents that weekend, to study for exams, and get away from the girls in the house. She didn't want to see anyone, she had been pensive and quiet since Joe left. Her mother noticed it as she sat silently all through dinner. She asked Kate if she was all right, and if she'd heard from Joe. Kate insisted she was fine, but neither of her parents believed her. She seemed to be getting older and more mature every day. College had seasoned her certainly, but her relationship with Joe had catapulted her into adulthood in an instant. And worrying about him constantly made her look and feel older still. Everyone was growing up overnight these days. Her parents talked about it that night in their room, but they both agreed that Kate was far from unique in her worries about Joe. Most of the young girls and women in the country were worried about someone, brothers, boyfriends, husbands, fathers, friends. |
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For the next four weeks, Kate kept busy at school. She did well at her exams, despite the fact that she was distracted. She got letters from Joe regularly, and she was both relieved and disappointed to discover three weeks after he left that she wasn't pregnant. She knew it was better that way. Along with the agony of worrying about him, she didn't need the problems that would have created for her. When she went home for the Thanksgiving weekend, she looked better than the last time they saw her. And she seemed a little more peaceful. She talked about Joe at dinner with their friends, and was surprisingly knowledgeable about what was happening in Europe. And understandably, she had strong opinions about the Germans, and didn't mince words. In the end, much to everyone's relief, it proved to be a very pleasant Thanksgiving. And she went to bed that night grateful that she had seen Joe only a month before. She had no idea when he'd come home again, but she knew that the closeness they had shared would hold her for as long as it had to. It was hard to believe he'd already been away for two years. She slept badly that night, in a sleep filled with odd dreams and strange feelings that woke her through the night. She told her mother about it in the morning, and she teased Kate that she'd probably eaten too much chestnut stuffing. "I used to love chestnuts when I was a child," Elizabeth said, making breakfast for her husband, "and my grandmother always said they'd give me indigestion. They still do, but I love them anyway." Kate felt better that morning. She went shopping with a friend that afternoon, and they had tea at the Statler, which made her think of Joe and the night they'd spent there. And by the time she came home, she was in good spirits. But even when she was, she was more serious these days. She seemed more sensible, and not as mischievous as she had been before she went to college. It was as though knowing Joe, or maybe just fearing for him in the circumstances he was in, had turned her further inward. |
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It was hard enough to accept that he'd been shot down. And if they didn't find him eventually, even Kate would have to accept that he was gone. She didn't have to face it now, it was obviously far too painful for her. Her mother stayed with her until late into the night, and stroked her hair lovingly until she fell asleep, making the little snuffling sobs that come after a child has cried for too long. It nearly broke her mother's heart. "I wish she didn't love that man so," Elizabeth said to Clarke when she finally came to bed. He was so worried about Kate that he had waited up for his wife. "There's something between those two that frightens me." She had seen it the year before in Joe's eyes, and she could see it now in Kate's. It defied reason and time and words, it was like a tie between their souls that even they did not understand. And what frightened Kate's mother now was if the tie proved to be unseverable by death as well. It would be a terrible fate for Kate. Kate was silent and grim at the breakfast table the next day, and any attempt to speak to her went ignored. She said nothing to either of them, drank only a cup of tea, and then drifted back upstairs like a ghost. She stayed home from school, and for the rest of the weekend, never left her room. Fortunately, she only had one more week of school, before the Christmas break. But on Sunday night, she dressed and went back to Radcliffe, and never even said goodbye to them. She was like a disembodied soul. She spoke to no one in the house, and when Beverly came to say hello to her and ask if she'd been sick over the weekend, Kate never told her that Joe's plane had been shot down. She couldn't bring herself to say the words, and she cried herself to sleep every night. Everyone in the house at Radcliffe knew something had happened to her, and it was several days later that someone saw a small article in the newspaper that he had been shot down. Military Intelligence had decided to keep it as low key as they could, so as not to demoralize people at home. |
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They said he was missing in action, and the newspaper was noticeably vague. But it told them all they needed to know. All the girls in her house knew that Joe Allbright had visited Kate. "I'm sorry...," some of them whispered as they passed her in the hall. And all she could do was nod and look away. She looked terrible, lost weight, and she looked tired and ill when she went home for the Christmas break. And all her mother's efforts to comfort her were in vain. All Kate wanted was to be left alone, as she waited for news of Joe. She asked her father to call his contact in Washington again before the holidays, but there was no further news. There had been no sign of Joe, and no word through underground sources. The Germans had not reported capturing him, and in fact had denied it when they were asked. No one identified by the name on his papers had surfaced anywhere. And if they knew they had captured Joe Allbright, they would have said so and counted it as a real victory against the Allies. And no one had seen him escape, or alive since he'd gone down. There was no sign of him anywhere. There was no Christmas for any of them that year. Kate hardly did any Christmas shopping, didn't want any gifts from them, took forever to open the ones she got, and spent most of her time in her room. All she could do was think of him, where he was, what had happened to him, if he was still alive, if she would ever see him again. She thought constantly of the times they had, and she regretted even more bitterly now having lost the baby they had conceived the year before. She was inconsolable and unreachable, she hardly ever slept anymore, and she was rail thin. She scoured the newspapers for some word of him, but her father had already assured her that they would be called before anything more appeared in the press. And he suspected that there would never be. He had probably been dead for weeks by then, and was lying somewhere in Germany in a shallow grave. To Kate, the thought of it nearly drove her insane. |
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And everyone was excited when Harvard won. She waited for him afterward, and they went out to eat, and then he took her back to the house. She looked better than she had a few days before, and he felt sorry for her when she told him that she'd had a dream about Joe. She was convinced he was still alive, and Andy was sure her mind was playing tricks on her. She wasn't willing to accept the possibility that he had died when he was shot down. Eventually, it became a sore subject with her, whenever the topic came up with family or friends. People would tell her how sorry they were to have heard about Joe, and then she would insist that he was probably in a German prisoner of war camp somewhere. In time, people stopped mentioning it to her at all. By the time summer rolled around, Joe had been gone for seven months. His last letters to her had come a month after he had been shot down, and she still read them at night, and lay in bed for hours, thinking of him. Everyone said she had to let go of him, that he was gone, but her heart refused to open and release him like a bird from a cage. She kept him deep within her, in a secret place in her heart. She knew it was a place where no one would ever go again, and she knew they were right when people said she had to get over the tragedy, but she had no idea how. He was like a color she had become, a vision she had seen, a dream she had had, and there was no way to separate herself from him now. Her parents urged her to go on a trip that summer, and after much arguing, Kate finally agreed to go. She went to visit her godmother in Chicago, and from there on to California to see a girl she knew who was going to Stanford. It was an interesting trip, and she had a good time, but she always felt now as though she were only making the motions, and not living her life anymore. It was a relief finally when she came home on the train. She had three days to herself to stare out the window and think about him, all that he had been, and hopefully still was. |
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She went to his law school graduation after hers, which was understandably quite small. But it was very dignified, and she was happy for him. She had gotten him to agree to wait until the summer to discuss marriage with her again. And to Kate, it felt like a reprieve. But once he left on his trip in June, she found that she missed him more than she would have thought, and she was relieved to find that she actually had feelings for him. She was never sure exactly what she felt for him, and she knew that it was because of Joe. The power of her emotions still felt dim, as though all the power had been turned off in her. But it was slowly coming back. And she was grateful for Andy's kindness to her, and his patience. She knew she had given him a hard time, and by the end of June, she was actually anxious for him to come back. He called her as often as he could, and sent her postcards from everywhere. He was heading for the Grand Tetons and eventually Lake Louise. He had friends in Washington State, then he was going to San Francisco on the way back. And from what he was telling her, he was having a great time, but he missed her a lot. And she was surprised to see how much she missed him. Kate found herself actually thinking about getting engaged to him in the fall, and maybe getting married the following June. But she knew that, if nothing else, she needed another year. And she was working full time for the Red Cross again. There were hordes of young men coming in from Europe every day, and hospital ships bringing the wounded in. She had just been assigned to working on the docks, helping the medical personnel wade through the men who came off the ship, and sending them off to hospitals where they would spend the next several months, or even years. Kate had never seen people so happy to be home, no matter how damaged they were. They knelt down and kissed the ground, they kissed her, and anyone near at hand if their mothers and sweethearts were not there. But although it was exhausting work, in a way it was a happy job. |
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Her mother was looking at her in despair. She knew, without being told, that Kate's life was about to alter radically. Andy Scott and everything he had to offer her had just vanished in a puff of smoke. And no matter how much Kate loved Joe, her mother was sure that because of it, he would destroy her life. But it was obvious to both of them how much he meant to her, it had been impossible to overlook for the past two years. All her father wanted for her was her happiness, whatever it took, and whatever that meant to her. He had always had a deep respect for Joe. "Can I talk to him?" she asked finally, her voice barely more than a croak, but her father doubted that she could call. He had written down the name of the hospital for her, but communications with Germany were worse than sketchy these days. She tried calling late that night, but the operator said it was impossible to get through. She sat in her room instead, looking out at the moonlit night and thinking of him. All she could remember now was how sure she had been for so long that he was still alive. It was only in the past few months that she had actually begun to believe he was dead. She felt as though she were moving underwater for the next few weeks. She went to work on the docks every day, and in the Red Cross facility between ships. She went to visit men in hospitals, wrote letters for them, helped them eat and sit up and drink. She listened to a thousand painful tales. And when Andy called, she sounded vague when she talked to him. She didn't want to tell him on the phone that Joe was alive, and she didn't know what to say. She had tried so hard to talk herself into loving him, and she might have one day, but in the face of Joe coming home, she could barely talk to Andy anymore. But it didn't seem fair to ruin his trip by telling him while he was away. She went to work at five in the morning the day Joe's ship was due in. She knew they were expected at six o'clock when they came in with the high tide. |
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She had lived through her own private hell, she was a widow and had lost three sons. "Where did they find him?" she asked, more to distract Kate. The poor girl looked like she was about to break in half. "In Germany. In prison," she said simply. The nurse could only guess at the kind of damage that had been done. "He was shot down on a bombing raid," Kate still had no idea what kind of injuries he'd had. She was just grateful he was alive. It took them over an hour to berth the ship, and then one by one the men came down the gangways to land. People were cheering and crying and there were countless tearful scenes being played out on the dock. But this time, Kate wasn't crying for them, she was crying for Joe, as tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched. It was another two hours before she could get on the ship. They were ready to unload the stretcher cases by then, and she went up with a group of orderlies who were going up to take them off. She had to fight to control herself, and not shove her way past them, and she had no idea where to find him on the huge ship. She saw quickly that the orderlies on the ship and the crew were bringing out men on litters and laying them on the upper deck. And she carefully threaded her way amongst wounded and dying men. There was the stench of sick and sweating bodies heavy in the air, and she had to struggle not to gag. Some of them reached out to her, tried to grab her hands, and touch her legs. And she had to stop every few feet to talk to them. No matter what she felt, she couldn't just walk by. She had been walking a cautious path among them, careful not to step on anyone, and she stopped for what must have been the hundredth time when a man with no legs reached up and took her hand. He had lost half his face, and she could see from the way he turned his head, that his remaining eye was blind. He just wanted to talk to her and tell her how glad he was to be home, and she could tell from his accent that he was from the Deep South. |
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It was clear to him at least that they were bound together for life. "We didn't talk about it. He's still pretty sick, Dad. I don't think it's a big issue at the moment." When Clarke Jamison went to visit Joe the next day, he could see why not. He was shocked at how terrible he looked, it was worse than he'd imagined. Kate had seen so many wounded men by then that it hadn't startled her as much as it might have otherwise. She had actually expected him to look worse than he did. Joe was thrilled to see him, and they talked for a long time. Clarke didn't ask him about his experience in Germany, he thought it was best not to talk about it, but eventually Joe told him what it had been like, and about getting shot down. It was an incredible story, but Joe was in amazingly good spirits in spite of it. And his eyes lit up when he saw Kate. She had come to visit him while her father was still there. He left them to each other a few minutes after that, and Kate inquired about his legs. The doctors had examined him, and thought that things looked hopeful. They'd done a good job in Germany of setting his legs. For the next month, Kate visited him every evening after work, she sat with him every weekend, and rolled him into the garden in his wheelchair. He called her the angel of mercy. And when no one was looking, they kissed and held hands. By the time he'd been home for two weeks, he was threatening to leave the hospital and take her to a hotel, and she laughed at him. "You wouldn't get very far with those on," she pointed at his casts. But she was as anxious to get her hands on him as he was on her. They had to content themselves with clandestine kisses for the time being. He wasn't well enough to go anywhere, but with each day he was better able to move his legs, in spite of the casts. And when they took them off four weeks after he arrived, much to everyone's amazement, he started walking. He could only take a few steps at first, and he was on crutches, but the prognosis was very good. |
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But the truth was he had no time to spend with her. He was working night and day, and staying in the office until well after midnight. And he was working weekends too. Sometimes he even slept in his office on the couch. Joe was hiring people, setting up the factory, and redesigning the airstrip. He never seemed to come up for air, but the aeronautics industry was beginning to get interested in what he was doing in a major way. The whole plant they were setting up was going to be highly innovative, and there had already been several articles about it in business sections and trade papers. He barely managed to call Kate at night, and it had been six weeks since he left Boston when he finally let her come to see him for a weekend. He looked exhausted when she arrived. And when he explained to her all that he'd been doing, Kate was enormously impressed. It was a fantastic operation, and Joe loved the fact that when he explained it to her, she understood it all. They had a wonderful weekend together. They spent most of it at the plant, and even got some flying time in a brand new plane he had designed. When she got back to Boston, she described it all to her father. He was dying to see it too. People in the business world were beginning to realize that Joe was making history with his ideas. Two weeks later, Joe came up to spend Thanksgiving with them. But he was having problems with the factory, and on Friday morning he had to go back. He had responsibilities he'd never had before, and an entire industry was resting on his shoulders. Sometimes it felt like the whole world. Joe was handling it well, but it left him no spare time to play, or even call Kate much of the time. And by Christmas, in spite of her enthusiasm about his work, she was complaining to him. She had seen him twice in three months, and she was lonely in Boston without him. And every time she said it to him, he felt consumed by guilt, but there was nothing he could do. Kate was beginning to think her mother was right, and they should get married. |
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She had spent New Year's Eve in New Jersey with Joe, and it made her realize again how lucky they were. The year before she'd been crying for him, thinking he was gone forever. She would have given anything then for what she had now, even if she seldom saw him. At least they had a whole life ahead of them, and a rosy future once they got married. January was difficult for both of them. She was adjusting to a new job in an art gallery, and he had a terrible battle with the unions. For him, the entire month was a nightmare, and February was worse. He didn't make it up for Valentine's Day, in fact he forgot it completely. They had failed to get their final permit for the airstrip. It was crucial for them, and he had to spend three days romancing politicians and lobbying petty officials to get it. He only remembered that it had been Valentine's Day when she called him two days later, crying. They hadn't seen each other in six weeks by then, and he promised to make it up to her, and suggested she come down again for the weekend. They had a great time while she was there. She helped him organize his office, and he even managed to take her out to dinner. He stayed at the hotel with her, and she went back to Boston on Sunday night smiling and happy. She enjoyed it so much, she wanted to come down every weekend, which sounded good to him. He was lonely and he missed her, but he also knew he had to work eighteen hours a day, even on weekends, just as he did on weekdays. He felt terrible about Kate, but for the moment, there was nothing he could do. He felt as though he were on a constant merry go round, trapped between feeling guilty about Kate and running a business that devoured his every waking hour. And the worse he felt about Kate, the less time he seemed to have. It didn't even make sense to him. Finally, in desperation, three weeks later, he let her come down for a week, so they could be together. And he was surprised by how smoothly things went when she helped out in the office. |
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But the irony was that he had a need to run away, to flee, to be free, and she had a need to hang on for dear life. It was like a tug of war to see who would win. And yet, he sensed that if they could each relax their grip, it could work between them. But knowing what he did of her now, he wondered if she ever would. And could he? If nothing else, learning the dance with each other would take time. And Clarke knew that too. But they both had lots of it. They were young. The only question Clarke had was if they were both wise enough to stick with it long enough to make it work for both of them. He could only pray that they would be. They had too much to lose if they were not. Joe drove them back to the house, although he'd had a lot to drink. And Clarke confessed that he was properly drunk. Liz noticed it as soon as they walked in, but she didn't say anything. And Clarke walked over and gave her a hug. And for once, Joe was relieved to see that she didn't scold either of them, she just laughed and brought two cups of steaming coffee out for both of them, as Clarke accepted one regretfully and said that he hated to spoil a good drunk, and then winked at Joe. A deeper friendship had formed between them that afternoon, and Joe knew that whatever happened between him and Kate, he would always have a soft spot for Clarke. Joe and Kate took a walk down the beach after dinner that night. They were going back to New Jersey the next day. And Joe surprised her when he put an arm around her and kissed her with a tender look in his eyes. What Clarke had told him that afternoon had changed things in a subtle way. Joe was still afraid of being strangled by a commitment to her, and yet at the same time he wanted to protect her not only from the world, but from herself. He could still sense the lonely child in her, whose father had committed suicide. No matter how bright the outer trappings were, he could see in her now the bird with the broken wing she had been as a child. And in some ways, it made him love her more. |
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She felt too bruised and broken to discuss it with them. And she was crushed when he never called her. She kept hoping that he would wake up and miss her unbearably, and call to tell her that he wanted to marry her and have children with her after all. But he meant what he had said. He sent her a small box of clothes a few weeks later, things she had forgotten in his apartment, and there was no note with it. Her parents could see how much pain she was in, but they didn't press her, although her mother suspected what had happened. Kate spent three months in the Boston winter, going for long walks and crying. And it was a painful Christmas for her. She thought of calling Joe a thousand times, and she desperately wanted to, but she wasn't willing to live with him as his mistress. In the long run, it would have made her feel like an outcast. She went skiing for a few days after Christmas, and came back to spend New Year's Eve with her parents. She didn't reach out to Joe, and he never called her. She felt as though part of her had died when she left him, and she couldn't imagine a life without him. But now she had to. She had taken a brave stand, and now she had to live with it, and make the best of it. She had no other choice. She made an effort to see a few old friends, but she no longer seemed to have anything in common with them. Her life had been too entwined with Joe's for too many years. Not knowing what else to do, and determined to have a life of her own again, she decided to move to New York in January and take a job at the Metropolitan Museum, as an assistant to the curator in the Egyptian wing. At least it called into play her art history studies from Radcliffe, although these days she knew a lot more about airplanes. Her heart wasn't in it at first, but she was surprised to find, once she got there, that she loved her job, far more than she had expected. And by February, she had found an apartment. All she had to do now was get through the rest of her life. |
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She read about him constantly in the papers. Seven years ago he had been in the news for setting flight records, and now the whole world was talking about him building fantastic airplanes. And when he wasn't working on them, he was flying them. She saw in the paper in June that he had won a prize at the Paris Air Show. She was happy for him. And miserable, and lonely for herself. She was twenty five years old, more beautiful than she knew, and her life was more boring than her mother's. She never went on dates, and when people asked her out, she told them she was busy. It was just like when his plane was shot down, she was mourning him, and missing him intensely. She didn't even go to Cape Cod that summer because she knew it would remind her of him. Everything reminded her of him. Talking, living, moving, breathing. Even going to restaurants and eating. Cooking. It was absurd and she knew it, but he had become part of her essence. All she had to do now, she was convinced, was wait a lifetime to forget him. It could be done, she told herself, she just wasn't sure she could do it. She woke up every morning feeling as though someone had died, and then she remembered who. She had. She had been in New York nearly a year when she was in the grocery store one day buying dog food. She had just gotten a puppy to keep her company, and even she laughed at herself and admitted that it was pathetic. She was checking out the different brands, when she looked up and was startled to see Andy. She hadn't seen him in more than three years, and he looked very grown up and handsome in a dark suit and a Burberry. He had just come home from work and was obviously buying groceries. She assumed by then that he was married, although she didn't know that for sure. "How are you, Kate?" he asked, smiling broadly. He had long since recovered from the blow she had dealt him, although even thinking about her had pained him for a long time, and he had thrown away all his pictures of her. But he was fine now. |
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And he looked nervous and disorganized, but very sweet. Half an hour later, she was showered and dressed, her hair was neatly combed, and he looked slightly disheveled but very attentive. He had an arm around her and was carrying her suitcase. And when they checked into the hospital, the nurse said she was making good progress. And as soon as she said it, they dismissed Andy. He was sent to the waiting room to smoke with the other fathers. "How long will it be?" he asked the nurse nervously as he left Kate. "Not for a while, Mr. Scott," she said, closed the door firmly behind him, and returned to her patient. Kate was getting uncomfortable, and she wanted Andy, but it was against hospital policy for him to be there. And for the first time then, she was frightened. Three hours later, she was still making progress, but it was slow going, and Andy's nerves were frayed while he waited. They had gotten to the hospital at nine, and by noon he had heard nothing. And whenever he inquired, they brushed him off, it seemed to be taking forever for the baby to come. It was four o'clock when they took her to the delivery room, which was right on schedule from their point of view, but by then Kate was miserable and crying. All she wanted was Andy. He hadn't eaten all day by then, and had seen other fathers come and go, and some who had waited longer than he had. It seemed like an endless process, and all he wished was that he could be with her. The baby seemed to be taking an eternity to get there, and he was hoping things would be easy for her. In fact, they weren't, she was having a big baby, and it was going slowly. It seemed interminable to both of them. At seven o'clock that night, the doctors contemplated performing a cesarean section, but ultimately decided to let Kate continue to go normally for a while longer, and finally two hours later, Reed Clarke Scott appeared, named for both their fathers. He weighed just under ten pounds, and had a shock of dark hair like his father's, but Andy thought he looked like Kate. |
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There were five attorneys leaving from New York, on a military flight. The others were all coming from other cities. Andy kissed her and held her for a long moment before he left. He said he'd try to call her, but didn't think he'd have the chance too often. "I'll write to you," he promised, but she suspected more than he did that he wouldn't have time. It was going to be a long, lonely four months without him. As hesitant as she had been about marrying him, now she couldn't imagine a day without him in it. He kissed the baby, and her again, and then ran to catch the plane before he missed it. He was the youngest of the group leaving from New York, and the other wives all smiled at her, as she carried the baby out of the terminal. Reed was three and a half months old, and he would be doing all kinds of things by the time Andy saw him again. She had promised to take lots of pictures. Kate spent the Fourth of July in New York, and it was sweltering. She and the baby hardly ever went out, since they had air conditioning, and the rest of the month was scarcely better. She would take the baby to the park early in the morning, and try to be home by eleven, and then they'd stay in all afternoon, and go out at the end of the day to get some air as the streets started to cool. But in spite of the baby, and the effort she made to keep herself busy, she was surprisingly lonely without Andy She missed him a lot. She was pushing Reed in his pram late one afternoon, after they'd been to the zoo, and she wandered past the Plaza Hotel and down Fifth Avenue to look in the store windows. She had just crossed Fifth Avenue when someone dashed across the street and bumped into her. It startled her, and she looked up from checking the baby, they were still standing in the middle of the street, and she found herself looking into the eyes of Joe Allbright. She just stood there for a minute staring at him, she had thought of him so often and never expected to see him again, except in the newspapers. |
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Or even five. He had taken his time getting there. And her parents would have been happier if they'd gotten married before or during the war. But whatever path they had taken to get there, he had arrived, and now he wanted her to do what she had to, to make it work for them. It was in her hands. He couldn't do more than assure her that he was serious, and wanted to marry her. "I'll tell him when he gets home," she said. She wasn't looking forward to it, but they both agreed, it had to be done. She found a sitter, and they spent a weekend at a cozy inn in Connecticut in an out of the way place. Joe had stayed there once before, and no one had bothered or intruded on him. It seemed the perfect hideaway for them. Often, people recognized him wherever they went, and with ordinary strangers, he introduced her as his wife. She didn't respond at first when the woman at the inn called her by Joe's name. She realized it was going to be strange to give up Andy's name. She had been calling herself Kate Scott for more than a year. It had been hard enough to adjust to giving up Jamison after twenty six years. And now she would have another name. She felt as though she were on a merry go round. It was where she wanted to be, and had wanted to be for years, but now that it was happening, it all felt strange. Joe moved his things out the night before Andy came home, but he spent the night with her anyway. The baby was teething and cried all night, Kate's nerves were raw, and by morning even Joe looked strained. All she wanted now was to get it over with. She was going to tell Andy that night, and she had already convinced herself that it was going to be a gruesome scene of heartbreak and regret. She felt as though she and Joe had lived in isolation for four months. She had been avoiding whoever she knew in order to keep their secret, and she had seen none of her few friends. But so far, no one seemed to have figured out what was happening. And in the next few weeks, everyone would know. |
| 356 |
She had brought Reed with her, and she was wearing a plain black dress, and black hat. She realized that she looked a little funereal when she left the house, but it seemed appropriate. For them at least, this was not going to be a happy day She checked the list of arriving flights when she arrived at the airport, and saw that his flight was on time. And then, holding the baby close to her, she went to wait for him at the gate. Andy was one of the first passengers off the plane. He looked tired from the flight, and four months of hard work, but he smiled broadly the moment he saw his wife and son, and kissed her so hard he knocked off her hat. "I've missed you so much, Kate!" He took the baby out of her arms and couldn't believe how much he'd grown. Reed was nearly eight months old by then. He had eight teeth and could almost stand up by himself. And as Andy held him, he reached for his mother and started to scream. "He doesn't even know who I am anymore," Andy looked crushed, and as they walked out of the airport, he put an arm around her. He felt as though he'd been gone for years. He not only felt as though the baby didn't know who he was, he could tell that Kate was ill at ease with him, and when he looked at her as they drove home in a cab, she looked strange. She said she was happy to see him, but she looked like someone had died. She asked him about Germany, and the trials, but when he tried to hold her hand in the cab, she pulled it away to look for something in her purse. She didn't want to mislead him more than she already had. Kate made lunch for all of them when they got home, and put Reed down for a nap afterward. All she wanted was to get it over with. She couldn't wait. She didn't want to play out a farce with him. He deserved more respect from her than that. "Kate, are you all right?" he asked after she put the baby to bed. She looked suddenly older and more serious in the somber black dress. He didn't know what had happened while he was gone, but he knew something had. |
| 357 |
Kate hadn't thought him capable of anything so devious, and it told her a great deal about him. She wanted to take some time to think about it, but she knew she would confront him about it one day. In the end, even after having used every ruse he could, he had lost her anyway. In spite of that, in the end, she had found her way back to Joe, and she was grateful for the kindness of the fates every day. During the spring, Joe started spending more time in California. He needed a bigger base for his airline out there. By summer, he was spending half the month in L.A., and he wanted her with him. She took both children and the sitter, and they lived at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She enjoyed it a lot at first, she went shopping, played with the kids, and hung out at the pool watching movie stars come and go. Joe was constantly at the office, and came back to the hotel after midnight most nights and left again at six the next day. He was trying to spread his operation into the Pacific, and he wanted to establish new routes where they had never been before. It was an enormous undertaking, establishing numerous bases overseas, and planning all the logistics for an airline emerging as one of the most important in the world. By September he was spending a lot of time in Hong Kong and Japan. They both agreed it was too far for her to go, and she hated leaving the kids for weeks on end. And it didn't make sense for her to sit in a hotel and wait for him in L.A. So she spent her time waiting for him in New York. He called her every night, no matter where he was, and filled her in on what he was doing. And from what she could see, he was doing a million things at once. Running New York, reaching out in the Orient, designing planes, running an airline, and doing test flights himself whenever he could. Understandably, he was crazed, and even when he called Kate, he sounded tense. In spite of competent people in all the various arms of his organization, he acted like he was a one man band. |
| 358 |
But this time it served his purpose. "Why don't you find something else to keep you busy?" It was more than just a matter of keeping busy, she really wanted to have their baby. But he looked annoyed that she'd even brought up the subject, and even more so when he saw that she was disappointed. "There's always something with you," he complained as they started to approach the airport. "Either you're bitching about my being gone, or now you want a baby. Can't you just be happy with the way things are? Why do you always need more, Kate? What's wrong with you?" He was busy landing the plane and she didn't want to argue with him, but she didn't like the way he said it. It was up to her to fit in and adjust to his needs, and seldom the reverse. What she wanted didn't seem to matter. He had gotten spoiled over the years, and some of it was her fault. He was home so rarely, and for so little time, that everything revolved around him when he was there. Between public adulation over his flying record, his heroism during the war, and his enormous success in business, all he ever heard was how remarkable he was, and Kate's was just one more voice added to the others. But on the drive home from the airport, she was quiet. He knew why, and he refused to discuss it with her any further. He had told her for years that he didn't want children. There were enough children in the world, the baby boom had repopulated the world, and he didn't feel he needed to add to it. And when Reed threw his arms around Joe's neck when they got home, he looked over his head at Kate, as though to prove his point. They had two kids, they didn't need more. As far as he was concerned, it was the end of the conversation. For him, at least. The subject didn't come up again, and he made a point of being home for the holidays that year. Kate had never let him forget the fact that he had missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with her the year before, so he arranged his entire schedule to accommodate her, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. |
| 359 |
It had been sheer bad luck that she'd gotten in an accident and lost the twins. He had a right to go on business trips, after all, although maybe not to disappear on a boat for three days, with a pregnant wife at home. But he had thought she was fine. And his being there wouldn't have changed anything, except that he might not have let her drive to Connecticut. But he couldn't protect her every hour of the day. The driver who had hit her had been drunk, the tests showed. It could have happened anywhere, anytime, even if he'd been driving the car. He was just an easy scapegoat now, he felt, because he'd been gone. But none of it had been his fault or in his control. He was her husband, not God. By the end of the week, Joe had Kate transferred to a hospital in New York. It was easier for him to see her there, and he thought it might cheer her up to see her friends if they came to visit her, but she was so depressed, she refused to see anyone. She told him she wanted to die. He spent the weekend at the hospital with her, and they talked to Reed on the phone, but afterward all she did was cry. She was in terrible shape. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but he was relieved to fly to L.A. for three days the following week. He felt totally helpless with Kate. And this time, he called and checked in every few hours. It was the end of April when she came home from the hospital. She was on crutches with a smaller cast, and her head was fine again. She only got headaches once in a while, and they took the cast off her leg in early May. She looked like herself again, and had lost a lot of weight. But the woman Joe came home to at night was not the one he had married. It was as though the bright light he had always seen shining from her soul had gone out. She was tired and depressed most of the time, refused to go out. And most of the time, she sat home and cried. Joe had no idea what to do for her, she hardly talked to him, seldom spoke, was completely disinterested in everything he said. |
| 360 |
She wanted to understand, but she was feeling abandoned anyway. Joe had invited her to go with him, and he wanted her to, but she wouldn't. She took the kids to Boston instead. And in the end, he was gone for twice as long as he said. He came home in two weeks instead of one. He didn't even stop in California on the way home. But when he got back to New York, Kate was icy cold. Her mother had worked hard on her in the two weeks that he'd been gone. She seemed to have a huge investment in convincing Kate that he was rotten to her and didn't give a damn. She had never forgiven him for taking five days to come home when Kate had the accident and lost the twins. And she had hated him long before that. She had never approved of him from the first, because he hadn't married Kate, and when he had it had cost her her marriage to Andy Scott, whom Liz loved. It was as though she wanted to destroy what he and Kate had, at all costs. And she was doing a good job of it. In two short weeks, she had turned Kate around again, and they hardly spoke the night he came home. He didn't apologize to her, he didn't explain it again, he didn't defend himself for having been gone. He was tired of doing that, he had been doing it for months. He played with the kids that night, and read quietly when they went to bed. He wanted to give Kate time to calm down and readjust. He knew that his comings and goings were hard for her, and she needed time to warm up to him again sometimes, particularly if her mother had been talking to her a lot. He told her about Japan when she came to bed, and acted as though nothing was wrong. Sometimes that worked too, if he didn't react to her. It was hard for him when he was tired after a long trip. But he tried to be as patient as he could. He didn't want things to revert to the way they had been for the six months before he left. Things had improved for a while, and he wanted them to continue to head that way. But he could tell that he'd lost ground with her while he'd been gone. |
| 361 |
He was always either coming or going or away. She didn't even complain, but somehow it took a toll nonetheless. They celebrated their anniversary, and then it all started again. He was gone for most of January, half of February, all of March, three weeks in April, and four in May. She complained about it repeatedly and when she sat down and counted in June, they had been together three weeks in six months. And she was beginning to wonder if he was doing it to escape her. It seemed inconceivable to her that anyone had to be away as much as he was. And she said as much to Joe. All he could hear was her criticism, and all he could feel was the guilt that was a primal part of him. She was beginning to seem like a mother he had failed. It was beginning to seem impossible to run his business and meet her needs as well. And she was refusing to understand that it was just the nature of his work, and what he loved to do. He had to be in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, London, Rome, Milan, L.A. Even if she had gone with him, he never stayed in any city for more than a few days. She went on a couple of trips with him that year, but she was always sitting in a hotel room waiting for him, and eating room service alone. It made more sense for her to stay home with her kids. She tried talking to him, but he was sick of hearing it, and being made to feel guilty, and she was tired of his being gone. She loved him more than she ever had, but the last couple of years had taken a toll on both of them. Her accident the year before had ripped them apart, and they'd found their way back to each other again, but the same spark wasn't there anymore. She was thirty three years old, living with a man she never saw. And he was forty five, at the height of his career. She knew she had another twenty years of it, and it would get worse, maybe even a lot worse, before it got better. He had opened up new vistas in aviation, and was adding more routes, designing even more extraordinary planes, and he seemed to have less and less time for her. |
| 362 |
It was an all too familiar refrain. She wanted to find a compromise so they could be together more, but Joe had too much on his mind to discuss it with her. He was more involved in his business than ever, rather than less, and he liked it that way. He was on his way to London the next day. He didn't tell her that for the rest of the year, he would be traveling even more. The fight seemed to have gone out of both of them. It wasn't about doing battle, but accepting what they had. And other than the feelings they'd had for each other for sixteen years, they never had enough time together anymore to enjoy each other, or build anything. He had long since stopped trying to push her into traveling with him. The kids were still small, and needed her, and she hated leaving them. Reed was six, and Stephanie was almost four, and Joe knew that for another fifteen years or so, she was going to have a hard time leaving them. From what he could see, as he looked ahead, they were going to be pulled apart a thousand ways for another fifteen or twenty years. Their lives were going separate ways, and no matter how hard she swam to keep up with him, or how much he cared, they were so far apart most of the time, they couldn't even see each other anymore. She came to California to see him in July, and she brought the kids. She took them to Disneyland, and Joe took all of them up in a fabulous new plane that had just been built. But halfway through their trip, Joe had to leave for Hong Kong for an emergency. He flew straight to London from there, and Kate took the children to the Cape. Joe didn't come to Cape Cod at all that summer. He couldn't stand her mother anymore, and told Kate bluntly that he wasn't going there again. And they came home earlier than usual that summer, because her father got very sick. Joe seemed to be on the go constantly, and it was mid September before their paths crossed again, and he actually came home to spend three weeks in New York. But when she saw him this time, she knew something had changed. |
| 363 |
At first, she thought it was another woman, but after the first week he'd been home, she realized it was something far worse. Joe just couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't have the career he wanted and worry about her. In the end, he had chosen to escape. The price of loving her, or anyone, was simply too great. He had been swept away by the tides of his career, the airplanes he had built had taken over the industry all over the world. The airline he had started eleven years before was the biggest and most successful of its kind. Joe had created a monster that had devoured both of them. He knew he had a choice at that point, the world he had created for himself, or her. And the moment she knew that, and looked in his eyes, she felt an icy chill in the air. The worst of it was that she knew he still loved her, and she still felt everything she ever had for him, but he had flown so far away from her that there was no way for her to reach him again. If he wanted her, he had to find a way to bring her with him. And he had figured out several months before that it wasn't possible. No matter how much he loved her, he just couldn't do it anymore. He felt too guilty leaving her all the time, seldom seeing her, explaining it, apologizing, and never being there for her kids. It was why, he realized, instinctively he had never wanted children of his own, and was actually relieved when she lost the twins. He couldn't have it all, he had discovered, and more than that, he couldn't give Kate what she needed or what she deserved. He had been thinking about it all summer, and when he saw her in New York, it nearly tore his heart out, but he knew he was sure. The answer had been a long time coming because the questions were too hard. If she had asked him if he still loved her, he would have had to say he did. But her mother had called it correctly from the beginning. And so had he. In the end, Joe's first love was his planes. And what he had wanted from Kate, and to share with her, had been an impossible dream. |
| 364 |
It took him days to say it to her, but finally he did. The night before he left for London, to acquire a small airline there, he saw Kate lying next to him in their bed, and knew he could never come back to her again. He would rather have shot her than say the words to her, but if for no other reason than that he loved her, he knew he had to free himself, and her. "Kate." She turned to him as he said her name, and it was as though she knew before he spoke. She had seen something terrifying in his eyes for three weeks, and had done everything she could not to provoke him this time. She had tried to stay small and stay away from him, and not anger him. They hadn't had a fight in months. But it had nothing to do with fighting, or not loving her. It had to do with him. He wanted more in his life than he was willing to share with her. He had nothing left to give. In sixteen years of loving her, he had given what he had, or could. The rest of what was left he wanted for himself. And he no longer wanted to apologize or explain or have to comfort her. He knew how abandoned she felt when he was gone, but he no longer cared. Meeting her needs and his own was just too much work for him. Kate turned to look at him without saying a word. She looked like a deer that was about to be killed. He took a breath and plunged. It was never going to be better saying it to her some other time. It could only get worse. There would be Thanksgiving and Christmas, and their anniversary, and holidays he didn't even know or care about, and then the summer and Cape Cod again. He had been married to her for three and a half years, and as it turned out, it was all he wanted from her, and all he wanted to give. He had been right from the first, he didn't want to be married or have kids, even hers, much as he had come to love them. But he didn't love any of them enough to stay with them. All he really needed and wanted in his life were planes. It was easier and safer for him. With only planes in his life, he would never get hurt. |
| 365 |
What had she done? How had she failed him? It was impossible to believe that she hadn't done something terrible to him. But the truth was she hadn't, other than marry him. It was the one thing he didn't want, and thought he had. But he'd been wrong. She fascinated him, she intrigued him, she excited him, but that was all it had ever been for him. He had been drawn to her like moth to flame, but he wanted the sky rather than her warmth, and he had flown away. She lay beside him and cried quietly all night. She stroked his hair, and looked at him as he slept. If he had been anyone else, she would have thought he was insane. But there was something very cold and calculating about what he had said. It was the only way he knew to save himself, and it reminded her of their ending in New Jersey years before. Not knowing what else to do, Joe shut down emotionally and ran away. She had been dispensed with, dismissed, as she understood it, he didn't want her anymore. It was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to her. In some ways, even crueler than her father's suicide. In Kate's eyes, the reasons Joe had offered weren't adequate to justify his leaving her, although they were to him. Gouging her out of his heart, no matter how painful to him or her, was all he knew how to do. She never slept all night, and at first light she got up, washed her face, and then went back to bed. He lay close to her, as he always did, when he woke up. But this time, he said nothing, he simply rolled over and got out of bed. And when he left the apartment for his flight to London, he said goodbye to her very carefully. He didn't want to raise any false hopes that he'd change his mind. He was leaving her forever, and she knew it to her very soul. "I love you, Joe," she said, and for an instant he saw the girl he had once met, in her pale blue satin evening gown, with the dark auburn hair. He remembered her eyes that night, and they were the same ones he saw now. But as he looked into them he saw immeasurable pain. |
| 366 |
He offered her a huge settlement, which she gracefully declined. She had her own money, and she didn't want anything from him. All she had ever wanted for sixteen years was to be his wife. She had been that for four, which was all Joe Allbright had to give, or so he believed when he left. Kate had caused him so much pain, and inflicted such intense guilt on him, that all Joe wanted was to flee. He had wanted her more than anything, loved her more than he had ever dared, given more than he had known he was capable of. And in spite of everything, it hadn't been enough for her. For all the years of their marriage, he felt she had wanted more and more and more of him. It had terrified him, and brought up all of his old wounds. Every time he listened to her, he could hear his cousin's voice telling him what a rotten kid he was, and how disappointed she was in him. Just seeing Kate, whenever he came home, reminded him of how inadequate he had felt as a child, and what a failure he believed he was as a human being and a man. It was a demon he'd been fleeing all his life. And even the vast empire he had built couldn't protect him from it. The pain he saw in Kate's eyes catapulted him back to the worst of his boyhood again and conjured up all his guilts. In the end, it was easier for him to be alone than to be tormented by her, or cause her pain. Every time he knew he hurt or disappointed her, it was agony for him. And there was a selfish side to him as well. He didn't want to meet anyone's needs but his own. It took Kate months to understand what had happened to them. The divorce had been filed by then, and they had been separated for nearly a year. He had refused to see her during that time, but called occasionally to check on her and the kids. For months, Kate had wandered around the house they'd rented, in a daze. The hardest part was learning to live without him again. It was like learning to live without air. She thought constantly about what had happened to them, trying to understand her part in it. |
| 367 |
Not knowing how else to deal with her, or stop the deadly dance, he could think of nothing else but to run away. He had never wanted to do that to her, but in the end, he knew that he would hurt her more, and himself, if he stayed. At first, all Kate could think about was what she had lost when he left, and for months her own panic grew worse. She thought about losing her father years before. And she endured another blow when Clarke died in the spring. And just as she had years before, Kate's mother retreated into her own world, and all but disappeared. Kate cried herself to sleep at night, and the loneliness she felt was overpowering. But as the months drifted by, she slowly found her feet again. Joe had suggested she go to Reno to speed up the divorce, but she had filed it in New York instead, knowing it would take longer. It was her final act of clinging to him. She was still holding on to him by a single rapidly fraying thread. And in fact she had nothing left of him but his name. It would have been hard to say when the change happened in her. It didn't come suddenly. It wasn't a sudden awakening. It was a slow, arduous winding path up a mountainside toward maturity and growth. And as she climbed the mountain day by day, she grew strong. The things that had once so desperately frightened her seemed less ominous. She had lost so much of what mattered most to her that abandonment was finally a monster she had faced and conquered on her own. Of all the things that terrified her, losing him had been her worst fear. But she had, and lived. Her children were the first to see the change in her, long before Kate was even aware of it herself. She laughed more often, and cried less easily. She went on a trip to Paris with them. And this time, when Joe called when she came home, to see how they were, he heard something different in her voice. It was ephemeral and intangible, and he would have been hard put to explain what it was. But Kate no longer sounded terrified or desperate about being alone. |
| 368 |
He had forgotten what it was like living with them. But at the same time, he had not. As Kate did every morning when she woke up, he remembered only too well what it was like waking up next to her. He had not touched a woman for an entire year. Kate had begun seeing other men for dinner from time to time, but she could not bring herself to do more than that. They all paled in comparison to him. She couldn't imagine being with anyone else. And when she came home at night, she was relieved to climb into her bed alone. In truth, being alone no longer seemed menacing to her. It had grown comfortable, she had the children and friends. She had looked loss in the eye and she had not died of it. And slowly, she realized that nothing would ever frighten her in just that way again. She could see it all so much more clearly now. She could see how frightening being married had been for him. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was. But she knew from everything he had said to her that it was too late to make any difference to him. It was a month later, when she was writing quietly one day, in a journal she kept, that Joe called about some detail of the divorce. She had continued to refuse to take money from him. Clarke had left half his fortune to her, and she had never wanted to take anything from Joe. He suggested his lawyer send some documents to her. It was about a piece of property he had just sold, and he wanted her to sign a quitclaim deed. She agreed, but for a moment on the phone, her voice sounded odd. "Am I ever going to see you again?" she asked, sounding forlorn. She still missed seeing him and touching him, the smell of him, the feel of him, but she accepted now that he was gone forever from her life. She knew she would not die of it, but it still felt like losing an essential part of her, like a leg or an arm, or her heart. But she was entirely prepared to go on without him. She had no other choice, and she had made her peace with it at last. "Do you suppose we should see each other, Kate?" he asked, hesitating. |
| 369 |
For more than a year, he had thought of her as dangerous. It wasn't that she meant to be, but he was afraid that if he even saw her he would fall in love with her all over again, and the deadly dance would begin again. It was a risk he was no longer willing to take. And he was far too cognizant of her charms. "It probably isn't a good idea," he said quietly before she could answer him. "Probably not," she agreed. And for once she didn't sound devastated, or distraught. There was no desperation in her voice. No subtle reproach to cause him guilt. She sounded peaceful, and sensible, and calm. She went on talking to him about a new subdivision he had formed, and a new plane he had designed. And after he hung up, it gnawed at him. He had never heard her sound quite like that. She sounded suddenly grown up. And he realized that, even more than he had, she had moved on. She had found freedom finally. And in losing him, she had found peace. She had faced the worst of her fears, looked the monsters squarely in the eye, and had somehow managed to make peace not only with herself, but with him, and go on with her life. She knew there was no chance he would ever come back. She had given up the dream. He lay awake long into the night, thinking about her, and in the morning he told himself how unkind it had been of him not to at least see the kids. It wasn't their fault that his marriage to their mother hadn't worked out. He realized then that she had never reproached him for it. She had begrudged him nothing in the past year. She had asked nothing of him. She had fallen down the abyss she had always feared, and instead of hanging on to him to survive, and strangling him, she had let go. The thought of it mystified him, and all he could ask himself as he went to work that day was why. He couldn't help thinking that it had to be because she was clinging to another man. There had to be. He had felt devoured by her needs. But late that afternoon, he called her again. The same document was still sitting on his desk. |
| 370 |
And five o'clock will be fine. I won't stay long. "I'll leave the door open," she teased, "you don't even have to sit down." She knew he was panicking, but not why. It never occurred to her that he might be nervous about seeing her. She loved him anyway. His vulnerability and fears only made him more lovable. She had learned so much. Her only regret was not being able to share it with him. She knew she would never get that chance, and doubted if, after that afternoon, she would ever see him again. Once his quitclaim deed was signed, he had no reason to see her again. "See you at five," he said, sounding businesslike, and Kate smiled as she hung up the phone. She knew it was ridiculous to still love a man who was divorcing her. It made no sense, but nothing in their lives ever had. She was thirty four years old, and she had finally grown up, it saddened her to realize that the woman she had brought to their marriage had been a frightened child. It had been unfair to both of them. She had wanted him to make up for all the pain she'd had as a little girl. There was no way he could do that for her, and no way she could soothe his wounds, while she was crying out herself. They had been two children, frightened in the night, and all Joe had known how to do was run away. She loved him in spite of it, and the soul searching she had done had served her well. Joe arrived promptly at five o'clock, with his documents in hand. He seemed awkward at first, but all it did was remind her of the first time they'd met. She kept a safe distance from him, and made no attempt to approach. They sat and talked quietly, about the children, his work, and a new plane he wanted to design. It had been a longtime dream for him. Her dreams had all been of him. She was surprised herself to find how easy it was to love him as he was, just sitting there, a little stiff at first, and gradually he warmed up. He had been there for nearly an hour when she offered him a drink, and he smiled. Just seeing him touched her heart. |
| 371 |
She would have loved to put her arms around him and tell him she would always love him, but she wouldn't have dared. She sat across the room from him, admiring him, and loving him, like a beautiful bird she could see but never touch. If she did, she knew he would fly away. He had given her that chance, more than once, and she had wounded him. She knew that chance would never come her way again. All she could do now was love him silently, and wish him well. It was enough, and all she had left to give. It was all Joe would accept from her ever again. It was nearly eight o'clock when Joe left. She signed the papers for him, and was surprised when he called her back the next day. He sounded awkward again, but this time he relaxed more rapidly, and then nearly strangled on the words when he invited her to lunch. She was amazed. Kate had no way of knowing it, but she had haunted him all night. She was everything he had always loved in her, and she hadn't frightened him. He wasn't sure if her newfound independence was a trick, or something he wanted to see in her. But he could sense that something had changed profoundly in her, and the aura he sensed around her was no longer hunger or guilt or pain or need, but warmth and peace with him and herself. He remembered now what he had loved in her, and was wondering if they could be friends. "Lunch?" She sounded more than a little stunned. But after they talked for a while, it sounded feasible to her as well. She was only slightly afraid of falling more deeply in love with him again, but she was still in love with him anyway. She had nothing to lose. All she had at risk was more pain. But she trusted him now, more than she had before, and Kate realized it was because she trusted herself. She could cope with whatever life would bring. That was new, too, and Joe sensed it in her. They had lunch at the Plaza two days after he called. And went for a walk in the park the following weekend. They talked about the mess they'd made and what might have been, what couldn't be. |
| 372 |
And they both knew it. They had never stopped loving each other. The only frightening thought, to both of them, was how close they had come to losing each other. They had gone right to the edge of the precipice, and then stopped. The hand of Providence had been kind to them. He spent the weekend with her, and when the kids came home, they were happy to find him there. The rest slid quietly into place again, as though he had never left. He had sold their apartment in New York months before, and he moved into her house for a while, and eventually they bought a house together, and moved in. He went on his trips, and was sometimes gone for weeks at a time. But Kate didn't mind. They talked on the phone, and she was happy, just as she had known she would be. And so was he. This time, it worked, and felt like a miracle to them. And when they had arguments, they were roaring ones, but like fireworks they lit up the sky and were forgotten quickly afterward. They were happy together, happier than they had ever been. They had quietly canceled the divorce as soon as he moved back in. It had been a good life, for both of them, and it was nearly seventeen years since the time they'd spent apart. They had been right to trust each other one last time. The years they had spent together since had proven them right. When the children left for their own lives, they had more time alone. Kate traveled with him, but she was always comfortable at home. There were no more demons in her life. They had slain their dragons long before, but not without considerable grief for both of them. The early years had taken a toll on them for a time, but in the end it made them both grateful for what they had learned. She had learned not to pull on him, not to entangle him, not to bring up the ghosts of his past, rattle the sabers of guilt at him. And proud bird that he was, he flew down from his skies and came as close as he could to Kate. In their later years, it was close enough for her, and all she wanted or needed from him. |
| 373 |
The church was filled with dignitaries and important men. The governor was delivering the eulogy, and the President had said he would try to come, but in the end had sent the Vice President instead. The President was traveling in the Middle East, and even for Joe, it was too far to come. But he had sent a telegram to Kate. Kate and her children sat in the front pew, with a sea of people filling the church. And she knew that Andy and Julie were there somewhere. Her mother had died four years before. And Kate had caught a glimpse of Lindbergh's widow Anne, as she walked in, wearing a black suit and a hat, still in deep mourning herself. Joe had spoken at Charles's funeral only four months before. It seemed a strange irony that the two greatest pilots of all time had died within months of each other. It was a grievous loss to the world, but far more so to Kate. Joe's office had helped her to arrange some of the details, and the service was beautiful, the words spoken about him powerful. Tears rolled slowly down Kate's cheeks, as she clutched her children's hands. It made her think of her father's funeral when she had been a little girl, when her mother had been devastated and remote. It had been Joe who healed her heart finally. Joe who had opened her eyes and taught her so much about herself and the world. She had conquered Everest with him. And the life they had shared had been extraordinary in a thousand ways. The people who had come to pay their respects to him hung back silently, as Kate followed the casket slowly down the main aisle of the church, and watched them put it in the hearse. The smell of roses hung heavy in the air. She was silent and her head was bowed as she stepped back into the limousine for the drive to the cemetery, and a thousand people filed quietly out of the church. They had heard things about him from the eulogies that most of them had already known, his flying feats, his war record, his many accomplishments, his genius, the way he had changed the face of aviation. |
| 374 |
And for all the pain they'd caused each other in the early years, they had shared a life finally that had brought them both immeasurable joy. She had learned everything she had to know. And he had been happy with her. She had loved him well. Knowing that brought her some sense of comfort now. But she still could not imagine the rest of her life without Joe. Stephanie and Reed spoke quietly in the car on the way to the cemetery, and left their mother alone. Kate sat lost in thought, watching the wintry countryside slide by, thinking of all the memories they'd shared. The tapestry of their life had been rich beyond compare. Only Kate and her children had gone to the cemetery. Kate had wanted to be there with them alone, and with her memories of Joe. Because of the explosion, they were burying an empty casket. It was a final gesture of respect, as a minister said a brief blessing and then left. And in kindness to her, Stephanie and Reed walked back to the limousine and left her alone. "How am I going to do this, Joe?" she whispered as she stood looking at the casket. Where would she go? How would she live without seeing him again? It was like being a child again when they had buried her father, and she could feel ancient wounds coming to life again. She stood there for a long time, thinking about Joe, and then it was as though she could sense him standing next to her. He was the man she had always dreamed of, the hero she had fallen in love with when she was barely more than a girl, the man she had waited to come home from the war, the man she had nearly lost and then found again, by miracle, seventeen years before. There had been a lot of miracles in their life together, and he had been the best of them. And she knew, as she stood there, that he had taken her heart with him. There would never be anyone in her life like Joe. He had taught her all of life's important lessons, healed all her wounds, as she had healed his. He had touched deep into her soul. He had taught her not only about love, but about freedom. |
| 375 |
The sounds of the organ music drifted up to the Wedgwood blue sky. Birds sang in the trees, and in the distance, a child called out to a friend on a lazy summer morning. The voices inside the church rose in powerful unison, as they sang the familiar hymns that Grace had sung with her family since childhood. But this morning, she couldn't sing anything. She could barely move, as she stood, staring straight ahead at her mother's casket. Everyone knew Ellen Adams had been a good mother, a good wife, a respected citizen until she died. She had taught school before Grace was born, and she would have liked to have had more children, but it just hadn't happened. Her health had always been frail, and at thirty eight she had gotten cancer. The cancer started in her uterus, and after a hysterectomy, she'd had both chemotherapy and radiation. But the cancer spread to her lungs anyway, and her lymph nodes, and eventually her bones. It had been a four and a half year battle. And now, at forty two, she was gone. She had died at home, and Grace had taken care of her single handedly until the last two months when her father had finally had to hire two nurses to help her. But Grace still sat next to her bedside for hours when she came home from school. And at night, it was Grace who went to her when she called out in pain, helped her turn, carried her to the bathroom, or gave her medication. The nurses only worked in the daytime. Her father didn't want them there at night, and everyone realized he had a hard time accepting just how sick his wife was. And now he stood in the pew next to Grace and cried like a baby. John Adams was a handsome man. He was forty six, and one of the best attorneys in Watseka, and surely the most loved. He had studied at the University of Illinois after serving in the Second World War, and then came home to Watseka, a hundred miles south of Chicago. It was a small, immaculately kept town, filled with profoundly decent people. And he handled all their legal needs, and listened to all their problems. |
| 376 |
But it was always John who got all the glory, whom they asked for when they called, whom clients had heard about from miles away in other towns. Frank was an unimpressive little man, without John's charm or good looks, but they worked well together and had known each other since college. Frank stood several rows back in the church now, feeling sorry for John, and his daughter. John would be all right, Frank knew, he'd land on his feet, just like he always did, and although he insisted now that he wasn't interested, Frank was betting that his partner would be remarried in a year. But it was Grace who looked absolutely distraught, and shattered, as she stared straight ahead at the banks of flowers at the altar. She was a pretty girl, or she would have been, if she'd allowed herself to be. At seventeen, she was lean and tall, with graceful shoulders and long thin arms, beautiful long legs, and a tiny waist and full bust. But she always hid her figure in baggy clothes, and long loose sweaters she bought at the Salvation Army. John Adams was by no means a rich man, but he could have bought her better than that, if she'd wanted. But unlike other girls her age, Grace had no interest in clothes, or boys, and if anything, she seemed to diminish her looks, rather than enhance them. She wore no makeup at all, and she wore her long coppery auburn hair straight down her back, with long bangs that hid her big cornflower blue eyes. She never seemed to look straight at anyone, or be inclined to engage them in conversation. Most people were surprised by how pretty she was, if they really looked at her, but if you didn't look twice, you never noticed her at all. Even today, she was wearing an old dreary black dress of her mother's. It hung like a sack on her, and she looked thirty years old, with her hair tied back in a tight bun, and her face deathly pale as she stood beside her father. "Poor kid," Frank's secretary whispered, as Grace walked slowly back down the aisle, next to her father, behind her mother's casket. |
| 377 |
There had been a rumor a few years back that she might even be retarded, but anyone who had ever gone to school with her knew that that was a lie. She was brighter than most of them, she just didn't say much. She was a solitary soul, and it was only once in a while that someone in school would see her talking to someone, or laughing in a corridor, but then she would hurry away again, as though she was frightened to come out and be among them. She wasn't crazy, her classmates knew, but she wasn't friendly either. It was odd too, considering how sociable her parents were. But Grace never had been. Even as a small child, she had always been solitary, and somewhat lonely. And more than once as a child, she had had to go home from school with a bad attack of asthma. John and Grace stood out in the noon sun for a little while, shaking hands with friends, thanking them for being there, embracing them, and more than ever, Grace looked wooden and removed as she greeted them. It was as though her body was there, but her mind and soul were elsewhere. And in her dreary too big dress, she looked more pathetic than ever. Her father commented on the way she looked on the way to the cemetery. Even her shoes looked worn. She had taken a pair of her mother's black high heels, but they were out of style, and they looked as though her mother had gotten plenty of use from them before she got sick. It was almost as though Grace wanted to be closer to her now, by wearing her mother's clothes, it was like camouflage, or protective coloring, but it wasn't flattering on a girl her age, and her father said so. She looked a lot like her mother, actually, people always commented on it, except that her mother had been more robust before she'd been taken ill, and her dress was at least three sizes too big for Grace's lithe figure. "Couldn't you have worn something decent for a change?" her father asked with a look of irritation as they drove to St. Mary's Cemetery on the outskirts of town, with three dozen cars behind them. |
| 378 |
A crowd of a hundred and fifty friends squeezed into the small neat house. It was painted white, with dark green shutters and a picket fence. There were daisy bushes in the front yard, and a small rose garden her mother had loved just outside her kitchen windows. The babble of their friends sounded almost like a cocktail party, and Frank Wills held court in the living room, while John stood outside with friends in the hot July sunshine. Grace served lemonade and iced tea, and her father had brought out some wine, and even the huge crowd scarcely made a dent in all the food she served. It was four o'clock when the last guests finally left, and Grace walked around the house with a tray, picking up all their dishes. "We've got good friends," her father said with a warm smile. He was proud of the people who cared about them. He had done a lot for many of them over the years, and now they were there, in their hour of need, for him, and his daughter. He watched Grace moving quietly around the living room, and he realized how alone they were now. Ellen was gone, the nurses were gone, there was no one left except just the two of them. Yet he was not a man to dwell on his misfortunes. "I'll go outside and see if there are any glasses out there," he said helpfully, and he came back half an hour later with a trayful of plates and glasses, his jacket over his arm, and his tie loosened. If she'd been aware of such things, she would have seen that her father looked more handsome than ever. Others had noticed it. He had lost some weight in the last few weeks, understandably, and he looked as trim as a young man, and in the sunlight it was difficult to see if his hair was gray or sandy. In fact, it was both, and his eyes were the same bright blue as his daughter's. "You must be tired," he said to her, and she shrugged as she loaded glasses and plates into the dishwasher. There was a lump in her throat and she was trying not to cry. It had been an awful day for her... an awful year. |
| 379 |
What would she do now? Who would help her? The only good thing was that she could leave and go to college in September. Maybe. If they'd still take her. And if her father would let her. But there was no reason to stay here now. There was every reason to leave, which was all she wanted. She heard her father open his door and go out into the hall. He called her name, and she didn't answer him. She was too tired to speak to anyone, even him, as she lay on her bed, crying for her mother. Then she heard his bedroom door close again, and it was a long time before she finally got up, and walked into her bathroom. It was her only luxury, having her own bathroom. Her mother had let her paint it pink, in the little three bedroom house her mother had been so proud of. They had wanted the third bedroom for the son they'd planned to have, but the baby had never come, and her mother had used it as a sewing room for as long as Grace could remember. She ran a hot bath almost to the edge of the tub, and she went to lock her bedroom door, before she took off her mother's tired black dress, and let it fall to the floor around her feet, after she kicked her mother's shoes off. She let herself slowly into the tub, and closed her eyes as she lay there. She was totally unaware of how beautiful she was, how long and slender her legs, how graceful her hips, or how appealing her breasts were. She saw none of it, and wouldn't have cared. She just lay there with her eyes closed and let her mind drift. It was as though her head were filled with sand. There were no images, no people she wanted to see in her mind's eye, nothing she wanted to do, or be. She just wanted to hang in space and think of absolutely nothing. She knew she'd been there for a long time when the water had grown cold, and she heard her father knocking on the door to her bedroom. "What are you doing in there, Grade? Are you okay?" "I'm fine," she shouted from the tub, roused from her trancelike state. It was growing dark outside, and she hadn't bothered to turn the lights on. |
| 380 |
She had done it for years, since she was thirteen... since just after her mother got sick, and had the first operation. Before that, he had beaten her, and Grace had listened to it, night after night, in her bedroom, sobbing, and listening to them, and in the morning, her mother would try to explain the bruises, talking about how she had fallen, or walked right into the bathroom door, or slipped, but it was no secret. They all knew. No one would have believed John Adams capable of it, but he was, and a great deal more. He would have beaten Grace, too, except that Ellen never let him. Instead, she had offered herself up, time after time, for his beatings, and told Grace to lock the door to her room. Twice, Ellen had miscarried because of the beatings, the last time at six months, and after that, there had been no more children. The beatings had been brutal and terrifying, but subtle enough that the bruises could always be hidden or explained, as long as Ellen was willing to do it, and she was. She had loved him ever since high school, he was the best looking boy in town, and she knew she was lucky to have him. Her parents had been dirt poor, and she hadn't even finished high school. She was a beautiful girl, but she knew that without John, she didn't have a chance in the world. That was what he told her, and she believed him. Her own father had beaten her too, and at first what John did, didn't seem so unusual or so awful. But it got worse over the years, and at times he threatened to leave her because she was so worthless. He made her do anything he wanted just so he wouldn't leave her. And as Grace grew up and grew more beautiful each day, it was easy to see what he wanted, what would be required of her, if she really wanted to keep him. And once Ellen got sick, and the radiation and chemotherapy changed her so dramatically, deep penetration was no longer possible. He told her bluntly then that if she expected to stay married to him something would have to be worked out to keep him happy. |
| 381 |
It was obvious that she couldn't keep him happy anymore, couldn't give him what he wanted. But Grace could. She was thirteen, and so very lovely. Her mother had explained it to her, so she wouldn't be frightened. It was something she could do for them, like a gift, she could help her dad be happy, and help her mom, it would be as though she was even more a part of them, and her dad would love her more than he ever had before. At first, Grace didn't understand, and then she cried... what would her friends think if they ever knew? How could she do that with her father? But her mother kept telling her how she had to help them, how she owed it to them, how her mother would die if someone didn't help her, and maybe he would leave them, and then they'd be alone, with no one to take care of them. She painted a terrifying picture, and put the leaden mantle of responsibility on Grace's shoulders. The girl sagged at the weight of it, and the horror of what was expected of her. But they didn't wait to hear her answer. That night, they came into her room, and her mother helped him. She held her down, and crooned to her, and told her what a good girl she was, and how much they loved her. And afterwards, when they went back to their room, John held Ellen in his arms and thanked her. It was a lonely life for Grace after that. He didn't come to her every night, but almost. Sometimes she thought she would die of shame, and sometimes he really hurt her. She never told anyone, and eventually her mother stopped coming into the room with him. Grace knew what was expected of her, and that she had no choice except to do it. And when she argued with him, he'd hit her hard, and eventually she knew there was no way out, no choice. She did it for her, not for him. She submitted so he wouldn't beat her mother anymore, or leave them. But anytime Grace didn't cooperate with him, or do everything he asked, he went back to his own room and beat up her mother, no matter how sick she was, or how much pain she was in. |
| 382 |
For over four years now, he had done everything he could dream of with her, she was his very own love slave, his daughter. And the only thing her mother had done to protect Grace from him was get birth control pills for her so she wouldn't get pregnant. She had no friends at all once he started sleeping with her. She had had few enough before, because she was always afraid that someone would find out he was beating her mother, and Grace knew she had to protect them. But once she started sleeping with him, it was impossible to talk to any of the kids in school, or even the teachers. She was always sure they'd know, that they'd see something on her face, or her body, like a sign, like a malignancy that, unlike her mother, she wore on the outside. The malignancy was his, but she never really understood that. Until now. Now she knew that with her mother gone, she didn't have to do this. It had to stop. She just couldn't now. Not even for her mother. It was too much... and especially in this room. He had always come to Grace's room, and forced her to let him in. He had never dared take her in his own room. But now it was as though he expected her to step right into her mother's shoes, and fill them in ways that even her mother never could. It was as though he expected her to be his bride now. Even the way he talked to her was different. It was all out in the open. He expected her to be his woman. And as he looked at her body shimmering enticingly at him, her frantic pleas and arguments only served to arouse him further. He looked hard and ominous as he stood holding her in his powerful grip, and with a single gesture he threw her onto his bed, precisely where his invalid wife had lain until only two days before, and for all the empty years of their marriage. But this time, Grace struggled with him, she had already decided that she wasn't going to submit again, and as she fought with him, she realized that she had been crazy to think she could stay under the same roof with him, and not have the same nightmare continue. |
| 383 |
For a moment, she almost thought he might kill her. It had never been this way before, he had never hurt her as much as he did now. It was as though he were beating her with a fist from inside this time, and wanted to prove to her that he owned her and could do anything he wanted. It was almost beyond bearing and for an instant she thought she might faint, as the room swirled around her, and he hammered at her again and again, tearing at her breasts, chewing at her lips, forcing himself into her again and again, until she seemed to drift in a half state near death, wishing that finally, mercifully, he would kill her. But even as he ravished her, she knew she couldn't do this again. He couldn't do it to her, she couldn't survive it, for him, or anyone. She knew that she was within an inch of falling off the edge of a dangerous ledge, and suddenly as she fought and clawed at him, she knew through the blur that she was fighting for her survival. And then, without even knowing how she had remembered it, she knew that they had rolled closer to her mother's night table. For years now, there had been neat rows of pills there and a glass and a pitcher of water. She could have poured the water over him, or hit him with the pitcher, but it was gone. There were no more pills, no water, no glass, and no one to take them. But without thinking, Grace groped her hand along the table, as he continued to pound at her, shouting and grunting. He had slapped her hard several times across the face, but now he was only interested in punishing her with his sexual force and not his hands. He was squeezing her breasts, and pressing her into the bed. He had almost knocked the wind out of her, and her vision was still blurred from when he had hit her, but she felt the drawer of the night table open as she pulled at it, and then she felt the sleek cool steel of the gun her mother had hidden there against intruders. Ellen would never have dared to use it on her husband, or even to threaten him. |
| 384 |
Grace felt her fingers go around its smooth surfaces, and she got a grip on it, and brandished it above him, for an instant wanting to hit him with it, just to stop him. He was almost finished with her, but she couldn't let him do this to her again. She had to stop him, no matter what or how, she knew she had to stop him before it went any further. She couldn't survive this again. And tonight only told her that he intended this to be her fate for a lifetime. He wouldn't let her go anywhere, he would never let her leave or go to college, or do anything else. She would have no life except to service him, and she knew that whatever it took, she had to stop him. And as she held the gun in her shaking, flailing hand, he came with a huge shuddering shout that made her wince with pain and anguish and revulsion. Just hearing that again made her hate him. And as she pointed the gun at him, he looked up and saw it. "You little bitch!" he shouted at her, still shaken by the strength of his orgasm. No one had ever aroused him as Grace did. He wanted to take her and turn her inside out, tear her limb from limb, and devour her. Nothing excited him more than his own flesh, it was deeply primeval. And he was outraged now that she was still going to fight him. He moved to grab the gun from her, and she could see what he was going to do to her. He was going to beat her again and beating her always aroused him further. She couldn't let him do it, couldn't let him take her ever again. She had to save herself from him. He was still inside her, as he reached over to grab the gun from her, and in panic she squeezed the trigger as he tried to take it. He looked stunned for just an instant as the gun went off with a sound that terrified her, his eyes bulged, and then he fell down on her with a crushing weight. She had shot him through the throat, and he was bleeding profusely, but he wasn't moving. She tried to fight her way out from under him, and free herself from him, but she couldn't do it. |
| 385 |
She was clutching at straws. John Adams just wasn't that kind of guy. No one in Watseka would have believed it, no matter what Molly York thought, or the hospital told her. Two women officers came to pick Grace up in her cell half an hour later, handcuffed her again, and drove her to Mercy General in a small van with grilles on the windows. They didn't even talk to her. They just chatted to each other about the prisoners they'd transferred the day before, and the movie they were going to see that night, and the vacation one of them was saving up for in Colorado. And Grace was just as glad. She didn't have anything to say to them anyway. She was just wondering what they were going to do to her at the hospital. They had a locked ward they took her to in an elevator that went up directly from the garage, and when they got there, they uncuffed her and left her with a resident and an attendant. And they let Grace know in no uncertain terms that if she didn't behave herself they would handcuff her again and call a guard to control her. "You got that?" the attendant asked her bluntly, and Grace nodded. They didn't bother explaining anything to her. They just went down a list of tests that Dr. York had ordered. They took her temperature first, and her blood pressure, checked her eyes and ears and throat, and then listened to her heart. They did a urine test, and an extensive blood test, checking for illnesses as well as drug screens, and then they told her to undress and stand naked in front of them, and they checked her over carefully for bruises. She had a number of them that caught their interest, there were two on her breasts, several on her arms, and one on her buttocks, and then in spite of her efforts to conceal them from them, they discovered a bad one on her inner thigh where her father had grabbed her and squeezed her. It was high up, and led to another that surprised them further. They took photographs of all of them, despite her protests, and wrote extensive notes about them. |
| 386 |
She understood a lot better than he thought, or wanted her to, and she didn't like it. She thanked him for his time after that, and spent a long time thinking about Grace that night, and when her boyfriend came in from work at the hospital she told him all about it. He was exhausted from a twenty hour day in the emergency room, which had been an endless parade of gunshot wounds and car accidents, but he listened anyway. Molly was all wound up about the case. She and Richard Haverson had lived together for two years, and talked from time to time about getting married, but somehow they never did. But they got on well, and were familiar with each other's work. For both of them, it was the perfect arrangement. And he was as tall and lanky and blond and good looking as she was. "Sounds like the kid is screwed, if you ask me, there's no one to take her part in this, and it sounds like the father's partner wants her out of the way anyway, so he can get whatever money is left. Not a great situation from the sound of it. And if she won't admit that the old man was raping her, then what more can you say?" he said, looking tired, and she sipped coffee and stared at him in frustration. "I'm not sure yet. But I'm trying to think of something. I wish I could get her to tell me what really happened. I mean, hell, she didn't just wake up in the middle of the night, find a gun in her hand and decide to shoot him. They found her nightgown torn in half on the floor, but she wouldn't explain that either. All the evidence is there, for God's sake. She just won't help us use it." "You'll get to her eventually," he said confidently, but this time Molly looked worried. She had never had such a hard time reaching anyone. The girl was completely fossilized into a state of self destruction. Her parents had all but destroyed her, and she still wouldn't give them up. It was amazing. "I've never seen you lose one yet." He smiled at her and touched the long blond hair as he went out to the kitchen for a beer. |
| 387 |
David had gotten all the reports from the police by then, and Molly had brought her notes and the ones from the hospital to show him. He glanced at them as they rode upstairs, and raised an eyebrow when he saw the pictures. "It looks like someone hit her with a baseball bat," he said as he looked at them, and glanced at Molly. "She says nothing happened." Molly shook her head, and hoped that Grace was willing to open up to David. Her life literally depended on it, and she still wasn't sure that Grace understood that. They were led into the attorneys' room, with the two separate doors, and the table and four chairs. It was where Molly had met Grace before and at least it would be familiar to her. They sat down for a few minutes and waited for her. David lit a cigarette and offered one to Molly but she declined it. It was a full five minutes before the guard appeared at the window in the door to the jail, as the heavy door was unlocked, and Grace stood looking at them hesitantly. She was wearing the same jeans and T shirt. There was no one to bring her clothes, and she had nothing else with her. All she had was what she had worn the night she had killed her father and been arrested. He watched her carefully as she entered the room, she was tall and thin and graceful, and in some ways she looked young and shy, but when she turned to look at him, he saw that her eyes were a dozen years older. There was something so sad and defeated there, and she moved like a doe about to dash away into the forest. She stood staring at them, not sure what to make of their visit. She had spent four hours with the police that day, answering questions, and she was exhausted. They had advised her that she had the right to have an attorney present at the questioning but she had already admitted to shooting her father, and didn't think there was any harm in answering their questions. She had gotten the message that David Glass was going to be her attorney, and he would be over to see her later. |
| 388 |
They thought she was strange, and she had obviously "snapped," as they put it, when her mom died. It was easy to construct it that way, and to think what the police did, that she had been after an inheritance, or that she had some kind of a temper tantrum, or a fight with him. It was difficult for anyone to believe that John Adams had led a life of utter perversion for four years, at the expense of his wife and daughter. And even more impossible for anyone to believe that he had beaten his wife for years before that. But no matter how little corroborating evidence there was, David never doubted her for a moment. Her story had the ring of truth, and throughout the summer he worked with her, trying to find evidence, and build a case to defend her. She had finally agreed to tell her story to the police, but they had refused to believe her. They thought it was a clever defense fashioned by her attorney and attempts to plea bargain with the prosecution on her behalf had gotten him nowhere. Like the police, the prosecution wouldn't buy it. In a moment of desperation, David had gone to the D.A., fearing a life sentence or the death penalty for her, but the D.A. wouldn't budge. He didn't believe her story either. There was nothing left to do now except take the same story to the jury. The trial was set for the first week in September. She turned eighteen in jail. She was in a cell by herself by then, and the newspapers had been hounding her all summer. They would show up at the jail, and ask for interviews. And now and then the guards would let them in to take her picture. The reporters would slip them a crisp bill or two and the next thing she knew they were outside her cell, with their flashbulbs. Once they even got a picture of her on the toilet. And the whole story she'd told the police had long since come out in the papers. It was everything she hadn't wanted. She felt she had betrayed herself, and her parents, but David had convinced her it was her only hope to stay out of prison or worse, the death penalty. |
| 389 |
The prosecution presented their case, and it was powerfully damning. According to them, she had planned to kill her father the night of her mother's funeral, to inherit what little they had left before he could spend it, or remarry. She had had no idea that she could never inherit from him if she killed him. Photographs presented as evidence showed her father to be an attractive man, and the prosecution implied repeatedly that Grace was in love with him, her very own father. So much so that she had not only tried to seduce him that night, by tearing her nightgown in half and exposing herself to him, now that her mother was gone, but she had also gone so far as to accuse him of rape after she killed him. There was evidence that she had had intercourse that night, they explained, but nothing supported the theory that it had been with her father. And what they suspected was that she had snuck off to meet someone that night, and when her father scolded her, she had tried to seduce him, and when he turned her down, Grace then killed him. The prosecution was asking for a verdict of murder with intent to kill, which required an indeterminate sentence in prison, or even the death penalty. Hers was a heinous crime, the prosecutor told the jury and the people in the courtroom, which included an army of reporters from all over the country, and she had to pay for it to the ultimate degree. There would be no mercy for a girl who would wantonly kill her own father, and afterwards besmirch his reputation in an attempt to save herself from prison. It was agonizing listening to what they said about her, it was like listening to them talk about someone else, as scores of people paraded to the witness stand to praise her father. Most of them said she was either shy, or strange. And her father's law partner gave the worst testimony of all. He claimed that she had asked him repeatedly the day of the funeral about her father's financial state, and what was left, after her mother's long illness. |
| 390 |
He put Molly on the witness stand, and finally, Grace herself, and she was deeply moving. In any other town, she would have convinced anyone made of stone, but not in this one. The people of Wat seka loved John Adams, and they didn't want to believe her. People were talking about it everywhere. In stores, in restaurants. It was constantly all over the papers. Even the local TV news carried daily reports of the trial, and flashed photographs of Grace on the screen at every opportunity. It was endless. The jury deliberated for three days, and David and Grace and Molly sat waiting in the courtroom. And when they got tired of it, they walked the halls for hours, with a guard walking quietly behind them. Grace was so used to handcuffs now, she hardly noticed when they put them on, except when they put them on too tightly on purpose. That usually happened with deputies who had known and liked her father. And it was stranger than ever to realize that if the jury acquitted her, she would suddenly be free again. She would walk away from all of this, as though it had never happened. But as the days droned on, it seemed less than likely that she would win her freedom. David tormented himself over the obstacles he'd been unable to overcome. And Molly sat and held Grace's hand. The three of them had become very close in the past two months. They were the only friends Grace had ever had, and she had slowly come not only to trust them, but to love them. The judge had instructed the jury that they had four choices for their verdict. Murder, with premeditated intent to kill, which could call for the death penalty, if they believed that she had plotted in advance to kill her father, and knew that her acts would result in his death. Voluntary manslaughter, if she had indeed wanted to kill him, but not planned it, but believed falsely that she was justified in killing him, because she felt he was harming her at the time. Voluntary manslaughter would require a sentence of up to twenty years. |
| 391 |
Involuntary manslaughter if he had been harming her, and she had intended to hurt or resist him or cause him great bodily harm, but not kill him, but her "reckless" behavior had caused his death. Involuntary manslaughter would put her in prison for anywhere from one to ten years. And justifiable force if they believed her story that he had raped her that night and over the previous four years, and she was defending herself against his potentially life threatening attack on her person. David had addressed them powerfully, and demanded justice in the form of a verdict of "defense with the use of justifiable force" for this innocent young girl who had suffered so much and lived a life of torture at the hands of her parents. He had made her tell all of it to the jury. That was her only hope now. It was a late September afternoon when the jury finally came in, and Grace almost fainted when she heard the verdict. The foreman rose solemnly, and announced that they had reached a verdict. She had been found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. They believed that John Adams had done something to her, though they were not quite sure what, and they did not believe that he had raped her, then or ever. But he had hurt her possibly, and two of the women on the jury had been insistent that even good men sometimes had dark secrets. There had been enough doubt in their minds for them to shy away from murder one and the death penalty. But the next step down from there was voluntary manslaughter, and that was how they had charged her. They believed, as the judge had explained in his instructions to them, that Grace had believed falsely, and therein lay the key, that she was justified in killing her father. Because of his glowing reputation in the community, they had been unable to accept that her father had been truly harming her, but they did believe that Grace had believed that, though incorrectly. Voluntary manslaughter carried a sentence of up to twenty years, at the judge's discretion. |
| 392 |
And in the end, because of her extreme youth, and the fact that Grace herself had believed it to be both a crime of passion and of justifiable defense, the judge gave her two years in prison, and two years probation. Considering the possibilities, it was something of a gift, but it sounded like a lifetime to Grace as she listened to the words, and tried to force herself to understand it. In some ways, she thought death might have been easier. The judge had agreed to seal her records too, because of her age, and in the hope of not damaging her life any further when she got out of prison. But Grace couldn't help wondering what would happen to her now. What would they do to her in prison? In jail, she had had the occasional scare, of other women threatening her, or taking her magazines or her toothpaste. Molly had been bringing things like that to her, and Frank Wills had reluctantly agreed to give her a few hundred dollars of her father's money, when David asked him. But in jail, the women came and went in a few days, and she never felt truly in danger. She was there the longest by far, and on the worst charges. But prison would be filled with women who really had committed murder. She looked up at the judge with dry eyes and a look of sorrow. She was a person whose life had long since been lost, and she knew it. She had never had a chance from the first. For Grace, it was already over. Molly saw that look too, and she squeezed her hand as she stood beside her. Grace left the courtroom in handcuffs and leg irons this time. She was no longer merely the accused, she was a convicted felon. That night, Molly went to see her in jail, before they transferred her to Dwight Correctional Center the next morning. There was so little she could say to her, but she didn't want Grace to give up hope. One day, there would be a new life for her. If she could just hold on till she got there. David had been to see her too, and he was beside himself over the verdict. He blamed himself for failing her, but Grace didn't blame him. |
| 393 |
They talked about her for hours sometimes, and the injustice of all she'd been through. And now there was going to be more. She was going to have to be very strong. Molly held her in her arms that night as she cried, and prayed that somewhere she would find the strength to survive whatever she had to. Just the thought of it made Molly tremble for her. "Will you visit me?" Grace asked in a small voice, as Molly sat next to her with an arm around her shoulders. Lately, she had talked about her constantly. Even Richard was tired of hearing about Grace, and so were all of Molly's friends and fellow doctors. Like David, she was obsessed with her, and only he seemed to understand what she was feeling. But the injustices she'd suffered for so long, the pain, and now the danger she would be in night and day were a constant worry to both David and Molly. They felt like her parents. Molly cried when she left her too, and promised to drive to Dwight the following weekend. David was already planning to take a day off to see her, to discuss her appeal, and make sure she was as comfortable as possible in her surroundings. It didn't sound like a pleasant place, from all he'd heard, and like Molly, he would have done anything he could to change it. But their efforts hadn't been enough for her, no matter how hard they had tried or how much they cared about her. No matter what they had done for her, and they had done all they could with whatever resources had been available to them, it hadn't been enough to save her, or win her an acquittal. In all fairness to David, the cards had been stacked against her. "Thanks for everything," she said quietly to David the next morning when he came to say goodbye to her at seven in the morning. "You did everything you could. Thank you," she whispered, and kissed him on the cheek, as he hugged her, willing her to survive and remain as whole as possible during her two years in prison. He knew that, if she chose to, she could do it. There was a great deal of inner strength in her. |
| 394 |
It surprised Grace that many of them seemed so friendly. Yet there was still an aura of menace. The guards were armed, there were signs everywhere warning of danger or penalties or punishments, for escaping, or assaulting a guard, or breaking the rules. And the prisoners coming in with her looked like a rough group, particularly in what was left of their street clothes. Grace was wearing a clean pair of jeans and a pale blue sweater Molly had bought her as a gift. She just hoped the authorities would let her keep it. "Okay, girls." A shrill whistle blew, and six female guards in uniform, wearing guns, lined up at the front of the room, looking like coaches on a ladies' wrestling team, "Strip. Everything you have on in a pile on the floor at your feet. Down to bare ass nothing, please." The whistle blew again to stop them from talking, and the woman with the whistle introduced herself as Sergeant Freeman. Half of the guards were black, the others white, which was fairly representative of the mix of the prison population. Grace carefully took her sweater off, and folded it on the floor at her feet. One of the officers had un cuffed them, and now she was going around removing the circlet of steel around their waists that the chains were attached to, and the leg irons so they could remove their jeans. It was a great relief to have the leg irons off, and Grace slipped out of her shoes. She was surprised when the whistle blew again, and they told them all to take everything out of their hair, any rubber bands or bobby pins. They were to let their hair loose, and as she slipped the rubber band off her long ponytail, her dark auburn hair fell in a silken sheet well past her shoulders. "Nice hair," a woman behind her murmured, and Grace did not turn around to see her. It made her uncomfortable knowing the woman was watching her as she took the rest of her clothes off. And in a few minutes, all their clothes were in little piles on the floor, along with their jewelry, their glasses, their hair accessories. |
| 395 |
They used insecticides on any area with hair, and sprayed lice shampoo on them, and then hosed them down again. At the end of it, they reeked of chemicals and Grace felt as though she'd been boiled in disinfectants. Their belongings were placed in plastic bags with their names, anything forbidden had to be sent back at their own expense, or disposed of on the spot, like Grace's jeans, but she was pleased that she was allowed to keep her sweater. They were issued uniforms then, a set of rough sheets, many of which had blood and urine stains on them, and given a slip of paper with their B numbers and their cells, and then they were led away for a brief orientation as to the rules, and they were told that they would each be given job assignments the following morning. Depending on their jobs, they would be paid between two and four dollars a month for working, failure to show up for work would result in an immediate trip to the hole for a week. Failure to appear a second time would result in a month in the hole. Failure to cooperate generally would wind them up in solitary for six months with nothing to do and no one to talk to. "Make it easy on yourselves, girls," the guard in charge of orienting them said in no uncertain terms, "play it our way. It's the only way to go at Dwight." "Yeah, bullshit," a voice whispered to Grace's right, but it was impossible to tell who it was. It had been a disembodied whisper. In a way, they made it sound easy. All you had to do was play their game, go to work, go to chow, stay out of trouble, go back to your cell on time, and you'd do easy time and get out right on schedule. Fight with anyone, join a gang, threaten a guard, break the rules, and you'd be there forever. Try to escape and you were "dead meat hanging on the fence," or so they said. They certainly made themselves clear, but there was more to it than just pleasing them, you had to live with the other inmates too, and they looked as tough as the guards, or worse, and they had a whole other agenda. |
| 396 |
She wasn't going to be worth the trouble she caused if they didn't. But this time, they had to give her some other medication as well, because the attack had gotten too far out of hand in the past half hour. Grace knew only too well that without her medicine, she could die from suffocation. But at this point, she wasn't totally convinced that that wouldn't be a blessing. She arrived at dinner half an hour later, shaken and pale, and most of the edible food was gone, the rest was all grit and grease and bone, and the stuff no one had wanted. She wasn't hungry anyway, the asthma attack had made her feel sick, and the medicine always made her feel shaky. She was too upset to eat anyway. She wanted to thank Sally for taking her to the nurse, but she didn't dare speak to her when she saw her with a group of tough older women, covered with tattoos, and Sally gave no sign of recognition. "What'll it be? Filet mignon, or roast duck?" a pretty black girl asked from behind the counter, and then she smiled at Grace. "Actually, I've got a couple of slices of pizza left in the back. Any interest?" "Yeah, thanks," Grace smiled, looking exhausted. "Thanks a lot." The young black girl produced them for her, and watched as Grace made her way to a table. She sat down at an empty place at a table with three other girls, no one said hello or seemed to notice her. And across the room, she could see Angela, from the bus, with a group of women, engaged in lively conversation. But this group seemed to want nothing to do with her, and she was grateful to keep to herself, and eat her slice of pizza. She was still having trouble breathing. "My, my, what a pretty little fish you have at your table today, girls," a voice said from behind her as she sipped her coffee. Grace didn't move when she heard the words, but she felt herself jostled by someone standing directly behind her. She tried to pretend she didn't know what was happening, and she stared straight ahead, but she could see that the other young women at her table were looking nervous. |
| 397 |
But she seemed to keep an eye on her from a distance. Molly had been to see her once by then, and she was devastated by what she heard and saw there. But Grace insisted that she was all right. And much to her own surprise, no one had really bothered her. They called her a fish whenever they got the chance, and Brenda had stopped to talk to her again once or twice at chow, but it never went beyond that. She hadn't even tweaked Grace's breast again. So far, she felt pretty lucky. She was safe, she had a decent job. Her roommate was taciturn, but basically kind. No one had threatened her, or invited her to join a gang. It looked like what they called "easy time." At this rate, she would survive the two years. And she was in pretty good spirits when David saw her, which reassured him. He hated her being there, and he felt more than ever that she didn't belong there, but at least nothing untoward had happened to her, and she insisted that she wasn't in any danger. It was something to be cheered about at least. And they spent their time together talking about her future. She had already made up her mind that after she did her time at Dwight, she was going to Chicago. She had to stay in the state for two years of probation, but Chicago would suit her perfectly. And the fifty thousand dollars of her father's that Frank Wills had given her would give her a nest egg. She wanted to get a job when she got out, but before that, she wanted to learn to type, and take her college courses, as soon as she could start them. David told her about the appeal, and he was encouraging, but it was hard to say what would happen. "Don't worry about it. I'm okay here," she said gently, and as he watched her leave the visiting room that afternoon, he marveled at the quiet dignity of her carriage. She held herself straight, and she was thinner than she had ever been. She looked beautiful and neat and clean, and it was hard to believe, looking at her, that she was an inmate in a prison. She looked like a college girl, or a cheerleader. |
| 398 |
This was it. A gang rape using God knows what, and maybe carving her face off with a knife. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this, not even her father. She was breathless as she hopped off her bunk, still clutching her pen and her letter in her hand. And then, with a smooth gesture, she turned, as though to set it down, and as she did, and left the paper on Sally's bunk, she wrote one small word. Brenda. Maybe it would be too late. And maybe Sally couldn't help her, or wouldn't even want to. But it was all she could do, as she left the cell between Brenda and Jane. She was about as tall as they were, but she looked like a child next to them, and in many ways she was. She knew nothing of women like them. She was surprised when they didn't take her to their cell, but walked past the gym instead, and then outdoors, as though they wanted to get some air. The guards were watching them, but the guards saw nothing untoward about three women going for a walk outside before lockdown. A lot of the women did that to get some air, or have a smoke, or just relax before they went to bed. And Brenda joked with the guards as they walked by them. Jane stayed close to Grace. The knife in her hand out of sight, but held close to Grace's neck, as she draped an arm casually over her shoulder. They looked like they were friends, and no one seemed to notice Grace's terror. And once outside, Brenda wandered over to a small shed that Grace had never even noticed. The guards in the tower weren't watching them. There was no danger there, it was just an old shed with no windows they used to store maintenance equipment. Brenda had a key to it, and the moment she opened the door, the threesome disappeared inside. There were four more women in there, leaning against the machinery that was stored, smoking cigarettes, and holding a single flashlight. It was the perfect place for anything they wanted to do to her, even kill her. "Welcome to our little clubhouse," Brenda said, laughing at her. |
| 399 |
They wanted nothing from her, not sex, not money, they felt sorry for her, and they both knew she didn't belong there. But from that day on, things changed. People stayed away from Grace, and treated her with respect. No one hassled her, no one whistled or jeered. It was as though she didn't exist. She led a sort of charmed life, going her own way in the jungle, amidst the lions and the snakes and the alligators. And her only friends were Sally and Luana. She had gotten religious while she was there. And her asthma was troubling her less than it had in years. She had started her correspondence course from the local junior college. She could finish in two years, and go to school at night to get her B.A. once she got out. She was taking secretarial classes too, to help her find a job when she got out and went to Chicago. Even David saw a change in her in time. When he visited her, he saw that there was a quiet confidence, and an odd peace about her. It allowed her to accept the news philosophically when he told her that they had lost the appeal, and she would have to serve her full two year sentence. It had been exactly a year since her conviction, and David could barely bring himself to believe that they had lost again, but she took it very calmly. It was Grace who consoled him, when he told her how badly he felt to have failed her yet again, but she reminded him that it wasn't his fault. He had done his best. And all she had to do now was survive another year there. It wasn't easy, but all she could do now was look forward. It touched him more than ever as he listened to her, but it pained him too. He found that he came to see her less often because seeing her always reminded him of all that he hadn't been able to accomplish for her. He still had an odd kind of obsession with her. She was so beautiful, so young, so pure, and she had had such rotten luck in her short life, and yet, despite all he felt for her, he had been able to do nothing to change it. It made him feel helpless and angry and inadequate. |
| 400 |
She had been bored to death hearing about the wedding for weeks, but now she was worried for them, and wanted to reassure Grace. It really was unlikely that that was their plane. But a week later, after seven sleepless nights, and endless days, she knew it. She had written to the hospital, inquiring if Molly was okay, and had received a sad letter explaining to her that Dr. York and Dr. Haverson had died in the crash she'd heard about, on their honeymoon. The letter said that the whole hospital was in mourning. Grace went to bed that day, and three days later she hadn't gotten up yet. Sally had covered for her as best she could, and so had Lu. They claimed it was her asthma again, and that she'd had a terrible time getting any relief, even from her pills and her inhaler. Her inhaler was familiar to everyone by now, and she no longer worried about using it. With Lu watching over her, no one was liable to take it from her, or steal it. But the nurse knew this time when she came to their cell that it wasn't asthma that was bothering her. Grace wouldn't even answer her. She just lay there, staring at the wall, and refusing to get up, or even answer. Molly had been her only friend, and with David so far away, now she really had no one to turn to. Grace was alone again, except for her two friends in prison. The nurse had told her she had to go back to work the next day, and she was lucky they hadn't already sent her to the hole for not showing up at work for two days. But she was pushing her luck now. And the next day, she made no effort to get up, in spite of all of Sally and Luana's threats and pleas. She just lay there, wishing herself dead, like Molly. They took her to the hole that day, and left her there in the dark, with no clothes, and only one meal a day. And when she came back, she looked rail thin and very pale, but Sally could see from her eyes that she was alive again, deeply hurt, but she had turned the corner. She never mentioned Molly again after that day. |
| 401 |
But when she saw the kinds of people on the street by the hotels, she hated to go inside them. There were prostitutes hanging around, people renting rooms by the hour, and there were even two cockroaches on the desk in one hotel when she rang the bell for the desk clerk. "Day, night, or hour?" he asked, shooing the cockroaches aside. Even Dwight hadn't been as bad as that. It was a lot cleaner. "Do you have prices by the week?" "Sure. Sixty five bucks a week," he said without batting an eye, and it sounded expensive to her, but she didn't know where else to try. She took a single room with private bath on the fourth floor for seven days, and then she went out to find a restaurant to get something to eat. Two bums stopped her and asked her for change, and a hooker on the corner looked her over, wondering what a kid like her was doing in this neighborhood. Littie did they know that a "kid like her" had just been at Dwight. And no matter how seedy the neighborhood was, she was glad to be free. It meant everything to walk the streets again, to look up at the sky, to walk into a restaurant, a store, to buy a newspaper, a magazine, to ride a bus. She even took a tour of Chicago that night, and was stunned by how beautiful it was. And feeling extravagant, she took a cab back to her hotel. The prostitutes were still there, and the johns, but she paid no attention to them. She just took her key, and went upstairs. She locked her door, and read the papers she'd bought, looking for employment agencies. And the next day, with the newspaper in hand, she hit the streets and started looking. She went to three agencies, and they wanted to know how much experience she had, where she'd worked before, where she'd been. She told them she was from Watseka, had graduated from junior college there, and had taken secretarial courses in shorthand and typing. She admitted that she had no experience at all, hence no references, and they told her that they couldn't help her find work as a secretary without them. |
| 402 |
The group at the apartment got along splendidly. They never fought over bills, everyone paid their share of the rent, they were each nice to the other girls. They bought each other small gifts, and were generous with groceries. It was really the perfect arrangement. And Grace had never been happier in her life. Every day she wondered if it was real, or if she was dreaming. The girls even tried to fix her up with their friends, but she drew the line at that. Groceries were one thing, but gifts of men were of no interest. She had no desire to go out with anyone, or complicate her life. At twenty, she was perfectly content to stay home and read a book, or watch TV at night. Every little freedom she had was a gift to her, and she wanted nothing more from life. Certainly not romance. Just the thought of it terrified her. She had no desire to go out with anyone, possibly ever. Her roommates teased her about it at first, and then eventually, they decided she had a secret life. Two of them were sure she was seeing a married man, particularly when she started going out regularly, three times a week, on Monday and Thursday nights, and all day Sunday. During the week she would leave direcdy from work, and change there, and more often than not, she was home after midnight. She had thought of telling them the truth, but eventually the fantasy that she was seeing someone worked a lot better for her. It made them leave her alone and stop trying to fix her up with their friends. In fact, in terms of how she wanted to live, it was perfect. And the truth was that her three times a week trysts were the heart and soul of her existence. Once she'd gotten settled in the town house with the girls, she had started looking for a place to work three times a week. Not for pay, but to give back some of what she had gotten out of life. She felt too fortunate not to do something to help others. It was something she had always promised herself, as she lay on her bunk at night, chatting with Sally, or while she worked out with Luana. |
| 403 |
It had taken her a month to find the right place to volunteer. There had been no one she could ask, but she had read a number of articles, and there had been a special on TV about St. Mary's. It was a crisis center for women and children in an old brownstone, and when she'd first gone there, she was shocked at the condition it was in. Paint was chipping off the walls, there were bare bulbs hanging from sockets. There were kids shouting and running around everywhere, and dozens of women. Most of them looked poor, some were pregnant, all were desperate. And the one thing they had in common was that they had all been abused, some to within an inch of their lives. Many of them were scarred, some no longer functioned normally, or had been in institutions. The place was run by Dr. Paul Weinberg, a young psychologist who reminded her of David Glass, and after the first time she'd been there, Grace found herself aching for Molly. She would have loved to talk to her, and tell her all about it. It had been a deeply moving experience just being there. The place was mostly staffed by volunteers, and there was only a handful of paid employees, most of them doing internships for psych degrees, some of them registered nurses. The women and children living in the crisis center needed medical care, psychological help, they needed a place to live, they needed clothes, they needed tender loving care, they needed a hand to get out of the abyss they were in. Even for Grace, going to St. Mary's every week was like a light shining in the darkness. It was a place where souls were restored, and people were made whole again, as whole as they ever would be. Just helping them helped her. It made her whole life worth something just to go there. She had volunteered for three shifts a week of seven hours each, which was a tremendous commitment. But it was a place where Grace felt at peace herself, and where she could bring peace to others. The women there had experienced many of the same things she had, and so had the children. |
| 404 |
In the end, in spite of herself, she let him go to the commercial with them, and he was very helpful. There were so many people there that no one even noticed an extra body on the set. All the models seemed to like him a lot. He was bright, he was fun and he wasn't as arrogant as a lot of the photographers were. He seemed like a terrific guy, and after he had shown up at the agency every day for a week, Grace finally relented and let him take her out to dinner. It was the first date she had had since Paul Weinberg. Marcus couldn't believe she was only twenty one when she told him, she was so mature for her age, and she had a sophisticated look to her that made her seem older. She still wore her thick auburn hair pulled straight back, but she often wore it in a chignon now, and she wore the kind of clothes she saw the models wear, whenever she could afford them. But Marcus was used to young girls who looked older than they were. Once or twice, he'd even been foolish enough to go out with fifteen year old models, thinking they were older. "So what do you do yourself when you're not working?" he asked with interest over dinner at Gordon. He had just found a studio, it was a sensational loft, he'd explained, with living quarters and everything he needed. "I keep busy enough." She had started bicycling, and one of her new roommates was teaching her to play tennis. They were pastimes she'd never had time for before. The only sports she'd ever done were a little weight lifting and some jogging in prison, but she wasn't about to tell him about her two years at Dwight. She never intended to tell anyone that, for the rest of her life. She had taken Luana's advice to heart, and left it firmly behind her. "Do you have a lot of friends?" he asked, intrigued by her, she was very closed and very private, and yet he sensed that there was a wealth of woman within her. "Enough," she smiled, but the truth was, she didn't, and he had already heard that. He had asked a lot of people about her. |
| 405 |
Cheryl was going to love these. "Am I getting any closer, Grace?... to your heart, I mean," he whispered sensually, and she felt a hot flush shoot through her. The wine had made her feel woozy, and she remembered that she hadn't bothered to eat breakfast. It had been stupid to drink wine on an empty stomach, and he'd already poured her a second one, and she was halfway through it. She didn't usually drink wine in the daytime, and she was surprised at how strong this was, when he asked her shyly to take off her jeans, pointing out that the shirt was long enough to cover her completely. In fact it was halfway to her knees, but she balked at taking her jeans off. But finally, when he promised her again that he wouldn't even show Cheryl the shots, she slipped them off, and lay back against the fur again with bare legs and feet and only his shirt covering her, unbuttoned to the waist, but not revealing anything. Her breasts were covered. She felt herself drift off to sleep slowly then, as she lay on the chair, and when she woke up he was kissing her, and she felt his hands caressing her all over. She felt his lips and hands, and she kept hearing clicks, and seeing flashes, but she couldn't tell what was happening, everything was swirling around her, and she kept drifting off and waking up. She felt sick, but she couldn't move, or stop, or get up, or open her eyes and he kept kissing her, and then she felt him touching her, and for a minute she thought she felt an old familiar feeling of terror, but when she opened her eyes again, she knew she had been dreaming. Marcus was standing there, looking down at her, and smiling at her. Her mouth felt dry, and she felt strangely nauseous. "What's happening?" She felt frightened and sick, and there were spots in front of her eyes now, and he was just standing there, laughing. "I think the wine got the best of you." "I'm really sorry." She was mortified, but then he knelt down next to her and kissed her so hard it made her dizzy again. |
| 406 |
She had a little more style than necessary, but the office manager figured she'd tone it down. She was a bright girl, and he really liked her. She had been hired as the assistant joint secretary for two of the junior partners. They shared two women, and Grace's counterpart was three times her age and twice her weight, and seemed relieved to have all the help she could get. She told Grace on her first day of work that Tom and Bill were nice guys and very reasonable to work for. Both were married, and had blond wives, one lived in Stamford, the other in Darien, and each had three children. In some ways, they seemed like twins to Grace, but so did most of the men there. There seemed to be a sea of young men working there who basically looked the same to her. And all they ever talked about was their cases. Everyone commuted to Connecticut or Long Island, most of them played squash, some belonged to clubs, and all of the secretaries seemed equally faceless. It was precisely the anonymous world that Grace had wanted. No one seemed to notice her at all as she started work. She fit in instantly, did her work, and no one asked her a single question about who she was, where she had worked, or where she'd come from. No one cared. This was New York. And she loved it. And that weekend, she found an apartment. It was at Eighty fourth and First. She could take the subway to work, or the bus, and she could afford the rent comfortably on her salary. She'd sold her bed and furniture to the girl who took her place in Chicago, and she went to Macy's and bought a few things, but was worried to find them so expensive. One of the girls at work told her about a discount furniture place in Brooklyn, and she went there one night on the subway after work, and smiled to herself as she rode alone. She had never felt so grown up and so free, so much the mistress of her own fate. For the first time in her life, no one was controlling her, or threatening her, or trying to hurt her. No one wanted anything from her at all. |
| 407 |
It was almost as though they pretended not to see her. She wondered sometimes if her youth was threatening to them, or if their wives would have been annoyed, or if Winnie was less of a threat to them, and more comfortable. But it didn't seem to matter. They never said anything of a personal nature to Grace, and while they made jokes with Winnie sometimes, they were always poker faced with Grace, as though they were being particularly careful not to get to know her. It was a far cry from Bob Swanson, but she liked that a lot about her job. The week before Thanksgiving, she spent some time on her lunch hour making a few personal phone calls. She had meant to do it for a while, but she'd been busy settling into her apartment. But now it was time to start giving back again. It was something she intended to do for the rest of her life, something she felt she owed the people who had helped her. It was a debt she would never stop paying back. And it was time to begin again now. She finally found what she was looking for. The place was called St. Andrew's Shelter, and it was on the Lower East Side, on Delancey. There was a young priest in charge, and he had invited her to come down and meet them the following Sunday morning. She took the subway down Lexington, changed trains, and got off at Delancey, and walked the rest of the way. It was a rough walk, she realized once she got there. There were bums wandering the streets aimlessly, drunks hunched over in doorways, dozing, or lying openly on the sidewalks. There were warehouses and tenements, and battered looking stores with heavy gates. There were abandoned cars here and there, and some tough looking kids cruising for trouble. They glanced at Grace as she walked along, but no one bothered her. And finally, she got to St. Andrew's. It was an old brownstone that looked like it was in pretty bad shape, with paint peeling off the doors, and a sign that was barely hanging by a thread, but there were people coming in and out, mostly women with kids, and a few young girls. |
| 408 |
They were friendly looking women in their early thirties. One was wearing a sweat suit, and the other jeans and a threadbare sweater. And Sister Eugene volunteered to take Grace upstairs to show her around the rooms where the women stayed, and the nursery where they sometimes kept the children, if the women were too battered to deal with them for the time being themselves. There was an infirmary staffed by a nurse who was a nun, and she was wearing a clean white smock over blue jeans. The lights were kept dim, and Sister Eugene walked Grace in on soundless feet, as she signaled to the nurse on duty. And as Grace looked around her at the women in the beds, her heart twisted as she recognized the signs she had lived her entire life with. Merciless beatings and heartrending bruises. Two women had arms in casts, one had cigarette burns all over her face, and another was moaning as the nurse tried to bandage her broken ribs again, and put ice packs on her swollen eyes. Her husband was in jail now. "We send the worst cases to the hospital," Sister Eugene explained quietly as they left the room again. Without thinking, Grace had stopped to touch a hand, and the woman had looked at her in suspicion. That was another thing Grace was familiar with too. These women were sometimes so far gone and so badly treated that they didn't trust anyone anymore not to hurt them. "But we keep whoever we can here, it's less upsetting for them. And sometimes it's only bruises. The really ugly stuff goes to the emergency room." Like the woman who'd come in two nights before whose husband had put a hot iron to her face, after hitting her with a tire iron on the back of her head. He had almost killed her, but she was so terrified of him, she had refused to bring charges. The authorities had taken their children away from them, and they were in foster homes now. But the woman had to be willing to save herself, and many of them didn't have the courage to do it. Being battered was the most isolating thing in the world. |
| 409 |
And then he chatted with her for a few minutes and read the paper. He didn't seem particularly interested in her, and she could tell that one of his phone calls had been to a woman. She knew that there was a well known socialite who called him fre quently at the office, and he sounded as though he liked her. But Grace didn't get the feeling that he was madly in love with anyone at the moment. They flew to Los Angeles in first class, and he worked most of the way there, while Grace watched the movie. He was going out to help put together the financial end of a big movie deal for one of his clients. The client had an entertainment lawyer on the West Coast, but Mackenzie represented the big money in the deal, and it was interesting watching him put it together. It was even more interesting once they got to L.A. They arrived at noon, local time, and went straight to the offices of the entertainment lawyer, and Grace was fascinated by the meetings that took place all day. They were there till six o'clock, which was nine o'clock for her and Charles Mackenzie. He had a dinner date after that, and he dropped her off at the hotel, and told her to charge anything she wanted to the room. They were staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and she had to admit she was excited by four movie stars she saw just passing through the lobby. She tried to get David Glass's number that night, but he wasn't listed in Beverly Hills or L.A. And she was disappointed. She hadn't heard from him in years, but she would have loved to try to see him. She had a feeling, though, that his wife had wanted him to break the connection with her. She'd divined that just from little things he'd said in his letters. And now she hadn't heard from him at all since the birth of their first baby. It would have been nice to tell him that she was doing well, had a good job, and was happy with her new life. She hoped that all was well with him and was sorry that she couldn't reach him. She still thought of him sometimes, and now and then she missed him. |
| 410 |
Charles dropped him off at the shelter in a cab, and then drove uptown, after promising to stay in touch with the young priest. He liked him. And Charles had also promised to come and visit the center. He was going to, too, he wanted to know more about Grace, and that was one way to do it. Charles went back to visit Grace for the next three days, canceling his lunches to be there, even one with his producer friend, but he didn't want to let Grace down. When they moved her to a private room, Charles brought Winnie to the hospital with him. She cried when she saw Grace, and wrung her hands, and kissed her on the only tiny patch of her face with no bandages or bruises. She looked slightly better by then. A lot of the swelling had gone down, but everything hurt, and she found she could hardly move, between her ribs and her head, and her pelvis. Her kidneys were healing well, and the doctor said she wouldn't miss her spleen, but she was pretty miserable, every inch of her ached and felt as though it had been shattered. On Saturday, almost a week after the accident, the nurse Charles had insisted on hiring for her coaxed her out of bed and made her walk to the bathroom. It hurt so much to do it that she almost fainted, but she celebrated her victory with a glass of fruit juice when she got back to bed. She was sheet white, but smiling, when Charles arrived with a huge bunch of spring flowers. He had been bringing flowers for her daily, and magazines, and candy, and books. He had wanted to cheer her up, and he wasn't sure how to do it. "What are you doing here?" She looked embarrassed to see him, and it brought a little color back to her face when she blushed. "Today's Saturday, don't you have something better to do?" she scolded him, sounding more like herself than she had in days. She looked more like herself too. Her face looked like a rainbow of blues and greens and purples, but the swelling was almost all gone, and the stitches were healing so well you almost couldn't see them. |
| 411 |
She could get around more easily on crutches by then, and take care of herself, but she still didn't have as much stamina as she would have liked. The doctor told her to wait another two weeks before she went back to work. At the office, Charles was making do with temps, and Grace felt terribly guilty about it, but he was the first one to tell her not to rush back to work, not to come back in fact, until she was ready. They spent hours together while she was in the hospital. She knew he'd had to cancel almost all his plans to be with her, but he pretended not to even notice. They laughed, and they talked, and played cards, and he joked with her. He didn't force any confidences from her, and he helped her walk down the hall, and promised her you couldn't see a single scar, and when she complained about how horrible the hospital gowns were, he brought her exquisite nightgowns from Pratesi. In a way, it was all embarrassing, and she was still terrified of where it would all lead, but she was no longer able to stop it. If he didn't come to lunch, she didn't eat, and if he had to miss an evening with her, she was so lonely she could barely stand it. Every time she saw his face appear in the doorway of her hospital room, she looked like a child who had found its only friend, or its teddy bear, or even its mother. He took care of everything for her, talked to the doctors, called in consultants, filed her insurance. No one at the office knew how involved he was with her, and even Winnie had no idea how much time he was spending with her. Grace had had a lifetime of practice at keeping secrets. But once she went home, she was frightened again that everything would change. For about two hours, until he appeared at her apartment with champagne and balloons, and a picnic lunch. It was only two hours after he had brought her back from the hospital in a rented limo and left her briefly to do some errands. "What are people going to think?" she said, as he drove her from the hospital, back to Eighty fourth street. |
| 412 |
And as Charles helped her down the stairs, she snapped at him several times, and he smiled at her. This was the real thing. Pretty soon, they'd have a baby. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him, and to her. And by the time they settled her in a labor room, she had calmed down again, but Grace was surprised by how much the contractions hurt, and how strong they were. Finally, by two a.m. she was panting and said she couldn't stand them any longer. Charles was doing everything he'd been taught to do, but none of it was helping, and he was starting to worry that they'd have to do a cesarean section. But as the pains got worse, she started to scream, and clutch at him, and he would have done anything to make it end. He kept asking the nurses to give her some medication. "Everything is fine, Mr. Mackenzie. Your wife is doing beautifully." His wife looked like she was ready to die as she screamed again, and then finally they took her to the delivery room, and she started pushing. Charles thought he had never seen anything so painful, and he was sorry they'd ever done it. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms again, and make the pain stop for her. But nothing helped her now, and the doctor didn't want to give her medication. He said he really preferred natural childbirth, for mother and child. Charles wanted to kill him, as he watched what Grace was going through. She pushed for an hour, and it was five in the morning by then, Grace was beside herself with pain, and incoherent with the agony of each contraction. And as he watched her, he vowed they'd never do this again. He wanted to apologize to Grace for putting her through it. And he swore to himself that if she and the baby both came out of it alive, he'd never let this happen again. And just as he was about to promise never to lay a hand on her again, there was a terrifying scream from her, and a long, thin howl, and suddenly he found himself looking into the face of the son they had decided to call Andrew Charles Mackenzie. |
| 413 |
She was lying flat now, after so much hard work, and looking suddenly ecstatic as she laughed and smiled at her husband. "Is the baby all right?" she asked over and over again, and as soon as they had cleaned him off and checked his lungs again, they handed him to his mother, and he lay at her breast, and immediately nuzzled close to her, while Charles watched them. "Grace... how can I ever thank you?" Charles said, wondering how he had managed to live so long without this baby. And how brave she was to go through all that for him. He had never been as touched or as much in love with anyone as he was with Grace at that moment. They went back to her room after that, and little Andrew lay by her side, and much to Charles's astonishment, they all went home the next morning. She was healthy and young, the baby was fine, and weighed just under nine pounds. They had had natural childbirth. There was no reason for them not to go home, her obstetrician explained. And Charles realized that he had a whole new world to discover. It was terrifying taking a baby home so soon, but Grace acted as though it was completely natural, and seemed totally at ease with her son from the very first moment he was born. It took Charles a few days, but within a week, he seemed like a practiced hand, and he bragged to everyone constantly about the baby. The only thing his friends didn't envy him was the sleepless nights he was having to live with. He left for the office every day feeling as though he'd been running on the wheel of a hamster cage all night. Master Andrew was waking up every two hours to be nursed, and it took him roughly an hour to go back to sleep again, and Charles only slighdy longer. He figured out that he was sleeping in fifteen minute increments, and getting approximately two and a half hours sleep a night, which was roughly five and a half less than he needed. But it was fun anyway, and he was crazy about his wife and the baby. They rented a house in East Hampton for the month of July, and spent Grace's birthday there. |
| 414 |
Their second baby took longer to come, and once again Charles found himself ready to promise to the gods that he would never touch his wife again, but this time the doctor finally gave in, and gave her some medication. It didn't help much, but it was something. And nineteen hours after labor began, Abigail Mackenzie pushed her way into the world and looked up at her father with an expression of amazement. He melted on the spot when he saw her. She was a miniature version of her mother, only with her father's dark hair. She was a real beauty. And she managed to make a complete spectacle of herself by arriving on her mother's twenty fifth birthday. Charles was almost forty five, and those were the happy years. Grace was constantly busy with her children. She went to playgrounds and play groups and kindergyms, and music classes for toddlers. She was totally involved in doing everything with them. She worried a lot about being boring to Charles, but he seemed to love their life. It was all so new to him, and he was the envy of all who knew him, with a young, beautiful wife and a young family, he seemed to have the world by the tail. Grace had never gotten back to her charity work again, although she still talked about it. But just after Andrew was born, she gave a gift, in his name, to St. Andrew's Shelter. She gave them every penny she had left from Frank Wills. It seemed the best use for it she could think of. In some ways, it was blood money to her, and a relic of a life that had brought her nothing but grief. She was sure that Father Tim would find a happier use for it. And they gave another, smaller gift, when Abigail was born. But she hadn't been there to visit for a long time. She was too involved with her husband and children. For three years after Abigail was born, Grace spent every daytime moment with them, and her evenings with Charles, going to partners' dinners and dinner parties. They went to the theater, and he introduced her to the opera, and she found that she liked it. |
| 415 |
She wondered what had happened to Luana and Sally sometimes, and the women she had tried to help at St. Andrew's. But there didn't seem to be time for things like that anymore. She thought about David in California sometimes too, and wondered where he was now. Her life seemed so far removed from those troubled years. Sometimes even she had a hard time remembering that she had had any other life before marrying Charles. It was as though she had been born again the day she met him. She wanted to have another baby once Abigail started nursery school, but this time it didn't seem to happen. She was only twenty eight by then, and her doctor said it was hard to know why sometimes it was easier to get pregnant than others. But she also knew that with all she'd been through before, she'd been lucky to get pregnant at all, and she was grateful to have the two children she had. She would stand there and just smile at them sometimes, watching them. And then she and Andrew would go to the kitchen and make cupcakes, or she and Abigail would cut out paper dolls, or string beads, or make pictures with spaghetti. She loved being with them, and she never got bored, or tired of them. And then one morning, as she was waiting to pick them up from nursery school, she sat in her kitchen reading the paper and having a cup of coffee. And as she read the headline of the New York Times, she felt her stomach turn over. A New York psychiatrist had killed his adopted child, a six year old girl, and his battered, hysterical wife had stood by helplessly and watched him do it. It brought tears to her eyes as she read about it. It was inconceivable, he was an educated man, with an important practice, and a teaching position with a major medical school. And still he had killed their little girl. They had had her since birth, and their natural child had died in an accident two years before, which was now considered suspect. Grace started to cry as she read about it, wanting to comfort the little girl, imagining her cries as her father beat her. |
| 416 |
And when they came back from dinner that night, Grace started talking about her idea again. She talked about it for weeks, and finally Charles couldn't stand it. "Okay, okay... I understand. You want to help. Now where do we start? Let's do something about it." In the end, he talked to a few friends, and some of his partners at the law firm, some of their wives were interested, and others had useful references and suggestions. At the end of two months, Grace had a wealth of research and material, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She had talked to a psychologist she had met, and the head of the children's school, and she decided that she had what she needed. She even tracked down Sister Eugene from St. Andrew's, and she gave her some names of people who would be willing to work hands on and wouldn't expect a lot of money for it. She needed volunteers, psychologists, teachers, some businessmen, women, and even victims. She was going to put together a team of people who were willing to go out into the community and tell people what they needed to know about abuse of all kinds against children. She set up an organization and gave it a simple name. "Help Kids!" was what she called it, and at first she ran it out of her home, and after six months she rented an office on Lexington Avenue two blocks from their house. By then, she had a team of twenty one people who were talking to schools, parents' groups, teachers' associations, people who ran extracurricular activities like ballet and baseball. She was amazed at how many bookings they got. And she shook like a leaf the first time she gave a talk herself. She told a group of people she had never met how she had been abused as a child, how no one had seen it, and no one had wanted to, and how everyone had thought her father was the greatest guy in town. "Maybe he was," she said, her voice shaking as she fought back tears, "but not to me, or my mother." She didn't tell them that she had killed him to save herself. |
| 417 |
But what she did tell them moved them deeply. All of their speakers had stories like that, some of them firsthand, and some of them about students or patients. But the people she organized to speak were all powerful in their message. It was a message that came straight from the heart. Help kids! And they meant it. The next thing she did was set up a hot line for people who knew about abusive friends or neighbors, or parents who wanted help, or kids in bad situations. She did everything she could to raise funds to place ads and buy billboards with the hot line number on it, and she managed to keep it manned twenty four hours a day, which was no small feat. It was almost a relief when a year and a half later Abigail went to kindergarten, because it gave her more time for "Help Kids!" although she missed having her at home at eleven thirty. She managed to keep all her work down to a dull roar so that she could spend her afternoons with her children. But "Help Kids!" had grown to a full scale office by then, and it was funded by five foundations. And they were currently in the process of raising money and free creative help for commercials. She wanted to organize a TV campaign to reach even deeper into the community. Again and again she tried to touch the kids who were being abused, and the people who knew it. She was less interested in reaching the abusive parents. Most of them were too sick even to want help, and it was rare that they themselves would step forward and ask for it. It was easier to get the point across to observers. It was hard to judge what kind of results they were getting, except that their hot line was jammed night and day with desperate callers. They were usually neighbors, friends, teachers who weren't sure whether or not to come forward, and more and more lately they had been getting calls from kids telling horrifying stories. Grace and Charles answered phones themselves for two long shifts a week, and more often than not, Charles came home and ached over the things he heard. |
| 418 |
Charles stayed close to his constituents and in touch with old friends, and he enjoyed every moment in Congress. He helped pass new legislation whenever he could, and found the endless committees he was on fascinating and fruitful. And during their second year there, Grace started an inner city "Help Kids!" in Washington modeled on the two in Connecticut and New York. She manned the phones a lot of the time, and made several appearances on television and radio shows. As the wife of a congressman she had more influence than she'd had before, and she enjoyed using it for worthwhile causes. They also entertained a great deal, and went to political events. They were invited to the White House regularly. For them, the quiet years were over. And yet they were still able to lead a quiet life in Connecticut. And although he was an elected official, their life remained remarkably private. They weren't showy people. He was a hardworking congressman who stayed in close touch with his roots at home, and Grace was discreet and hardworking in her own arena, and with her children. They had been in Washington for nearly three terms, five years, when Charles was approached again, and this time with an offer that interested him greatly. Being congressman had meant a lot to him and it had been a valuable experience, but he had also come to understand that there was more power and more influence on the country's destiny in other quarters. The Senate held a great lure to him, and he had many friends there. And this time he was approached by sources close to the President, anxious to know if he was willing to run for the Senate. He told Grace about it immediately, and they talked about it endlessly. He wanted it, but he was also afraid to pursue it. There was more pressure, greater demands, tougher responsibilities, and far greater exposure. As a congressman, he had been well liked, and in many ways, one of the people. As a senator he could be viewed as a source of envy and a threat to many. |
| 419 |
He liked Charles, and he felt sorry for Grace. But the laws were not made to protect people like them. The laws had been made to turn them into victims. The feeding frenzy, as he had called it, went on for weeks. The children went back to school, reluctantly. Fortunately, they got out for summer vacation after a week, and the family moved to Connecticut for the summer. But it was more of the same there. More tabloids, more press, more photographers. More interviews on television with people who claimed to be her best friends, but whom she had never heard of. The only good thing that came of it, was that David Glass emerged from the mists. He had called, and was living in Van Nuys, and had four children. He was desperately sorry to see what was happening to her. It broke his heart, knowing how much pain it caused her to go through it. But no one could do anything to stop the press, or the lies, or the gossip. And he knew as well as she did that even if he talked to the press on her behalf, everything he said would be distorted. He was happy to know that other than the current uproar in the press, she was happily married, and had children. He apologized for staying out of touch for so long. He was now the senior partner of his late father in law's law firm. And then he admitted sheepishly that Tracy, his wife, had been fiercely jealous of Grace when they first moved to California. It was why he had eventually stopped writing. But he was happy to hear her now, he had felt compelled to call, and Grace was happy he'd called her. They both agreed that the press didn't want the facts. They wanted scandal and filth. They wanted to hear that she'd been giving blow jobs to guards, or sleeping with women in chains in prison. They didn't want to know how vulnerable she'd been, how terrorized, how traumatized, how scared, how young, how decent. They only wanted the ugly stuff. Both David and Charles agreed that the best thing was to step back and let them wear themselves out, and offer no comment. |
| 420 |
Despite their probing and the lack of sympathy with which they had handled much of it, and the spuriousness, she had turned it into a deeply moving and very sympathetic interview, and everyone congratulated her afterwards. Charles was particularly proud of her, and they spent a quiet evening after the cameras had left, and talked about all that had happened. It had been a terrible time for Grace, but at least she had said her piece now. They spent her birthday at home, and Abigail had friends over that night. But only because her parents had insisted. It was her birthday too. And Grace was very quiet as she sat at the pool with Charles. She was still feeling shaken and withdrawn, and she hated going anywhere. People were still harassing her, even in bank lines and public rest rooms. She was happier at home, behind her walls, and she dreaded going out, even with Charles. In spite of his campaign, it was a very quiet summer. But by August, finally, everything seemed to be back to normal. There were no more photographers camped outside, and she hadn't been on the cover of the tabloids in weeks. "I guess you're just not popular anymore," Charles teased. He actually managed to take a week off to be with her, and he was glad he had. Her asthma had gotten bad again, for the first time in years, and she was feeling ill. He was sure it was stress, but this time she suspected what it was before he did. She was pregnant. "In the middle of all this furor? How did you manage that?" He was shocked at first, but he was happy too. Their children were what brought them the most joy in all their years together. He worried about her during the campaign though. The baby was due in March, and she was two months pregnant, which meant that she'd be campaigning all through the early months. She'd be five months pregnant at the election. He wanted her to take it easy, and try not to wear herself out too much, or get too upset over the press when they went back to Washington. And then he groaned as he thought of it. |
| 421 |
She was a victim again. It was no different from getting raped night after night by her father. Only her father wasn't doing it anymore, everyone else was. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that just because Charles was in politics they had a right to destroy her and their family. They had had sixteen wonderful years, and now it had all turned into a nightmare. It was like coming back full circle, and being put back in prison. She was helpless against the lies. The truth meant nothing. Everything she'd done, everything she'd lived, everything she'd built had been wasted. And by that afternoon she'd seen a copy of the release, and there was no denying that she had signed it. The handwriting was shaky, and the forms a little loose, but even to her own eyes, she recognized the signature. She couldn't believe it. He had obviously made her do it when she was barely conscious. Matthew's party was subdued, everyone had either heard about or seen the tabloids. All the parents who dropped their children off gave Grace strange looks, or at least she thought so. Charles was on hand to greet them too, but the two of them had barely spoken since the night before, and he had spent the night in their guest room. He needed time to think, and to absorb what had happened. They had talked to the children about the photographs that morning. Matthew didn't really understand what they were about, but Abigail and Andrew did. Andrew looked agonized, and Abigail had burst into tears again. She couldn't believe all that her mother had put them through. How could she do it? "How can you lecture us about the way we behave, about morality, and not sleeping with boys, when you did things like that? I suppose you were forced to do it, just like your father forced you? Who forced you this time, Mom?" Grace had lost control this time, and she had slapped Abigail across the face, and then apologized profusely. But she just couldn't take it anymore. She was tired of the lies, and the price they ail had paid. |
| 422 |
But at that moment she hated herself for everything she'd done to him, for ever loving him, or thinking that she could leave the past behind her. She couldn't leave anything behind. It had all come with her, like clanking tin cans tied to her tail, and they reeked of all that was rotten. Charles went back downstairs again, thinking that she needed to be alone, and they both spent a lonely night in their separate quarters. She made breakfast for him and Andrew and Matt the next day, and Charles made a point of telling her again not to go anywhere. He was referring to the night before and the suitcase, but she pretended not to understand, in front of the boys. And then they all left. Charles had a lot of important meetings, and press fires to put out, and he never had time to call her till noon, and when he did there was no answer. Grace was long gone by then. She had written to each of them the night before, sitting up in bed, crying over the words until her tears blurred her eyes and she had to start again and again, just to tell them how much she loved them and how sorry she was for all the pain that she had caused them. She told them each to take care of Dad, and be good to him. The hardest one to write was to Matt. He was still too young. He probably wouldn't understand why she had left him. She was doing it for them. She was the bait that had brought the sharks, now she had to get as far away from them as possible, so no one would hurt them. She was going to New York for a few days, just to catch her breath, and she left the letters for Charles to give them. And after New York, she thought she'd go to L.A. She could find a job, until the baby came. She would give it to Charles then... or maybe he'd let her keep it. She was upset and confused and sobbing when she left. The housekeeper saw her go, and heard her wrenching sobs in the garage, but she was afraid to go to her and intrude. She knew what she was crying about or so she thought. She'd cried herself when she'd seen the tabloids. |
| 423 |
He dropped her off at the airport, and she felt a little twinge in her neck from when they'd been hit, and she felt a little stiff, but it was nothing major. She didn't want to make any trouble for him. And she just managed to catch her flight. It wasn't until after they landed in New York that she realized she was bleeding. But it wasn't too bad. If she could just get to the hotel and rest, she'd be fine. She'd had a few incidents like that with Matt and Andrew when she was pregnant, the doctor had told her to rest, and the bleeding had always stopped quickly. She gave the cabdriver the address of the Carlyle Hotel on East Seventy sixth Street and Madison. She had made the reservation from the plane. It was only half a dozen blocks from where she used to live, and she liked it. She had stayed there once with Charles, and she had happy memories there. She had happy memories everywhere with him. Until June, their life had been idyllic. She checked in at the desk. They were expecting her, and she had registered under the name of Grace Adams. They gave her a small room filled with rose covered chintz, and the bellboy put down her two bags. She tipped him, and he left, and no one had said how remarkable her resemblance was to the porno queen in the tabloids. She wondered as she lay down on the bed if Charles had come home by then and found her letter. She knew she wouldn't call. It was better to leave like this, if she called and talked to them at all, especially Charles, or Matt, she knew she couldn't do it. She was exhausted as she lay on the bed thinking of them, she felt drained and utterly worn out, and her neck still hurt, and she had little nagging cramps low in her abdomen and in her back. She knew it was nothing. She didn't have the strength to go to the bathroom. She just lay there, feeling weak and sad, and slowly the room began to spin around, and eventually she drifted off into the blackness. She woke again at four a.m., and by this time the cramps she'd felt earlier were really bad. |
| 424 |
It had been a dumb idea to run away and he knew it. His mother walked him upstairs and tucked him in and they all went to bed early that night. Grace and Charles were exhausted and Matthew was asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow. Kisses was lying at the foot of the bed, and snoring softly. But the following week, another photograph was released and this one showed Grace full face, staring into the camera, with glazed eyes and a look of surprise on her face, with her eyes wide open as though someone had just done something really shocking and deli ciously sensual to her. They were the most erotic series of photographs she had ever seen, and little by little, bit by bit they were driving her crazy. She called information then, and wondered why she had taken so long to do it. He wasn't in Chicago. Or in New York. He was in Washington, they told her finally at Thrill It was perfect. Why hadn't she thought of it sooner? She knew she had absolutely no choice. It didn't matter what happened to her anymore. She had to. She opened the safe and took Charles's gun out, and then she got in her car and drove to the address she'd jotted down on a piece of paper. The kids were at school, and Charles was at work. No one knew where she was going, or what she intended to do. But she knew. She had it planned, and it was going to be worth whatever it cost her. She rang the bell at his studio on F Street, and she was surprised when someone buzzed her in without asking who she was. It meant either that they were very big and busy, or extremely sloppy. Because with a lot of valuable equipment around, they should have been more careful, but fortunately, they weren't. It was all so easy, she couldn't imagine why she had never thought of it before. The door was open, and there was no one there, except Marcus. He didn't even have an assistant. He had his back to her, and he was bending over a camera, shooting a bowl of fruit on a table. He was all alone, and he didn't even see her. |
| 425 |
It was seven o'clock, the shops had just closed, and the usual bustle of commerce was shutting down for the night. She had lived there for two years and she liked it. It was the trendy part of New York, and she found it friendlier than living uptown. SoHo was full of young people, there was always something to see, someone to talk to, a bustle of activity whenever she left her loft, which was her refuge. There were bright lights in all the shops. It was her least favorite time of year, December, the week before Christmas. As she had for the past several years, she ignored it, and waited for it to pass. For the past two Christmases, she had worked at a homeless shelter. The year before that she had been in India, where the holiday didn't matter. It had been a hard jolt coming back to the States after her time there. Everything seemed so commercial and superficial in comparison. The time she had spent in India had changed her life, and probably saved it. She had left on the spur of the moment, and been gone for over six months. Reentry into American life had been incredibly hard. Everything she owned was in storage and she had moved from Boston to New York. It didn't really matter to her where she lived, she was a photographer and took her work with her. The photographs she had taken in India and Tibet were currently being shown in a prestigious gallery uptown. Some of her other work was in museums. People compared her work to that of Diane Arbus. She had a fascination with the destitute and devastated. The agony in the eyes of some of her subjects ripped out your soul, just as it had affected hers when she photographed them. Hope's work was greatly respected, but to look at her, nothing about her demeanor suggested that she was famous or important. Hope had spent her entire life as an observer, a chronicler of the human condition. And in order to do that, she had always said, one had to be able to disappear, to become invisible, so as not to interfere with the mood of the subject. |
| 426 |
In many ways, Hope Dunne was an almost invisible person, in other ways, she was enormous, with an inner light and strength that seemed to fill a room. She smiled at a woman passing by, as she walked through the snow on Prince Street. She was tempted to go for a long walk in the snow, and promised herself she might do that later that evening. She lived on no particular schedule, answered to no one. One of the blessings of her solitary life was that she was entirely at liberty to do whatever she wished. She was the consummate independent woman, she was enormously disciplined about her work, and in dealing with her subjects. Sometimes she got on the subway, and rode uptown to Harlem, wandering through the streets in T shirt and jeans, taking photographs of children. She had spent time in South America, photographing children and old people there too. She went wherever the spirit moved her, and did very little commercial work now. She still did the occasional fashion shoot for Vogue if the layout was unusual. But most of the magazine work she did was portraits of important people who she thought were worthwhile and interesting. She had published a remarkable book of portraits, another of children, and was going to publish a book of her photographs from India soon. She was fortunate to be able to do whatever she wanted. She could pick and choose among the many requests she got. Although she loved doing them, she only did formal portraits now once or twice a year. More often now, she concentrated on the photographs she took in the course of her travels or on the street. Hope was a tiny woman with porcelain white skin, and jet black hair. Her mother had teased her when she was a child and said she looked like Snow White, which in a way, she did. And there was a fairy tale feeling about her too. She was almost elfin in size, and unusually lithe; she was able to fit herself into the smallest, most invisible spaces and go unnoticed. The only startling thing about her was her deep violet eyes. |
| 427 |
They were a deep, deep blue, with the slightly purple color of very fine sapphires from Burma or Ceylon, and were filled with compassion that had seen the sorrows of the world. Those who had seen eyes like hers before understood instantly that she was a woman who had suffered, but wore it well, with dignity and grace. Rather than dragging her down into depression, her pain had lifted her into a peaceful place. She was not a Buddhist, but shared philosophies with them, in that she didn't fight what happened to her, but instead drifted with it, allowing life to carry her from one experience to the next. It was that depth and wisdom that shone through her work. An acceptance of life as it really was, rather than trying to force it to be what one wanted, and it never could be. She was willing to let go of what she loved, which was the hardest task of all. And the more she lived and learned and studied, the humbler she was. A monk she had met in Tibet called her a holy woman, which in fact she was, although she had no particular affinity for any formal church. If she believed in anything, she believed in life, and embraced it with a gentle touch. She was a strong reed bending in the wind, beautiful and resilient. It was snowing harder by the time she got to the front door of her building. She was carrying a camera case over her shoulder, and her keys and wallet were in it. She carried nothing else, and she wore no makeup, except very occasionally bright red lipstick when she went out, which made her look more than ever like Snow White. And she wore her almost blue black hair pulled straight back, either in a ponytail, a braid, or a chignon, and when she loosened it, it hung to her waist. Her graceful movements made her look like a young girl, and she had almost no lines on her face. Her biography as a photographer said that she was forty four years old, but it was difficult to assess her age and it would have been easy to believe she was far younger. Like the photographs she took, and her subjects, she was timeless. |
| 428 |
Looking at her, one wanted to stop and watch her for a long time. She rarely wore color, and dressed almost always in black, so as not to distract her subjects, or in white in hot climates. Once she unlocked the front door to her building, she bounded up to the third floor with a quick step. She was cold, and happy to walk into her apartment, which was considerably warmer than it had been outdoors, although the ceilings were high and sometimes the wind crept through the tall windows. She turned on the lights, and took pleasure, as she always did, in the spartan decor. The cement floor was painted black, the white couches and inviting chairs were a soft ivory wool, and nothing about the decor was intrusive. It was so simple it was almost Zen. And the walls were covered with enormous framed black and white photographs that were her favorites among her work. The longest wall was covered with a spectacular series of a young ballerina in motion. The girl in the photographs was exceptionally beautiful, a graceful young blond dancer in her teens. It was a remarkable series, and part of Hope's personal collection. On the other walls were many photographs of children, several of monks in India at the ashram where she had lived, and two enormous ones of heads of state. Her loft was like a gallery of her work, and on one long white lacquer table, set on sponge covered trays, all of her cameras were lined up in almost surgical order. She hired freelance assistants when she did assignments, but most of the time she preferred to do all her own work. She found assistants helpful, but too distracting. Her favorite camera was an old Leica she had had for years. She used a Hasselblad and Mamiya in the studio as well, but she still loved her oldest camera best. She had started taking photographs when she was nine. She had attended a specially de signed photography program at Brown at seventeen, and graduated at twenty one with honors, after doing a spectacular senior project in the Middle East. |
| 429 |
It had been one of the high points of her life. Hope lit candles around the room and left the lights in the loft dim. Coming home to this room always soothed her. She slept on a little platform, up a ladder, on a spare narrow bed, and loved looking down at the room and the feeling of flying as she fell asleep. The loft was completely different from anywhere she had ever lived, and she loved that about it too. Because she had always feared it so much, this time she had embraced change. There was something powerful about accepting what frightened her most. Her private nemeses were loss and change, and rather than running from them, she had learned to face them with dignity and strength. There was a small black granite kitchen at the back of the loft. She knew she had to eat, so eventually she wound up there, and heated up a can of soup. Most of the time, she was too lazy to make much of a meal. She lived on soups and salads and eggs. On the rare occasions when she wanted a real meal, she went to some simple restaurant alone and ate quickly, to get it over with. She had never been much of a cook, and made no pretense of it. It had always seemed like a waste of time to her, there were so many other things that interested her more previously, her family, and now, her work. In the past three years, her work had become her life. She put her whole soul into it and it showed. Hope was eating her soup, watching the snow fall outside, when her cell phone rang, and she set the soup down, and dug the phone out of her camera bag. She wasn't expecting any calls, and smiled when she heard the familiar voice of her agent, Mark Webber. She hadn't heard from him in a while. "Okay, so where are you now? And what time zone are you in? Am I waking you up?" She laughed in response, and sat back against the couch with a smile. He had represented her for the last ten years, when she went back to work. He usually tried to push her to do commercial jobs, but he also had a deep respect for her more serious artistic endeavors. |
| 430 |
He never knew what to say about Paul. Hope was always gracious about it, he knew she still loved her ex husband, and had accepted the hand Fate had dealt her. She was never bitter or angry. Mark didn't know how she did it. "I'll call you tomorrow with more details," he promised her, and a minute later they hung up. Hope put her soup mug in the dishwasher after that, and went to stare out the window, at the steadily falling snow. There were already several inches on the ground, and it made her think of London. The last time she had been there, it had been snowing too and looked like a Christmas card. She wondered if Paul was in London now, but decided not to call him until she arrived, in case plans changed, and she had to see what kind of spare time she had. She didn't want to see him on Christmas, and risk either of them getting maudlin. She wanted to avoid that at all costs. They were best friends now. He knew that she would be there for him if he needed her, and she also knew that he was too proud to call. If she saw him, they would both be careful to keep it light, which was what worked best for them these days. The rest was too hard to talk about, and served no purpose. Hope stood at the window and watched a man leave footprints in the snow, followed by an old woman slipping and sliding as she walked her dog. Watching them, she couldn't resist. She put her coat and boots on, and went back out, with her Leica in her pocket, not the fancy new one that everyone coveted, which she had too, but the old one she loved best. It was a faithful friend and had served her well. Ten minutes later, she was walking down the street with the snow falling all around her as she prowled along, looking for the right shots. Without planning it, she arrived at the entrance to the subway, and hurried down the stairs. She'd just had an idea. She wanted to get some shots in Central Park at night, and after that, she was going to head for some of the rougher neighborhoods on the West Side. |
| 431 |
She had her cameras in her hand luggage, and sat reading in the first class lounge until they called the flight. She had picked up another book of Finn O'Neill's and wanted to read it on the trip. It had started snowing again, and after they left the gate, they had to de ice the plane. In all, they were nearly four hours late taking off, after waiting on the runway for two hours. Hope didn't really care, she always slept on long flights. She let the flight attendant know that she wouldn't be eating the meal, and told her what time she wanted to be woken up, exactly forty minutes before they landed at Heathrow. That would give her time for a cup of coffee and a croissant before they began their descent, and also time to brush her teeth and hair. It was all she needed in order to look respectable enough to go through immigration and go to the hotel. As she always did, Hope slept soundly on the plane, and was happy to see that they landed without difficulty despite the morning fog. As it turned out, the delay had served them well and had given the winter weather time to clear. And as promised, the car from Claridge's was waiting for her as soon as she cleared customs carrying her camera bag. She had already ordered the rental of all the equipment she needed, and it was being delivered to the hotel that afternoon. She was meeting her subject at his home the following morning. She wanted some time to get to know him and they were going to shoot in the afternoon. So far, everything seemed easy and was on track, and since she had gotten enough sleep on the plane, she was wide awake as they drove into town, and happy when she saw her room at the hotel. It was one of Claridge's prettier suites, with walls painted a deep coral, floral fabrics, English antiques, and framed prints on the walls. It was warm and cozy, and she ran a bath as soon as she arrived. She thought about calling Paul, but she wanted to wait until she saw Finn, so she could determine what kind of free time she had. |
| 432 |
It was his escape from the world. "I'm glad I called." "So am I." They agreed to meet at the hotel for lunch the next day. She hadn't asked him how he was. She would be able to judge it for herself when she saw him, and he didn't like to talk about his illness. Paul had turned sixty that fall, and had been struggling with Parkinson's for ten years. It had changed everything about their life, and his. He had developed a tremor right after his fiftieth birthday, and at first he had denied it, but as a cardiovascular surgeon, he couldn't hide from it for long. He had had no choice but to retire within six months. And then the bottom had dropped out of his world and her own. He had continued to teach at Harvard for the next five years, until he couldn't manage that anymore either. He had retired completely at fifty five, and that was when the drinking began. For two years he hid it from everyone they knew, except for her. The only wise thing he had done during that time was make some excellent investments, in two companies that made surgical equipment. He had advised one of them, and the investments had been more profitable than anything else he had ever done. One of the companies went public, and when he sold his shares within two years of his retirement, he made a fortune, and bought his first boat. But the drinking kept everything about their life on edge, and as the Parkinson's hampered him more and more, he was barely able to function. And when he wasn't sick, he was drunk, or both. He had finally gone into treatment for his drinking at a residential facility that one of his colleagues at Harvard had recommended. But by then, their entire world had fallen apart. There was nothing left and no reason to stay together, and Paul had made the decision to divorce her. She would have stayed with him forever, but he wouldn't allow it. As a physician, he knew better than anyone what lay ahead for him, and he refused to drag her through it. He made the decision about the divorce entirely on his own, and gave her no choice. |
| 433 |
They tried not to talk about their marriage and divorce anymore. The subject was too painful for both of them. Somehow, with all that had happened, they had lost each other. They still loved each other and were close, but he wouldn't allow her to be part of his life anymore. She knew that he cared about her and loved her, but he was determined to die quietly on his own. And other than her work, his seemingly generous gesture had left her completely alone and at loose ends. She worried about him, but she knew that medically he was in good hands. He spent months at a time on his boat, and the rest of the time he lived in London, or went back to Boston for treatment at Harvard. But there was relatively little they could do to help him. The disease was slowly devouring him, but for now, he could still get around, although it was a challenge for him. It was easier for him being on the boat, with the crew around him all the time. They had married when Hope was twenty one years old, when she graduated from Brown. He had already been a surgeon and professor at Harvard by then, and was thirty seven years old. They had met when Paul came to Brown to teach for a semester, during a sabbatical he had taken from Harvard. It was Hope's junior year at Brown. Paul had fallen in love with her the first time he laid eyes on her, and their affair had been passionate and intense, until they married a year later right after graduation. And even in the two years since their divorce, she had never loved any other man. Paul Forrest was an impossible act to follow, and she was still deeply attached to him, whether they were married or not. He had been able to divorce her, but not to make her fall out of love with him. She just accepted it as a fact of their life. And even though his illness had changed him, she still saw the same brilliant man and mind within the broken body. The loss of his profession had nearly destroyed him, and in many ways he was greatly diminished, but not in the eyes of his ex wife. |
| 434 |
It was always so comfortable for her with him. They were so familiar with each other, knew each other so perfectly. She had known and loved him since she was nineteen, and it seemed strange to her at times to no longer be married to him. But he had been intransigent about it he refused to have her saddled with a sick old man. She was sixteen years younger, which had made no difference to either of them, until he got sick, and then it had mattered to him. He had opted out of her life, although they still loved each other, and always had a good time when they were together. Within minutes he had her laughing about something, and she told him all about her recent shows, trips, and work. She hadn't seen him in six months, although they talked on the phone fairly regularly. Even though they were no longer married, she couldn't imagine a life without him in it. "I looked up your subject on his publisher's website last night," Paul told her as his hands shook while he tried to eat. Inevitably, he had a hard time feeding himself, but was determined to do it, and she made no comment at whatever he spilled, nor reached over to help him. It took every ounce of dignity he could muster to go out to restaurants, but she was proud of him that he still did. Everything about his illness had been an agony for him, the career he had lost that had meant everything to him, and on which his self esteem had rested, the marriage that had ultimately been a casualty to it, because he refused to drag her down with him. The only real pleasure he had now was sailing, while slowly he deteriorated. Even Hope knew that he was only a shadow of the man he had once been, although out of pride, if nothing else, he tried to hide it. At sixty, he should have been vital and alive, still in the bloom of his life and career. Instead, he was in the winter of his life, alone now, just as she was, although she was so much younger. Paul was slipping ever so slowly out of life, and it always upset her deeply when she saw it. |
| 435 |
Going back to visit his old colleagues was too depressing for him. They were all still at the height of their careers, and his had been over for ten years, far too soon. "I'm going to stay in the Caribbean for the winter. And then probably come back here." He liked the anonymity of London, the fact that no one knew him. There was no one to feel sorry for him here, and it was painful for him to see the sympathy in Hope's eyes. It was one of the reasons why he hadn't stayed married to her. He didn't want to be an object of pity. He preferred being alone to being a burden to someone he loved. And in making that decision, he had deprived them both. But there had been no swaying him once he made up his mind. Hope had tried to no avail, and finally accepted that he had a right to choose how he wanted to live out his final years, and whatever the reasons, it wasn't with her. "Let me know how the interview with O'Neill goes," Paul said, as the doorman hailed him a cab. He looked down at her with a smile then, and he pulled the small familiar figure into his arms, and as she hugged him, he closed his eyes. "Take care of yourself, Hope," he said with a lump in his throat, and she nodded. Sometimes he felt guilty for letting her go, but he had firmly believed it was the right thing for her, and he still did. He had no right to ruin her life, in order to serve his. "I will, you too," she said, as she kissed his cheek and helped him into the cab. It pulled away from the curb in front of Claridge's a moment later, and she stood and waved in the cold, as they drove off. It always made her sad to see him, but he was the only family she had left. She realized as she walked back into the hotel that she had forgotten to wish him a Merry Christmas, but she was glad she had. It would only have brought back memories for both of them, which would have been much, much too hard. She went up to her room and changed into flat shoes, and a heavier coat. And a few minutes later, she left the hotel quietly and went for a long, solitary walk. |
| 436 |
Fiona Casey, the assistant her agent had hired for her, showed up at Hope's hotel room at nine o'clock the next morning. She was a bright, funny, redheaded girl, who was totally in awe of Hope. She was a graduate photography student at the Royal Academy of Arts, and supported herself by doing freelance work. She was equally impressed that they would be shooting Finn O'Neill, and stumbled all over herself, carrying Hope's equipment out to a rental van. They were due at Finn O'Neill's house at ten o'clock. Hope hadn't heard from him again, so she assumed he was healthy enough to do the shoot. The driver the hotel had provided for her with the van drove them the short distance to an elegant mews house at a fashionable address. The house was tiny, as they all were on the narrow backstreet, and as soon as she struck the brass knocker on the door, a maid in a uniform appeared and let them in. She led them into a doll sized living room near the front door, which was crammed with weathered antique English furniture. The bookcase was overflowing, and there were stacks of books on the floor, and glancing at them, Hope could see that many of the books were old, either leatherbound, or on closer inspection, first editions. This was clearly a man who loved books. The couches were comfortable, covered in leather, and very old, and there was a fire burning brightly in the grate, which seemed to be the only heat source in the room. It was cold, except when one stood close to the fire. And in close proximity to the sitting room was a dining room painted dark green, and a small kitchen beyond. Each of the rooms was very small, but had lots of charm. They sat there for nearly half an hour, waiting for Finn, as both Fiona and Hope got up to stand near the fire, chatting quietly in whispers. The house was so minute that it seemed awkward to speak too loudly, for fear that someone would overhear them. And then, just as Hope began wondering where he was, a tall man with a mane of dark hair and electric blue eyes burst into the room. |
| 437 |
Whatever his ancestry, he was in fact as American as Hope. And his cold sounded a lot better. He coughed a few times, but no longer sounded as though he were dying. In fact, he looked surprisingly healthy and full of life. And he had a smile that melted Fiona on the spot, as he had the maid offer her a cup of coffee while he invited Hope to join him upstairs. He apologized to Fiona for disappearing with Hope, but he wanted to get to know his photographer a little better. She followed him up a narrow winding staircase, and found herself in a cozy but larger living room, filled with books, antiques, objects, mementos, old leather couches, and comfortable chairs, and there was a blazing fire in the fireplace. It was the kind of room where you wanted to tuck yourself in and stay for days. Every object was fascinating and intriguing. Some were from his travels, and others looked as though he had treasured them for years. The room was full of personality and warmth, and despite his large frame and long limbs, it somehow seemed the perfect place for him. He let himself down into the embrace of an overstuffed old couch, and stretched out his long legs toward the fire with a broad grin at Hope. She saw that he was wearing well worn, very elegant black leather riding boots. "I hope I wasn't rude to your assistant," he said apologetically. "I just thought it might be nice to get acquainted, before we get to work. I'm always self conscious about being photographed. As a writer, I'm used to observing everyone else, not to having others watch me. I don't like being in the limelight." He said it with a boyish, slightly lopsided smile that immediately won her heart. He had an immense amount of charm. "I feel exactly the same way. I don't like being photographed either. I like being at the shooting end myself." She was already thinking about where she could photograph him best. She almost preferred him right where he was, stretching out comfortably in front of the fire, his head slightly thrown back so she could see his face. |
| 438 |
Now she was sorry she hadn't shot him there. In comparison to the remarkable Palladian palace, his London mews house suddenly seemed ridiculously small, but all his publisher wanted was a head shot, and for that the cozy room they were sitting in was good enough. "I'd better get my assistant started," Hope said, standing up. "It'll take us a while to set up. Do you have any preference about location?" she asked, glancing around again. She had liked the way he looked when he was sitting on the couch, relaxing and talking about his Dublin house. And she wanted to shoot him at his desk as well, and maybe a couple of shots standing next to the bookcase. It was always hard to predict where the magic would happen, until they connected as she worked. He seemed like an easy subject; everything about him was open and relaxed. And as she looked into his eyes, she could sense that he was the kind of man you could trust, and rely on. There was a feeling of warmth and humor about him, as though he had a good understanding of people's quirks and the vagaries of life. And there was a hint of laughter in his eyes. He was sexy too, but in a distinguished, aristocratic way. There was nothing sleazy about him, even though her agent had warned her that he was something of a womanizer. Seeing him, that was easy to understand. He was enormously appealing, seemed very caring, and was a gorgeous hunk of man. And she suspected that if he turned the charm on at full volume, he'd be hard to resist. She was glad she wasn't in that position, and was only working with him. He had been very complimentary about her work. She could tell from questions he had asked her, and things he referred to, that he had Googled her. He seemed to know the entire list of museums she'd been shown in, some of which even she didn't remember most of the time. He was very well informed. Hope went back downstairs and helped Fiona sort out the equipment. She told her what she wanted, and then went upstairs to show her where to set up the lights she'd be using. |
| 439 |
It was a good look on him, and his trim form looked sexy and masculine in the sweater. She could see that he had just shaved, and his hair was loose but freshly brushed. "All set?" She smiled at him, picking up her Mamiya. She told him where to sit on the couch, Fiona gave them a light reading as the lights flashed beneath the umbrella, and Hope set down the Mamiya and took a quick Polaroid to show him the pose and the setting. He said it looked great to him. A minute later, Hope started shooting, alternating between the Mamiya, the Leica, and the Hasselblad for classic portrait shots. She took mostly color, and a few rolls of black and white. That was always her preference for a more interesting look, but his publisher had been specific about wanting color and Finn said he preferred it too. He said that it felt more real to his readers and made it easier for them to connect with him, than in an arty black and white shot on the back of the book. "You're the boss," Hope said, smiling, as she looked into the camera again and he laughed. "No, you're the artist." He seemed completely at ease in front of the camera, moving his head and changing his expression by fractions, as though he had done this a thousand times before, which Hope knew he had. The photograph they were taking was for his eleventh book, and so far, all of them for the past twenty years had been best sellers. At forty six, he was an institution in American literature, just as she was in her field. It would have been hard to decide which of them was more famous or more respected. They were an even match in their reputations and skills in separate fields. They shot for an hour, as she praised him for good moves and the right turn of his head, and she was almost sure she had gotten the winning shot in the first half hour, but she knew better than to stop there. She had Fiona move the light setup to his desk, and suggested he take a half hour break, and maybe put a white shirt on, but leave it open at the neck. |
| 440 |
Fiona had been quietly reading a book in the small sitting room, after the maid gave her a sandwich for lunch. She didn't mind waiting for Hope, and had loved working with her that day. Fiona got all the equipment organized for Hope back at the hotel, and put away her cameras. It was five o'clock by the time she left, and she said it had been a great day. And after that Hope lay down on her bed for a nap, thinking about her conversation with Finn, and his invitation for that night. It was one of the things she liked best about doing portraits. The work itself wasn't exciting, but the people she met were. He was such a talented man, as most of her portrait subjects were. She had always loved his work, and it was fascinating discovering the man behind it. He wrote somewhat eerie, even frightening books. She wanted to ask him more about it that night. And he seemed to be just as interested in her work. She fell asleep for two hours, and woke in time to shower and dress for dinner. As she had warned him, she wore black pants and a sweater, and the only pair of high heels she had brought with her, and was relieved that she had brought a fur coat. At least, she wouldn't totally disgrace him at Harry's Bar that night. She couldn't compete with the fashionable women there, but she looked sober, and simple, and decently dressed. She wound her hair in a bun, and put on just a little makeup and bright red lipstick before she left her suite to wait for him downstairs. Hope was sitting in the lobby when Finn walked in promptly five minutes later, in a dark blue suit, and a beautifully cut black cashmere coat. He was a striking figure and heads turned as he greeted her and they walked out together. Several people recognized him as he escorted her to the Jaguar he had left at the curb. This wasn't the evening she had planned on before she met him, but it was fun being out with him, and she smiled broadly as they drove away. "This is great. Thank you, Finn," she said warmly, and he turned to her with a smile. |
| 441 |
Maybe her husband had been too involved in his medical career at Harvard to want them, and she had been too busy attending to him. She was so gentle and nurturing that she seemed like the sort of woman who would do that, although she was deeply involved in her own career now. She had said they'd been married for twenty one years. Exchanging their histories and talking about their artistic passions made the evening go quickly, and they were both sorry when the evening came to an end and they left the restaurant after a predictably delicious dinner. Hope had indulged herself with the candies and chocolates Harry's Bar was known for, after dinner. And Finn confessed that he was always sorely tempted to steal the brightly colored Venetian ashtrays, when they had had them on the tables, when smoking was still allowed. She laughed at the image of his sneaking one into the pocket of his well tailored dark blue suit. She couldn't see him do it, although she had to admit, it might have been tempting. She had always liked their ashtrays too. They were considered collectors' items now. He started to drive her back to Claridge's after dinner, and then hesitated before they got there. "Can I talk you into one more drink? You can't leave London without going to Annabel's, and it's almost Christmas. It'll be lively there," he suggested, looking hopeful, and she was about to decline, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings. She was tired, but game for one more glass of champagne. Talking to him was delightful, and she hadn't had an evening like this in years, and doubted she would again anytime soon. Her life in New York was quiet and solitary and didn't include nightclubs and fancy dinners, or invitations from handsome men like Finn. "All right, just one drink," she agreed. And Annabel's was packed when they walked in. It was as busy and festive as he promised. They sat in the bar, had two glasses of champagne each, and he danced with her before they left and then drove her back to Claridge's. |
| 442 |
The email was from Finn. "You are the most graceful woman I have ever met. I wish I were there with you today. I want to go to Central Park to go sledding with the children. Take me with you. Finn." She smiled at his answer, it was his boyish side surfacing again. She didn't respond, but put her gloves back on, and left the house. She wasn't sure what to say to him, and was hesitant to get into a serious correspondence with him. She didn't want to play a game with him and lead him on. She found a cab outside the Mercer Hotel less than a block away, and it took them half an hour to get to Central Park. Some of the streets were clear, although many weren't and it was slow going. The driver dropped her off at the south end of the park, and she walked in past the zoo. And eventually she found the hills where children were sledding, some on old fashioned sleds, others on plastic disks, many with plastic garbage bags tied around them by their parents. Their mothers were standing by, watching, trying to stay warm, and the fathers were chasing them down the hill, picking them up when they had spills. The children were squealing and laughing and having fun, as she discreetly took photographs, zooming in on their faces full of excitement and wonder, and suddenly in a way she hadn't expected it to, the scene shot her backward in time, and a spear lodged in her heart that she couldn't remove, even by turning away. She felt tears sting her eyes, not from the cold this time, and she took photographs of the icy limbs of the trees in abstract patterns to distract herself, but it was useless. She felt breathless with the pain of what she was experiencing, and finally, with tears burning her eyes, she put the camera over her shoulder, turned away, and walked back down the hill. She left the park at a dead run, trying to flee the ghosts she had seen there, and she didn't stop running until she reached Fifth Avenue, and headed back downtown. It hadn't happened to her in years. She was still shaken when she got home. |
| 443 |
As she hoped she would, Hope felt better when she woke up in the morning. It was Christmas Day, but there was no reason to treat it differently from any other day. She called Paul on his boat, which was her only concession to the holiday. He sounded all right, although he'd caught a cold on the plane leaving London, which was dangerous for him. They wished each other a Merry Christmas, stayed off sensitive subjects, and hung up after a few minutes. After that she took out a box of photographs to edit for her next show, and pored over the images for several hours. It was two o'clock in the afternoon before she looked up, and decided to go for a walk. She glanced at the email from Finn again, and turned off the computer. She didn't want to encourage him, or start something she didn't want to finish or pursue. And when she dressed and went out, the air felt brisk. She passed people going to visit each other, and others coming out of the Mercer Hotel after lunch. She walked around SoHo and all through the Village. It was a sunny afternoon, and the snowfall of the day before was starting to turn to slush. She felt better when she got back to the loft, and worked some more. And at eight o'clock, she realized that she had nothing to eat in the apartment. She thought of skipping dinner, but was hungry, and finally decided to go to the nearest deli, to get a sandwich and some soup. The day had turned out to be a lot easier than the one before, and the following day she was planning to go to her gallery on the Upper East Side to talk to them about her show. She was relieved, as she put her coat on, to think that she had made it through another year. She dreaded Christmas, but with the exception of the bad moment the day before in Central Park, this one hadn't been too rough. And she was amused to see a row of cooked, stuffed turkeys lined up at the deli, ready for anyone who needed an instant Christmas dinner. She ordered a turkey sandwich with a slice of cranberry jelly on it, and a container of chicken soup. |
| 444 |
It was too soon. It just didn't make sense. Except even Hope knew that it did. It made a lot of sense, for both of them. She could base herself anywhere in the world, and they knew it. And so could he. It was an ideal situation. They seemed perfectly matched. Hope didn't tell Mark Webber, her agent, what was happening when he called. And there was no one else for her to tell. Mark was her closest friend, and she liked his wife as well. They invited her over to have dinner, but she declined. She didn't want to tell him Finn was in town to see her. She knew Mark would be shocked, or surprised at least, and probably fiercely protective and suspicious. She wanted to spend the evening with Finn. So she said she was too busy with some new work, and Mark promised to call again the following week, and told her not to work too hard. And on New Year's Eve, as they had agreed earlier in the week, she and Finn went to Times Square. She took an old camera with her, to take shots in black and white. They got there around eleven, and artfully wended their way through the crowd that had been waiting there for hours. The characters around them were extraordinary, and Finn enjoyed watching it through her eyes. They were having a great time. At midnight, the ball fell from the top of a flagpole with lights flashing inside it, and everyone screamed and cheered. There were prostitutes and drug dealers, tourists, and college kids from out of town, every form of humanity around them, and she was so busy taking pictures of them at midnight that she was startled when Finn put her camera aside and stood before her, and pulled her into his arms. And before she knew what had happened, he was kissing her, and everything around them was forgotten. All she was aware of and remembered later was Finn kissing her, and feeling totally safe and protected in his arms, wanting the kiss never to end, and as she looked into his eyes afterward in amazement, she knew that she was falling in love with him too. |
| 445 |
He met with his agent and publisher, taped two interviews, and saw Hope every chance he got. He was ever present, ever willing to adjust his schedule for her, and wanted to spend every moment with her that he could. Hope was startled by how fast the relationship was moving, although they hadn't slept together, but she enjoyed his company. She was torn between reminding herself that this was more than likely just a passing thing for him, and wanting to believe it was real, and allowing herself to be vulnerable to him. He was so open, kind, loving, attentive, and they had such a good time together, it was impossible to resist. He couldn't do enough for her, and did everything imaginable to please her, with a myriad of thoughtful gestures. He brought her flowers, chocolates, books. More and more, she was letting herself be swept away on the tidal wave of emotions he engulfed her with. And after three weeks of constantly being in each other's company, he said something that brought her up short, as they walked through Washington Square Park one afternoon on their way back downtown from a long walk. "You know what this is, don't you?" he said earnestly, as she had a hand tucked into his arm. They had been talking about Renaissance art, and the beauty of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which they had discovered that they both loved, and Finn was very knowledgeable about. He had many interests and numerous talents, not unlike Hope. They seemed a perfect match in so many ways. And he was by far one of the most interesting men she had ever met, and the most attentive. He was truly the handsome prince of whom every woman dreamed, and loving at the same time. He asked her about all the things she cared about and wanted, and they were constantly surprised to discover they loved many of the same things. He was like the mirror image of her soul. "What is it?" she asked, smiling up at him with a tender look in her eyes. There was no question, she was falling in love with him, after knowing him for only weeks. |
| 446 |
They were both enjoying discovering each other's worlds, and in each case, they left the limelight to the other and were happy to take a backseat. It seemed like a perfect balance between two well known, successful, creative people, whose worlds complemented each other. It was just what she had said earlier, they stood beside each other, without having to fuse into one person. Everything about that idea seemed wrong to her. "Why don't we go to the Cape tomorrow?" Hope suggested. "Bring lots of warm stuff with you." And then she looked faintly embarrassed to broach a delicate subject, but she wanted to speak up clearly. "I'm not ready for us to sleep together, Finn. Are you okay with sleeping in the guest room?" It had been a long time since Paul, and she wanted to be sure of what she was doing. There had been no one of importance in her life since her husband, which made this a much bigger deal. Whatever it was, if it was going to be lasting or not, she had to figure it out, and what she felt about it, before she took that leap. "That's fine," he said with an understanding look. He seemed to have an unlimited ability to make her feel comfortable and happy. He let her set the pace, be as close or as distant from him as she felt at any given moment. He was the kindest, most loving man she had ever met. He was truly a dream come true. And if she had been praying for a man to come into her life, which she wasn't when he turned up, he would have been the answer to those prayers. There was nothing about him she didn't like so far, or that made her uneasy, except perhaps his silly ideas about fusion, but she was sure it was just his way of expressing insecurities and wanting to be loved. And she was coming to love him, for who he was, not for being a part of her. Hope was a very independent person, and she hadn't come through all she had by being part of someone else, nor did she want to start now. And she knew that her monks in Tibet wouldn't have approved of that idea at all. |
| 447 |
For her, it had been part of life ever since she'd gone back to work, although she always benefited from solitary moments too. But it touched her that Finn was so anxious to be with her, and to not waste a single moment they could spend alone. They would have plenty of time together at the Cape. "You have your adoring public too," she reminded him, and he hung his head in embarrassment in a burst of humility rarely seen and that no one would have expected of him. It surprised her at times that for a man so well known in his field, and so strikingly good looking, he didn't seem narcissistic to her at all. He wasn't selfish or self centered, he took pride in her accomplishments, was discreet about his own, and had no need to be the center of attention. And whatever flaws he had that she had not discovered yet, a big ego was not among them. He was a gem. They left for Cape Cod at nine o'clock the next morning, in a Suburban he had rented for the week, since Hope no longer kept a car in New York. Whenever she needed one, she rented one herself. Living in the city, it made more sense, and she didn't go up to Cape Cod very often anymore. She hadn't been there since September, four months before. She was thrilled to be going with Finn now, and have the opportunity to share it with him. For a man who loved nature, solitude, and time alone with her, it was the perfect place for them to go. She was determined not to sleep with him that weekend, and already knew what guest room she would put him in. It was actually the room she had spent summers in as a child, and it was next door to her parents' old room, which she lived in now and had for years. She and Paul had spent summers there during most of their marriage. And at the time, the simplicity of it had suited them both, although with the windfall he had made from the sale of his company, Paul's life was grander now. And if anything, Hope's had gotten less cluttered over the years. She had no need for luxuries, unusual comforts, or excess of any kind. |
| 448 |
It seemed bleak at that time of year, and Finn commented that it looked like a Wyeth painting that they'd seen at the museum, which made Hope smile. She'd never thought of the house that way before, but he was right, it did. It was an old barn shaped New England structure, painted gray with white shutters. In summer, there were flowers out front, but there were none now. The gardener she hired to come once a month cut everything back in winter, and he wouldn't even bother to come now until spring. There was nothing for him to do there. And the house looked sad and deserted with the shutters closed. But the view of the ocean from the dune it sat on was spectacular and the beach stretched out for miles. Hope smiled as she stood looking at it with him. It always made her feel peaceful being there. She put an arm around his waist and he leaned down to kiss her, and then she took her keys out of her bag, opened the door, turned off the alarm, and walked in, with Finn right behind her. The shutters were closed against the wind, so she turned on the lights. Dusk was coming fast. What he saw when she lit the lamps was a beautiful wood paneled room. The wood was bleached, as were the floors, and the furniture was stark and simple. She had redone the couches a few years before because they were so worn. The fabrics were the pale blue of a summer sky, the curtains were a simple muslin, there were hooked rugs, plain New England furniture, a stone fireplace, and her photographs were all over the walls. It had a stark simplicity and unpretentiousness that made it easy to be there, particularly in the summer, with the breeze coming off the ocean, sand on the floor, and everyone going barefoot. It was the perfect beach house, and Finn immediately responded to it with a warm smile. It was the kind of house every child should spend a summer in, and Hope had, and so had her daughter. There was a big country kitchen, with a round antique table, and blue and white tiles on the walls that had been there since the house was built. |
| 449 |
It had been a lovely evening, and she felt wonderfully comfortable with him, as though they had known each other for years. She liked hearing the stories of his childhood, and his parents, although it sounded lonely in some ways. His mother didn't sound like a happy person, and his father had been busy all the time with his patients, and neither of them seemed to have had much time for him. He said it was why he had started writing, and was a voracious reader as a child and young man. Reading, and eventually writing, was his escape from an essentially lonely childhood, despite their very comfortable Park Avenue life. Her far simpler life had been much happier with her own parents in New Hampshire and Cape Cod. Finn and Hope had both married young, so they had that in common. They were both artistic in different fields. They were both only children, and their own children were only two years apart, so they had become parents at roughly the same time. And for very different reasons, their marriages had failed. Hers for complicated reasons, and his officially when his wife died, but he readily admitted that his marriage to Michael's mother had never really worked, and probably would have ended in divorce if she hadn't died, which was traumatic for him and their child. Finn said she was totally narcissistic, beautiful, and spoiled, and essentially badly behaved. She had cheated on him several times. He had been enamored with her beauty as a young man, and then overwhelmed by what it entailed. There was a lot of common ground between Finn and Hope, in many ways, although their marriages had been different, and his son was still alive. But there were many common points, and they were nearly the same age, only two years apart. When the fire finally went out, she turned off the lights, and they walked upstairs. He had already found his bedroom when he brought the bags up and had seen hers. She had a small double bed in the cozy room that had been her parents', and the bed always felt too big for her now without Paul. |
| 450 |
The one in the room Finn was staying in was so small that Hope looked embarrassed and said that maybe they should trade, although hers didn't look big enough for him either. "I'll be fine," he reassured her, and tenderly kissed her goodnight. And then they each disappeared into their rooms. She was in bed five minutes later in a heavy cashmere nightgown with socks, and she laughed when Finn called out a last goodnight in the small house. "Sweet dreams," she shouted back, and turned over in the dark, thinking of him. They had known each other for so little time, but she had never felt so close to anyone in her life. For a minute, she wondered if his fusion theory was correct, but she didn't want it to be. She wanted to believe that they could love each other, but keep their distinct lives, personalities, and talents intact. That still felt right to her. Thinking about him, she was awake for a long time. She was remembering the things he had said about his childhood and how lonely it sounded to her. She wondered if that was why he was so anxious to be part of someone else. His mother didn't sound like much of one to her. And it was interesting to think that while he said that his mother was beautiful and dissatisfied, he had married a woman who was also beautiful and selfish and hadn't been a good mother to their son. It was odd how, in some cases, history repeated itself, and people re created the same miseries that had tormented them as children. She wondered if perhaps he had tried to get a different ending to the same story, and hadn't succeeded in the end. As she thought about it, she heard a thump that sounded like Finn had fallen out of bed, punctuated by a loud "Fuck," which made her laugh, and she went to check on him, padding down the hall in her nightgown and cashmere socks. "Are you okay?" she whispered in the dark, and heard him laugh. "The chest of drawers attacked me when I went to the loo." "Did you hurt yourself?" She sounded worried about him, and felt guilty about the small room he was in. |
| 451 |
It was true. Once they started sleeping with each other, all of her reserve fell away, her guard went down, she trusted him completely, and her heart was his. They had talked about how quickly it had all happened between them, and how much in love they both were. It was what the French called a "coup de foudre," a bolt of lightning that had hit them, and he pointed out regularly that there was no turning back now. He said he was irreversibly in love with her, and she was equally in love with him. Hope had come to the conclusion that at their age, those things happened, they knew who they were and what they wanted, what had gone wrong in past lifetimes, and they both felt certain that this was forever, even though she felt it was soon to tell anyone. They had been in love with each other for just over a month, and Hope had never been as sure of anything in her life as she was of her love for him, and Finn felt the same. They both knew it was for real, and agreed that it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. Finn promised to check out the flights for her the next day, and as it turned out, there was a flight to Dublin from L.A. He stayed in New York for another week and they had a wonderful time together. She thought of introducing him to Mark Webber, but decided it was premature. No one would understand how certain they were of each other this early. It was easier not to have to defend it, and just enjoy it privately. And Finn wanted to be alone with her anyway before he left. He said he didn't want anyone taking up their time, which was infinitely precious as the days flew by until he was to leave. He looked mournful the morning she helped him pack his suitcase. He was miserable about leaving, and still nervous about her photo shoot with Rod Beames. He kept bringing it up, and Hope was beginning to feel silly reassuring him. But since they had met and fallen in love with each other after her assignment to shoot him, he was worried about all her portrait sittings now. |
| 452 |
It would be early February when she got there, so it would be rainy and cold. She had promised to stay with him for a month, and was looking forward to it. He had to write in March anyway, and she had assignments set up in New York, so she couldn't stay longer than that. But a month would be a great start, and allow her to settle in. They had just spent four weeks together in New York. Leaving each other at the airport was like ripping a limb off for both of them. She had never been as attached to anyone, and certainly not this quickly, except Mimi, but not even Paul. Her relationship with Paul, when she met him, had been far more measured and started more slowly, particularly since she was a student then, and he was so much older. He had been very cautious about not moving too quickly. Finn had none of those concerns, and had leaped in with both feet. But at their age, it made more sense. Both of them knew people who had fallen in love in their forties, realized they'd met "the right one" quickly, married within months, and had been happy ever since. But they both knew that it would still be hard to explain to others. They had fallen madly in love and decided to spend their lives together, in a month. And Hope was determined not to say anything to Paul yet. She didn't want to upset him, and had no idea how he'd react. She had been alone for so long, and so accessible to him whenever he wanted, even if it wasn't often, she somehow had a sense that he might be unnerved by her being involved with someone. But she thought that once they met, he and Finn could be good friends. Finn had expressed no jealousy about him yet, which seemed a very good thing. Hope would have been bothered by it if he had. Paul was very important to her, and she loved him deeply, in a pure way now, and knew she always would, for however long he lived, which she hoped would be a long time. She had talked to him once in January, and he was still on his boat then, sailing toward St. Bart's. She never mentioned Finn. |
| 453 |
And Paul could get her on her cell phone anywhere in the world, so even when she was in Ireland, he could call her, and she didn't need to tell him where she was, unless she chose to when he called. But she wanted to be discreet for now. She and Finn kissed for a last time, and she waved as he went through security and disappeared, and then she went back to the city in the limo he'd rented. It was the first time she'd been alone in a month and it felt strange. It was small comfort that they wouldn't be wrestling with her narrow bed. It was an impossible fit for her and Finn, but he insisted on sleeping with her in it, every night. She had promised to try and fit a larger bed onto her sleeping platform before he came to stay again, but it would be a tight fit. After he left, the apartment seemed empty without him, and she wandered around aimlessly for a while, then she answered some emails, checked her mail, made some editing notes about photographs for her retoucher, and finally took a bath and went to bed with a book. She missed him, but she had to admit that, for a short time, having time to herself was nice. Finn liked a lot of attention, engaged in interesting conversations with her at all hours, and wanted to be together all the time. And just for a change, it was almost fun to be on her own again, although she wouldn't have said it to him. He would have been crushed. Her cell phone woke her at three in the morning. It was Finn. He had just arrived. He called to tell her he loved her, and missed her awfully. She thanked him, told him she loved him too, blew him a kiss, and went back to sleep. And he called her again at nine. He told her everything he was doing at the house in preparation for her arrival, and she smiled, listening to him. He sounded like a little kid, and she loved that about him. There was an innocence and sweetness about him that was irresistible. When they were together, it was easy to forget how famous and successful he was, just as he did about her. |
| 454 |
The house itself was majestic, the staircase looked like the gateway to heaven, and the columns lent it grace. "Welcome to Blaxton House, my love." He had already told her it bore his mother's maiden name and always had. Finn put an arm around her, and led her up the long stone steps. An old man in a black apron came out to greet them, and a moment later an ancient maid appeared wearing a uniform and a black sweater, with her hair in a tight bun. They looked older than the building, but were smiling and friendly, as Finn introduced her to them. Their names were Winfred and Katherine, and he explained to her later that they had come with the estate, and commented himself that they looked nearly as old. Inside the house, there was a long gallery filled with dusty family portraits in a long dark hall with tapestries and somber furniture. There was no proper lighting, and Hope could hardly see the portraits, as she walked past them. Winfred had gone out to get her bags, and Katherine had disappeared to make them tea. On either side of the gallery were enormous drawing rooms, sparsely furnished in threadbare antiques. Hope noticed several handsome Aubusson carpets in muted colors, badly in need of repair. But the windows were long and wide, and let lots of light in. The curtains were beautiful and old with gigantic tassles but were in shreds, barely hanging by a thread. The dining room was palatial, and the table could seat forty, Finn told her, with enormous silver candelabra that someone had polished till they gleamed. Next to it was a library that looked like it housed a million books. Finn led her up the grand staircase, to a floor with half a dozen bedrooms, small dressing rooms, sitting rooms. There were ancient furnishings in them, but all the rooms had dustcovers on the furniture, and the curtains were closed. And finally, up another smaller staircase, was the cozier floor where Finn lived. The rooms were smaller, the light brighter, and the furniture and rugs in better condition. |
| 455 |
On the day after Hope arrived at Blaxton House, she had Winfred, Katherine, and Finn pulling back curtains, taking down shades, and opening shutters so she could better see the condition of the rooms. Finn had given her carte blanche to do whatever she wanted, and by that afternoon, the house was full of light. Torn shades had been disposed of, shredded curtains had been taken down to be more closely examined and were lying on the floor. In the main living room, she had all the broken furniture pushed to one side of the room, and she had made a long list of what needed to be done. In drier weather, she wanted to take the ancient carpets out to air them, but there was no way to do that now. It rained on and off all day. The house was dusty, and she was coughing by the time she finished her rounds on the main floor. There was actually some very good looking furniture, the arms and legs needed to be reinforced, and most of the upholstery was gone. She wanted to find a furniture restorer in the village, and with so many important manor houses in the area, she was sure that there was one. So far, she had listed sixteen pieces of furniture that needed restoration, and only seven that were broken beyond repair. She had Finn take her into the village to buy wax late that afternoon she wanted to try and work on some of the woodwork and paneling herself. It was going to be a mammoth job. Winfred and Katherine were impressed with what she was doing, and Finn was in awe. And the next day, she did the same on the second floor. There, she went through all the bedrooms, and found some beautiful furniture under the muslin covers. Hope was having a great time. Finn loved it, and her. "Good lord," Finn said, smiling at her. "I didn't expect you to restore my house yourself." He was touched by what she was doing. She was a hard worker and she had a good eye. She made him take her into Blessington to find a restorer, which she did, and she made an appointment for him to come out the next day. |
| 456 |
He took away all the pieces Finn agreed needed to be worked on, and the following day, she had him drive her to Dublin, where she bought miles and miles of fabric, for upholstery, and some for the bedrooms in pastel satins. She made sure that Finn liked all the colors, and she paid for it herself as a gift to him. And for the next many days, she worked with Winfred and Katherine to clean all the rooms, and get rid of all the dust and cobwebs. She left some of the shredded curtains hanging, and those that were beyond salvation she threw away. The windows looked better with no covering than with the remains of the old ones hanging there. The house already looked cleaner and more cheerful, and she pulled back the deep green velvet curtains in the gallery, so the house didn't look so dark as one walked in. The place was looking better every day. And Hope said she was having a ball. "Come on," Finn said one afternoon, "let's get out of here. I want to show you around." He took her to see the other great houses, and she assured him that none were more beautiful than his. Blaxton House looked the most like Russborough House. And her goal now was to help him get his place into shape. It was too big a job for him alone, and she sensed that money was somewhat tight for him, so she tried to do everything on a budget, and paid for things whenever she could, without offending him. Finn was deeply appreciative of all she did. He was well aware that it was a labor of love she was doing for him. And the results were already starting to show. Whenever he had work to do, she spent time on her waxing and polishing project, and room by room, the woodwork was starting to shine. The broken furniture was out being restored. A local upholsterer had taken the pieces to be re covered, and upstairs she had found treasures under the holland covers. The master bedroom once uncovered was a marvel of exquisite furniture and beautiful frescoes on the walls. She said it looked like Versailles. "You are amazing," Finn said in admiration. |
| 457 |
She had no idea how he'd react, or if he would be sad. She had spoken to him the day before. He was at Harvard for treatment, and he hadn't sounded well at all, but he assured her he was doing fine. It saddened her, and she worried about him a great deal. He was sounding ever more frail. Hope did some errands after she left Mark, and then she went home. She knew exactly what day it was, and so did Finn. He had already asked her twice. This was The Day. It was the first day the test would show if she was pregnant or not. She drew a long breath, and walked into the bathroom with the test he had given her. She was sure it was going to be fine, but it scared her anyway. She followed the directions to the letter, set it on the counter afterward, and walked away. The test took five full minutes, and it seemed like an eternity to her. She went to stare out the window, and then walked back to the bathroom, dreading what she would find, and telling herself that she wasn't pregnant. It seemed too stupid to be worrying about this at her age. She hadn't had a scare like this in years. Not since she was in her late twenties, and hadn't wanted to be pregnant then either. Paul had only wanted one child, and Mimi was enough for her. As it turned out, she hadn't been pregnant, and was surprised to find that she was more disappointed than relieved. And it had never happened again. They were always careful, and not as abandoned and passionate as she and Finn. She and Paul had made a careful, conscious joint decision to have Mimi and it didn't happen on a bathroom floor. She walked back to her bathroom counter as though she were approaching a snake. The test directions had been very clear as to how to read the test. One line you're not pregnant, two you are. Anyone could have figured it out. From the distance, she saw one line, and heaved a sigh of relief. She approached and picked it up just to be sure, and was prepared to let out a scream of delight over the negative result, and then she saw it. |
| 458 |
These were very young women, and girls that age tended to be more dramatic and more extreme and intense, although she couldn't imagine Mimi doing it either, for a broken romance, or any other reason. These were obviously troubled girls in desperate situations, one pregnant out of wedlock with an alcoholic father to face and a boyfriend she thought had left her, and the other trapped in a loveless marriage with a child she didn't want and a husband Finn said she hated. It was upsetting to think about. And Finn was quiet as he walked out of the room, and went back upstairs to his office to work on the book. Hope put the photographs back in the drawer, and decided not to restore the desk. She went for a walk alone after that, and thought about Finn. He had had turmoil and upset with the women in his life, and the death of a young girl on his conscience for more than twenty years. It was a lot to live with. And she thought his question to her had been odd. Maybe he just wanted to reassure himself that no matter what happened, he would never have to face something like that again. And with Hope there was no risk. Suicide was not an option for her. If her daughter's death hadn't destroyed her, she knew that nothing would. She dreaded losing Paul, when that happened, and she knew she would one day. She hoped for him, and for her, that that wouldn't happen for a long, long time. As she walked along, it was sad thinking about death, instead of birth, and then she thought of the baby, taking hold inside her. The child she and Finn had conceived was an affirmation of life and hope, and an antidote to all the tragedies that had happened to them both. She saw now, more than ever, what a wonderful thing it was, and realized that that was what Finn had been doing, clinging to life to overcome the shadows of death that had trailed him for years. It was a touching thought and made her love him more than ever. She thought about Audra then, and even not knowing her, silently mourned her loss. |
| 459 |
And a moment later, they were both laughing. It was a relief after the somber discoveries she had made that day. The sad story of Audra was still on her mind, but she didn't mention it to him again, she knew now how painful it was for him, and she felt sorry for him. "Can't we just throw this stuff away?" Finn asked, looking at the heap of yellowed linens on the ground. Most of them were tablecloths no one had used for years, and the rest were sheets for beds in sizes that no longer existed. "I will, but we had to at least pull them out first. We can't let them sit up there forever." She was becoming the unofficial mistress of the manor, and Finn was pleased to see it. "You're such a little housewife," he teased her, and then he smiled down at her from the top of the ladder. "I can't wait till we have a baby running around here. It'll really feel like a home then. Until you came along, Hope, it just felt like a house." She had infused her own life and spirit into it, just by cleaning it up and moving things around, and the furniture she'd had restored looked beautiful, although there was still too little of it. The house was mostly empty, and it would have cost a fortune to fill it. She didn't want to overstep her bounds, so she was trying to do her best with what was there, and only added a few things, as small gifts to him. He was deeply appreciative of everything she did. And the results were looking good, although it was obvious that it would take years to restore the house to its original condition, and probably more money than Finn would ever see. But at least he had claimed his mother's family's ancestral home, and she knew what it meant to him. His love for the house was almost as deep as his love for her. He had come home to his roots, and reclaimed them. It was a major step for him. And he felt as though he had been waiting to do that all his life, and often said that to her. He knew that his mother would have been proud of him, if she were still alive to see it. |
| 460 |
Her efforts to improve it for him, and return it to its previous glory, were a gesture of love for him. For the next several weeks, Finn continued to work on his book, and Hope took a few pictures. She took them discreetly in the pub sometimes, mostly of old people, and no one seemed to mind. Most of them were flattered. After Finn finished work in the afternoons, they went for long quiet walks in the hills. He talked with her about his work, and how the book was going. She paid close attention to everything he said, and was fascinated by the process of his work, as he was with hers. As he had even before he met her, he loved the photographs she took. And he particularly liked the series she was doing of old men and women in the pubs. They had wonderful faces and expressive eyes, and seen through Hope's lens, they were transfused with all the tenderness and pathos of the human spirit. They had tremendous respect for each other's work. No one had taken as great an interest in her work before, nor had anyone in his. They talked about the baby, although she didn't like to dwell on the subject. She didn't want to get her hopes up too much now that she had gotten comfortable with the idea. The first three months were always unsure, and at her age even more so. Once she got past that, she would really allow herself to celebrate the idea. Until then, she was hopeful and excited, but trying to remain calm and realistic, and somewhat reserved. Finn had already given his whole heart to it, and she had long since forgiven him for the hideous afternoon at the fertility doctor in London, and even for getting her drunk and pregnant later that afternoon. The results of it were too sweet to resist, and she loved him more than ever, particularly now with this additional bond. She was feeling mellow, happy, and very much in love. They were talking about getting married, and they both loved the idea. All Hope wanted was to spend the rest of her life with him, and he felt exactly the same way. |
| 461 |
And their plans to marry in the near future made her feel very much mistress of his home. She was emptying drawers in the dining room one day, in her continuing efforts to purge the house of old, meaningless things, when she came upon a lease that had just been tossed into a bottom drawer. And it looked relatively new. She was going to leave it on Finn's desk, and then realized what it was. It was a six year lease for Blaxton House that Finn had signed two years before. And as she read it, she realized that the house had been rented, not bought. She was floored. He had said the house was his. She thought about putting the lease back in the drawer, and not mentioning it to him. It wasn't really any of her business, but it troubled her all that afternoon. It wasn't just that he had lied to her, but it seemed so odd to her that he would tell her he owned it, when in fact it was only rented. And finally, she couldn't stand it, and decided to clear the air with him. It seemed like an important point to her. Honesty was a crucial part of the relationship they were building, which they both hoped would last for years, hopefully forever. And she wanted no secrets between them. She had none from him. She waited until teatime to ask him about it, and they were eating the sandwiches and soup that Katherine provided for them every evening. She made them a hot meal at noon, with hearty meat and vegetables and Irish potatoes, which Finn ate and she didn't. Hope preferred lighter meals, and she was grateful that as her pregnancy progressed, she felt fine. If anything, she ate more than usual, and she hadn't been nauseous for a minute. She hadn't been with Mimi either. In the twenty three years since her last pregnancy, nothing had changed, and she felt healthier than ever, and looked it. She had the bloom of youth and motherhood in her eyes and on her cheeks, despite her age. In fact, she looked suddenly younger than ever. She broached the subject carefully as they finished the meal. |
| 462 |
They had lost a tree in the night, but they didn't care. It hadn't hurt anyone, and had done no damage. And the owner of the house, who had bought the property as an investment, was happy to accept seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds, a million five hundred thousand dollars. It was a terrific price, and Finn was ecstatic. Hope had the money wired, and since there were no conditions on the sale, Blaxton House was theirs eight days later. Legally, it belonged to her, but she had all the papers drawn up, leaving it to him in the event of her death, and allowing him to pay a nominal rent for now. Once they were married, the house would be put in trust for their child. And if for some reason they didn't marry, or there was no child, he could still buy the house from her, over an extended time. It was a fantastic deal for him, and one he never could have gotten otherwise. And she was already making plans to restore it to its original beauty. Hope was thrilled to have a free hand for the restoration. There was nothing in it for her, except the joy of making Finn happy, and knowing that they owned the house they were living in, and where their baby would grow up. She reminded Finn again that the deal was not contingent on her pregnancy. If for any reason they lost the baby, nothing changed. And if their relationship failed, she was still willing to let him buy the house from her over time. It was the ideal arrangement for him, and he said she was the most generous woman in the world. Hope insisted it was a blessing for them both. She had asked no one's advice and needed no one's permission. She just did it, and notified her bank to make the wire transfer to the previous owner. Everyone was extremely pleased with the deal. And Finn most of all, but Hope was happy too. He put the deed to the house in his desk drawer like it was made of gold. And then he turned to Hope, and knelt down before her, looking into her eyes. "What are you doing?" she asked, laughing at him, and then saw his serious expression. |
| 463 |
Hope hadn't sounded like that in years. And for the next two months, she and Finn never stopped. Hope hired a contractor and started doing the repairs the house needed so badly. They had to put a new roof on, which cost a fortune but was worth it. Windows were sealed that had leaked for fifty years. Dry rot was cut out, and she made arrangements to have the interior of the house painted while they were in Cape Cod for the summer. And she was buying antiques in shops and at auctions, to fill the house with the furniture it deserved. And every time Finn saw her, she was carrying something, dragging a box, climbing up a ladder, or stripping a paneled wall. She boxed up the books in the library so they could work on the shelves. She never stopped, and more than once Finn gave her hell and reminded her that she was pregnant. She still acted as she had when she was pregnant with Mimi, and Finn reminded her that she was no longer twenty two years old. Sometimes Hope remembered to be careful, and the rest of the time she laughed at him and told him that she wasn't sick. She had never felt better or been happier in her life. This was like the reward for all the sorrow that she'd been through. She believed that Finn was the miracle that God had given her, and she said it to him all the time. She was working particularly hard one afternoon, packing up the dishes so they could have the inside of the china closets painted, and she complained afterward that she had hurt her back. She got in a warm tub and it felt better, but she said that it really ached, and Finn scolded her again, and then felt sorry for her, and rubbed her back. "You're a fool," he chided her. "Something is going to happen, and it'll be your own goddamn fault, and I'll be pissed. That's our baby you're tossing around, while you work like a mule." But it touched him too that she loved his house so much and was doing it all for him. She wanted it to be beautiful now so he'd be proud. It was her labor of love for Finn, and so was their child. |
| 464 |
She slept fitfully that night, and stayed in bed the next morning. She said her back still hurt, and he offered to call a doctor, but she said she didn't need one. He believed her, although she didn't look well. He thought that she looked pale, and she was obviously in pain. He came up to check on her an hour later, and found her on the bathroom floor, in a pool of blood, barely able to crawl, as she looked up at him. He panicked when he saw her and rushed for the phone. He called for the paramedics and begged the operator to send them fast, and then returned to Hope in the bathroom. He was holding her when they arrived, and his jeans were soaked with blood. She had lost the baby and was hemorrhaging, and she lost consciousness when the paramedics picked her up and put her on a gurney to carry her out. Finn ran along beside them, praying she would live, and when she came to in the hospital hours later, after they had cleaned out her womb, Finn was staring at her with a dark look. She reached out a hand to him and he turned away and got up. She was crying and he was staring out the window, and then turned to look at her. He looked both angry and sad, and there were tears in his eyes too. He was thinking of his loss, more than hers. "You killed our baby," he said brutally, and she broke into a sob, and she reached out to him again, but he didn't come near her. She tried but was too weak to sit up. They had given her two transfusions to make up for the blood she'd lost. "I'm sorry," she managed to say through her sobs. "All that stupid lifting and carrying, look what it did. You just made it to three months, and now you fucked it all up." He said nothing to comfort or reassure her, and Hope looked heartbroken as he raged at her. "It was a shitty thing to do, to the baby, and to me. You killed a healthy baby, Hope." It didn't occur to him that maybe the baby wasn't so healthy if it hadn't survived past that point, but there was no way to know now, and she felt bad enough. |
| 465 |
Hope left for New York two weeks later in June. She was thin and pale and very subdued, and she knew that Finn was still upset. He blamed her fully for the miscarriage, and insisted that only her carelessness had caused it. He refused to accept the idea that age might have been a factor, or it could have happened anyway. He never missed an opportunity to tell her that it was her fault. He kept telling her they'd both feel better when she got pregnant again and did it right this time, which only exacerbated her own unspoken guilt. She had apologized to him a thousand times. Finn acted like she had betrayed him, and their child. She felt like a murderess every time she looked at him, and she wondered if he'd ever forgive her. All he talked about was doing it again. And it was almost a relief to get on the plane to New York and get away from him. And she was by no means ready to do it again, or not this soon at least, if at all. He acted as though she owed it to him. But after losing Mimi, now losing this pregnancy had her in deep mourning suddenly. And she was in disgrace with Finn as well, which nearly broke her heart. She managed to finish all her assignments in New York, and had been hoping to see Paul since she hadn't seen him in six months, which was far too long. But when she called him on his cell phone, he said he was in Germany, checking out a new treatment for Parkinson's, and he planned to stay there for a while. She was sorry to miss him, but they promised to meet in the fall. She had lunch with Mark Webber, who thought she looked exhausted and said she was working too hard. But she insisted she was happy, and he hoped she was. But she didn't look as happy to him as she had sounded on the phone. Finn's harsh criticism of her when she lost the baby had hit her hard. There had been a cruelty to it that was hard to get over now. It was the first time he had been unkind to her in the six months they'd been together, and the first time a shadow had come between them. |
| 466 |
Mark had gotten her several assignments for the fall, and she wasn't sure if she should take them or not. If she got pregnant again, she knew that Finn wouldn't let her fly to New York. Suddenly something that had been both an accident and a blessing had become a life or death project that took precedence for Finn. And for the first time, Hope felt unsure of herself. She felt profoundly guilty, and nervous about doing it again. She went to see her doctor in New York, who told her that she had to wait at least three months before trying to get pregnant again, and reminded her sensibly that she might have lost the baby anyway, even if she'd stayed in bed. But after everything Finn had said to her, she felt responsible and depressed. She had already decided to put their wedding off till December, since now there was no rush. She was too depressed to plan their marriage. Finn arrived in New York as soon as she finished her work. He was in better spirits than when she had left him, and he was very loving to her. Hope tried to stay off the subject of the miscarriage, but he mentioned to her several times that he wanted her to see the fertility doctor in London when she went back. He didn't want to waste any time, and he made Hope feel that she owed it to him. She was still feeling too weak and tired and depressed to argue with him and fight back, so she finally said she would. It was easier than battling about it. And they were going to be at the Cape for July and August, while Blaxton House was being painted from top to bottom. And she was sure she'd feel better by the end of the summer, and things would look different and less depressing to her by then. She was still dealing with all the hormonal changes that came from losing a three month pregnancy, and so much blood. Her body was still in shock. And Finn's harsh reaction, blame, and accusations had shaken her considerably. His behavior about the miscarriage was so out of keeping with his normal, extremely loving style of the past six months. |
| 467 |
He was the Finn she had fallen in love with seven months before, only better. And she began to relax and feel more like herself again. She put on some weight and felt healthy, and they were together every moment. He had brought his manuscript with him, and he said the work was going well. Her only disappointment was that he refused to meet any of her friends at the Cape. She and Paul had had an open door policy at the house, and their friends had dropped in often. Finn told her he didn't want that happening, it disturbed his work, and he was uncomfortable meeting them whenever it happened. She took him to a Fourth of July picnic at the home of a couple she had known forever, and Finn was standoffish and unfriendly. Several people told him they loved his work, and even then he was chilly, and insisted that he and Hope leave early. When she questioned him about it the next day, he said he hated that kind of suburban summer community and had nothing in common with them. And what was the point of meeting them? They lived in Ireland. What Hope realized increasingly was that he wanted her to himself. He complained if she went to the grocery store without him. He wanted to go everywhere with her. It was still flattering in some ways, but there were times when she found it oppressive. And he told her that he liked her Cape Cod house much better in winter than in summer, when it was peaceful and the area was deserted. Without exception, Finn had rejected all her old friends. She hardly saw them herself now that she no longer lived in Boston, and she had always loved the congenial atmosphere at the Cape, but it was clear that that was not going to be part of her life with Finn. Although he had socialized a great deal in his youth and gone out with a million women before her, once in a relationship Finn preferred to lead a quiet life with her, and have no social life whatsoever except with her. At times it left her feeling isolated. He insisted that it was more romantic that way, and he didn't want to share her. |
| 468 |
In spite of herself, Hope found herself staring at him, and then roused herself from her reverie and stood up to kiss him, but it didn't feel quite the same. She knew now that he had lied to her, and nothing would be comfortable between them until he told her why. The three of them went to the local pub for dinner that night, and over beer Finn said something about he and Hope planning to get married sometime. Michael nodded and seemed pleased for them in a remote way. He thought Hope was a nice woman, and he didn't have a lot invested in his relationship with Finn, or her, and now she knew why. Finn and his son hardly knew each other, if what Michael said was true. And she had no reason to disbelieve it, it had the ring of truth when he said it. One of them was lying, and she had the sinking feeling it was Finn. He didn't invite his son to the wedding, or even say there was one planned, and for the moment, there wasn't. But Hope had wanted a small ceremony, attended by their closest friends, and surely Finn's son. She realized then that Finn really wanted to do it alone, just as he had said. That sounded sad to her, but she didn't comment. She had very little to say that night, and she and Michael avoided looking at each other. She hugged him the next day before he left, and thanked him for coming to see them. "I hope you come back to visit us anytime," she said, and meant it. "I will," Michael said politely, and thanked her for the hospitality. Finn drove him to the airport then, and she realized how strange his visit had been. It did have the feeling of strangers or casual acquaintances getting together, and not father and son. Given what Michael had told her the day before, she was surprised that he came at all. She was still thinking about it when Finn came back from the airport, and she looked at him strangely. Finn picked up on it and asked her what was wrong. She was about to say nothing, and then decided to be honest with him. She felt she had no other choice. |
| 469 |
Finn knew that, so theoretically, he was safe. She hardly read the papers at all, except the local ones. They were living in a bubble at the foot of the Wicklow Mountains. Finn had counted on that. But it was a pretty shocking story, and if it was true, she knew he must be in dire financial straits, and even more so if they sued him, which was probably why he hadn't told her. He was like a kid hiding a bad report card from his parents. But Hope also realized this was far more serious. He was lying to her about what was happening in his life, not just the past. And all he wanted to talk to her about was getting pregnant. She thought of something else then, and checked the bank records after she talked to Mark. Finn hadn't paid the rent he owed her monthly since they bought the house in April. She didn't care about the money, and she never mentioned it to him so as not to embarrass him, but it was a clear sign that he was having money troubles and hadn't told her. She knew that if he had the rent money, he would have paid. And he hadn't. She had never thought to check, since it was just a token payment anyway. She used it as a way of opening the topic of conversation that night, and asked him if everything was all right, since she had noticed that he hadn't paid his rent. He laughed when she asked him. "Is my landlady getting impatient?" he asked as he kissed her, and sat down to dinner with her in the kitchen. "Don't worry about it. The signing money for my new contract should be here in a few days." He didn't tell her how much it was, but her heart sank. He was lying to her again. She didn't know whether to be angry with him, or frightened, but his ability to skirt the truth, distort it, or just fabricate it, was beginning to unnerve her, and a red flag went up in her head. She didn't ask him about it again, but he had just flunked the test, and it remained an obstacle between them for the next several weeks while she worried about it, and then packed for her trip to New York. |
| 470 |
They were always together. And it was hard to work with him around. He needed constant attention, and wanted her to himself. That was fine at the house in Ireland, but it was impossible when she was trying to work in New York, and she was actually looking forward to a few weeks in her SoHo loft. She had promised Finn she would be back in Ireland by Thanksgiving, which was three weeks away. "Why don't you finish your book while I'm gone?" The weather was depressing in Ireland that time of year, and it sounded like he needed to do that. Maybe it would keep him from getting sued by his publisher. She had looked up the Wall Street Journal article on the Internet after talking to Mark Webber, and the situation sounded frightening to her. In his shoes, she would have been panicking, and perhaps he was, and so hiding it from her to save face. They were suing him for more than two million dollars, and interest, three million in all. It was a very, very big deal, and he had no way to pay for it, she knew, if he lost. Fortunately, the house was in her name. She had thought of putting it in his, and was planning to as a wedding present, but now she was glad she hadn't, and she would keep it in her name if he was still being sued by the time they got married. But she was feeling uneasy about the marriage too. He had told too many lies, and it was hard to put it out of her mind. She also knew how unusual it was for a publisher to sue an author, and not handle it behind closed doors. They had to be truly furious with him to have it go that far. Finn was in a black mood the next day when he took her to the airport, and for the first time since she had met him, she was relieved when the plane took off. She put her head back against the seat and spent the rest of the flight trying to figure out what was happening. She was feeling confused. Most of the time, he was the most lovable man she had ever known. But then there had been his viciousness when she lost the baby, his anger, and blaming her unfairly. |
| 471 |
She felt terrible for the rest of the day, especially when Finn called and told her how much he loved her and how miserable he was without her. He said he almost wanted to get on a plane and come to New York, but she reminded him gently that she had to work. She was even nicer to him than she would have been normally because she felt so guilty about what Mark was doing on her behalf. But Mark was right, it was smart. And if they didn't find any skeletons in his past, or problems, except the lawsuit, Hope knew she didn't need to worry and could marry Finn in peace. It was getting down to the wire, and they had been talking about getting married on New Year's Eve, less than two months away. She wanted to know before that that everything was fine. And nothing was feeling good to her right now. Her instincts were screaming, and she was feeling sick and stressed. Hope found it unbelievably hard to work the next day. She was nervous and distracted, and couldn't make a decent connection with her subject, which was unheard of for her. She finally forced herself to concentrate with enormous effort, and she managed to do the shoot, but it wasn't one of her best days. And the rest of the week was pretty much the same. Now that she knew someone was checking on Finn, she wanted to get the information, deal with it, and put it behind her. The suspense was killing her. She wanted everything to be all right. And that weekend she went to Boston to see Paul, who was in the hospital at Harvard. He had caught a bad respiratory flu on the boat, and they were afraid of pneumonia. The captain of his boat had arranged to have him sent to Boston by air ambulance, which had probably saved him. Paul was doing better but not great, and he slept through most of Hope's visit. She sat next to him, holding his hand, and now and then he opened his eyes and smiled at her. It was painful to think that he had once been a vital man, brilliant in his field, full of life in every way, and now it had come to this. |
| 472 |
He declared bankruptcy, which is probably why he eventually went to Ireland. He doesn't seem to be able to hang on to money, although he's made a fair amount with his writing in recent years. But now his publishers are pissed at him, so that's gone up in smoke too. It sounds like the best thing that ever happened to him was walking into you a year ago. And let me tell you, this is going to be one hell of a lucky sonofabitch if he marries you. But I don't think I'd say the same for you. "There's nothing wrong with his background, or with having been born poor. A lot of people have come up from situations like that and made something of themselves. That's what this country is all about. And you have to admire the guy for crawling out of a pit like that. His credit is a mess, but that's not the end of the world, if you want to help him with it. What I don't like," Mark said, looking over the file at her, "is that he lied to you about damn near everything. Maybe he's ashamed of where he comes from, which is sad for him. But marrying a woman and claiming you're someone and something you're not doesn't show much integrity on his part, and it's none of my business, if you love the guy, but I don't like the smell of it for you. The guy is a first class liar. He's invented a whole history for himself, including aristocratic ancestors, titles, doctors, and an entire world of people who don't exist. Or maybe they do, but if they do, or did, none of them are related to him, which frightens me." He handed Hope the file without further comment, and she glanced through a neatly typed, fully documented report by the private investigator. Mark told her they were searching further, and promised additional information on his background in the next two weeks. But they seemed to have been very thorough so far, and as Hope looked back at Mark, she felt sick. Not because what she had heard was terrible, or unacceptable, but what she knew now was that Finn had lied to her about every fact and detail. |
| 473 |
Hope spoke to Mark again before she left. The investigators had no further information for the moment, and she had finished all her assignments in New York. She'd been checking on Paul by phone daily at the hospital in Boston. He was about the same, and he was asleep every time she called. She had spoken to his doctor, and he was concerned but not panicked over Paul's health. Paul was weak, but the situation was what it was. He was sliding slowly downhill. And they promised to call her in Ireland if there was any drastic change in his condition. The doctor knew that if there was, she would come back immediately. He had known them both when they were married, and he had always been sorry about the terrible turns of fate that had befallen them, first with Paul's illness, his forced retirement, their daughter's death, and Paul's decision to divorce. Hope called Finn before leaving New York, to tell him she was coming and he was ecstatic. It made her sad to hear how happy he was. After the lies she had just discovered, she felt as though the bottom was falling out of their world. She hoped that they could get it on track again, and put it behind them. She wanted to find a way to reassure him that he didn't need to lie about his childhood, or his life, or even problems with his publisher. None of those things would make her think less of him, but lying did. And it unnerved her. She no longer knew what to believe or trust. She wanted to condemn the action, not the man. She still believed that he was a good man. But he still hadn't told her about his current disaster with his contract. It was hard to believe he hadn't said a word about it to her, and that he had taken her out to dinner to celebrate a contract he hadn't signed. She wasn't even angry at him. She was desperately sad. She loved him, and didn't want him to be afraid to tell her the truth. "It's about goddamn time you came home," he said, grinning broadly, and she noticed that he sounded more than a little drunk. |
| 474 |
He told her the weather was terrible, and that he had been depressed ever since she left. She wondered if losing his publisher had started him on some kind of downward spin. "Yeah, me too," she said in a soft voice. It hadn't been a great trip. She hadn't even enjoyed her work this time. She had spent the whole three weeks deeply upset about him. And on the plane, she agonized over what to do about the investigator's report. You couldn't unring a bell. But along with the sound of fear in her head, there was love. And she didn't want to humiliate him by confronting him with the report. He looked tired when he met her at the airport, and she noticed that he had dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn't slept. She wasn't even happy to see the house this time. It was freezing cold, and he had forgotten to turn up the heat. And when she went upstairs, she noticed in his office that there weren't more than a dozen pages on his desk to add to his book. He had told her he had written a hundred pages in her absence, and now that she was home she could see that that was a lie too. "What have you been doing while I was gone?" she asked as he watched her unpack her suitcase. She hung her clothes up and tried not to sound upset when she talked to him. She tried to keep her tone easy and light, but she didn't fool him. He could see that something was wrong the minute she got off the plane. "What's wrong, Hope?" he asked her quietly, pulling her onto the bed and into his arms. "Nothing. I've been upset because Paul is so sick." He didn't look happy to hear it, but she didn't know what else to say. She didn't feel prepared or ready to tell him that she now knew that everything he'd told her about his childhood was a lie, and that the ancestral home she'd bought for him really belonged to someone else, and not his family at all. She kept thinking of the tattered photograph of the four little boys in cowboy hats, and she felt desperately sorry for him. He wasn't even an only child as he had said. |
| 475 |
It was relatively simple and said that what was Finn's was his, and what was hers was hers. For obvious reasons, she didn't want to commingle funds with him. Paul had given her that money, and she was keeping good track of it. "I had no idea you were cheap," he said bluntly, as he took another sharp turn in the road. It was an incredible thing for him to say to her, given what she had done for him with the house. He seemed to have forgotten very quickly her generosity with him. And she wasn't cheap, she was smart. Especially given his newly discovered talent for telling lies. She was not about to turn her fortune over to him, or even a portion of it. Five million dollars was ten percent of what Paul had given her after twenty years. They drove the rest of the way home in stony silence, and when he came to a sharp stop in front, she got out and walked into the house. She was extremely upset by his request, and he was even more so about her refusal. He walked straight into the pantry and poured himself a stiff drink, and she could already see the effect of it when he came upstairs to their room. She suspected he might even have had a second one by then. "So what would you think is reasonable?" he asked her as he sat down, and she looked at him with a pained expression. Things were going from bad to worse. First his obsession with her getting pregnant, then the lying, and now he wanted a huge amount of money from her. Day by day he was turning into a different man, and then out of nowhere she'd get a glimpse of the old one, who had been so wonderful to her, and just as quickly he'd disappear again. There was something very surreal and schizophrenic about it, and she remembered his brother referring to him as a sociopath in the investigator's report. She wondered now if maybe he was. She also recalled reading an article about something called "intermittent reinforcement," where people were alternately abusive and loving, and their victims were so confused, they became more determined than ever to work things out. |
| 476 |
He woke her in the middle of the night, and started arguing with her again, on the same agonizing subject, until she finally fell asleep. She woke up in the morning and he served her breakfast in bed, and was his old attentive, good humored, loving self. She felt as though she were losing her mind, or he was. But one of them was crazy, and she was no longer sure who. She was most afraid that it was her, and when she said something about his waking her during the night to argue with her, he insisted that he hadn't, and she felt crazier than ever and wondered if she had dreamed it. She needed to talk to someone, to try and make sense of it, but there was no one to talk to. She had no friends in Ireland, and she didn't want to call Mark and worry him. And she didn't want to call the lawyer he had recommended whom she didn't know. Paul was too sick to talk to. The only person she could talk to was Finn, and he had started telling her that she was acting crazy. She really thought and was afraid that she might be going insane. The only thing that saved her was that on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Paul's doctor called her. Paul had developed pneumonia, and they were afraid that he might be coming close to the end, and if Hope wanted to see him, she needed to come to Boston as soon as she could. Without saying a word to Finn after the call, she packed a bag, and was ready to leave by the time he came home from the village with a bag of things from the hardware store, and some laundry soap Katherine had asked him to pick up. And he had bought a big bouquet of flowers for Hope, which touched her when she saw them, but only confused her more. He was startled when he saw her, already dressed to travel, and zipping closed her bag. "Where are you going?" He looked panicked, and she told him about Paul. Hope looked upset about it, and he put his arms around her and asked if she wanted him to come. She didn't, but she didn't want to insult him by saying no. "I'll be fine. I think it's better if I go alone," she said sadly. |
| 477 |
She was no longer sure. Finn was either accusing her of something now, or adoring her, kissing her in their bed at night, or demanding money, waking her out of a sound sleep to argue with her, and then insisting she had woken him while she staggered around in exhaustion the next day. She wasn't sure, but she thought he was playing mind games with her, and some of it was working, because she felt totally confused. And Finn looked fine and undisturbed. He drove her to the airport, and she kissed him and ran for the plane. And as she took her seat in first class, all she felt was relief to be away from him, and burst into tears. She slept for the entire flight, and woke up in a daze as they landed at Logan Airport in Boston. She felt as though her life with Finn had become totally surreal. Paul's doctor was waiting for her when she got to the hospital. She had called him on her way in from the airport. And she was shocked when he took her to see Paul. In the short time since she had seen him, he had wasted away. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks were hollow. He had an oxygen mask on, and she wasn't sure if he recognized her at first, and then he nodded, and closed his eyes peacefully, as though he was relieved that she had come. She sat with him for the next two days. She never left him. She called Finn once, but explained that she couldn't speak to him from Paul's room, and he said he understood and was very sweet to her, which seemed strange to her again. He was mean to her so often now, and then loving at other times. She almost hated talking to him, because she never knew which one he'd be. And afterward he'd blame her for starting a fight, when she was certain it was him. She called Mark and let him know she was in Boston. She promised to keep him posted, and then finally on the third day Hope was there, Paul quietly slipped away, and as he did, with tears rolling down her cheeks, Hope whispered to him that she loved him, and asked him to take care of Mimi, and then he was gone. |
| 478 |
And she felt better now in New York. Every day her mind got clearer, and the confusion Finn was spinning around her had less effect. He was calling her often, but a lot of the time, she wasn't answering the phone. And then afterward he'd ask her where she'd been and with whom. She usually told him she'd been asleep. Sometimes she just left her cell phone in the apartment and went out. Mark called her two days later and sounded grim. This time, he offered to come to the apartment to see her. She invited him to come down, and he showed up half an hour later with his briefcase. The investigator had just delivered his final report, and Mark had brought it to her. Mark handed it to her without a word, and waited while she read it. The report was long and detailed, and Hope was shocked by almost everything she read. Most of it was different from what she had heard from Finn. Some he had never mentioned at all. The report started where the last one had left off, after his childhood and youth, early jobs, and went on to tell about his marriage to Michael's mother. It said she was a model, with some moderate success, and had married Finn when she was twenty one and he was twenty. It said that the couple had had a reputation for a heavy party life, with both drugs and drinking, that she had gotten pregnant, and they married five months before Michael was born. The report said that they had been separated several times, both had committed infidelities, but had gone back together, and that they had gotten into a severe accident on the highway, coming back from a party late one night on Long Island. Finn had been drinking heavily that night, and was at the wheel. Their car was hit by a truck at an intersection on the highway. It had been totaled, and his wife had been severely injured. The driver of the truck was killed. There had been no witnesses on the scene, and eventually a car driving by had called the state police from a pay phone just down the road, and asked for emergency assistance. |
| 479 |
When the highway patrol arrived, they had found Finn conscious and uninjured, inebriated but not extremely, and he had been unable to explain why he had not gone to the pay phone to call for help himself. To do him justice, the report said he was in shock and disoriented after a blow to the head, and he had said he hadn't wanted to leave his injured wife to walk down the road to the phone. The accident had occurred half an hour before the other car drove by, and medical examiners had concluded that if help had been called sooner, Finn's passenger, his wife, would have lived. He had made no effort whatsoever to save her life. Investigations afterward had determined that their marriage was in trouble, and Finn had asked her for a divorce, which she had refused. There was some question as to whether he had caused the accident, but whether he had or not, he had let her die. Charges had been formally brought against Finn, he was given a five year suspended sentence and five years probation and had his license revoked for manslaughter for the death of the truck driver. His late wife's death was deemed an accident. The investigator had contacted the family of Finn's late wife, in California, who were still bitter about it and said that they believed Finn had intentionally killed their daughter, in the hope of inheriting some money. Her father was a wealthy stockbroker in San Francisco, and he and his wife had brought up their daughter's child, who was seven at the time of his mother's death. They said that Finn had flatly refused custody of the child. They had told the investigator that Finn had seen his son twice in the ensuing years before he left for college, and they believed he had seen him a few times since, but had no real role in their grandson's life. They considered him a poor influence on the boy and a dangerous man. He had attempted to extort money from them after their daughter's death, threatening to expose her use of alcohol and drugs and immoral, promiscuous lifestyle. |
| 480 |
They just wanted him out of their and their grandson's life. They were aware of his literary success in the years since their daughter's death, but nonetheless considered him responsible for her death, and said he was a man without a conscience, who was after money and cared for no one but himself. They said he had claimed to love their daughter in the beginning, and was charming. And he had cried copiously at her funeral. A doctor's report attached said that in his opinion, she would have died anyway, with or without help. Her injuries were too extreme, and she was brain dead. It was chilling to read the report, and Hope looked up at Mark without comment. His wife's death had in fact been an accident. But he had done nothing to help her. There were several more pages about women he had gone out with. There was also a separate sheet that documented that he had eventually gone after his wife's estate, and sued her parents for support, although they were supporting his child. All his efforts to get money from them, legal and otherwise, for himself had failed. It was certainly wrong of him, but it didn't make him a murderer either. Just a crook or a man desperate for money. He had also attempted to invade monies that had gone to the boy directly from his mother, and her parents were able to stop Finn's attempts to get money from his son as well. Hope couldn't help wondering if Michael knew about that. He knew his father was a liar. But Finn was infinitely worse. He was totally amoral. Among the women Finn had gone out with were several wealthy women, some of whom he had lived with for a short time, and it was generally believed that they had given him money and gifts. His finances had always been shaky throughout the years, despite his literary success, and his appetite for money was apparently voracious. There was an additional page about his publisher's current lawsuit against him, and a list of other lawsuits that had been filed against him, usually without success. |
| 481 |
All of the subjects, including his ex parents in law, said he was charming, but many considered him an unscrupulous, dangerous man, entirely motivated by greed, and who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. There were no kind words about him in the report, except that he was charming, and was always loving and kind in the beginning, and heartless and cruel in the end. It was what Hope was discovering as well and hoped wasn't true. The report made it hard to deny. Hope sat back on the couch and looked at Mark after she read it. And added to it, but not in the report, was the girl who Finn had told her himself had committed suicide because of him. So indirectly, he had caused two deaths. And Hope suddenly remembered his question to her when she had found the photograph of Audra, when he asked her if she would ever commit suicide herself, almost as though it would have been a compliment to him. The question had a whole new meaning now. She was surprised to find that she was shaking as she thought about it all and tried to absorb what she'd just read. It was horrifying to think that all those frightening stories and details of his life had slipped through the cracks over the years and become obscured. The investigator had worked hard to unearth them. "Not pretty, is it?" Mark commented, looking worried. "No, it isn't," she said sadly. He was charming, as they said, and extremely loving in the beginning, but almost every one of them considered him a dangerous man. "Now what do I do?" she said almost to herself, staring out the window into space, thinking about Finn, wanting with all her heart for him to be who he had been at first. "I don't think you should go back," Mark said wisely, and she thought about it for a long moment, and how confused she had been when she left. She wondered if he was trying to drive her to suicide, but he wanted the five million dollars first. And if she married him, he would have more. If he had a child with her, he could pump her estate forever, and the child, or her. |
| 482 |
The law firm was in a small historical building in Southeast Dublin, on Merrion Square, near Trinity College. There were lovely Georgian houses and a large park. The floors of his office were crooked, the windows were off center, and the general atmosphere was one of cozy disorder. It was a far cry from their fancy, sterile New York office. Robert liked this much better, and was almost sorry he was going back. And after seven years in Dublin he was very much at home there, and so were his children. But he wanted to be closer to his children, both of whom were in college now at Ivy League schools on the East Coast, although he said that one of them wanted to come back to Ireland after college. He and Hope talked for hours about the vagaries of Finn, the lies he had told, and her hope that somehow, magically, things would get better. Robert knew not to argue with her, but he kept reminding her of the evidence she did have, and the unlikelihood that Finn would mend his ways now, even if he loved her. Robert knew it was a slow process giving up the dream, and all he hoped was that Finn didn't do something really terrifying to her in the meantime. He reminded her again and again to trust her instincts, and get out if she felt she should. He couldn't say that to her often enough, and wanted to impress her with it. It was essential, and she promised him that she wouldn't stay if she was uncomfortable, but she didn't think Finn would harm her physically. His style these days seemed to be more psychological torture. And she hadn't told him yet that she was coming back, and surely not that she was spending the day in Dublin with an attorney before she did. By the time they had finished talking, it was five o'clock and Robert told her that he wasn't comfortable with the idea of her going back to Blaxton House in the evening. She had to rent a car, which would take time, and then get there, and she had already said how uncomfortable she was driving in Ireland, particularly at night. |
| 483 |
And as she thought about it, she agreed with him. She was anxious to see Finn, although nervous about it, but getting there late in the evening could mean putting her head in the lion's mouth if he'd been drinking. It just wasn't smart, and she agreed. Robert suggested a hotel she knew, and his secretary made a reservation for her. It was the best hotel in Dublin. And since he was leaving the office, he offered to drop her off with her suitcase, which she gratefully accepted. It had been a pleasant afternoon talking to him, although the subject was difficult. What was happening in her life was so disappointing and painful. As hard as it was to justify or explain, she was still in love with Finn, the one she had known in the beginning, not the man he was now. It was hard to believe and absorb all the terrible things she'd heard about him, yet she had doubts about him herself. But when she had asked for the investigation, she hadn't expected to get the kind of information she did. Now she had to decide what to do about it. But sadly, it didn't change how attached she was to him, which only made the distressing discoveries hurt more. It seemed like a huge problem. Robert had said to her that afternoon that ultimately the situation would take care of itself. It was the kind of thing her teacher in India would have said, or her favorite monk in Tibet. And for the rest of the way to the hotel, she talked about her travels. Robert was impressed, and they had a very agreeable conversation. The doorman took her bag when they reached the hotel, and Robert turned to her with a kind expression. He knew this was a hard time for her, and she was anxious about seeing Finn the next morning. She had no idea what to expect, or what kind of mood he'd be in. There was no way to know if she'd be meeting the good Finn or the bad Finn, the old Finn or the new Finn, and she had admitted to Robert that she was feeling very stressed about it, particularly after his many warnings about what potentially lay ahead. |
| 484 |
He would be upsetting, and argue with her, or drink too much and then pass out, but it wouldn't get worse than that. She knew him well and reassured Robert. His wife had been an exceptional case. Much to her surprise, Hope slept extremely well that night. She felt peaceful and safe, and it was reassuring to know that she had a friend in Dublin. Everything Robert had said had made her feel less isolated, and she called his office before she left the hotel and left a message, thanking him for dinner. She was careful to leave the hotel by nine A.M. for the car rental place. She wanted to be heading for Russborough by nine thirty. When she flew in, they normally got to the house by eleven, and she was planning to tell Finn that she had arrived on the morning flight to surprise him. She had sent him a loving text message the night before, and he hadn't responded. She hoped he was writing. And she had no intention of telling him that she had spent the night at a hotel in Dublin. That would make him suspicious and inevitably jealous. She looked neat and rested as she drove toward Blessington, and then Russborough, and as though perfectly timed, she arrived at Blaxton House at ten to eleven. There was no one outside, and it was a wintry December day, with a light veil of snow on the ground. She left her suitcase in the car, bounded up the front steps, and saw Winfred as soon as she walked into the house. He touched his brow in a gesture of respect, smiled broadly, and went out to get her bag, while she rushed up the steps to their bedroom. Suddenly, she was excited to see Finn. It was as though all the terrible things people had said had disappeared. They couldn't be true about Finn. She loved him too much for any of that to be true about him. It was all a mistake. It had to be. She tiptoed to their room and opened the door. It was dark, he was asleep in bed, and there was an empty scotch bottle on the floor beside him, which explained why he hadn't responded to her text message the night before. |
| 485 |
She was sure that he was drunk. He wouldn't behave that way if he weren't. But if so, they had to do something about it. Or he did. He was under a lot of stress over the lawsuit and the books he had to write. It was obviously driving him over the edge, and now her with it. He slammed her back into her seat then, and glared at her while she pecked at her dinner. The look in his eyes was not one she recognized. She had never seen him that way before, and it occurred to her as she moved the pasta around her plate and pretended to eat it that she was alone in the house with him. Winfred and Katherine went home at dinnertime, and she was alone with Finn every night until morning. It had never worried her before, but it did now for the first time. There were no more outbursts during dinner. He didn't say a word to her. He took the piece of paper with Robert's numbers on it, shredded it, and then shoved the pieces into the pocket of his jeans so she couldn't find them. He left the pad and passport on the table. And then without a word, he left the room, and left her to clean up. She sat for a long time at the table, with tears streaming down her cheeks and choking on sobs. And he had made the point earlier. She was alone in the world now. All she had was him. She had nowhere to turn, and no one to love her. With Paul gone, she felt like an orphan in a fairy tale, and the handsome prince was turning into a wild beast. It took her an hour to calm down and clean up the kitchen. She spent most of it crying, and was afraid to go upstairs, but she knew she had to. And when she thought about it calmly, she realized that the fact that she'd spent the night in Dublin didn't look good. The piece of paper with Robert's numbers on it looked suspicious. She could see why he was upset, since she had lied to him about it when she'd arrived. She realized that she should have told him the truth about when she was coming, but if she had, she would never have been able to meet with Robert and she was glad she had. |
| 486 |
He was insane. Even she knew it now. "Something wrong?" He saw the expression on her face and the sag of her shoulders, which seemed surprising to him. "I think it's very depressing to be talking about money instead of love and the years we want to spend together, and prenegotiating alimony and a divorce. That's a little too businesslike for me," she answered, looking at him sadly. "Then let's just get married and forget the prenup," he said simply. But there was no way they could do that. She was worth a substantial fortune, and Finn had nothing but debts, bills, and a lawsuit. She couldn't be that irresponsible. Without a prenup, she'd be completely vulnerable to him financially, and he knew it. The whole conversation made her feel sick. There was no way they could ever marry. Finn was in a very good mood. He thought he had her trapped. In the end, to pacify him, Hope said that she would think about it and let him know what she thought. She didn't want to set him off by telling him there was no question of his getting the money he wanted, or her marrying him, and she didn't want to give it to him either. She thought about his demands all day, as she edited some photographs, went to the FedEx office, and went for a walk alone in the woods. She didn't see Finn again until late that afternoon. And he was as loving as he ever had been. The trouble now was that Hope no longer knew if it was about love or money, and she never would, he was slowly wearing her down, demoralizing her, and making her feel crazy and off balance. His financial demands were insulting and insane. She was trying to stay calm, but it was just too hard fighting with him all the time. He always had some obsession, whether it was getting her pregnant, getting married, or giving him millions of dollars for his own use. Hope was feeling overwhelmingly sad. The dream of love and trust that she had shared with him was crumbling in her hands like butterfly wings. They went from one upsetting subject to another, and had resolved nothing so far. |
| 487 |
And Paul hadn't made his fortune so that Finn could spend it screwing around, or maybe buying himself a few blondes, no questions asked. The very fact that Finn had asked her for this kind of money disqualified him, or should have. But she didn't want to blow her top. If she did, she'd have to see it through, and end it with him, and she just wasn't up to it. She felt destroyed, and paralyzed by his abuse. "I'll think about it," she said, looking somber, trying to buy time and put him off, "and I'll let you know tomorrow." But she also knew that if she didn't give Finn the money, their relationship would blow sky high and it would be over. She hated everything he had said, the barely veiled threats to leave her for a younger woman, trying to scare her about being alone in her old age, reminding her that there would be no one to take care of her if she got sick. But was she truly ready to be alone forever? She felt like she was between a rock and a hard place and both were awful. Ending it or staying. And instead of telling her that he loved her and wanted to be with her forever, he was making it very clear that if several million dollars weren't forthcoming, sooner or later he'd be out the door when a better deal came along, so she'd better ante up, if she knew what was good for her and didn't want to wind up alone. He had certainly spelled it out. And she had no desire to buy a husband or lose him entirely yet. She was wandering around the house like a zombie, in a permanent state of silent distress. Finn was in great spirits for the rest of the afternoon. He had delivered his message, and thought it had been fairly well received. He didn't know Hope as well as he thought. She was depressed and angry all day, and stayed busy scrubbing and polishing several bathrooms on the second floor to keep distracted from the agonizing situation she was in. And Finn was affectionate with her. She wondered if that was what life would be like if she paid his price, which she was not inclined to do. |
| 488 |
But if so, would he always be sweet to her? Warm and loving as he had been in the beginning? Or would he still be jealous, threaten her if he felt like it, and ask for more when he blew the five or ten million dollars and needed the account filled again, no questions asked? It was hard to know what she'd be getting, if she decided to pay him what he wanted. If anyone had told her she'd be thinking about giving him the money, she would have told them they were insane. All she wanted was the old Finn back, the first one, but even she knew you couldn't buy that. The whole conversation saddened her, and she went for a walk alone that afternoon to clear her head. Finn saw her go out, and decided that it was better to let her come to her own conclusions, on her own. She really didn't have much choice, as far as he was concerned. He was very sure of himself, and believed that she was firmly hooked. He had all the grandiosity and sense of entitlement of sociopaths, as Robert had said to her. Finn was certain that if Hope loved him, she'd pay up. She didn't want to be alone. He knew she loved him, and didn't want to lose him. To him the answer was clear. And he was sure it would be to her too. He was feeling increasingly secure and had made himself clear. He thought she might need to be pushed a little, and be reminded of the alternative again. But ultimately, unless she was willing to risk being a lonely old lady in a nursing home, Finn knew he was the better deal and she had no choice. And with him, she could have more kids. He had almost called it "stud service" when he talked to her, but decided that might put her off. The rest seemed okay to him. And as far as he was concerned he was worth every penny he was asking. Hope knew he believed that too. It all made sense to him, and he was sure she'd be sensible about it, and too scared not to. He looked jubilant as he sat at his desk and watched her back from the window, as she walked toward the hills. He didn't see the rivers of tears rolling down her face. |
| 489 |
He just prayed that Hope wasn't hurt. At least Robert knew she was alive. The roads were icy, and it took him fifty minutes to get there. It was seven in the morning by then, and there was the faintest gray light coming through the sky. The snow was still falling, but he reached the southern edges of Blessington, and drove around looking for the White Horse Pub, and then he saw it. He got out of his car, walked around it, and saw the shed in the back. He hoped she was still there, and Finn hadn't found her. He walked to the doors of the woodshed, pulled the doors slowly open, and saw no one, and then he looked down and saw her crouched on the ground, soaking wet, with her thin dress plastered to her legs, and eyes full of terror. She didn't get up when she saw him, she just crouched there, staring at him. He leaned down gently and pulled her slowly upright, and as she stood up, she started to sob. She couldn't even speak to him as he put his own coat around her and led her to his car. She was frozen to the bone. She was still sobbing when they got to Dublin an hour later. He had driven more slowly on the way back. He was debating about taking her to the hospital to have her checked out, or take her to his home and sit her in front of the fire in a warm blanket. She still looked terrified and she hadn't said a word. He had no idea what had happened, or what Finn had done to her, but she had no obvious injuries or bruises, except to her soul and mind. He knew it would be a long time before she felt whole again, but he knew from talking to her before that she would survive, and even recover, no matter how long it took. It had taken Robert several years. He asked Hope if she wanted to go to the hospital, and she shook her head. So he took her home with him, and when they got there, he gently undressed her as he would have one of his daughters when she was a child. He rubbed her down with towels as she stood there and cried, handed her a pair of his pajamas, wrapped her in a blanket, and then put her in his bed. |
| 490 |
He had a doctor come by to look at her later that morning. And she was still looking wild eyed, but she had stopped crying. All she said to Robert when the doctor left was "Don't let him find me." "I won't," he promised. She had left everything there, and she had done what Robert had said. She ran like hell for her life, and she knew with total certainty that if she hadn't, sooner or later, she would have died. Robert waited until the next day to talk to her, and she told him everything that had happened. Every word that Finn had said. His pressure for the money. The outline of the story he had described to her, and the implications of it weren't lost on Robert either. Finn had almost succeeded in getting everything he wanted, but the golden goose had run away during the night. Finn had started calling on her cell phone within hours of her escape. He woke up early in the storm and couldn't find her, and when she didn't answer her phone, he started sending text messages. He kept telling her he'd find her, that he wanted her to come home, at first that he loved her, and later when she didn't respond, his messages were full of thinly veiled threats. Hope didn't answer, and Robert finally took her phone so she didn't have to see them. She shook violently every time one of them came in. Robert gave her his bedroom, and he slept on the couch. And on the second day of her escape, he asked her where she wanted to go, what she wanted to do, and what her plans were for the house. She thought about it for a long moment. In some part of her she still loved the way Finn had been at the beginning, and knew she would for a long time. It wasn't over yet. She would never forget or stop loving the man she had loved for the first nine months, but the demon he had become after that had nearly cost her her soul, and would have cost her life. She had no doubt of it now. "I'm not sure what to do about the house," she said sadly. Making major decisions about anything was too hard for her right now. |
| 491 |
Hope knew he didn't have Robert's name or numbers, because he had torn up the piece of paper and thrown it away, and he was still text messaging her to no avail. Robert still had her phone. He handed it to her later that day, and saw her reading all the frantic text messages from Finn, and when she turned it off, she cried. It was awful what loving a man like that did to another human being. He had gone through the same thing when he finally walked away from his wife. There was no other choice. They were people who had been stolen by aliens sometime in their youth, destroyed, turned into twisted machines, returned, and then walked the planet destroying other lives. They had virtually no conscience and no heart, and very sick minds. Hope was afraid that Finn was combing Dublin for her, and Robert knew it was possible. There was no limit to what a sociopath would do to reclaim his prey. So she sent Robert shopping for her, and she gave him all her sizes. He came back with enough clothes to keep her going for a few days. She hadn't decided where to go yet, but she knew that Finn might look for her in New York or Cape Cod. He would think nothing of getting on a plane to find her. And his text messages were getting increasingly desperate, alternating between threatening and loving. When a sociopath lost his prey, or any perpetrator, they went insane looking for them so they could torture them again. Robert had seen it all before. His wife had been similarly desperate, and the last time he had left her, he never went back. He wanted this to be the last time for Hope and she said it was. Whatever she still felt for him, she knew there was no other choice. She had barely come out alive. If he hadn't killed her, she would have killed herself. She was certain of that. She remembered thinking about it on the last night, and knowing she had surrendered her soul to him, she would have welcomed death, or sought it herself. Robert was bringing in food for her, and she was too afraid to leave the house. |
| 492 |
And she never wanted to see Ireland again. For the rest of her life. She was afraid she would have nightmares about it for years. "I think you'll be fine." He thought she had made remarkable progress in the past two days. From the broken woman she had seemed two days before, the shell of who she had been before was already beginning to emerge. She was stronger than she thought, and she had been through worse, but not much. Falling in love with a sociopath was one of those experiences you never forgot, if you were lucky enough to survive at all. And the worst was that they seemed so human, and sometimes acted so mortally wounded themselves, but when you reached down to help them on the ground, they pulled you into the swamp and drowned you if they could. Their killer instincts couldn't be cured. Robert was glad she was going as far away as she could, and the place she had described sounded like heaven to him. He hoped it would be for her. They hugged each other as he left her at security with her small bag, full of the clothes he had bought for her to wear. "Take care, Hope," he told her, feeling the way he had when he sent his daughters off to camp. She thanked him again, and as he walked back to his car in the garage, he knew that whatever happened to her next, she would be all right. There was a spirit in her and a light that even a man like Finn O'Neill couldn't kill. He was in his house, sitting in front of the fire, thinking about her and his own experience with his wife, when the plane Hope was on lifted off the runway and headed for New Delhi. She closed her eyes, laid her head back against the seat, and thanked God that she was safe. And then she wondered how long it would take for her to stop loving Finn. She didn't have the answer to that question, but knew she would one day. When the flight attendant handed her the newspaper, Hope took it and sat staring at the date. She had met him a year ago today. It had started exactly a year before, and now it was over. |
| 493 |
The chaos in the New Delhi airport felt wonderful to Hope. She looked at the women in the familiar saris, some of them wearing bindis. The noises and smells and brightly colored costumes all around her were just what she needed. It was as far from Ireland as she had been able to come. Robert's secretary had hired a car and driver for her, and she traveled the three hours north to Rishikesh in comfort. And then they traveled a smaller road to the ashram where she had spent half a year before. It felt like coming home. She had requested a small room by herself. She had asked for time with the swamijis and monks so that she could continue the spiritual seeking she had pursued before. The Sivananda Ashram was a holy place. She could feel her soul sing when she saw the River Ganga, and the Himalayan foothills where the ashram rested peacefully like a bird in its nest. The moment Hope stepped out of the car, it was as though everything that had happened to her in the past year faded into the mists. The last time she had come here, she had been heartbroken over Mimi, and devastated by the divorce from Paul. This time the pieces of her had felt so broken in Dublin, and the moment she walked into the ashram it was as though all else was stripped from her life and she could feel her essence come alive again like a brightly burning flame. It had been the right place to come. They had passed several ancient temples on the way to the ashram, and just being there filled her soul. She fasted that night to purify herself, and did yoga in the early morning, and as she stood at the edge of the river afterward, she told her heart to let Finn go. She sent him with her love and prayers down the Holy River Ganga. She released him. And the following day she did the same with Paul, and she wasn't afraid to be alone anymore. She met with her beloved master every morning after she did her meditation and yoga. She was up each day by dawn, and her master laughed when she told him she had been broken. |
| 494 |
He was an inveterate and seasoned sailor. The Victory was a hundred fifty foot sailboat, with auxiliary engines, that he had chartered from a man he had done business with frequently in London. Her owner had had business reversals that year, and Quinn had been grateful to have use of the boat since August. He had used her well, and the time he had spent aboard had been good for him in every way. He was healthy, strong, and more peaceful than he had been when the trip began. He was a handsome, vigorous, youthful looking man. And more than he had been in months, he was resigned to his fate. He had boarded the yacht in Italy, and after that spent time in Spanish and French waters. He had hit a traditionally rough patch in the Gulf of Lions, and relished the excitement of a brief and unexpected storm. He had sailed on to Sweden and Norway afterward, and returned slowly through several German ports. He'd been on the boat for three months, and it had served a useful purpose. It had given him all the time away that he needed, time he had used well to think and recover from all that had occurred. He had been stalling his return to California for months. He had no reason to go home. But with winter setting in, he knew he couldn't delay his return much longer. The owner of the Victory wanted her in the Caribbean for his own use by Christmas, as they had discussed when they agreed to the charter. Quinn had paid a fortune for three months aboard, but he didn't regret a penny of it. The stiff price of the charter meant nothing to Quinn Thompson. He could afford that, and a great deal more. Materially and professionally, he had been a very lucky man. The time on board had also served to remind him of how passionately he loved sailing. He didn't mind the solitude, in fact he thrived on it, and the crew were both expert and discreet. They had been impressed by his skill, and quickly realized he knew far more about the Victory, how to sail her hard and well, than did her owner, who knew next to nothing. |
| 495 |
His bags were packed in his cabin as he stood on deck, and, familiar with the efficiency of the crew by then, he knew that within hours of his departure, all evidence of his time aboard would have vanished. There were six male crew members on board, and one woman, the wife of the captain, who acted as stewardess. Like the others, she had been discreet and polite, and rarely said much to him, and like the owner, the entire crew was British. And he and the captain had enjoyed a comfortable and respectful rapport. "Sorry for the chop on the way in," the captain said with a smile as he joined Quinn on deck. But he knew by now that Quinn wouldn't mind. Quinn turned to nod at him, undisturbed by the waves breaking over the bow, and the rain beating down on them. He was wearing foul weather gear, and in fact, he liked the challenge of hard sailing, rough seas, and the occasional storm. The only thing he didn't like was leaving. Quinn and the captain had spent hours talking about sailing, and the places they'd been. And the captain couldn't help but be impressed by Quinn's extensive travels, and the depth of his knowledge. Quinn Thompson was a man of many hats and many faces, a legend in the world of international finance. The yacht's owner had told the captain before Quinn arrived that he had been a man of humble beginnings who had made a vast fortune. He had even gone so far as to call him brilliant, and after three months on the boat with him, the captain didn't disagree with that opinion. Quinn Thompson was a man whom many admired, some feared, a few hated, sometimes with good reason. Quinn Thompson was direct, sure, powerful, mysterious in some ways, and unrelenting about anything he wanted. He was a man of infinite ideas, endless imagination in his field, and few words, except when he was in one of his rare expansive moods, which the captain had enjoyed as well, usually after a few brandies. For the most part, they had kept their conversations confined to sailing, a topic that they both enjoyed, more than any other. |
| 496 |
He had called his daughter, Alex, in Geneva about seeing her before he flew home, and she had said she was too busy with the children. He knew the real reason for her not seeing him, and he no longer had the energy to fight it. The battles between them were too bitter and had gone on for too long. She had never forgiven him for what she perceived as his failures in her childhood. And she had told him months before that she would never, ever forgive him for calling her so late in her mother's illness. In fact, he realized now that blind hope and denial had kept him from calling her earlier than he had. Both he and Jane had refused to believe she would actually die. They kept telling themselves and each other that she would survive. And by the time Jane agreed to let him call their daughter, it was only days before the end. And even then they didn't think she would die. He wondered at times if he and Jane had wanted to be alone for her last days, and had unconsciously failed to include Alex. When Alex had flown home to see her mother, Jane was ravaged. Alex had arrived two days before Jane died, and she was either in such extreme pain or so heavily sedated, Alex had hardly been able to speak to her mother, except in rare lucid moments when Jane continued to insist she would be fine. Alex had been numb with grief and shock, and blazed with fury at her father. All her misery and sense of loss had channeled itself into the resentment she already felt for him, and the flames of disappointment and grief and anguish were fanned into outrage. She sent Quinn one searing letter of agony as soon as she returned home, and for months after that she hadn't returned a single one of his phone calls. In spite of Jane's final pleas for them to make peace and take care of each other, Quinn had all but given up on Alex since his wife's death. He knew how distressed Jane would have been over their estrangement, and he felt badly about it, but there was nothing he could do. And in his heart, he thought Alex was right. |
| 497 |
She was as unrelenting and unforgiving as he had often been in the past. And now he had no defense in the face of her ire. He knew she was right. There was a tender side of Quinn that few knew, and Jane had always been certain of, a soft underbelly that he kept well concealed, and that she cherished, even when it was least visible. And while Alex had his strength, she had none of Jane's compassion. There was an icy side to her that even frightened Quinn. She had been angry at him for years, and it was clear she intended to stay that way, particularly now that she felt he had cheated her of her last days with her mother. That was the final blow to their relationship as father and daughter. And he realized now, in the face of Alex's accusations, that he had wanted Jane to himself for her last days, and hadn't wanted to share her with Alex. Terrified of Jane's death, he had clung to denial. There had been so much to say to each other, after all the years he'd been away, all the things he had never said to her, and never thought he had to. In the end, he had said it all to her, they both had. And it was in those last weeks that she shared all her journals and poems with him. He had always thought he knew his wife, and it was only at the very end that he discovered he hadn't. Beneath her calm, quiet, bland exterior had lived a woman of boundless warmth and love and passion, all of which had been directed at him, and the depths of which he had never fully understood until far too late. More than anything Alex could accuse him of, he now knew that he could never forgive himself for it. He had hardly ever been there for Jane. He realized he had abandoned his wife even more than he had abandoned their daughter. Jane should have been as angry at him as Alex was, but all she had done was love him more, in his endless absences. He was deeply ashamed of it and consumed with guilt he knew he would suffer for a lifetime. It seemed an unpardonable crime even to him, and even more so now that he had read all her journals. |
| 498 |
He had brought them with him on the trip, and had been reading them for months, each night. And even more than the journals, her love poems sliced into him like scalpels and tore his heart out. She had been the most compassionate, forgiving, generous woman he had ever known, and she had been a treasure far greater than he had ever suspected. The worst of all ironies was that it was only now that she was gone that he understood it. Too late. So much, much too late. All he could do now was regret his failures and her loss for the rest of his lifetime. There was no way to repair it, or make amends, or even atone for it, although he had apologized for it before she died. Worse yet, Jane had assured him he had nothing to regret, nothing to reproach himself for. She promised him that she had been happy with him for the years they shared, which only made his guilt worse. How could she have been happy with a man who was never there, and paid almost no attention to her? He knew what he had been guilty of, and why he had done it. He had been obsessed with his empire, his achievements, and his own doings. He had rarely thought of anyone else, least of all his wife and children. Alex had every right to be angry at him, he knew, and Jane had had every reason to hate him, and didn't. Instead she had written him love poems and was fiercely devoted to him and Quinn knew better than anyone how little he deserved it. In fact, he had dreams about it almost every night now. Dreams in which she was begging him to come home, and pleading with him not to abandon her, or forget her. Quinn had retired the year before she died, and they had spent a year traveling to all the places he wanted to explore. As usual, Jane had been a good sport about following him wherever he wanted. They went to Bali, Nepal, India, the far reaches of China. They had gone back to places they both loved, Morocco, Japan, Turkey. They hadn't stopped traveling all year, and for the first time in years, grew ever closer to each other. |
| 499 |
It was one of his favorite hotels in Europe. Its ancient grandeur and exquisite service always reminded him somewhat of the Ritz in Paris. He ordered room service shortly after he arrived and found himself torn between missing the comforts of the Victory and her crew, and excitement over the boat he was planning to see in the morning. He found it nearly impossible to sleep that night with the anticipation of it. All he hoped now was that he would love it. He slept fitfully, and was up and dressed by seven the next morning. He had to wait another hour for a car and driver to come, and passed the time by reading the Herald Tribune over breakfast. It was an hour's drive from the hotel to the boatyard, and by nine o'clock, he was in the office of the owner of the shipyard, a powerfully built older man, with an ebullient style, who had the plans on his desk, in anticipation of Quinn's visit. He had heard of him, and read of him over the years, and the night before, he had made some calls, and done some careful research. He had a very clear idea of what Quinn was about, and knew of his incisive, and allegedly ruthless reputation. To those who crossed him, or failed him in some way, Quinn could be fearsome. Quinn eased his long, lean frame into a chair, and his blue eyes seemed to dance as he went over the plans with the owner of the shipyard. His name was Tem Hakker, and he was a few years older than Quinn. Both his sons were in the office with them, and explained the plans in detail to Quinn. Both of the younger men were in charge of the project, and took a great deal of pride in it, with good reason. The boat was going to be spectacular, and Quinn had fresh respect for Bob Ramsay's genius as he listened. The giant sailboat seemed to have almost everything he would have wanted. Quinn had a few additional ideas, and made suggestions as they talked, which in turn impressed both younger Hakkers, as well as their father. Quinn's ideas were of a technical nature, which improved on Ramsay's initial concept. |
| 500 |
Or at least by then Tem Hakker thought she would be ready for sea trials. And with luck, she would be ready to sail away by the end of the month, or at the latest the first of October. Quinn said he would live with that, if he had to. And he had every intention of flying over to see the work in progress as often as he could, and hold them to the date they had agreed on. It was nearly a year away, and Quinn could hardly wait to sail her. Quinn left the yard at noon, having written a hefty check, and he called the captain of the Victory before he left to tell him the news and thank him. "Good job, sir," the captain said, sounding ecstatic. "I can't wait to see her." He had every intention of writing to Quinn after that, to broach the subject of a job with him, but he didn't want to do it over the phone. Quinn was already thinking of it himself. He had a million details and plans on his mind now. And he waved at the Hakkers as he drove away. They were every bit as pleased with the deal as he was, perhaps even more so. A boat of that scope and magnitude was not normally as easy to sell as it had been to Quinn Thompson. He hadn't hesitated for an instant, and as he drove back to the airport to catch his flight, he knew he had a new home as well as a new passion. All he wanted to do now was sell the house in San Francisco, and do whatever work he needed to do, to do so. There were a few things he knew he had to clean up before he sold it. But his mind was full now with all the details of the boat. He knew it was going to be a new life for him, for whatever years he had left. And it was going to make going back to the empty house that much easier, or at least he thought so. He had had a small sailboat years before, and had encouraged both of his children to learn sailing. Like her mother, Alex had hated it, and after Doug's death in a boating accident at a summer camp in Maine, Jane had finally convinced him to sell the boat. He never had time to use it anyway, and had acceded to her wishes. |
| 501 |
Despite his long absence from the States, he had nothing to declare, and he looked somber as he picked up his valise and briefcase, and hurried outside with his head down. He wasn't looking forward to getting home to the empty house, and he had realized with a pang on the plane, that he had managed to time his return to just before Thanksgiving. It hadn't even occurred to him when he made his plans, but he had no choice anyway. His charter of the Victory had come to an end, and he could no longer come up with a valid reason to linger in Europe, particularly if Alex refused to see him. She had been polite but firm. Her outbursts at him had occurred before and after the funeral. And since then, any contact he'd had with her had been distant, formal, and chilly. In her own way, she was as stubborn as he was. She had been furious with him for years anyway. She and her mother had discussed it endlessly, and despite all of her mother's efforts to soften her point of view, Alex had continued to maintain her harsh, judgmental position. She claimed her father had never been there, for any of them, not even when Doug died. Quinn had come home for three days for the funeral. He'd been in Bangkok, concluding a business deal, when he got the news, and turned around and left again the morning after the funeral, leaving eleven year old Alex and her mother to grieve and mourn, and cling to each other in their solitary anguish. He had been gone for a month that time, putting together an enormous deal that had made headlines in the Wall Street Journal, returned briefly again, and then took off to spend two months in Hong Kong, London, Paris, Beijing, Berlin, Milan, New York, and Washington, D.C. Now that she was an adult, Alex said she could hardly ever remember seeing her father, let alone talking to him. Whenever he was home, he was too busy, exhausted and jet lagged, and sleep deprived, to spend time with her or her mother. And in the end, he had managed to cheat her of even a decent amount of time to say good bye to her mother. |
| 502 |
They had gone to Yale together, and married almost minutes after they graduated, thirteen years before. They had two boys, lived in Geneva, and Quinn had commented to Jane right from the first that it was Alex who told Horst what to do, and what she wanted. They were inseparable, and seemed happy, sedate, and secure, though uninspired and unexciting. Quinn found his son in law painfully boring. Alex had been careful not to fall into the same trap she thought her mother had. Instead, she had married a weak man, to do her bidding, as different as possible from her father. Horst rarely, if ever, traveled, and worked in the bank his grandfather had founded. He was a responsible young man, who loved his wife and sons, and had no great ambitions. Alex had known when she married him that she would never be sacrificed to his career or accomplishments or passions. To Quinn's practiced eye, Horst had none. He simply existed, which was what Alex had wanted. Her sons were six and nine, two beautiful little blue eyed towheads, just like their mother, and Quinn scarcely knew them. Jane had gone to Geneva frequently to visit them, and Alex had brought the boys to San Francisco once a year to visit her mother, but Quinn had rarely been around when they came to town, and he always seemed to be in some other part of the world when Jane went to Geneva. Often, when Quinn was away, Jane took the opportunity to visit her daughter. Looking at it in retrospect, it was easy for him to see why Alex was angry. And she had no intention of letting her father make up for it, or atone for his sins, both real and perceived. As far as Alex was concerned, she had lost not one, but two parents. Quinn had died in her heart years before she had lost her mother. And the trauma of losing her brother when she was eleven years old had remained an open wound for her. It made her particularly protective of her children, despite her husband's pleas to give them just a little more freedom. Alex was convinced she knew better. |
| 503 |
Jane had always wanted him to be happy, to fulfill his dreams, and to achieve everything he had wanted to accomplish. Alex no longer cared what he did. As a result, Quinn was a man with no family, no ties to anyone, he was as solitary as he looked as he stepped out of the cab on Vallejo Street in a cul de sac filled with trees that all but obscured the house he and Jane had lived in for their entire marriage, and that Alex had grown up in. He had wanted to buy a bigger one as his fortune grew, but Jane had always insisted she loved this one. And Quinn had too while Jane was still there to come home to. Now, as he turned his key in the lock of the big rambling English style house, he dreaded the silence. As he stepped into the front hall and set his bags down, he could hear a clock ticking in the living room. The sound cut through him like a knife, and felt like a heartbeat. He had never felt as alone or as empty. There were no flowers anywhere, the shades and curtains were drawn, and the dark paneling in the living room, which had once glinted and shone, now made the room look tomblike. He couldn't remember the house ever seeming as dark or as depressing. And without thinking, he went to the windows, pulled back the curtains, opened the shades, and stood staring into the garden. The trees and hedges were still green, but there were no flowers, and it was a dark November afternoon. The fog had come in while they were landing, and it was swirling through the city. The sky looked as gray as he felt, as he picked up his bags and walked upstairs. And when he saw their bedroom, it took his breath away. She had died in his arms in their bed five months before, and he felt a physical pain as he stared at the bed, and then saw her smiling in a photograph next to it. He sat down on the edge of the bed, with tears rolling down his cheeks. It had been a mistake to come home, he knew, but there was no one else to sort through her things, and his own, if he was to sell the house in the spring. |
| 504 |
How could he have done that to her? Why had he left so often? Why had his own pursuits always seemed so important? Why didn't he listen? The dream entirely dismissed the reasons for his trips, and swept away the empire he was building. And all that was left afterward, in the dream, was his own crushing sense of guilt and failure. He hated the dream, and the fact that it had returned almost immediately, as soon as he came back to San Francisco. There was something so tragic about Jane in the dream, although in real life she had been tenderly empathetic and understanding, and had never reproached or implored him the way the woman in the dream did. Quinn hated the dream, and in some ways, he knew that guilt was the chain that bound him to her, as much as love had. But the fact that the dream had returned with a vengeance the moment he got home did not cheer him. It was a burden he knew he had to live with. The next morning, he showered, shaved, dressed, swallowed a cup of coffee, rolled up his sleeves, and began digging into closets. He was still trying to get the dream out of his head, and felt haunted by it. He began with the easy closets downstairs, where Alex had stored all the mementos of her childhood. Jane had been urging her to take them for years, but she preferred to leave them with her parents. There were ribbons and trophies from her horseback riding days, and a few for tennis tournaments she'd been in, in college. Endless photographs of her friends, most of whom Quinn didn't recognize, from kindergarten to college. There were tapes, and home movies, a few battered old dolls, and a teddy bear, and finally a box at the back that he wrestled toward him. It was sealed and he used a penknife to open it, and when he did, he found that it was full of photographs of Douglas, many with Alex. The two of them laughing and smiling and cavorting, several of them skiing, and a whole pack of letters from him, when he had gone to camp in Maine, and she had gone to one in California, closer to home. |
| 505 |
In spite of the fact that he had loved his son, he had kept him at a distance. Quinn had barely allowed himself to know him. Doug had been a handsome boy, happy, kind, intelligent, and looked just like his father, but Quinn had always put off getting closer to him. He had always thought they'd have time "later." He had fantasized their becoming friends as men, and instead the boy had slipped right through his fingers. And even then, he hadn't properly grieved him. It had been too painful to admit that he had missed the chance to know Doug better. And once again, guilt had consumed him, and he had fled so as not to face it. Each reminder of the lost child was like a silent accusation. In fact, he had insisted Jane put Doug's things away as soon as possible, and strip his room. Quinn had thought it would be too painful for her to leave Doug's room intact and treat it as a shrine. He had left for Hong Kong and insisted that everything be packed and gone before he came home the next time, supposedly for her sake. And dutiful wife that she had been, she had done it, just to please him, at God only knew what cost to her. Quinn found almost everything that had been in the boy's room the following afternoon, when he went through a large storeroom behind the garage. It was all there, even his clothes, his sports equipment, his trophies and other memorabilia. She had saved every single thing, right down to his underwear. Twenty three years later, she had saved every bit of it, and he even found three of Doug's sweaters tucked away at the back of Jane's closet, when he began taking things apart upstairs. It was a sentimental journey that enveloped him for weeks. Again and again, he found himself confronting memories and realizations about himself, and Jane, that were excruciatingly painful and made him feel even more guilty. Thanksgiving came and went, and he dutifully called Alex on the holiday, although she didn't celebrate it in Geneva. Her responses to him were brief and cursory. |
| 506 |
She thanked her father for calling, in a voice that was icy cold, and Quinn was so put off by her, he didn't even ask to speak to Horst or the boys. Her message was clear. Stay away. We don't need you. Leave me alone. So he did. He didn't bother with a turkey, since he had no one to share it with, and he did not even bother to let any of their friends know he was back in the city. As painful as his mission was to weed through their belongings and sell the house, it would have been even more painful, he thought, to socialize with people. Jane had been his link to the social world. It was she who kept in touch with everyone, who loved to entertain their friends, and gently encouraged Quinn to slow down for a moment, and enjoy a quiet evening among people they knew well. And most of the time, he had done it for her. But without her softening influence and warmth, he preferred his solitude. He was alone now, and would forever stay that way. He had no interest whatsoever in seeing anyone. It would only make her absence more acute, and more painful, hard as that was to imagine. By day, he was going through her closets, her treasures, her memories, and his own. And at night, he sat in bed, exhausted, reading her journals and poems. He felt as though he was steeped in her essence, like a marinade he was soaking in, until everything she had thought, felt, breathed, kept, loved and cherished was now a part of him, and had seeped into his skin. She had become his soul, as though he had never had one of his own before, and now theirs had joined and become one. He had never felt closer to her than in those final months before her death. And now again, as he waded through everything she'd owned, not only her papers, but her evening gowns, her gardening clothes, the faded nightgowns that she slept in, her underwear, her favorite sweaters. And as she had done with her son's sweaters hidden at the back of her closet, Quinn found himself putting things aside to save, the things that had meant the most to her. |
| 507 |
He could barely bring himself to part with any of it, and now he understood only too well what it must have done to her when he had insisted she take apart Doug's room. Life had finally turned the tables on him, and he felt that what he was experiencing now was suitable punishment for everything he had done to her. He embraced the task with reverence and humility, and accepted it as the penance he deserved. It was mid December before he had brought some semblance of order to what was left, and had decided what to throw away and what to keep. There were piles of things to give away, or box and store, all over the living room. And it was still too big a mess to call a realtor in. His only distractions were the calls to Tem Hakker every week to check on the progress of the boat they were finishing for him. Quinn had had a nice letter from Bob Ramsay by then, congratulating him on his new acquisition. He was also delighted to be off the hook, and free to pursue his much larger new sailboat. According to the Hakkers, things were going well, and on schedule. For the moment, taking apart the house in San Francisco seemed a much bigger job to him, but Quinn was glad he was doing it himself. It gave him some sort of final communion with Jane, a sacred ritual that he could perform that kept her close to him. And every night, he read her words, in her firm, slanting hand. More often than not he dreamed of her afterward. And two or three times a week, he had the dream where she begged him not to leave her. Even by day, he felt haunted by it. He had come across thousands of photographs of them, from the early days when the children were small, on their travels, at important occasions, and more recent ones from their last trips. And she had kept every single newspaper article that ever mentioned him. Nearly forty years of them put away in files and boxes, some of them so frail that they fell apart when he touched them, but all of them organized chronologically. She had been meticulous in her respect and admiration of him. |
| 508 |
Those he was keeping were in sealed cartons piled up in the garage. He was going to put them in storage at some point before he left, along with whatever furniture he was keeping. They had had some fine antique pieces, and if nothing else, he thought he should keep them for Alex. He doubted that he would ever have a home where he would use them again. If all went according to plan, he had every intention of living on his new boat for the rest of his days, once it was ready. On Christmas night, he finally indulged himself. It had been a hard month since his return. He drank most of a bottle of fine old red wine he had found in the wine cellar, polished it off with two brandies, and went to bed. And he felt better for it, despite the hangover he had the next day. He was glad that the holidays were almost over. He spent New Year's Eve at his desk, going over papers that his attorney was going to file in probate court after the first of the year. He worked for hours, as he listened to a driving rain battering his windows, and he could hear the wind whistling through the trees. It was midnight when he finally got up and glanced outside, and saw that the slimmer trees were being pressed almost level to the ground with the gale force of the wind. He didn't bother to turn the television on, but if he had, he would have discovered that it was the fiercest storm to hit northern California in more than a century, and there were power lines down all over Marin County and the East and South Bay. He was in bed and sound asleep in the dark house, when he heard a tremendous crash outside, followed almost as quickly by two more. He got up and glanced out the window again, and saw that the biggest tree in his garden had fallen over. He went outside in his pajamas and a slicker to look at it in amazement, and saw instantly that it had sheared off a corner of the roof when it fell. And when he walked back into the house and stood in his living room, there was a gaping hole open to the sky, as the rain poured in. |
| 509 |
All he could do for the moment was move the furniture out of the way so it wouldn't be ruined by the rain. He had been unable to determine what the other two crashes had been. The rest of the trees around the house were swaying violently in the wind, but none of the others had fallen, and the rest of the house appeared to be undamaged, until morning. He had been unable to sleep for the rest of the night, as he listened to the storm raging around him, and it was still raining the next morning, when he got up at first light, he put on boots and his slicker again, and took a walk around the house to survey the damage. The hole in the roof was ugly, several of the shutters had been torn off, and two big windows were broken. There was glass and debris everywhere, and the garage had been severely damaged and was flooding. By sheer luck, he had put all the boxes to store on long wooden tables, so none of their papers and mementos had been destroyed. But he spent the rest of the morning moving them into his kitchen. The living room looked like a disaster area. He had moved the rugs and furniture in the middle of the night, and set down tubs and towels to catch the rainwater coming in through the hole in the ceiling. It was a part of the living room that protruded beyond the rest of the frame of the house, and there was a branch coming through it, and some of the fine old paneling had splintered from the impact. He learned from the newspaper that morning that at least a dozen people had been killed, mostly by fallen power lines, or trees, and hundreds had been injured around the state. Thousands were temporarily homeless and huddled in school gymnasiums as lowlands flooded. It was a storm of mammoth proportions. And as he made one more trip from the garage to the kitchen, carrying a large box, he saw what must have caused the second and third crashes the night before. Two trees had fallen in his neighbor's garden. They were smaller than the one he had lost, but had nonetheless done considerable damage when they fell. |
| 510 |
The damage all around them was upsetting, and all up and down the street, people were doing what they could to clear away fallen trees, pick up debris, and tie down what they could to minimize further damage, as the storm continued raging. "I'm not sure a tarp will make much difference," she said, looking unhappy and confused. She had never had to handle a situation like this. Nor had Quinn, and he somehow felt that Jane would have been far more efficient than he was. But he had to manage on his own now. "They'll tell you what you need. I'll ask them to bring several tarps, just in case." And as an afterthought, he remembered his manners. "Sorry," he said, reaching a wet hand over a low hedge, as he juggled a box in his left arm, "I'm Quinn Thompson." "Maggie Dartman," she said, shaking his hand firmly. She was small, and had tiny, graceful hands, but her handshake was strong. She had long dark hair that hung down her back in a braid, and her hair was matted against her head in the driving rain. She was wearing jeans and a parka, and looked soaked to the skin, and he couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was very pale, and had big green eyes that looked anything but happy. He couldn't blame her, he wasn't pleased with the damage to his house either. "Bad luck your husband's not around," he said sympathetically, making an easy assumption. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, and there were no children afoot, which made him wonder if she was even younger, and hadn't started a family yet. These days everyone got started older. She looked at him oddly when he mentioned her husband, started to say something, and then didn't. And a moment later, Quinn left to call the fire department. They had had hundreds of calls like his, and said they would be over in an hour or two to cover the hole in his roof. He dutifully mentioned his neighbor, and told her the fire department would be over to help, when he went back to get the last box in the garage, and saw her dragging a branch out of her driveway. |
| 511 |
He was not amused. He was also not used to dealing with problems like this. Whatever happened around the house, even something of this magnitude, would have automatically been Jane's problem. Now it was his, and he had to admit he didn't enjoy it. He had dialed the roofer and the contractor more than a dozen times each before he got through to either of them. Everyone who'd suffered damage in the storm was obviously frantic to get someone to repair it as quickly as they could, and he was no different. "I wish I were joking," the man at the roofing company responded. "There's no way we can do it." He gave Quinn four names to try, all reputable firms, he said. And the contractor did the same when Quinn called him. He gave him the name of two well known contracting firms, and a third number that he said was a young carpenter who had gone out on his own a few months before, but did fine work, and he highly recommended him. Predictably, the two contracting firms were as busy as the first one. He still hadn't found a roofer yet, and feeling exasperated, Quinn called the young carpenter the first contractor had recommended. Quinn was beginning to realize that getting the repairs done was going to be far from easy. There was an answering machine at the number when he called, and he left a concise description of the damage, explaining what had happened. And the last roofer he called agreed to come and take a look the following morning, but he warned Quinn when they spoke that there were a good six or eight weeks of work ahead of him by then. It looked like Quinn was going to be living with a hole in his living room ceiling and a tarp over it for a long time. This was not the way he had planned to spend his final months in San Francisco. It was eight o'clock that night when the young carpenter finally called him. He sounded matter of fact and businesslike, and apologized for the hour of the call. He said he'd been out looking at storm damage since early that morning. Quinn was just grateful that the man had called him. |
| 512 |
He might even be able to do whatever else was necessary to get the house in shape to sell it. Quinn went to sleep that night, in the bed he had shared with Jane, and for once he didn't read her poems and journals. He went straight to sleep, after thinking about getting the house in shape again, and hoping that Jack Adams was the man to do it. He woke at six, feeling refreshed, put on jeans and a heavy sweater, socks and boots, and went downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. He had just finished his second cup, when Jack Adams rang the bell at seven o'clock sharp. He looked neat and clean and well organized. He had short dark hair, and big blue eyes that looked honest and friendly and kind. Quinn offered him a cup of coffee, and he declined, he wanted to get down to business as quickly as possible, and give Quinn an idea of what he felt he could do to help him. He had liked Quinn on the phone, and the two formed an instant bond, as Quinn led him from the living room to the garage, and all around the house wherever something had been broken, loosened, destroyed, or damaged. He didn't carry a pad and pen with him, which worried Quinn, but as they moved along, he seemed to remember every detail of what they had just seen, and shot his mental list back at Quinn with amazing accuracy and precision. If his work was as good as his mind was sharp, Quinn felt certain that, by sheer luck, he had found a winner. Jack Adams was a nice looking young man, somewhere in his mid thirties. He was as tall as Quinn, and as lean, and there was an odd similarity between them as they walked around the house, and through it, but neither of them was aware of the physical resemblance between them. To passersby, they would have looked like father and son. Although Quinn's hair was gray now, it had once been as dark as Jack's, and they had the same frame, and the same way of moving, almost the same gestures as they discussed the problems and the repairs to be done. In fact, Jack was almost the same age as Douglas would have been. |
| 513 |
It was a wonderful book that Quinn had always loved. He had given it to Doug to read that fateful summer before he left for camp, and Doug had pored over it, and memorized parts of it in order to impress his father, and had. It had been one of their few great exchanges and precious moments before he died. "You're sure you want to lend it to me?" Jack asked, looking worried. Quinn smiled and nodded, and a few minutes later, Jack left with the book under his arm. And although it was Friday night, he had mentioned that he would be back in the morning. His crew were only working for him five days a week, but he had already told Quinn he would be putting in some weekend hours on his own, and it was all part of their contracted price. He liked working alone sometimes, and getting a handle on some of the details himself. He was even more conscientious than Quinn had thought he would be, and the work was going well. He was supervising the roof work too, and Quinn was pleased with the results, although there was still a lot of work to do. Jack was going to be around for months, until the house was not only in good repair, but ready to put on the market. On Saturday morning, Quinn looked out the window when he got up and saw Jack outside. It was raining again, and had been for most of the month. But Jack didn't seem to mind. He was used to working in the elements, and the only problem the rain represented for them was that they couldn't finish the roof until the weather was dry. The wet weather was drawing things out. But there were plenty of other projects at hand. Quinn went outside to talk to Jack after he read the paper and had coffee, and he found him in the garage. He was checking on the repairs they'd been forced to do out there, and as the two men walked out of the garage half an hour later, chatting casually, Quinn noticed his neighbor struggling to open an enormous crate someone had delivered in front of her house. And as she had been before, after the storm, she was once again wrestling with it herself. |
| 514 |
And the following day, he noticed Jack going in and out of Maggie Dartman's house. She stopped and said something to Quinn a little while later, as she was going out, and thanked him for allowing her to use Jack's services on his day off. "He's a great guy," Quinn reassured her, not wanting to get involved in their arrangement. It was entirely up to Jack what he did in his spare time, and by midafternoon, Quinn noticed that Jack's truck was gone. He really was a decent man. It was the end of the following week when Quinn remembered the book he'd given him, and asked Jack if he'd had time to read it yet. Jack looked slightly embarrassed and shook his head, and apologetically explained he hadn't had time. "I can see why, between working here six days a week, and doing extra duty at my neighbor's," Quinn pressed him a little bit, good naturedly, and Jack rapidly changed the subject. Quinn sensed that he felt guilty he hadn't read the sailing book yet, and he didn't want to put pressure on him. He had just thought he might enjoy it, but the poor guy was working himself to the bone on both jobs, particularly Quinn's. He didn't know why, but he had the feeling that Jack could be a born sailor if he wanted to. He had shown such interest in the plans for the boat, and teaching him something about sailing was something Quinn could do for him. He hoped he'd read the book at some point, and not just say he had, but he forgot to mention it again. It was late January and the work was going well, when Quinn spent an entire afternoon making a list of extra projects he had for Jack, and comments about the work in progress, and he went outside to hand it to him. It was the first really sunny day they'd had in weeks, and the roof work was finally finished, although it had taken longer than planned. He wanted Jack's comments on the list he'd made, and stood waiting for him to read it, as Jack folded it and put it in his pocket, and promised to read it that night, which irked Quinn a little bit. |
| 515 |
He hated putting things off, and wanted to discuss it with him, but Jack said he had too much going on that afternoon to concentrate on it properly. He promised to discuss it with Quinn the next day when he came in. But that afternoon, the work having gone particularly well that day, and hating the lull that came on Friday nights when everyone left, Quinn asked him in for a glass of wine, and he mentioned the list to Jack again, and suggested he take it out of his pocket, and they go over it together. Jack hesitated, and tried to brush it off, as Quinn insisted. He was like a dog with a bone about his list, and for an odd moment, Quinn thought he saw tears shimmer in Jack's eyes, and wondered if he had offended him. Jack was generally easygoing and unflappable, even when things went wrong on the job, but he was obviously upset by Quinn's suggestion, so much so that Quinn was afraid he might quit, and that worried him acutely. "Sorry, Jack," he said gently, "I didn't mean to press you, you must be dog tired by the end of the week. Why don't you skip tomorrow?" he suggested, trying to pacify him and back down from the pressure he had provided, apparently too much so for Jack. But Jack only looked at him and shook his head, and this time the tears in his eyes were clear. The look he gave Quinn was one of deep sorrow and immeasurable trust, and Quinn didn't understand what was happening. Just looking at Jack upset him. It was as though something in the younger man was unraveling, and could no longer be stopped. And out of nowhere came an explanation that Quinn was in no way prepared for, as Jack quietly set down his glass of wine. He looked straight at the man who had hired him, and spoke in a voice rough with emotion, as Quinn watched him, and listened with an aching heart. He had meant no harm with his questions and suggestions, but he could see that he had hurt this man whom he had come to respect and like. It was one of those moments when you can't go back, only forward. |
| 516 |
Jack was making impressive progress, and Quinn was giving him something he had always dreamed of. In a way, it was a gift of freedom, and one by one Quinn was helping him to sever the chains that had bound him. His inability to read had been like a death sentence to him, or at the very least a lonely prison. It was Quinn who was imprisoned now, condemned to his own loneliness and bitter recriminations forever. He was still having the recurring dream, but less often ever since he'd started helping Jack with his reading. It was almost as though doing something for another human being was helping to assuage his guilt. It was late February, when they were finishing their lesson on a Saturday, that Jack mentioned Quinn's neighbor, Maggie Dartman. He was still doing work for her on Sundays, and slowly fixing the house that had been in serious disrepair when she bought it. But each time he worked for her, he was struck by how lonely she was. Her house was full of photographs of her son who had died. She had told Jack the boy had committed suicide two days after his sixteenth birthday. She never explained why, and it was obvious to Jack by then that there was no man in her life. The work he was doing for her could have been done by any man in residence, if there had been one to help her out. She had mentioned to him once that she was a teacher, and had been on sabbatical for a year and a half, since her son died. Quinn and Jack had fallen into an informal tradition of having dinner together on Friday nights, after they finished his reading lesson. Quinn cooked and Jack brought wine, and it was an opportunity to get to know each other better. At times the relationship was one of friendship between two men, and at others Quinn took a fatherly attitude toward him. Jack was fascinated by Quinn's accomplishments. He had grown up on a farm in the Midwest, and had gone to college with a scholarship to Harvard. And from there he had progressed rapidly into his enormous success. Jane had believed in him from the moment she met him. |
| 517 |
But now he knew he'd been wrong. He had learned so much about her and himself in the months since she'd been gone. "It's not a great thing to happen to a marriage," Maggie said, looking at Quinn. Her eyes bored into his like drills, as though asking a thousand questions. She wanted to ask him how he had survived it, or how his wife had. She still blamed herself for the end of her marriage. She had always felt that her husband had lacked empathy for the depths of their son's depression, and that perhaps unknowingly, because of it, he had exacerbated Andrew's desperation. And because of that, she had never forgiven Charles for Andrew's death, and he knew it, whether she said it or not. He in turn felt she should have been able to stop it. Their final year together had been one of relentless silent accusation, until they could no longer stand each other. And no matter what they did to each other or themselves, nothing would bring their son back. Although she was devastated when Charles left, she felt he had made the right decision for both of them. In the end, their marriage had been as dead as their son. Charles had given her the best settlement he could, in the form of the house he had paid for her to buy, to escape the one where their son died, and he had given her enough money to live on for the next few years. Eventually, she'd have to go back to teaching. But for the moment, she was still hiding, as Quinn was. He understood that much about her. She had wrapped herself in a cocoon, to protect herself from the realities and blows of life. She needed time to heal, and was giving herself time to do it, which seemed sensible of her. But when she wasn't talking or even sometimes when she was, her eyes looked agonizingly sad to Quinn. "You've been through a lot of trauma," Quinn said softly, and she nodded. She had no need to deny it, nor did she want to portray herself as a victim. In spite of the injuries she'd sustained, Quinn had a sense that she was both brave and strong. |
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He had made a decision that night as he talked about sailing with her. He was going to wait and see how it turned out, and tell her about it the next time they met, probably the following week on Friday night. They rarely ran into each other on the street, as neither of them went out very much. Jack was the go between, sending news and greetings back and forth during the week, since he saw both of them, and visited both houses while he worked. "I'll be on the phone after twelve o'clock," she said easily. "I have a regular, who calls me every time I'm on. He's a sweet kid, he's fourteen. His mom died last year. He's been having a tough time. I think I'm really beginning to miss being with kids." She had already decided to go back to work in September, and had gotten her old job back, for three months at least. She was filling in for the teacher who had replaced her and was going on maternity leave. After that, the school had promised to find something for her, if they could. But it was a start, and Quinn agreed that going back to work would be healthy for her. "Good luck on the phone tonight," he said gently. It was easy to imagine how skilled she was with kids. She had a warm, easy open way about her, and he had seen her begin to blossom slowly into the woman she had once been, ever since they'd met. Their Friday nights had benefitted all three of them, even him. "Thanks again, Quinn," she said, and then turning to him, she threw caution to the winds, and gave him a hug. He looked surprised as she smiled at him, and a minute later, she was gone, her door was closed, and he was on his way home. Her hair had brushed his cheek, and he could smell the perfume she wore. It was a fresh airy scent that seemed so typical of her. She was like a breath of air, a summer breeze that had passed through his life, taking with it the sadness that had burdened him for so long. And he had done the same for her. He had become the anchor she had clung to when she was trying not to drown. |
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He had seen it in her eyes the day they met, but her divorce papers had only arrived the day before. They weren't a surprise for her, but they must have hurt anyway, and he could only guess at how much. Her husband had delivered the ultimate one two punch, and it had decked her for a while, but she seemed to be slowly coming back to life. Quinn's friendship had been an immense source of strength and peace for her, as had Jack's. But it was Quinn who, in some ways, was the anchor of the group. Jack was the common bond they shared. And Maggie was the light and joy and fun for Quinn, far more than she guessed, or knew. He enjoyed her sunny spirit, her energy, her dry humor, and occasionally insightful wit. But more than anything, he appreciated her tenderness and compassion, which she shared with him and Jack. She was the motherly woman's touch he and Jack both needed and sometimes longed for, without even knowing it. She was Peter Pan's Wendy to the two lost boys they had both been when they all met. And now they were all getting stronger. Maggie heard from Jack that Quinn had gone out on the boat that week, and had sailed up the coast for two days. He came home on Friday morning, and was in good spirits when they met on Friday night. He told them all about it, and reported on his own boat's progress in Holland. Everything was going according to plan, and Maggie was happy for him, although she was beginning to dread what it would be like when he was gone for good. She and Jack would still have each other, but Jack seemed to be getting serious about the woman he had met, and she knew that one day there might no longer be room, or need, in his life for her. Eventually, in their own ways, they would all have to grow up and move on. But for the moment, it was so nice the way things were. She sailed on the Molly B again with Quinn that weekend, and on Sunday night when he dropped her off, he invited her to come out on the boat with him again that week. They were starting to show his house, and he didn't want to be around. |
| 520 |
The moment had come for her finally when she knew that there was nothing she could have done. For her, the truth had come in a thousand tiny moments, like shards that formed a window she could finally look through. It came in talking to others like him, on the phone late at night, and long nights of introspection. It came in moments of prayer, and nights of bitter tears, but in the end what she had seen, as she looked into herself, had brought peace to her. She couldn't have saved him, she couldn't have changed it. All she could do was accept the fact that he was gone now, and had chosen to be. It was about acceptance and surrender, and loving someone enough to let them go forever. That had been the green flash for her, and she hoped that one day Quinn would find that too. He was still tormented about what he hadn't done, and hadn't been, and couldn't do, and until he surrendered and accepted and knew that he couldn't have changed anything, not even himself, he would have to run. It was in standing still that one found the truth, not in running, but that was impossible to explain to anyone. He had to find the answers for himself, wherever he had to go to find them, and until then he would never be free, no matter where he went to find freedom. She looked at him then with everything she was thinking, and felt for him, and all the gratitude for all he'd done for her, and she turned her face toward him as she looked at him. And as she did, he leaned toward her and kissed her, and they hung in space for an endless instant with their eyes closed, feeling a green flash of their own. It was a moment in which two worlds gently approached each other and melted into one, and neither of them wanted the moment to end. It was a long time before he opened his eyes and looked at her. He wanted her, but knew he had to be honest with her, or whatever they shared would damage both of them. "I have no idea what that means," he said gently, and she nodded. In the months of their friendship, she had come to understand who he was. |
| 521 |
And she could hardly wait to see the boat. After studying the plans with him for months, she wanted to see it in the flesh, and he was excited to be showing it to her. It was like taking her to his new home. They slept for a few hours at the Amstel, and then they went to the shipyard after lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day in Amsterdam, which Quinn knew was rare. And the moment she saw the boat, Maggie caught her breath. She was speechless for a few minutes, and there were tears in her eyes. She had never seen anything as beautiful in her entire life, and it meant the world to her that he had shared it with her. "Oh my God, Quinn, she's incredible." Seen from where she sat in dry dock, as Maggie looked up at her, she looked more like an ocean liner than a sailboat. The boat Quinn was building was huge. They rode hydraulic lifts to get on board, and Maggie was amazed at how far the interior work had gone, and it reminded her once again of how soon Quinn would leave. But she wasn't thinking of that now, she was sharing in the joy of the boat with him. He looked proud to see her so impressed. He hadn't dared to hope for a reaction as positive as this. Maggie exhibited pure, unadulterated pleasure on his behalf, and enormous admiration for him. It was a huge undertaking, and she delighted in it for him. They spent the afternoon at the boatyard with Tem Hakker and his sons, and Quinn went over some more drawings with them. They looked forward to his visits to walk around the boat with him, and suggest improvements in the most recent plans. Quinn and Maggie had dinner in the hotel that night, and went back to the yard at the crack of dawn the next morning. She got up early with him, and enjoyed the sights she saw on the way back to the boatyard. She was immensely grateful that Quinn had invited her to come with him. She knew that his sharing that with her was his way of demonstrating to her how much she meant to him. His excitement was tangible as he walked the boat with the Hakkers again. |
| 522 |
The crew were on board, but they were undoubtedly sleeping. The first mate was on watch as they came in, and he carried their bags to Quinn's cabin, and offered them something to eat, but neither of them was hungry. They both took showers and went to bed, and as soon as they did, Maggie nestled close to him, and he put an arm around her. "Thank you for a wonderful trip," she whispered to him. "I think you and Vol de Nuit are going to be very happy with each other." He wanted to tell her then how much her generosity of spirit meant to him, but for some reason, he didn't. He didn't know what to say to her. He knew now that he was in love with her, but it didn't change anything for him, and he didn't want to foster false hopes or illusions. He was afraid if he told her how he felt, she would think that he might stay, or return for her, and he knew he couldn't. He felt he owed it to Jane somehow to be alone, to venture on with his solitary travels. After all he had done, and failed to do in his life, he knew he did not deserve to spend the rest of his life with Maggie. She was young enough to find someone else, have a wholesome life, and forget him. And he had never said it to her, but it concerned him that he was twenty years older than she was. She was young enough to be his daughter, which seemed ridiculous to him. He never felt their age difference, but he had had his life, his children, his career, his marriage, and now he felt he had to atone for his sins. Indulging himself with a woman two thirds his age, and dragging her around the world with him seemed as selfish as what he had done to Jane, and the egocentric life he had led, for which Alex could not forgive him. He knew he was doing the right thing in setting Maggie free when he left, and promising her nothing. If anything, he was going to urge her to forget him. His mind was full of thoughts of her, his heart eased with the warmth of her next to him, but he said nothing to her. He was already up and dressed when she awoke the next morning. |
| 523 |
He had had more affection from her in the past few months than he had ever dreamed of. He had had a very different relationship with Jane. Theirs had been a bond of respect and loyalty, quiet companionship when they were together, deep affection, and Jane's endless patience. What he shared with Maggie was younger and more joyful, and far more passionate, just as Maggie was herself. The last days of August were better than ever for them. They sailed almost constantly. And they seemed to get closer to each other with each passing day, perhaps because they knew that their final days were coming. Rather than pulling away from each other, Maggie seemed to love him with greater abandon every day, and Quinn could feel himself drifting closer and closer to her, and he no longer felt any desire to resist it. He felt safer with her than he ever had with anyone in his life. It was as though he knew deep in his heart that he could trust her in every way. And in the past month or two, his recurring dream had finally, mercifully, gone away. He still missed Jane, but differently. He felt more at peace now. He only left Maggie when the movers came to pack up his house. He was sending whatever was left to storage. He had already sent Alex's things to her, and he was taking several suitcases of clothes and papers with him when he went to Holland for the sea trials in September. And once the house was empty, he was planning to stay on the Molly B until he left. It was a strange feeling watching the movers empty the house. He felt a pang every time he saw some familiar favorite piece loaded onto the truck. It was as though they were taking away the landmarks of his life. And when the house was finally empty, he stood looking around, and felt a terrible ache in his heart. "Good bye, Jane," he said out loud and heard his voice echo in the empty room where she had died. It was as though he were leaving her there, and for the first time in fourteen months, he felt as though he were leaving her behind. |
| 524 |
It was one o'clock in the morning for her, and he told her quickly what time he would arrive that day, and his flight number from London. And then he told her to go back to sleep, and he hung up. He was excited to see her, and pleased for her that she was pregnant. He knew Jane would have been happy for her too. But for once, his thoughts weren't of Jane, as he sat and waited for his flight. All he could think of now was Maggie, and he was beginning to realize how hard it would be to leave her. It wasn't going to be as easy as he had thought it would be in the beginning. He was going to have to peel her from his skin like a bandage sticking to a wound. She had protected his heart for the past many months, and leaving her would expose it again. But he knew he had no choice. If he delayed his trip, it would only be worse, and he couldn't take her with him. He knew taking her would be the wrong thing to do. He had made a vow to Jane's memory. To atone for his sins and be alone. He was convinced that that was why the recurring dreams had gone. He and his conscience had made a deal, and finally made peace to honor his promise to her, or he would be devoured by guilt forever. He needed the solitude of his life on the boat, for himself, and the freedom to leave just as he had told Maggie he would in the beginning. Above all, he needed his freedom. He felt he had no right to companionship forever. He had to leave. And Maggie needed to go back to her own life, with friends and people she knew, and her teaching. He couldn't drag her around the world with him. He had to do what he had said he would. No matter how painful for both of them, he had to leave her. But for the first time in his life, he was beginning to question just how much he wanted his freedom. But once he got on the flight to London, he felt better, and told himself it was a sign of age that he was getting so attached to her, and it would be better for both of them to end it. In a way, he perceived his love for her as weakness. |
| 525 |
The moment Quinn let go of her, he had one grandson pulling at each arm, asking him a thousand questions. It surprised him to realize that both of his grandsons had Swiss accents when they spoke English. Horst and Alex spoke French to them, but their English was fluent, despite their accents. He was still holding Alex's hand, as he answered the children's questions. They had an hour before the flight to Holland, and he suggested they go to the restaurant nearest them for an ice cream, which the boys thought was an excellent decision. They were both talking at once a mile a minute, and Alex smiled as she walked along beside her father. She looked beautiful and young and very pregnant, and for an instant Quinn wished Maggie could have seen her. He was sure they would have liked each other. "You look great, Dad," she complimented him as she ate an ice cream with her children. Quinn ordered a cup of coffee, he was beginning to feel the two flights he'd taken so far, and the jet lag. But as he looked at her, he felt as if all the anger she had felt toward him for so long had dissipated. He didn't know where it had gone, but he was grateful for its disappearance. Half an hour later, he boarded the plane with the boys. They would be in Amsterdam at seven thirty, and on the boat two hours later. He had already warned the crew they were coming, and the head stewardess was going to help him watch them. He didn't want anything to happen to them. He owed Alex that much, and reassured her again just before their flight left. He told her to relax and enjoy three weeks of peace with her husband. He promised that if the boys got homesick, he would bring them back to her sooner. She was waving and wiping tears from her eyes when he last saw her. He was busy with the boys for the entire flight, and grateful for the distraction the flight attendants provided. They had coloring books and crayons for them, and brought them each a glass of fruit juice. And the boys kept him laughing and amused. |
| 526 |
His grandsons had fun. The crew were more efficient than he'd hoped. And the weeks flew by like minutes. Quinn couldn't believe how fast the time had gone, and he had spoken to Maggie several times in San Francisco. She said she was exhausted and harassed, she had forgotten what teaching was like, and how boisterous her students could be, but she sounded happy and busy, and said she could hardly wait to see him. He had made a point of calling her less often than he wanted. He knew he had to start to pull away now, or it would make the final break that much more painful. And the time for that was rapidly approaching. He knew he would see her again one day, he had no intention of abandoning her completely. He would call from time to time. But he was determined not to take her into his new life with him. That had been their agreement from the beginning, and he was going to hold them both to it. As much for his sake as for Maggie's. But he was still looking forward to his last two weeks with her in San Francisco. It would be their final gift to each other. He hated to leave the boat when he did, and the boys cried when they left the crew, but Quinn promised them they could come back as often as their parents would let them. He had a sense of the continuity of life, as he left the boat with them, and realized how much Doug had looked like Robert. Only the color of their hair was different. Jane had always said he looked like Quinn, but seeing his grandson made him realize that his son had looked a great deal like Jane, except that his hair was the color of Quinn's. But he had the impression now that his features had been his mother's. And for the first time in twenty four years, he realized how much he missed him. He had finally allowed himself to feel it. All his pores seemed to be open these days, and Quinn nearly cried again when he saw Alex waiting for them at the airport. He spent a night with them, and the boys regaled their parents with the tales of all their adventures. |
| 527 |
There hadn't been a single dicey moment, and the boys would long remember the trip they had spent with their grandfather. They had been beautifully behaved with everyone, and were affectionate, bright, loving children. And the next morning, before he left, Alex thanked him again, and told him how much it had meant to her to see him. It was as though all the rage had gone out of her, like an illness that had been cured, a miraculous healing she'd experienced during the year he hadn't seen her. She told him she had prayed about it. "Will you be all right on the boat, Dad?" It seemed a lonely life to her, but he had told them again the night before that it was the life he wanted. "I'll be more than all right," he said confidently, "I'll be extremely happy." He was sure of that now. He had been thrilled with every moment he'd spent on the boat in the past three weeks. She had more than lived up to his expectations. And his decision to spend his life on her seemed the right one to him, in spite of Maggie. Or perhaps even because of her. He felt he had no right to a new life with a woman other than Jane. Maggie had been an adventure of the heart, a moment of sunshine amidst rain, and it was time for him to continue on his solitary path now. He was absolutely certain that it was what he wanted. He promised Alex when he left that he would try to come and see her after she had the baby. He could fly from wherever he was. He planned to be in Africa by then, enjoying the winter, and all the places he was planning to visit. He and the captain had spent hours talking about it, and Sean Mackenzie had had some excellent suggestions. Quinn was focused on that now, and a part of him had already left the life he had led recently in San Francisco. Maggie felt it when he got back. Outwardly, he seemed to be the same as he had been when he left three weeks before, but he was already ever so subtly different. She couldn't put her finger on it, but even on her first night with him, she sensed that part of him had already escaped her. |
| 528 |
She didn't say anything about it to him, but when he held her, his embrace no longer had the passion it had had just a few weeks before. The eagle was already reaching for the skies, and preparing to leave her. She was frantically busy at school, and trying to make time for him. They had moved onto the boat again, and she hated to do it, but she had to spend part of every evening correcting papers. She planned to give her students as few assignments as possible during his final weeks with her, but she still had to do some work. And Quinn had a lot of loose ends to tie up too. It was only when they went to bed at night that she felt they found each other again and truly connected. It was when she lay next to him with his arm around her that she felt all she had for him, and knew that he felt the same way about her. The rest of the time, Quinn seemed to have put his guard up. It was a sensible thing to do, given the fact that he was leaving her, and he hoped that would make it less painful for her. He was no longer the man he had been years before, who thought only of himself. This time he was determined not to hurt anyone more than he had to. And the last person on earth he wanted to hurt now was Maggie. They went on easy sails over the weekend, and the weather was spectacular. It was sunny and warm, and the breeze was exactly what they wanted it to be for sailing. Jack came to dinner with them on Friday night, and he said he was loving school, and Michelle was busy planning their wedding. Quinn offered to charter a boat for their honeymoon, and Jack declined regretfully. Michelle would have hated it, since she got seasick, unlike Maggie, who would have loved it. Their first week together on the boat was easy and comfortable, Quinn and Maggie managed to make time for each other, and they spent a lot of time talking at night, as though storing memories to save for the many years ahead when they would no longer be together. Waiting for him to leave was like planning a death, or a funeral. |
| 529 |
They knew it was coming, and even when. She felt as though he were going to pull the plug on her respirator, and even though she had always known it would come to this, she had never expected it to hurt quite so acutely. By the second week, the anticipated end began to cause both friction and tension between them. It was impossible for it not to. Maggie began dreaming of Andrew every night, and she had a nightmare about Charles, and woke up screaming. And there was very little Quinn could do to help her. All he could have done was change his plans, and decide not to leave, and Maggie would never have expected that of him. But nonetheless, as the days rolled by, she felt as though the life and air were being sucked out of her. She could hardly breathe on their last weekend, and Quinn was feeling the full weight of what it was doing to her, although she never said anything about it. He knew he had to leave her, even though for a crazed instant he almost asked her to come along. But he owed more than that to Jane. And Maggie needed a real life again, with people and friends and work. He couldn't just abscond with her on a boat. And if he took her with him, however tempting that was, he would have broken his vow to Jane. He said as much to Maggie again as they sat on the aft deck under the sails. She was looking miserably unhappy, and could no longer conceal it, nor tried. "I can't believe she'd have expected that of you," Maggie said, looking out to sea, and feeling as though she were about to scatter her own ashes. "I read her poems to you. She loved you, Quinn. She wouldn't have wanted you to be unhappy." And the odd thing was, he wasn't. He was sad to be leaving her, but there was a certain sense of peace to be going to solitude and freedom, almost like a monastic life he had chosen. He needed the respite he knew it would give his soul. He no longer had the energy to begin a life with anyone, and he hadn't earned it. He had made too big a botch of the last one, as far as he was concerned. |
| 530 |
But to Quinn, that was all the more reason to leave her. It was what he expected of himself. He owed this final sacrifice to all the people he had hurt in the past, whether or not Maggie understood it. In the end, she lay and sobbed in his arms for most of the night, and in the morning they both looked as though someone had died. It took every ounce of courage she had to dress and follow him upstairs to breakfast. She just sat silently with tears rolling down her cheeks, as he looked at her, as bereft as she was. She hadn't felt this awful since Andrew had died, and that had made just as little sense to her. Her beautiful child had taken his life. And now this man was leaving her because he loved her. "This is what I believe is right," Quinn said quietly. "Please don't make it harder than it already is." And out of sheer love for him, she nodded, and at least tried to pull herself together. He had already told her that he didn't want her to take him to the airport. And she knew she couldn't. He held her for a last time, and kissed her, storing the memories for himself, and she touched his face one last time before he put her in a cab. His was coming in a few minutes. As she pulled away, he stood on the deck watching her. Their eyes never left each other for a single moment. He raised his hand once and waved at her. She blew him a kiss as the cab pulled away, and as soon as they were out of sight of the boat, she was engulfed in sobs, and the driver watched her silently in the rearview mirror. She had him take her home, and didn't go to work that day. She couldn't. She sat in her kitchen, watching the clock. And when she knew his plane had taken off, she put her head down on the table and sobbed. She sat there for hours, crying and never moving. She had cherished the months she spent with him, and now she knew she had to do what she had promised, no matter how painful. She had to let him go, to be how and where and what he wanted, whether or not it made sense to her. |
| 531 |
She had no energy, she never smiled, she hardly slept at night, and when people spoke to her, she barely heard them. She felt disconnected from her entire world, as though she had fallen from another planet, and no longer spoke the language or understood the words people spoke to her. She lost her ability to decode the world around her. She went to work and was painfully distracted. She could barely manage to give assignments and correct papers. All she wanted to do was stay home, and think of the time they had shared. Each remembered moment now seemed even more precious. The only useful thing she did was volunteer again for the teen suicide hotline. She had taken two months off from it over the summer. But since she couldn't sleep at night anyway, it seemed like a worthwhile use of her time. But she was just as depressed as her clients, although she made an effort to sound normal when she spoke to them. But nothing about her life seemed rational or normal to her anymore. Quinn leaving had opened up the wound of loss again, and reminded her of everyone she'd ever loved and lost. She felt as though yet one more person she loved had died. At times, she felt as though she had died herself. She had dinner with Jack on Friday night. She hadn't wanted to, but he had called her that morning and insisted. She thought seeing him might remind her of Quinn. The bond to Jack was another valuable gift he had given her. And Jack looked almost as depressed as she did. He said he really missed him. Quinn had shared so much with them, and given of himself so freely, and yet she knew he couldn't forgive himself for past sins. She had his Satcom number on the boat, for emergencies, but she had promised herself not to call him. He had a right to the freedom he so desperately wanted. And she would give it to him now, no matter what it cost her. But the rest of her life stretched ahead of her like an empty desert. Jack said he had been so upset the night before that he and Michelle had had an argument about their wedding. |
| 532 |
Maggie had promised to attend, but she wasn't in the mood for it. She hadn't bothered to buy a dress, and pulled a short black dress out of her closet the afternoon of the wedding. Jack had told her a few days before that he'd had a postcard from Quinn. He had flown back from Cape Town, to see Alex and the boys in Geneva. Jack had brought the card with him, and asked Maggie if she wanted to see it, but she didn't. It would just make her cry again, and there was no point in that. She had cried endlessly in the past two months. Her gift to him was to free him. She went to Jack's wedding that afternoon, cried copiously during the ceremony, and felt morbidly depressed during the reception. She didn't want to dance with anyone. She just wanted to go home, to be alone, and think about Quinn. She was trying to pull out of it, but after Andrew's death, it had become increasingly difficult to lose anyone or anything. And losing Quinn was a loss of such magnitude that it had reopened all her other wounds. But no matter how painful it was for her, she knew she had to survive it. She owed Quinn that. And as soon as it seemed respectable to her, she slipped away from the wedding. It was a relief to go home, and escape the noise and food and revelry. It had been good to see Jack happy again, and Michelle looked beautiful and ecstatic. Maggie was sure they would be very happy. It was only on Christmas Eve that she began to find a sense of peace about what had happened. Instead of looking at the years she wouldn't share with him, she thought of the months she had, what a blessing they had been for her, and how lucky she was to have known him. Just as she had done two and a half years before with Andrew. She concentrated on gratitude instead of loss, and she thought of calling him on Christmas morning, and after wrestling with herself for two hours, she managed not to. She knew that if he wanted to talk to her, he would have called her, and he didn't. All she could do now was wish him well, and cherish the memories. |
| 533 |
Alex had had the baby two weeks before, and as he had promised her he would, he had come to see her. It was something he knew Jane would have done, and he did it for her, since she couldn't. Alex had had a girl this time, and the boys were fascinated by her. They were constantly holding and touching and kissing her. And Alex was remarkably relaxed when they nearly dropped her. She was happy to have some time with her father. He sat with her quietly and talked, while she nursed the baby. And being there with her reminded him of the many times when he hadn't managed to come home from some far corner of the world for Christmas. He apologized to her, and she said she understood it. It meant a lot to her that he had flown in from Cape Town just to see her. He had left the boat there, and was flying back to it on Christmas morning. Quinn had spent a week with them, and as he sat with Alex after Mass that night, he was tempted to tell her about Maggie, but decided he shouldn't. He still felt he had done the right thing, but was surprised by how much he had missed her in the two months since he left her. Their attachment had been greater than even he had understood, and he couldn't help wondering what Alex would think about it. But he didn't have the courage to tell her. He felt sure that she would view it as a betrayal of her mother. He still loved Jane, and thought about her, but it was Maggie who came to mind constantly, as he sat on deck at night and looked at the ocean. Jane seemed more like part of the distant past, and Maggie was integrally woven into the fabric of the present. But no longer the future. Whatever future he had would be spent alone on Vol de Nuit, contemplating his failures and victories, and the people he had loved and who were no longer with him. He was grateful that Alex was no longer part of his past, but had come into his present. He kissed all of them, and left presents for everyone, when he left early on Christmas morning. He had spent a week with them, and didn't want to intrude on them. |
| 534 |
They were going to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, and travel up the east side of Africa. There were places where it seemed unwise to go with a yacht the size of Vol de Nuit. He didn't want to enter hostile areas, or expose the crew to unnecessary danger. And by the time they set sail again, Quinn was happy to be sailing and heading for new locations. The weather began getting worse after the holidays, and in the second week of January, it began raining. They had three days of heavy rains and rough seas, and Quinn couldn't help remembering the storm of a year before in San Francisco. It was in the aftermath of it, on New Year's Day, that he had first seen Maggie, standing in the pouring rain, with everything she was wearing soaking wet. And as he thought of it, he was tempted to call her, but resisted. Hearing her now, and talking to her, would just be painful for both of them. He was determined to let her go. He wanted her to have a better life than he felt he could give her. They changed their course after a week of rain, and by the second week, the entire crew was tired of it, and so was Quinn. They got out their charts and began mapping a new course, hoping to find better weather, but it was worse instead. Vol de Nuit was pitching and rolling in heavy seas. Everyone but Quinn and the captain was sick, and Quinn jokingly said they'd have to lash the crew to their beds if the weather didn't get better. He was in his bed that night when he heard a crash. The seas were so rough that a piece of furniture had broken loose and fallen over. He looked at the gauges next to his bed, and saw that the winds had reached gale force. He put on his clothes and made his way to the bridge to talk to the captain. Their new course seemed to have taken them into the worst of the storm. Quinn was startled by the size of the waves breaking over the deck when he met the first mate, the engineer, and the captain in the wheelhouse. They were looking over the weather reports and watching the radar. |
| 535 |
They wore harnesses with lights on them, and clipped the safety lines to their harnesses in case they got swept overboard, but Quinn knew that if anyone went over the side in waves like this, it would be almost impossible to retrieve them. "Tell them to be careful," Quinn said to the first mate, and started out on deck to see how the crew were doing. Everyone had yellow foul weather gear on, including Quinn, and the captain told him sternly to put a harness on before he left the wheelhouse. "Yes, sir." Quinn smiled at him, and was glad that Sean was being careful. Quinn put the harness on and went outside to join the other men. And as he did, there were some nasty crashing sounds in the galley. The boat was shuddering by then, and the only thing Quinn was worried about was breaking a mast. There was nothing they could do at this point, but ride through it. But it was unsettling for everyone, and as Quinn watched the waves, he was genuinely concerned for the first time. They were the roughest seas he'd ever seen. The waves were as tall as skyscrapers, towering seventy or eighty feet above them. It would have been a challenge to any ship, and was to Vol de Nuit, and as he stood looking into the darkness, he heard a shout a few feet away from him. One of the younger crew members had nearly gone over the side, and two of the other men had grabbed him. They were clinging to the safety lines, and all three of them looked like they were going to be swept off the boat as the sailboat dropped straight down into a giant trough. It was an eternity before they rose again and the mammoth waves crashed over them. "Get everyone inside!" Quinn shouted and gesticulated at them through the wind, and the men began slowly crawling back up the boat, the deck was at a nearly ninety degree angle, and it seemed a lifetime before the crew were crowded into the wheelhouse, dripping water. It was the first time in his life that Quinn had been truly worried on a boat, but he'd never seen a storm like this one, except in movies. |
| 536 |
Morning dawned grim and gray again, and the waves only seemed to get bigger, the wind worse. The two stewardesses had joined them in the wheelhouse by then, and reluctantly the captain told everyone to put life vests on. There seemed to be a distinct possibility that they might not make it. They radioed to the nearest ship, and were told that the tanker had gone down, and no one had made it into the lifeboats. There would have been no point anyway. No one could have survived this. Shortly after nine o'clock there was another distress call on the emergency frequency. A fleet of fishing boats had gone down. Quinn and the captain exchanged a long look, and somewhere in the wheelhouse, a crew member was praying out loud. Quinn suspected that silently, they all were. He would have offered them something to fortify them and keep their spirits up, as they'd been up all night, but they needed to keep their wits about them. He stood at the windows watching the waves again, and as he stared into the driving rain, he could have sworn he saw a woman's face, and it was Maggie. And as he thought of her, and the time they had spent together, he had an overwhelming urge to call her, and promised himself he would, if they survived the storm, which was beginning to seem less and less likely. Vol de Nuit could only stand so much abuse, and the waves seemed to be getting bigger instead of smaller. There was a deafening silence in the wheelhouse, and the only sounds were those of furniture falling below, and another series of crashes in the galley. "Well, guys," Quinn said quietly, "we're in it this time. But I'd like to keep the boat. I spent a hell of a lot of money on her." The engineer laughed a hollow sound, and a few minutes later, the rest of the crew started talking. They were telling war stories about storms they'd been in, and Quinn did the best he could to keep the conversation going, but you could smell terror on their skins, and the sight of all of them in life vests was anything but reassuring. |
| 537 |
Some of the men had lit cigarettes, and a few were still not talking. Quinn was sure that they were praying, and through it all, as he talked to them, he kept thinking of Maggie. This seemed a hell of a way to die, but in a way this was what he had wanted, to end his life at sea one day. It was just happening sooner than he had expected. He was glad she wasn't there, the last thing he would have wanted to do was kill her. And both of the stewardesses were crying. This time, when the boat crashed down, two of the men started singing, and the others slowly joined them. If they were going to die, they were going to go like men, with guts and style. They were a brave band as the storm raged on. It seemed like an eternity, but by noon, they were moving ever so slowly into calmer waters. The storm continued to rage on, but the waves were not quite as ominous, and the boat wasn't shaking quite as badly. It was nightfall before the rain and wind began to slow down. The damage inside the boat was considerable, but they were in reasonably manageable circumstances again by midnight. The boat was still pitching and rolling, but Quinn and the captain agreed they were no longer in grave danger, and by morning, they were both certain they were going to make it. They motored into port in Durban early that afternoon with a cheer of victory and tears rolling down their faces. "We'll remember that one," the captain said quietly to Quinn, and he nodded, looking grim. He had spent nearly two days thinking of what he had done with his life, as they all had. More than fifty men had died the night before, and Quinn was profoundly grateful that they hadn't been among them. It was a storm that all of them would remember for a lifetime. And as they motored slowly into port, and docked the giant sailboat, Quinn turned to the captain and thanked him. They had already agreed that they would have to get Vol de Nuit back to Holland for repairs. But all that mattered was that all of the crew were alive. |
| 538 |
She had been awake most of the night, unable to sleep, thinking of things she had to do that day, and papers she had to grade by the following morning. She was beginning to enjoy her work again. And she had saved a fourteen year old girl two nights before on the hotline. Her life was beginning to make sense again, although she couldn't say that she was enjoying it. But her mind was clear, and her heart was not constantly as heavy. Only when she thought about him. But she knew that in time, she'd survive it. She had done it before and would again. Eventually, the heart repairs. She had learned that with Andrew. The scars and memories remained, but in time, one learned to live with the damage, and even function in spite of it. She couldn't let losing Quinn destroy her life. She had no choice but to survive it. If not, everything she said to kids on the hotline was a lie, and she couldn't allow that to happen to her. If she could give them a reason to live, she had to find one. She couldn't allow herself to mourn him forever. She couldn't afford it. She got up and showered and dressed for school. She drank a cup of coffee, and ate a piece of toast, and half a grapefruit. She put her raincoat on and went out in the rain. And she was running toward her car, with her long braid flying out behind her, and the rain beating down, as she saw a man dart toward her. She couldn't imagine what he was doing, and she had her head down in the wind and rain, when he reached out for her and she jumped away. It was a crazy hour of the day for someone to attack her. But all he did was wrap his arms around her as she tried to push away, and he just stood there and held her. He had knocked the wind out of her, and she tried to catch her breath as she struggled to look up at him, and then she saw him. His hair was short, his face was lean, and he was as wet as she was. He was just standing there holding her. It was Quinn, or someone who looked just like him. "What are you doing here?" she asked with a look of amazement. |
| 539 |
Even physically, they were an interesting and complementary combination. Her hair was blond, her eyes were blue; he was dark, with dark brown eyes; she was tiny; he was a huge teddy bear of a man, with a quick smile and an easygoing disposition. Olympia was shy and serious, though prone to easy laughter, especially when it was provoked by Harry or her children. She was a remarkably dutiful and loving daughter in law to Harry's mother, Frieda. Olympia's background was entirely different from Harry's. The Crawfords were an illustrious and extremely social New York family, whose blue blooded ancestors had intermarried with Astors and Vanderbilts for generations. Buildings and academic institutions were named after them, and theirs had been one of the largest "cottages" in Newport, Rhode Island, where they spent the summers. The family fortune had dwindled to next to nothing by the time her parents died when she was in college, and she had been forced to sell the "cottage" and surrounding estate to pay their debts and taxes. Her father had never really worked, and as one of her distant relatives had said after he died, "he had a small fortune, he had made it from a large one." By the time she cleaned up all their debts and sold their property, there was simply no money, just rivers of blue blood and aristocratic connections. She had just enough left to pay for her education, and put a small nest egg away, which later paid for law school. She married her college sweetheart, Chauncey Bedham Walker IV, six months after she graduated from Vassar, and he from Princeton. He had been charming, handsome, and fun loving, the captain of the crew team, an expert horseman, played polo, and when they met, Olympia was understandably dazzled by him. Olympia was head over heels in love with him, and didn't give a damn about his family's enormous fortune. She was totally in love with Chauncey, enough so as not to notice that he drank too much, played constantly, had a roving eye, and spent far too much money. |
| 540 |
He went to work in his family's investment bank, and did anything he wanted, which eventually included going to work as seldom as possible, spending literally no time with her, and having random affairs with a multitude of women. By the time she knew what was happening, she and Chauncey had three children. Charlie came along two years after they were married, and his identical twin sisters, Virginia and Veronica, three years later. When she and Chauncey split up seven years after they married, Charlie was five, the twins two, and Olympia was twenty nine years old. As soon as they separated, he quit his job at the bank, and went to live in Newport with his grandmother, the doyenne of Newport and Palm Beach society, and devoted himself to playing polo and chasing women. A year later Chauncey married Felicia Weatherton, who was the perfect mate for him. They built a house on his grandmother's estate, which he ultimately inherited, filled her stables with new horses, and had three daughters in four years. A year after Chauncey married Felicia, Olympia married Harry Rubinstein, which Chauncey found not only ridiculous but appalling. He was rendered speechless when their son, Charlie, told him his mother had converted to the Jewish faith. He had been equally shocked earlier when Olympia enrolled in law school, all of which proved to him, as Olympia had figured out long before, that despite the similarity of their ancestry, she and Chauncey had absolutely nothing in common, and never would. As she grew older, the ideas that had seemed normal to her in her youth appalled her. Almost all of Chauncey's values, or lack of them, were anathema to her. The fifteen years since their divorce had been years of erratic truce, and occasional minor warfare, usually over money. He supported their three children decently, though not generously. Despite what he had inherited from his family, Chauncey was stingy with his first family, and far more generous with his second wife and their children. |
| 541 |
There was absolutely nothing politically correct about him or Felicia, and Harry loathed him. They represented everything he detested, and he could never understand how Olympia had tolerated him for ten minutes, let alone seven years of marriage. People like Chauncey and Felicia, and the whole hierarchy of Newport society, and all it stood for, were a mystery to Harry. He wanted to know nothing about it, and Olympia's occasional explanations were wasted on him. Harry adored Olympia, her three children, and their son, Max. And in some ways, her daughter Veronica seemed more like Harry's daughter than Chauncey's. They shared all of the same extremely liberal, socially responsible ideas. Virginia, her twin, was much more of a throwback to their Newport ancestry, and was far more frivolous than her twin sister. Charlie, their older brother, was at Dartmouth, studying theology and threatening to become a minister. Max was a being unto himself, a wise old soul, who his grandmother swore was just like her own father, who had been a rabbi in Germany before being sent to Dachau, where he had helped as many people as he could before he was exterminated along with the rest of her family. The stories of Frieda's childhood and lost loved ones always made Olympia weep. Frieda Rubinstein had a number tattooed on the inside of her left wrist, which was a sobering reminder of the childhood the Nazis had stolen from her. Because of it, she had worn long sleeves all her life, and still did. Olympia frequently bought beautiful silk blouses and long sleeved sweaters for her. There was a powerful bond of love and respect between the two women, which continued to deepen over the years. Olympia heard the mail being pushed through the slot in the front door, went to get it, and tossed it on the kitchen table as she finished making Max's lunch. With perfect timing, she heard the doorbell ring at almost precisely the same instant. Max was home from school, and she was looking forward to spending the afternoon with him. |
| 542 |
There didn't seem any reason not to. They would go on doing the same things they were doing, and Kezia would tell him about the column. They would go to the same parties, see the same people, and lead their own lives. He'd bring her roses instead of send them. They would have separate bedrooms, and when Kezia gave someone a tour of the house Whit's would be shown as "the guest room." And she would go downtown, and he to Sutton Place, and no one would have to be the wiser. They would never mention it to each other, of course; she would "play bridge" and he would "see a client," and they would meet at breakfast the next day, pacified, mollified, appeased, and loved, each by their respective lovers. What an insane fantasy. She laughed thinking back on it now. She still had more hope than that. She regarded Whit now as an old friend. She was fond of him in an odd way. And she was used to him, which in some ways was worse. Kezia wandered slowly back to her bedroom and smiled to herself. It was good to be home. Nice to be back in the comfort of her own apartment, in the huge white bed with the silver fox bedspread that had been such an appalling extravagance, but still pleased her so much. The small, delicate furniture had been her mother's. The painting she had bought in Lisbon the year before hung over the bed, a watermelon sun over a rich countryside and a man working the fields. There was something warm and friendly about her bedroom that she found nowhere else in the world. Not in Hilary's palazzo in Marbella, or in the lovely home in Kensington where she had her own room Hilary had so many rooms in the London house that she could afford to give them away to absent friends and family like so many lace handkerchiefs. But nowhere did Kezia feel like this, except at home. There was a fireplace in the bedroom too, and she had found the brass bed in London years before; there was one soft brown velvet chair near the fireplace, and a white fur rug that made you want to dance barefoot across the floor. |
| 543 |
The friend, an elderly widow whose husband had been a classmate of Simpson's, was wintering in Portugal. Now, as the cab circled the rim of the lake, Kezia began to feel a mounting excitement. She had finally chosen. Taken a first step. But what if it turned out to be more than she could handle? It was one thing to work over her typewriter and call herself K. S. Miller, and quite another to pull it off eye to eye. Of course, Mark didn't know who she was either. But that was different. His farthest horizon was his easel, and even if he knew, he wouldn't really care. It would make him laugh, but it wouldn't matter. Lucas Johns might be different. He might try to use her notoriety to his advantage. She tried to shrug off her fears as the cab pulled up in front of the address Simpson had given her. The borrowed apartment was on the nineteenth floor of a substantial looking building across from the lake. The parquet floors in the foyer echoed beneath her feet. Above her head was an elaborate crystal chandelier. And the ghostly form of a grand piano stood silent beneath a dust sheet at the foot of the stairs. There was a long mirrored hall which led to the living room beyond. More dust sheets, two more chandeliers, the pink marble of a Louis XV mantel on the fireplace glowing softly from the light in the hall. The furniture beneath the sheets looked massive, and she wandered curiously from room to room. A spiral staircase led to another floor, and upstairs in the master bedroom she drew back the curtains and pulled up the creamy silk shades. The lake stretched before her, bathed in the glow of sunset, sailboats veering lazily toward home. It would have been fun to go for a walk and watch the lake for a while, but she had other things on her mind. Lucas Johns, and what sort of man he might prove to be. She had read his book, and was surprised that she liked the sound of him. She had been prepared to dislike him, if only because the interview had become such a major issue between her and Simpson, and Edward. |
| 544 |
She liked him, and he had no idea who she was. It was a safe, happy feeling, and the makings of the article already felt good in her head. Luke's speech was interesting, and the group was receptive. She made a few notes, and nibbled absently at the steak on her plate. Luke was sitting at a long, flower strewn table at the front of the room, and she had been seated nearby. He looked over at her now and then, with mischievous laughter in the emerald green eyes. Once, silently raising his glass toward her, he winked. It made her want to laugh in the midst of the psychiatrists' general sobriety. She felt as though she knew Luke better than anyone there, maybe even better than anyone else. He had shared so much of his story with her all morning; he had given her the peek into the inner sanctum that Simpson had prophesied she'd never get. It was a shame she could not reciprocate. Her flight was at three, and she had to leave the luncheon at two. He had just finished speaking when she rose. He had taken his seat at the dais, the usual crowd of admirers around him. She thought about just leaving quietly, without troubling him with thanks and goodbyes, but it didn't feel right. She wanted to say at least something to him before leaving. It seemed so unkind to pry into a man's head for four hours, and then simply vanish. But it was nearly impossible to get through the crowd near his table, and when she finally did, she found herself standing directly behind him, as he spoke animatedly to someone from his seat. She put a light hand on his shoulder and was surprised when he jumped. He didn't seem the kind of man to be frightened. "That's a heavy thing to do to someone who spent six years in the joint." His mouth smiled, but his eyes looked serious, almost afraid. "I get nervous about who stands behind me. By now it's a reflex." "I'm sorry, Luke. I just wanted to say goodbye. I have to catch my plane." "Okay, just a sec." He rose to walk her out to the lobby, and she went back to her table to pick up her coat. |
| 545 |
The animals at the zoo bobbed their heads as she walked past, and the carillon began its tune as she approached. She stopped and watched it with all the mothers and children. It was funny. That was something she had never thought of before. Not for herself. Children. How strange it would be to have a little person beside you. Someone to laugh at and giggle with and wipe chocolate ice cream from his chin, and tuck into bed after reading a story, or snuggle close to as he climbed into your bed in the morning. But then, you'd have to tell him who he was, and what was expected of him, and what he'd have to do when he grew up "if he loved you." That was the reason she had never even remotely wanted children. Why do that to someone else? It was enough that she had to live with it for all those years. No, no children. Never. The carillon stopped its tune, and the dancing gold animals stopped their mechanical waltz. The children began to drift away or rush toward hovering vendors. She watched them, and suddenly wanted a red balloon for herself. She bought one for a quarter and tied it to the button on her sleeve. It danced in the wind, high above her head, just below the branches of towering trees, and she laughed; she wanted to skip all the way home. Her walk took her past the model boat pond, and at Seventy second Street she reluctantly left the park. She ambled out slowly, the balloon bobbing as she walked behind nannies who prowled the park sedately, pushing oversized English prams covered with lace. A clique of French nurses moved like a battalion down the walk, toward an oncoming gaggle of British nannies. It amused her to watch the obvious though sugar coated hostility between the two national tribes. And she knew too that the American nurses were left to their own devices, shunned by both the British and French. The Swiss and Germans willingly kept to themselves. And the black women who cared for equally sumptuously outfitted babies did not exist. They were the untouchable caste. |
| 546 |
She was on her feet before the plane had come to a full stop at the gate. And despite earnest pleadings from the stewardesses, she was one of a throng in the aisles. She had traveled coach to attract less attention, and she was wearing black wool slacks and a black sweater; a trench coat was slung over her arm, dark glasses pushed up on her head. She looked discreet, almost too discreet, and very well dressed. Men checked her out with their eyes, but decided she looked rich and uptight. Women eyed her with envy. The slim hips, the trim shoulders, the thick hair, the big eyes. She was not a woman who would ever go unnoticed, whatever her name, and in spite of her height. It was taking forever to open the doors. The cabin was hot and stuffy. Other people's bags bumped her legs. Children started to cry. Finally, they swung open the doors. The crowd began to move, only imperceptibly at first, and then in a sudden rush, the plane blurted its contents like toothpaste onto the ramp. Kezia pressed through the other travelers, and as she turned a corner, she saw him. His head was well above all the others. His dark hair shone, and she could see his eyes from where she stood. He had a cigar in his hand. His whole being wore an air of expectation. She waved and he saw her, joy sweeping his face, and carefully he eased through the crowd. He was at her side in a moment, and swept her high off the ground in his arms. "Mama, is it good to see you!" "Oh Lucas!" She grinned in his arms, and their lips met in a long, hungry kiss. Paparazzi be damned. Whatever they saw, they could have. She was finally back in his arms. The other travelers moved around them like water around rocks in a stream, and there was no one left by the time they moved on. "Let's get your bags and go home." They gave each other the smile usually exchanged by people long used to sharing one bed, and took the escalator down to the baggage claim, her small hand clasped firmly in his large one. People caught sight of them and watched them go hand in hand. |
| 547 |
Because she wanted to be free to move around with him, and besides, she had outgrown the column years ago. But suddenly, she wanted to discuss it with Luke. He was gone for the day. She could call Alejandro, but she hated to bother him. It was a queasy feeling, like leaving the dock in the fog, headed for an unknown destination. But she had made her decision. She would live by it. Martin Hallam was dead. It was a simple decision really. The column was over. She sat back at her desk and stretched, and decided to go for a walk. It was a gray November day, and there was a nip of winter in the air. It made her want to throw a long wool scarf around her neck and run to the park. She felt suddenly free of an old wearisome burden. The weight of Martin Hallam had finally slipped from her shoulders. Kezia grabbed an old sheepskin jacket from her closet and slipped tall black custom made boots under her carefully pressed jeans. She dug a small knitted red cap from the pocket of her jacket, and took a pair of gloves from a shelf. She felt new again now. A writer of anything she wanted, not a scavenger of social crumbs. A small smile hovered on her lips, and there was a mischievous gleam in her eye as she headed for the park, with long strides. What a marvelous day, and it wasn't even lunchtime yet. She thought about buying a picnic to eat in the park, but decided not to bother. Instead, she bought a small bag of hot roasted chestnuts from an old gnarled man pushing a steaming cart along Fifth Avenue. He grinned at her toothlessly and she waved at him over her shoulder as she walked away. He was sweet really. Everyone was. Everyone suddenly looked as new as she felt. She was well into the park and halfway through the chestnuts when she looked ahead and saw the woman trip and fall on the curb. She had spun out into the street close to the clomping feet of an aging horse pulling a shabby hansom carriage through the park. The woman lay very still for a moment, and the driver of the carriage stood and pulled at the horse's reins. |
| 548 |
The horse seemed not even to have noticed the bundle near his hoofs. She was wearing a dark fur coat and her hair was very blond. It was all Kezia could see. She frowned and quickened her pace, shoving the chestnuts into her pocket, and then breaking into a trot as the driver of the hansom jumped from his platform, still holding the reins. The woman stirred then, knelt and lurched forward, into the horse's legs this time. The horse shied, and his owner pushed the woman away. She sat down heavily on the pavement then, but mercifully free of the horse's legs at last. "What the hell'sa matta wi'youse? Ya crazy?" His eyes bulged furiously as he continued to back his horse away and stare at the woman. Kezia could only see the back of her head, as she shook her head mutely. He mounted his platform then, and clucked his horse back into motion, with a last flick of his middle finger at the still seated woman, and a "Stupid bitch!" His passengers were obscured beyond a scratched and smoky window in the carriage, and the ancient horse continued plodding, so used to his route that bombs could have shattered near his feet and he would have continued in the well worn groove he had traveled for years. Kezia saw the woman shake her head fuzzily and kneel slowly on the pavement She ran the last few steps then, wondering if the woman had been hurt, and what had caused her to fall. The dark fur coat was fanned out behind her now, and it was obvious that it was a long and rather splendid mink. Kezia heard a dry little cough from the woman just as she reached her, and then she saw her turn her head. What she saw made her stop, shocked by who it was and how stricken she looked. It was Tiffany, her face gaunt yet swollen, her eyes puffy, yet her cheeks were pulled inward, with painful lines near her eyes and mouth. It wasn't yet noon, and she was already drunk. "Tiffany?" Kezia knelt beside her and smoothed a hand over her hair. It was uncombed and disheveled and there was no makeup on the ravaged face. |
| 549 |
The lunch with Edward had left her drained, and she didn't feel able to cope. She paused for a moment before going inside the building. And then she knew. She couldn't go in. The prying eyes at La Grenouille had been bad enough. But at least they had to keep their distance. The women on the committee didn't, and they'd be all over her in an instant, with snide questions and sneering asides. And of course they had all seen the newspaper photographs of her collapsing in court, and read every word of the story. It was simply too much to handle. The snow crunched beneath her feet as she walked to the corner to hail another cab and go home. She wanted to flee. She had unthinkingly walked back into the insanity of her life before Luke. And even for a day it unnerved her. From cab to cab, from luncheon to meeting to nowhere to nothing to drink to drank to drunk. She wondered what in God's name she was doing. It was snowing and she was hatless and without boots, but she pulled the mink coat tightly around her and sank her gloved hands into her pockets. It was only a twelve block walk to her house, and she needed the air. She trudged all the way home, her suede shoes soaking wet on her feet, her hair damp, and when she got home her cheeks were aflame and her legs felt icy and numb, but she felt alive and sober again. She had pulled her hair from its knot and let it fall around her shoulders, gathering a mantilla of snow. The doorman rushed to her side with his half broken umbrella as he saw her loom from the snow and darkness, and she laughed as he approached. "No, no, Thomas. I'm fine!" She felt like a child again, and the sodden shoes didn't matter at all. It was the sort of performance that would have won her days of scolding as a child. Totie might even have reported her to Edward for something like that. But Totie was a thing of the past now, as was Edward. She had seen that today. She could walk in the snow all night now if she wanted. It didn't really matter. Nothing did. |
| 550 |
They saw it as they rounded a bend on the freeway. San Quentin. Across a body of water, a finger of the bay that had poked its way inland, it stood at the water's edge, looking ugly and raw. Kezia kept it in view the rest of the way, until finally it vanished again as they left the freeway and followed an old country road around a series of bends. The mammoth fortress that was San Quentin took her breath away when they saw it again. It seemed to stand with its body jutting into her face, like a giant bully or an evil creature in a hideous dream. One felt instantly dwarfed beneath the turrets and towers, the endless walls that soared upwards, dotted only here and there by tiny windows. It was built like a dungeon, and was the color of rancid mustard. It was not only fearsome, but it reeked of anger and terror, loneliness, sorrow, loss. Tall metal fences topped with barbed wire surrounded the encampment, and in all possible directions stood gun towers manned by machine gun toting guards. Guards patrolled the entrance, and people emerged wearing sad faces, some drying their eyes with bits of handkerchief or tissue. It was a place one could never forget. It even boasted a long dry moat, with still active drawbridges to the gun towers that kept the guards safe from potential "attack." As she looked at the place, Kezia wondered how they could be so fearful. Who could possibly get free of that place? Yet now and then people did. And seeing the place made her suddenly know why they'd try anything, even death, to escape. It made her understand why Luke had done what he had to help the men he called his brothers. Prisoners of places like that had to be remembered by someone. She was only sorry it had been Luke. She also saw a row of tidy houses with flowers beds out front. The houses stood inside the barbed wire fences, in the shadow of the gun towers, at the feet of the prison. And she guessed, accurately, that they were the houses of guards, living there with their wives and their children. |
| 551 |
Alejandro knew she wouldn't be back. Luke was a man of his word. By that afternoon, her name would be inexorably canceled from his list. It would leave him no choice. He couldn't have had her reinstated for six months, and by then much would have changed. Six months could change a lot in a life. Six months before, Kezia had met Luke. She was no longer crying as they drove away. She merely sat very still in the car, and then in the hotel room, where he left her under the careful guard of a maid, while he attended to the interview he could no longer keep his mind on. It was a hell of a day to have to worry about that. He rushed through it, and got back to the Ritz. The maid said she hadn't moved, or even spoken. She had merely sat there, in the same chair she'd been in when he left her, staring at nothing. With misgivings, he made plane reservations for six o'clock that night and prayed she wouldn't come out of shock until he got her home to her own bed. She was like a child in a trance, and one thing was for sure, he didn't want to be in San Francisco with her when she came out of it. He had to get her back to New York. She ate nothing on the tray the stewardess put before her, and nodded uncomprehendingly when Alejandro offered her the earphones for music. He settled them on her head, and then watched her remove them dreamily five minutes later. She sang to herself for a little while, and then lapsed back into silence. The stewardesses eyed her strangely, and Alejandro would nod with a smile, hoping no one would make any comments, and praying that no one would recognize her. She looked sufficiently vague and disheveled by then to be less readily recognized. He could barely handle her as it was, without worrying about the press. They might set her off, and unleash the flood of reality she was holding in abeyance by staying in shock. She looked drugged or drunk, or more than a little crazy. The flight was a nightmare he longed to see end. Today had been the last straw, and he ached thinking of Lucas. |
| 552 |
What was the point? He didn't have the money anyway, whatever he had taken, and it was in fact a relatively small amount in the scheme of things, and the money was long gone. There was no way he could recoup the funds. His employer at the time felt sorry for him. Peter had a way of charming people, and making them fond of him. Peter Morgan was the epitome of a nice guy gone wrong. Somewhere along the way, he had opted for the low road too many times, and blown every golden opportunity he'd ever had. More than Peter, his friends and business associates felt sorry for his wife and kids, who became the victims of his crazy schemes and rotten judgment. But everyone who knew him would have said that at the core, Peter Morgan was a nice guy. It was hard to say what had gone wrong. In truth, a lot had, for a long time. Peter's father died when he was three, and had been the scion of an illustrious family from the cream of social circles in New York. The family fortune had been dwindling for years, and his mother managed to squander whatever his father left, long before Peter grew up. Soon after his father died, she married another very social, aristocratic young man. He was the heir of an important banking family, who was devoted to Peter and his two siblings, educated and loved them, sent them to the best private schools, along with the two half brothers who came into Peter's life during the course of their marriage. The family appeared wholesome, and moneyed certainly, although his mother's drinking increased steadily over time, and wound her up in an institution eventually, leaving Peter and his two full siblings technically orphaned. His stepfather had never legally adopted them, and remarried a year after Peter's mother died. His new wife saw no reason why her husband should be burdened, financially or otherwise, with three children who weren't his own. She was willing to take on the two children he had had by that marriage, although she wanted them sent away to boarding school. |
| 553 |
But she wanted nothing to do with the three children that had come into his previous marriage, with Peter's mother. All Peter's stepfather was willing to do after that was pay for boarding school, and then college, and an inadequate allowance, but he explained, somewhat sheepishly, that he could no longer offer them haven in his home, nor additional funds. After that, Peter's vacations were spent at school, or at the homes of friends, whom he managed to charm into taking him home. And he was very charming. Once his mother died, Peter learned to live by his wits. It was all he had, and worked well for him. The only love and nurturing he got in those years were from friends' parents. There were often little incidents, when he stayed with friends during school holidays. Money disappeared, tennis rackets vanished mysteriously, and seemed to be missing when he left. Clothes were borrowed and never returned. Once a gold watch seemed to evaporate into thin air, and a sobbing maid was fired as a result. As it so happened, it was later discovered, Peter had been sleeping with her. He was sixteen at the time, and the proceeds from the watch that he had talked her into pilfering for him had kept him going for six months. His life was a constant struggle to come up with enough money to cover his needs. And he did whatever he had to do to meet those needs. He was so kind, polite, and pleasant to have around, that he always appeared innocent when things went sour. It was impossible to believe that a boy like him could be guilty of any misdeed or crime. At one point, a school psychologist suggested that Peter had sociopathic tendencies, which even the headmaster found hard to believe. The psychologist had wisely surmised that under the veneer, he appeared to have less of a conscience than he should. And the veneer was incredibly appealing. It was hard to know who Peter really was beneath the surface. Above all, he was a survivor. He was a charming, bright, good looking kid, who had had a bunch of rotten breaks in his life. |
| 554 |
He was a genius with money, or so it seemed, and he had a multitude of plans. He got a job on Wall Street when he graduated, in a brokerage firm, and it was two years after he graduated that things started to go wrong. He broke some rules, churned some accounts, "borrowed" a little money. Things got dicey for him for a while, and then, as usual, he landed on his feet. He went to work for an investment banking firm, and appeared to be the golden boy of Wall Street for a brief time. He had everything it took to make a success of his life, except a family and a conscience. Peter always had a scheme, and a plan to get to the finish line faster. He had learned one thing from his childhood, that life could fall apart in an instant, and he had to take care of himself. There were few, if any, lucky breaks in life. And whatever luck there was, you made yourself. At twenty nine, he married Janet, a dazzling debutante, who happened to be the daughter of the head of the firm where he worked, and within two years, they had two adorable little girls. It was the perfect life, he loved his wife and was crazy about his kids. It looked like a long stretch of smooth road ahead of him finally, when for no reason anyone could fathom, things started to go wrong again. All he talked about was making a lot of money, and seemed obsessed with that idea, whatever it took. Some thought he was having too much fun. It was all too easy for him. He had fallen into a golden life, played too hard, got greedy, and inch by inch, he let life get out of control. In the end, his shortcuts and old habit of taking what he wanted did him in. He started cutting corners and making shaky deals, nothing he could be fired for, but nothing his father in law wanted to tolerate either. Peter appeared to be on a fast track, heading for danger. Peter and his father in law had several serious talks, while walking the grounds of his parents in law's estate in Connecticut, and Janet's father thought he had made the point. |
| 555 |
To put it simply, he had tried to point out to Peter that there was no such thing as a free lunch or an express train to success. He warned him that the kind of deals he was making, and the sources he used, would come back to haunt him one day. Possibly even very soon. He lectured him about the importance of integrity, and felt sure that Peter would heed him. He liked him. In fact, all he succeeded in doing was make Peter feel anxious and pressured. At thirty one, first for the "fun of it," Peter started doing drugs. There was no real harm in it, he claimed, everyone was doing them, and it made everything more amusing and exciting. Janet was worried sick about it. By thirty two, Peter Morgan was in big trouble, losing control over his drug habit, despite his protests to the contrary, and started running through his wife's money, until his father in law cut him off. A year later, he was asked to leave the firm, and his wife moved in with her parents, devastated and traumatized by the experiences she'd had at Peter's hands. He was never abusive to her, but he was constantly high on cocaine, and his life was completely out of control. It was then that her father discovered the debts he'd incurred, the money he'd "discreetly" embezzled from the firm, and given their relationship with him, and the potential embarrassment to them, and Janet, they covered his debts. He agreed to give Janet full custody of the girls, who were by then two and three. He lost his visiting rights subsequently, over an incident involving him, three women, and a large stash of cocaine on a yacht off East Hampton. His children had been visiting him at the time. The nanny had called Janet on her cell phone from the boat. And Janet had threatened to call the Coast Guard on him. He got the nanny and the girls off the boat, and Janet wouldn't let him see them again. But by then he had other problems. He had borrowed massive amounts of money to support his drug habit, and lost what money he had on high risk investments in the commodities market. |
| 556 |
After that, no matter how good his credentials, or how smart he was, he couldn't get a job. And just as his mother had before she died, he spiraled down. He was not only short of money, but addicted to drugs. Two years after Janet left him, he tried to get a job with a well known venture capital firm in San Francisco, and couldn't. He was in San Francisco by then anyway, and settled into selling cocaine instead. He was thirty five years old, and had half the world after him for bad debts, when he was arrested for possession of a massive amount of cocaine with intent to sell. He had been making a fortune at it, but owed five times as much when he was arrested, and had some frightening debts to some very dangerous people. As people who knew him said when they heard, he had had everything going for him, and managed to blow all of it to kingdom come. He was in debt for a fortune, in danger of being killed by the dealers who sold to him, and the people behind the scenes who financed them, when he was arrested. He had paid no one back. He didn't have the money to do it. Most of the time, in cases like that, when people went to prison, the debts were canceled, if not forgotten. In dire cases, people got killed in prison for them. Or if you were lucky, they let it go. Peter hoped that would be the case. When Peter Morgan went to prison, he hadn't seen his children in two years, and wasn't likely to again. He sat stone faced through his trial, and sounded intelligent and remorseful when he took the stand. His lawyer tried to get him probation, but the judge was smarter than that. He had seen people like Peter before, though not many, and certainly not one who'd had as many opportunities that he'd blown. He had read Peter well, and saw that there was something disturbing about him. His appearance and his actions didn't seem to fit. The judge didn't buy the pat phrases of remorse that Peter parroted. He seemed smooth, but not sincere. He was likable certainly, but the choices he'd made were appalling. |
| 557 |
It seemed like an unduly harsh sentence for Peter and not where he belonged. On the day Peter was released, he had been there for all the time he'd served, four years and three months. He had gotten free of drugs, minded his own business, worked in the warden's office, mostly with their computers, and hadn't had a single disciplinary incident or report in all four years. And the warden he worked for totally believed him to be sincerely remorseful. It was obvious to everyone who knew him that Peter had no intention of getting in trouble again. He had learned his lesson. He had also told the parole board that the one goal he had was to see his daughters again, and be the kind of father they could be proud of one day. Peter made it sound as if, and seemed to believe that, the last six or seven years of his life were an unfortunate blip on an otherwise clear screen, and he intended to keep it clear and trouble free from now on. And everyone believed him. He was released at the first legal opportunity. He had to stay in northern California for a year, and they had assigned him to a parole agent in San Francisco. He was planning to live in a halfway house until he found work, and he had told the parole board he wasn't proud. He was going to take whatever kind of work he could get, until he got on his feet, even manual labor if necessary, as long as it was honest. But no one had any serious worries that Peter Morgan wouldn't find a job. He had made some colossal mistakes, but even after four years in Pelican Bay, he still came across as an intelligent, nice guy, and was. With a little bit of luck, his well wishers, which even included the warden, hoped that he would find the right niche for him, and build a good life. He had everything it took to do that. All he needed now was a chance. And they all hoped he'd get one when he got out. People always liked Peter and wished him well. The warden came out himself to say good bye and shake his hand. Peter had worked for him exclusively for the entire four years. |
| 558 |
He had a long uphill climb ahead of him. But he was healthy, strong, drug free, intelligent, and still incredibly good looking. Something good was going to happen to him eventually. Of that much, he was certain, and so was the warden. "Call us," the warden said again. It was the first time he had gotten that attached to a convict who worked for him. But the men he dealt with at Pelican Bay were a far cry from Peter Morgan. Pelican Bay had been built as a maximum security prison to house the worst criminal elements that had previously been sent to San Quentin. Most of the men were in solitary. The prison itself was highly mechanized and computerized, and state of the art, which allowed them to confine some of the most dangerous men in the country. And the warden had spotted instantly that Peter didn't belong there. Only the vast quantities of drugs he'd been dealing, and the money involved, had wound him up in a maximum security prison. Had the charges been less serious, he could just as easily have been incarcerated in a minimum security facility. He was no flight risk, had no history of violence, and had never been involved in a single incident during his time there. He was a quintessentially civilized person. The few men he chatted with over the years respected him, and he steered a wide berth of potential problems. His close relationship to the warden made him sacrosanct and gave him safe passage. He had no known associations with gangs, groups known for violence, or dissident elements. He minded his own business. And after more than four years, he seemed to be leaving Pelican Bay relatively unscathed. He had kept his head down, and done his time there. He had done a lot of legal and financial reading, spent a surprising amount of time in the library, and worked tirelessly for the warden. The warden himself had written a glowing reference for him to the parole board. His was a case of a young man who had taken a wrong turn, and all he needed was a chance now to take the right one. |
| 559 |
They had met in the gym and in the halls from time to time, and in the last two years, he had frequently come to the warden's office. He had spent years unsuccessfully seeking a pardon, and was known to be an extremely savvy unofficial jailhouse lawyer. His name was Carlton Waters, he was forty one years old, and had served twenty four years for murder. In fact, he had grown up in prison. Carlton Waters had been convicted of the murder of a neighbor and his wife, and attempting unsuccessfully to murder both their children. He had been seventeen years old at the time, and his partner in crime had been a twenty six year old ex con who had befriended him. They had broken into their victims' home and stolen two hundred dollars. Waters's partner had been put to death years before, and Waters had always claimed that he did none of the killing. He had just been there, and he had never swerved once from his story. He had always said he was innocent, and had gone to the victims' home with no foreknowledge of what his friend intended. It had happened quickly and badly, and the children had been too young to corroborate his story. They were young enough not to be a danger in identifying them, so they had been badly beaten but ultimately spared. Both men were drunk, and Waters had claimed he blacked out during the murders, and remembered nothing. The jury hadn't bought his story, and he'd been tried as an adult, despite his age, found guilty, and lost a subsequent appeal. He had spent the majority of his life in prison, first in San Quentin, and then in Pelican Bay. He had even managed to graduate from college while there, and was halfway through law school. He had written a number of articles, about the correctional and legal systems, and had developed a relationship with the press over the years. With his protestations of innocence throughout his incarceration, Waters had become something of a celebrity prisoner. He was editor of the prison newspaper, and knew just about everyone in the prison. |
| 560 |
He didn't have Morgan's aristocratic good looks. He was tough, strong, and burly. He was a bodybuilder and looked it. Despite several incidents in his early days when he was still young and hotheaded, in the past two decades he was a model prisoner. He was a powerful, fearsome looking man, but his prison record was clean, and his reputation was bronze, if not golden. It was Waters who had notified the paper of his release and he was pleased that they were there. Waters and Morgan had never been associates, but they had always been distantly respectful of each other, and had had a few minor conversations about legal issues while Waters waited to see the warden, and Peter chatted with him. Peter had read several of his articles in the prison newspaper, and the local newspaper, and it was hard not to be impressed by the man, whether innocent or guilty. He had a fine mind, and had worked hard to achieve something in spite of the challenge he had had growing up in prison. As Peter walked through the gate, feeling almost breathless with relief, he looked back over his shoulder once, and saw Carl Waters shaking the warden's hand as the photographer from the local paper snapped his picture. Peter knew he was going to a halfway house in Modesto. His family still lived there. "Thank you, God," Peter said as he stood still for a moment, closed his eyes, and then squinted up at the sun. This day felt like it had been a lifetime coming. He brushed a hand across his eyes so no one would see the tears springing from them, as he nodded at a guard, and set off on foot toward the bus stop. He knew where it was, and all he wanted now was to get there. It was a ten minute walk, and as he hailed the bus and stepped aboard, Carlton Waters was posing for one last photograph in front of the prison. He told his interviewer again that he had been innocent. Whether or not he was, he made an interesting story, had become respected in prison over the past twenty four years, and had milked his claims of innocence for all they were worth. |
| 561 |
She worked days, and left for work before he got up in the morning. In the old days, when the boys were young, it had worked for them. She dropped them off at school on her way to work, while Ted was still asleep. And he picked them up, and coached them in sports on his days off, whenever he could, or at least attended their games. When he was working, Shirley got home right after he left for work, so the boys were always covered. And when he got home everyone was asleep. It meant he didn't see a lot of the kids, or her, while they were growing up, but it brought in the bacon, and they had almost never needed to pay for a sitter, and never had to worry about day care. Between them, they had covered all their bases. It had taken a toll on them, in the time they hadn't spent together. There had been a time, ten and fifteen years before, when she had bitterly resented the fact that she never saw him. They had argued a lot about it, and eventually made their peace with his hours. They had both tried working days for a while, but they seemed to argue more, and he'd worked nights for a while, and then went back to swing shifts. It suited him. When Ted came home that night, Shirley was sound asleep, and the house was quiet. The boys' rooms were empty now. He had bought a small house in the Sunset District years before, and on his days off, he loved to walk on the beach and watch the fog roll in. It always made him feel human again, and peaceful, after a tough case, or a bad week, or something that had upset him. There were a lot of politics in the department, which sometimes stressed him, but generally, he was an easygoing, good natured person. Which was probably why he still got along with Shirley. She was the hothead in the family, the one who got angry and raged at him, the one who had thought their marriage and relationship should have been more than it turned out to be. Ted was strong, quiet, and steady, and somewhere along the way, she had decided that was enough, and stopped trying to get more out of him. |
| 562 |
But as Ted knew, everything in life was a trade off, and he had no complaints. She was a good woman, they had great kids, their house was comfortable, he loved his job, and the men he worked with were good people. You couldn't ask for more than that, or at least he didn't, which was what had always annoyed her. He was content to settle for what life offered him, without demanding more. Shirley wanted a lot more than what Ted demanded of life. In fact, he demanded nothing. He was content with life as it was, and always had been. All his energies had gone into his work, and their boys. Twenty eight years. It was a long time for passion to survive, and it hadn't for them. There was no question in his mind, he loved her. And he assumed Shirley loved him. She was not demonstrative, and rarely said so. But he accepted her the way she was, the way he accepted all things, the good with the bad, the disappointing with the comforting. He liked the security of coming home to her every night, even if she was sound asleep. They hadn't had a conversation in months, maybe even years, but he knew that if something bad happened, she'd be there for him, as he would be for her. That was good enough for him. The kind of fire and excitement Rick Holmquist was experiencing with his new girlfriend was not for him. Ted didn't need excitement in his life. He wanted just what he had. A job he loved, a woman he knew well, three kids he was crazy about, and peace. He sat at the kitchen table, and had a cup of tea, enjoying the silence in the peaceful house. He read the paper, looked at his mail, watched a little TV. At two thirty he slipped into bed next to her, and lay in the dark, thinking. She didn't stir, didn't know he was lying next to her. In fact, she rolled away from him and muttered something in her sleep, as he turned his back to her, and drifted off while thinking about his caseload. He had a suspect he was almost sure was bringing heroin in from Mexico, and he was going to call Rick Holmquist about it in the morning. |
| 563 |
Fernanda Barnes was staring at a stack of bills, as she sat at her kitchen table. She felt as though she had been looking at the same stack of bills for the four months since her husband died, two weeks after Christmas. But she knew only too well that even though the stack seemed the same, it grew bigger every day. Each time the mail came in, there were new additions. It had been a never ending stream of bad news and frightening information since Allan's death. The latest being that the insurance company was refusing to pay on his life insurance policy. She and the attorney had been expecting that. He had died in questionable circumstances while on a fishing trip in Mexico. He had gone out on the boat late at night, while his traveling companions slept at the hotel. The crew members had been off the boat, at a local bar, when he took the boat out and had apparently fallen overboard. It had taken five days to recover his body. Given his financial circumstances at the time of his death, and a disastrous letter he'd left for her, filled with despair, the insurance company suspected it was a suicide. Fernanda suspected that as well. The letter had been given to the insurance company by the police. Fernanda had never admitted it to anyone, except their attorney, Jack Waterman, but suicide had been the first thing she thought of when they called her. Before that, Allan had been in a state of shock and panic for six months, and kept telling her he was going to turn things around, but the letter made it clear that even he didn't believe that in the end. Allan Barnes had had one of those extraordinary lottery ticket type windfalls at the height of the dot com era, and sold a fledgling company to a monolith for two hundred million dollars. She had liked their life fine before. It suited her perfectly. They had a small, comfortable house in a good neighborhood in Palo Alto, near the Stanford campus, where they had met in college. They had married in the Stanford chapel the day after graduation. |
| 564 |
She didn't want to move into a palace. She loved the house in Palo Alto that they had lived in since their son Will was born. Despite Fernanda's protests, they had moved to the city four years before, when Will was twelve, Ashley was eight, and Sam was just barely two years old. Allan had insisted she hire a nanny so she could travel with him, which Fernanda hadn't wanted either. She loved taking care of her children. She had never had a career, and had been fortunate that Allan had always made enough to support them. It had been tight sometimes, but when it was, she tightened the belt at home, and they squeaked through it. She loved being home with their babies. Will had been born nine months to the day after their wedding, and she had worked part time in a bookstore while she was pregnant the first time and never since. She had majored in art history in college, a relatively useless subject, unless she wanted to get a master's, or even a doctorate, and teach, or work at a museum. Other than that, she had no marketable skills. All she knew how to be was a wife and mother, and she was a good one. Their kids were happy and wholesome and sensible. Even with Ashley at twelve and Will at sixteen, potentially challenging ages, she had never had a single problem with their children. They hadn't wanted to move into the city either. All their friends were in Palo Alto. The house Allan had chosen for them was enormous. It had been built by a famous venture capitalist, who sold it when he retired and moved to Europe. But to Fernanda, it looked like a palace. She had grown up in a suburb of Chicago, her father had been a doctor and her mother a schoolteacher. They had always been comfortable, and unlike Allan, she had simple expectations. All she wanted was to be married to a man who loved her, and have wonderful children. She spent a lot of time reading up on experimental educational theories, she was fascinated by psychology in relation to childrearing, and she shared her passion for art with them. |
| 565 |
She just hadn't expected him to make his dreams materialize to the extent he did. When he told her he had sold his company for two hundred million dollars, she nearly fainted, and thought he was kidding. She laughed at him, and figured maybe with some extraordinary luck, he might have sold the company for one or two or five, or at a wild guess, ten, but never two hundred million. All she wanted was enough to get their kids through college, and live comfortably for the rest of their days. Maybe enough so Allan could retire at a decent age, so they could spend a year traveling in Europe, and she could drag him through museums. She would have loved to spend a month or two in Florence. But what his windfall represented to them was beyond dreaming. And Allan dove into it with a vengeance. He not only bought houses and co ops, a yacht and a plane, but he made some extraordinarily risky high tech investments. And each time he did, he assured Fernanda that he knew what he was doing. He was riding the crest of the wave, and felt invincible. He was a thousand percent confident of his own judgment, more so than she was at the time. They started fighting over it. He laughed at her fears. He was plunging money into other companies that had yet to prove themselves, while the market was skyrocketing, and everything he touched turned to gold for nearly three years. It appeared that no matter what he did, or what he risked, he could not lose money, and didn't. On paper for the first year or two, their immense new fortune actually doubled. Notably, he invested in two companies that he had total faith in, and others warned him might plummet. But he didn't listen, not to her or the others. His confidence soared to dizzying heights, while she decorated the new house, and he chided her for being so pessimistic and so cautious. By then, even she was getting used to their new wealth, and starting to spend more money than she thought she should, but Allan kept telling her to enjoy it and not worry. |
| 566 |
It had never even dawned on her that one day she might own those paintings, or any like them. Allan congratulated her on her good decision. He was flying high and having fun, and wanted her to enjoy it too. But even at the height of the market, Fernanda was never extravagant, nor did she forget her more modest beginnings. Allan's family was from southern California, and they had lived more lavishly than hers had. His father was a businessman, and his mother had been a housewife, and a model in her youth. They had had expensive cars, and a nice house, and belonged to a country club. Fernanda had been seriously impressed the first time she went there, although she thought them both somewhat superficial. His mother had been wearing a fur coat on a balmy night, as it dawned on her that even living in the frozen winters of the Midwest her mother had never owned one, and wouldn't want to. The show of wealth was far more important to Allan than it was to her, even more so once his overnight success broadsided them. His one regret was that his parents hadn't lived to see it. It would have meant the world to them. And in her own way, Fernanda was relieved that her parents were gone too, and couldn't see it. They had died in a car accident on an icy night ten years before. But something in her gut always told her that her parents would have been shocked at the way Allan was spending money, and it still made her nervous, even after she bought the two paintings. At least they were an investment, or at least she hoped so. And she truly loved them. But so much of what Allan bought was about showing off. And as he kept reminding her, he could afford it. The wave continued to build for nearly three years, as Allan continued to invest in other ventures, and huge blocks of stock in high risk high tech companies. He had enormous confidence in his own intuition, sometimes counter to all reason. His friends and colleagues in the dot com world called him the Mad Cowboy, and teased him about it. |
| 567 |
He had lacked confidence as a kid, and his father had often put him down for not being more brazen, and suddenly he was so confident she felt that he was constantly dancing on a ledge and totally fearless. But her love for him overcame all her misgivings, and eventually all she could do was cheer him on from the sidelines. She didn't have anything to complain about certainly. Within three years their net worth had almost trebled, and he was worth half a billion dollars. It was beyond thinking. She and Allan had always been happy together, even before they had money. He was an easygoing nice guy, who loved his wife and kids. It had been a joy they shared each time she gave birth, and he truly adored his children, as she did. He was especially proud of Will, who was a natural athlete. And the first time he saw Ashley at her ballet recital, at five, tears had rolled down his cheeks. He was a wonderful husband and father, and his ability to turn a modest investment into a windfall was going to give their children opportunities that neither of them had ever dreamed of. He was talking about moving to London for a year at some point, so the kids could go to school in Europe. And the thought of spending days on end at the British Museum and the Tate was a major lure for Fernanda. As a result, she didn't even complain when he bought the house on Belgrave Square for twenty million dollars. It was the highest price that had been paid for a house there in recent history. But it was certainly splendid. The children didn't even object, nor did she, when they went to spend a month there when school got out. They loved exploring London. They spent the rest of the summer on their yacht in the South of France, and invited some of their Silicon Valley friends to join them. Allan had become a legend by then, and there were others making nearly as much money as he had. But as with the gaming tables in Las Vegas, some took their winnings and disappeared, while others put them back on the table and continued to gamble. |
| 568 |
She wondered if this was what being rich felt like. It had taken her three years to actually believe it, and for the dream of his success to finally seem real. The bubble burst finally, three years after his initial windfall. There was a scandal involving one of his companies, one he had heavily invested in as a silent partner. No one actually knew officially if, or to what extent, he had invested, but he lost over a hundred million dollars. Miraculously, at that point, it scarcely made a dent in his fortune. Fernanda read something about the company going under in the newspapers, remembered hearing him talk about it, and asked him. He told her not to worry. According to him, a hundred million dollars meant nothing to them. He was well on his way to being worth nearly a billion dollars. He didn't explain it to her, but he was borrowing against his ever inflating stocks at that point, and when they started to collapse, he couldn't sell them fast enough to cover the debt. He leveraged his assets by borrowing to buy more assets. The second big hit was harder than the first, and nearly twice the amount. And after the third hit, as the market plummeted, even Allan began to look worried. The assets he had borrowed against were worth nothing suddenly and all he had left was debt. What came after that was a swan dive so staggering that the entire dot com world went with it. Within six months almost everything Allan had made had gone up in smoke, and stocks that had been worth two hundred dollars were worth pennies. The implication to the Barneses was disastrous, to say the least. Complaining bitterly about it, he sold the yacht and the plane, while assuring Fernanda and himself that he would buy them back again, or better ones, within a year, when the market turned around again, but of course it didn't. It wasn't just that he was losing what they had, the investments he had made were literally imploding, creating colossal debt as all his high risk investments fell like a house of cards. |
| 569 |
By year's end, he was staring at a debt almost as enormous as his sudden fortune. And just as she hadn't when he made the windfall on the first company, Fernanda didn't fully grasp the implications of what was happening, because he explained almost nothing to her. He was constantly stressed, always on the phone, traveling from one end of the world to another, and shouting at her when he got home. Overnight, he became a madman. He was absolutely, totally panicked, and with good reason. All she knew before Christmas the year before was that he was several hundred million in debt, and most of his stock was worth nothing. She knew that much, but she had no idea what he was going to do to fix it, or how desperate their situation was becoming. And miraculously, he had made many investments in the name of anonymous partnerships and "letterbox" corporations, which were set up without his name being publicly disclosed. As a result, the world he did business in had not yet caught on to how disastrous his situation was, and he didn't want anyone to know. He concealed it as much out of pride as because he didn't want people to be nervous about doing business with him. He was beginning to feel as though he was surrounded by the stench of failure, just as he had once worn the perfume of victory. Fear was suddenly in the air all around him, as Fernanda silently panicked, wanting to support him emotionally, but desperately afraid of what was going to happen to them and their children. She was urging him to sell the house in London, the co op in New York, and the condo in Hawaii, when he left for Mexico right after Christmas. He went there to make a deal with a group of men, and told her before he left that if it worked out, it would recoup nearly all their losses. Before he left, she suggested they sell the house in the city and move back to Palo Alto, and he told her she was being ridiculous. He assured her that everything was going to turn around again very quickly, and not to worry. |
| 570 |
He had been there for two days, when there was suddenly another catastrophe in his financial life. Three major companies fell like thatched huts within a week, and took two of Allan's largest investments with them. In a word, they were ruined. He sounded hoarse when he called her from his hotel room late one night. He had been negotiating for hours, but it was all bluff. He had nothing left to negotiate with, or trade. He started crying as she listened to him, and Fernanda assured him that it made no difference to her, she loved him anyway. That didn't console him. For Allan, it was about defeat and victory, climbing Everest and falling off again, and having to start at the beginning. He had just turned forty weeks before, and the success that had meant everything to him for four years was suddenly over. He was, in his own eyes at least, a total failure. And nothing she said seemed to console him. She told him she didn't care. That it didn't matter to her. That she would be happy in a grass hut with him, as long as they had each other and their children. And he sat at the other end and sobbed, telling her that life just wasn't worth living. He said he'd be a laughingstock around the world, and the only real money he had left was his life insurance. She reminded him that they still had several houses to sell, which all together were worth close to a hundred million dollars. "Do you have any idea what kind of debt we're looking at?" he asked, his voice cracking, and of course she didn't because he never told her. "We're talking hundreds of millions. We'd have to sell everything we own, and we'd still be in debt for another twenty years. I'm not even sure I could ever dig myself out of this. We're in too deep, babe. It's over. It's really, really over." She couldn't see the tears rolling down his cheeks, but she could hear them in his voice. Although she didn't fully understand it, with his wild investment strategies, leveraging their assets, and constantly borrowing to buy more, he had lost it all. |
| 571 |
He had lost far more than that in fact. The debts he was facing were overwhelming. "No, it's not over," she said firmly. "You can declare bankruptcy. I'll get a job. We'll sell everything. So what? I don't give a damn about all that. I don't care if we stand on a street corner selling pencils, as long as we're together." It was a sweet thought and the right attitude, but he was too distraught to even listen to her. She called him again later that night; just to reassure him again, worried about him. She hadn't liked what he'd said about his life insurance, and she was more panicked about him than their financial situation. She knew that men did crazy things sometimes, over money lost or businesses that failed. His entire ego had been wrapped up in his fortune. And when she got him on the phone, she could hear that he'd been drinking. A lot presumably. He was slurring his words and kept telling her that his life was over. She was so upset that she was thinking of flying to Mexico the next day to be with him, while he continued his negotiations, but in the morning, before she could do anything about it, one of the men who was there with him called her. His voice was jagged and he sounded broken. All he knew was that Allan had gone out alone on the boat they'd chartered, after they all went to bed. The crew were off the boat, and he went late at night, handling the boat himself. All anyone knew was that he must have fallen overboard sometime before morning. The yacht was found by the local Coast Guard when the captain reported it missing, and Allan was nowhere to be found. An extensive search had turned up nothing. Worse yet, when she got to Mexico herself later that day, the police handed her the letter he had left her. They had kept a copy for their records. It said how hopeless the situation was, that he could never climb back up, it was all over for him, and he'd rather be dead than face the horror and shame of the world finding out what a fool he'd been and what a mess he'd made of it. |
| 572 |
Or maybe he was just drunk and had fallen overboard. There was no way to know for sure. But the greater likelihood was that he had killed himself. The police turned the letter over to the insurance company, as they were obliged to. Based on his words, they had refused to pay the claim on his policy, and Fernanda's attorney said it was unlikely they ever would. The evidence was too damning. When they recovered Allan's body finally, all they knew was that he had died by drowning. There was no evidence of foul play, he hadn't shot himself, he had either jumped or fallen in, but it seemed a reasonable belief that at that moment at least, he had wanted to die, given everything he had said to her right before that and what he'd written in the letter he had left behind. Fernanda was in Mexico by the time they found his body, washed up on a beach nearby after a brief storm. It was a horrifying, heartbreaking experience, and she was grateful that the children weren't there to see it. Despite their protests, she had left them in California, and gone to Mexico on her own. A week later, after endless red tape, she returned, a widow, with Allan's remains in a casket in the cargo hold of the plane. The funeral was a blur of agony, and the newspapers said that he had died in a boating accident in Mexico, which was what everyone had agreed to say. None of the people he had been doing business with had any idea how disastrous his situation was, and the police kept the contents of his letter confidential from the press. No one had any idea that he had hit rock bottom, and sunk even lower than that, in his own mind at least. Nor did anyone except she and his attorney have a clear picture of what the sum total of his financial disasters looked like. He was worse than ruined, he was in debt to such a terrifying extent that it was going to take her years to clear up the mess he had made. And in the four months since he died, she had sold off all their property, except the city house, which was tied up in his estate. |
| 573 |
Their whole life had turned inside out and upside down, and she had no idea what to tell the children. They knew that the insurance was refusing to pay, and she claimed that their father's estate being in probate had made things tight for the moment. But none of the three children had any idea that before his death, their father had lost his entire fortune, nor that the reason the insurance wouldn't pay was because they thought he had killed himself. Everyone was told it was an accident. And unaware of the letter or his circumstances, the people who'd been with him weren't convinced it wasn't. Only she, her attorneys, and the authorities knew what had happened. For the moment. She lay in bed every night, thinking of their last conversation and playing it in her head over and over and over again. It was all she could think of, and she knew she would forever reproach herself for not going to Mexico sooner. It was an endless litany of guilt and self accusation with the added horror and constant terror of bills flooding in, endless debts he had incurred, and nothing with which to pay them. The last four months had been an indescribable horror for her. Fernanda felt totally isolated by all that had happened to her, and the only person who knew what she was going through was their attorney, Jack Waterman. He had been sympathetic and supportive and wonderful, and they had just agreed that morning that she was going to put the house on the market by August. They had lived there for four and a half years, and the children loved it now, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was going to have to ask for financial aid to keep them in their respective schools, and she couldn't even do that yet. She was still trying to keep the extent of their financial disaster a secret. She was doing it as much for Allan's sake, as to avoid total panic. As long as the people they owed money to still thought they had funds, they would give her a little more time to pay them. She was blaming the delay on probate and taxes. |
| 574 |
The papers had talked about the demise of some of the various companies he'd invested in. But miraculously, no one had strung the entire disastrous picture together, mostly because in many cases, the public had no idea that he was the principal investor. It was a tangle of horror and lies that haunted Fernanda day and night, while she wrestled with the grief of losing the only man she had ever loved, and trying to guide her children through the shoals and across the reefs of their own grief for their father. She was so stunned and terrified herself that most of the time it was hard to absorb what was happening to her. She had been to see her doctor the week before, because she had barely slept in months, and he had offered to put her on medication, but she didn't want to. Fernanda wanted to see if she could tough it out without taking anything. But she felt utterly broken and in despair as she tried to put one foot in front of the other day after day, and keep going, if only for her children. She had to solve the mess, and eventually find a way to support them. But at times, especially at night, she was overwhelmed by waves of panic. Fernanda glanced up at the clock in the enormous elegant white granite kitchen where she sat, and saw that she had five minutes to get to the kids' school, and knew she'd have to hurry. She put a rubber band around the fresh stack of bills, and threw them into the box where she was keeping all the others. She remembered hearing somewhere that people got angry at those they loved who died, and she hadn't even gotten there yet. All she had done was cry, and wish he hadn't been foolish enough to go so wild with his success until it destroyed him, and their lives with him. But she was not angry, only sad, and totally panicked. She was a small, lithe figure in jeans and a white T shirt and sandals as she hurried out the door, holding her handbag and car keys. She had long straight blond hair she wore in a braid down her back that, at a rapid glance, made her look exactly like her daughter. |
| 575 |
When Peter Morgan got off the bus in San Francisco, he stood looking around for a long moment. The bus deposited him south of Market, in an area he wasn't familiar with. All of his activities, when he lived there, had been in better neighborhoods. He had had a house in Pacific Heights, an apartment he used on Nob Hill to do drug deals, and he had had business dealings in Silicon Valley. He had never hung out in the low rent neighborhoods, but in his state issued prison hand me downs, he fit right in where he stood. He walked along Market Street for a while, trying to get used to having people swirling around him again, and he felt vulnerable and jostled. He knew he would have to get over it soon. But after almost four and a half years in Pelican Bay, he felt like an egg without a shell on the streets. He stopped in a restaurant on Market, and paid for a hamburger and a cup of coffee, and as he savored it, and the freedom that went with it, it tasted like the best meal he'd ever had. Afterward, he stood outside, just watching people. There were women and children, and men looking as though they were going somewhere with a sense of purpose. There were homeless people lying in doorways, and drunks staggering around. The weather was balmy and beautiful, and he just walked along the street, with no particular goal in mind. He knew that once he got to the halfway house, he'd be dealing with rules again. He just wanted to taste his freedom first before he got there. Two hours later, he got on a bus, after asking someone for directions, and headed for the Mission District, where the halfway house was. It was on Sixteenth Street. Once he got off the bus, he walked until he found it, and then stood outside, looking at his new home. It was a far cry from the places where he had lived before he went to prison. He couldn't help thinking of Janet, and their two little girls, wondering where they were now. He had missed his daughters terribly for all the years since he'd seen them. |
| 576 |
Sometimes she felt like a burden to him now. He was going to lacrosse camp that summer, and she was glad for him. Ashley had made plans to go to Tahoe, to a friend's house, and Sam was going to day camp and staying in town with her. She was glad the kids would be busy. It would give her time to think, and do what she had to do with their attorney. She just hoped the house sold fast once they put it on the market. Although that would be a shock for the kids too. She had no idea where they were going to live once it sold. Someplace small, and cheap. She also knew that sooner or later it would come out that Allan had been totally broke and heavily in debt when he died. She had done what she could to protect him until now, but eventually the truth would come out. It wasn't the kind of secret you could keep forever, although she was almost certain that no one knew yet. His obituary had been wonderful and dignified and sung his praises. For whatever it was worth. She knew it was what Allan would have wanted. When she left to pick up Ashley just before five, she asked Will to keep an eye on Sam. And then she drove to the San Francisco Ballet, where Ashley took classes three times a week. She wasn't going to be able to afford that anymore either. When all was said and done, all they were going to be able to do was go to school, keep a roof over their heads, and eat. The rest was going to be slim pickings, unless she got a great job, which was unlikely. It didn't matter anymore. Very little did. They were alive, and had each other. It was all she cared about now. She spent a lot of time asking herself why Allan hadn't understood that. Why he would rather have died than face his mistakes, or bad luck, or poor judgment, or all of the above? He had been in the grips of some kind of deal fever that had led him right up to the edge and past it, at everyone's expense. Fernanda and the children would much rather have had him than all that money. In the end, nothing good had come of it. |
| 577 |
Fernanda had no one to call to help her. Their instant success had isolated them from everyone. And their instant poverty more so. The friends she'd had for years had felt awkward with their sudden money. Their lives became too different, as their new lifestyle set them apart. And Allan's death and the worries he had left her with had isolated her further. She didn't want anyone to know how dire their situation was. She screened all her calls, and rarely returned them. There was no one she wanted to talk to. Except her kids. And the lawyer. She had all the classic signs of depression, but who wouldn't? She had been suddenly widowed at thirty nine, and she was about to lose everything they had, even their house. All she had left were her children. She cooked dinner for them when they got home, and put it on the table at six. She made hamburgers and salad, and put a bowl of potato chips out for them. It wasn't health food, but at least they ate it. She picked at hers, didn't even bother to put a hamburger on her plate, and pushed most of her salad into the garbage. She was seldom hungry, nor was Ashley. She had gotten taller and thinner in the past four months, which made her look suddenly older. Ashley was upstairs doing her homework, and Sam was watching TV, when Fernanda and Will left at a quarter to seven, and drove to the Presidio. He was wearing cleats and his baseball gear, and didn't say much to her. They were both quiet and pensive, and once they got there, she went to sit in the bleachers with the other parents. No one spoke to her, and she didn't try to engage them in conversation. People didn't know what to say to her. Her grief made everyone feel awkward. It was almost as though people were afraid the loss would be contagious. Women with safe, comfortable, normal lives and husbands didn't want to get near her. She was suddenly single for the first time in seventeen years, and felt like a pariah, as she sat watching the game in silence. Will scored two home runs. |
| 578 |
Neither of them wanted any problems. They had done their time, now they wanted peace, freedom, and to keep their noses clean. Waters said he hoped he'd get the job he'd interviewed for the day before, and if not, he'd have to start looking for something else. But he wasn't worried about it. The two men were asleep on their bunks by ten o'clock, and when Stark got up at seven o'clock the next day, Carl was gone, and had left him a note. He said he'd gone to see his relatives, and would see him that night. Stark saw later that Carl had checked himself out in the log at six thirty that morning. He spent the rest of the day hanging around the house, watching the ballgame on TV, and talking to the others. He never gave any further thought to where Carl had gone. He had said he'd be with his relatives, and whenever anyone asked Stark where Carl was, he said so. Malcolm Stark hung out with Jim Free from about midday. They walked to the nearest Jack in the Box and bought tacos for dinner. Free was the man who had been hired to kill a man's wife, had bungled the job, and wound them both up in prison instead. But they never spoke of their criminal life when they were together. None of them did. They did in prison occasionally, but out in the world, they were determined to put the past behind them. Free looked like he'd been in prison though. He had tattoos up and down his arms, and the familiar prison teardrops tattooed on his face. He seemed as though no one and nothing frightened him. He could take care of himself and looked it. The two men sat talking about the ballgame that night, eating their tacos and talking about games they'd seen, players they admired, batting averages, and historical moments in baseball they'd wished they'd seen. It was the kind of conversation two men could have had anywhere, and Stark smiled when Free commented about the girl he'd just met. He met her at the gas station where he worked. There was a coffee shop next to it, and she worked there as a waitress. |
| 579 |
They could already hear sirens in the distance. "It sounded huge," Will corrected her, as he ran in, and Ashley came downstairs, looking confused a minute later, as they all stood in the kitchen, wondering what had happened. The sirens sounded as though they were on their street, and rapidly approaching. There were a lot of them, and three police cars sped past their windows, with lights flashing. "What do you think it is, Mom?" Sam asked again, looking excited. It sounded like a bomb had exploded at the home of one of their neighbors, although Fernanda knew that was unlikely. "Maybe some kind of a gas explosion," she suggested, as they all looked out the window and saw more flashing lights speed by. They opened the front door and peeked out, and it looked like a dozen police cars had congregated down the street, as more arrived, and three fire trucks whizzed by. Fernanda and the children walked to the curb, and they could see a car in flames down the block, as firemen aimed hoses at it. People had come out of their houses, all up and down the street, and were chatting with each other. A few approached the burning car out of curiosity, but the police signaled them back, as a police captain's car arrived on the scene, but most of the excitement seemed to be over, as the flames on the car were extinguished. "Looks like a car caught fire, and the gas tank must have exploded," Fernanda explained sensibly. The excitement was almost over. But there were police and firemen everywhere, as the captain got out of his car. "Maybe it was a car bomb," Will said with interest as they stood outside, and eventually they went back into the house, while Sam complained. He wanted to see the fire trucks, but the police weren't letting anyone near the scene. There were a flock of cops down the block, circling the scene, and more still arriving. A car in flames didn't seem to warrant that much attention, but there was no denying the explosion had sounded impressive. She had jumped about a foot when it happened. |
| 580 |
At best, she had to start from scratch, and she had no idea how she was going to support herself for the next several years, let alone get her kids through college when they got to that point. For the moment, all she could do was trust that she would come up with some idea. For now she would just get through each day, keep swimming, and do her best not to drown. Will was upstairs doing homework, or pretending to. Sam was playing in his room, and Ashley was at rehearsal for her ballet recital, and due to finish at seven. Fernanda was going to make dinner late for all of them, which gave her more time to brood, as she sat in the kitchen, and gave a start when she heard the doorbell. She wasn't expecting anyone, and the car bombing of two days before was the last thing on her mind when she went to the door and saw Ted Lee through the peephole. He was alone, and he was wearing a white shirt, dark tie, and blazer. He had looked eminently respectable both times she'd seen him. She opened the door with a look of surprise, and realized again how tall he was. He had a manila envelope in his hands, and seemed to hesitate, until she asked him to come in. He saw a look of strain in her eyes, her hair was loose, and she seemed weary. He wondered what was bothering her. She looked as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. But as he walked in, she smiled, and made an effort to be pleasant. "Hello, Detective. How are you today?" she asked with a tired smile. "I'm fine. I'm sorry to bother you. I wanted to stop by and show you a mug shot." He glanced around, as he had on Sunday. It was hard not to be impressed by the house, and the obviously priceless pieces in it. It looked almost like a museum. And in her jeans and T shirt, as she had on Sunday, she looked somewhat out of place in her casual style. In the setting she lived in, she looked as though she should be sweeping down the stairs in an evening gown, trailing a fur coat behind her. But she didn't look like that kind of woman. |
| 581 |
Sometimes it didn't matter if you were rich or poor, the same things happened to people in all walks of life, at all economic levels, and the rich ones hurt just as much as the poor ones. No matter how big her house was, or how fancy her chandelier, that didn't keep her warm at night, and she was still alone, with three kids to raise on her own. It was no different than if something had happened to him, and Shirley had wound up alone with his boys. He was still thinking about her when he went back to his car, and drove away, and she quietly closed the door. She went back to her desk after that, and read Jack Waterman's letter again. She called to make an appointment with him, and his secretary said he would call her back the next day. He had left for the day. And at a quarter to seven, she got in her car, and drove to pick Ashley up at ballet. She was in good spirits when she got in the car, and they drove home chatting about the recital, school, and Ashley's many friends. She was still on the cusp of puberty, and liked her mother more than Fernanda knew she would in another year or two. But for now at least, they were still close, and Fernanda was grateful for that. As they got to the house, Ashley was talking excitedly about her plans to go to Lake Tahoe in July. She could hardly wait for school to be over in June. They were all looking forward to it, although Fernanda knew she would be even lonelier over the summer while Ashley and Will were away. But at least she would have Sam with her. She was glad that he was still so young, and not nearly as independent yet. He liked sticking close to her, even more so now without his dad around, although Allan hadn't paid much attention to him in recent years. He was always too busy. He would have been better off, Fernanda thought to herself as she walked up the front steps, spending more time with his kids than creating the financial disaster he had, that had destroyed their life, and his own, in the end. She cooked dinner for the kids that night. |
| 582 |
People had moved, faces had changed, people who remembered him either wouldn't take his calls, or did and fobbed him off, sounding stunned to hear from him at all. Four years in a normal life was a long time. And almost everyone who'd ever known him knew he had gone to prison. No one was anxious to see him again. And by the end of the first week, Peter realized he was going to have to lower his sights dramatically, if he wanted to find a job. No matter how useful he had been to the warden while he was in prison, no one in Silicon Valley, or the financial field, wanted anything to do with him. His history was too checkered, and they could only imagine he'd have learned worse tricks than the ones he knew previously, after four years in prison. Not to mention his predilection for addiction, which had ultimately brought him down. He inquired at restaurants, then small businesses, a record store, and finally a trucking firm. No one had work for him, they thought he was overqualified, overeducated, one man openly called him a smart ass and a snob. But worse than that, he was an ex con. He literally could not find work. And at the end of the second week, he had forty dollars in his wallet, and not a single prospect. A tortilla shop near the halfway house offered him half of minimum wage, in cash, to wash dishes, but he couldn't live on it, and they didn't need to pay him more. They had unlimited numbers of illegal aliens at their disposal, who were willing to work for pennies. And Peter needed more than that to survive. He was feeling desperate as he flipped through his old address book again, and when he started at the beginning for the tenth time, he stopped at the same place he always did. Phillip Addison. Until that moment, he had been determined not to call him. He was bad news, and always had been, in every way, and had caused trouble for Peter before. Peter had never been absolutely sure in fact that he hadn't been responsible for the drug bust that had sent him to prison. |
| 583 |
But Peter was fully prepared to be insulted, and used, and even mistreated. As long as it was legal. Addison gave him the address, told him to be on time, and hung up on him. The address he gave Peter was in San Mateo. He knew it was where he held his legitimate business. He had a high tech company that had been a mammoth success at first, and had trouble after that. It had gone up and down over the years, and had been booming at the height of the dot com craze. The stock prices had fallen drastically after that, just as everything else had. They made high tech surgical equipment, and Peter knew he had also made some big investments in genetic engineering. Addison himself was both an engineer and had a medical background. And for a while, at least, he had been thought to be a genius with money. But eventually, he had proven that like everyone else, he had clay feet, and he had overextended himself pretty badly. He had shored up his own finances by running drugs out of Mexico, and the bulk of his net worth now was in crystal meth labs in Mexico, and a land office business he did selling heroin in the Mission. And some of his best clients were yuppies. They didn't know they were buying it from him, of course, no one did. Even his own family thought he ran a respectable business. He had a house in Ross, children in private schools, he served on all the respectable charity boards, and belonged to the best clubs in San Francisco. He was thought to be a pillar of the community. Peter knew better. They had met when Peter was in trouble before, and Phillip Addison had quietly offered to help him. He had even supplied the drugs at discount rates at first, and told Peter how to sell them. If his own use hadn't gotten out of hand, and his judgment with it, Peter would probably never have gone to prison. Addison was smarter than that. He never touched the drugs he sold. He was clever, and ingenious about how he ran his underground empire. Most of the time, he was a good judge of horseflesh. |
| 584 |
It sounded interesting and challenging, and profitable. It was just what he needed to get on his feet and make a few investments of his own again, maybe start his own company. He had a keen sense for investments, and had learned a lot before he got off on the wrong track. This was the chance he needed to start over. It was too good to hope for. Maybe his luck was turning. Addison was finally doing something decent for him, and Peter was grateful. "Is it a long term research project, to be developed over several years?" There was job security in that, although it might tie him to Addison for longer than he wanted. But it would also give him plenty of time to get on his feet, which was something. He might even get visitation rights with his girls again, which Peter still dreamed of, when he allowed himself to. He hadn't seen his daughters in five years, and his heart ached when he thought of it. He had screwed everything up so badly in the past, even his relationship with his children, while they were still babies. He hoped one day to get to know them. And with financial stability again, he could approach Janet more reasonably, even if she had remarried. "Actually," Addison went on to explain the project he had in mind for him, "it's relatively short term. I think we can accomplish it in months, or even weeks. There will be some research and set up time, of course, the project itself, which might take a month or even two to handle, and the clean up afterward. I don't think we're talking long term here. And the profit sharing could be extraordinary." It was hard to guess what it was. Maybe some new high tech invention he was planning to release on the market, and he wanted Peter to organize the launch, in terms of marketing and PR. He couldn't think what else it was. Or some start up venture he wanted Peter to handle while it was being shot out of the cannon into the public at first, to be handed over to other people once it was. Addison was being mysterious about it, as Peter listened and tried to guess what it was. |
| 585 |
As Peter lay in bed in the halfway house that night, he thought about contacting his ex wife. He wanted to warn her to be especially careful with the girls. But he knew she'd think he was insane. He didn't want Addison pulling a stunt on him, and holding them hostage until he accomplished the task he'd been assigned. But Addison was smarter than that. He knew that if he put Peter's kids at risk or worse, Peter would have nothing left to lose, and would expose him. So as long as Peter did what he had been hired to do, the girls were safe. It was the only thing he had done for his daughters in the last six years, or maybe their entire lives. He had bought their safety at the expense of his own. He was still having trouble believing they would be able to pull it off. But if he picked the right people, maybe he could. It was all about who he hired now. If he picked a bunch of sloppy, careless criminals, they might panic and kill the kids. What he had to find now was the real thing. The smoothest, toughest, coldest, most competent men in the business, if there was such a thing. The men he knew from prison had already proven their ineptitude by being caught, or maybe their plans had been flawed. Peter had to admit that Addison's strategy was very smooth. As long as Allan Barnes's widow had the money he wanted at her disposal. It was unlikely she kept a hundred million dollars in cash at home, in a cookie jar. He was thinking about all of it, as he lay on his bunk, and his roommate walked in. He was going to look for a room in a decent hotel the next day, nothing too showy or expensive. He didn't want to make a sudden show of wealth he couldn't explain, although Phillip Addison had told him he was going to put him on the books of one of his minor subsidiary companies as a consultant. It was allegedly a market research firm, and was in fact a front for one of his drug rings. But it had been operating for years without a problem, and could be traced nowhere to him. "How'd it go today?" the roommate asked. |
| 586 |
It was going to be excruciatingly delicate to find people who wouldn't expose him if they turned him down or he decided to reject them, if he thought they were too risky. He wasn't going to share the plan with them until he met them, trusted them, and had checked their credentials. But it was still going to be a delicate matter hiring them. He had a pain in the pit of his stomach just thinking about it. So far, he had only one man in mind. He hadn't been convicted of kidnapping, but Peter suspected he was the right kind of person for the job. He knew who he was, and roughly where he had gone when he left prison. All Peter had to do now was locate him. He was going to start in the morning, after he moved to a hotel. Just thinking about it, he tossed and turned all night. He went to look for a hotel the next morning when he got up. He took a bus downtown, and found a place on the fringes of the Tenderloin, at the southern base of Nob Hill. It was small and impersonal, and just busy enough so no one would pay attention to him. He paid a month's rent in advance, in cash, and then went back to the Mission, to the halfway house, to pack his things. He signed out at the desk, left a note for his roommate, wishing him luck, and then took a bus downtown again. He went to Macy's and bought some clothes. It was nice being able to do that again. He bought some slacks and shirts, a couple of ties, a sport coat, a leather baseball jacket, and some sweaters. He bought new underwear, and a few pairs of decent shoes. And then he went back to the hotel where he had taken the room. He felt like a human being again when he cleaned up, and walked down the street, looking for someplace to eat. There were hookers wandering by, and drunks in doorways. There was a drug deal going down in a car parked outside, and other than that, there were businesspeople and tourists. It was the kind of neighborhood where no one paid much attention to you, and you could get lost easily, which was exactly what he wanted. |
| 587 |
She was such a nice woman, she didn't deserve this. No one did. "Have you told the kids yet?" he asked, as she set the coffee down and shook her head. "About the house? No, I haven't. They don't need to know yet. We're not putting it on the market till August. It'll be soon enough then. They don't need to worry about it for three months. Besides, it may take a while to sell." It was a huge house, and an expensive one to keep up. And the real estate market hadn't been doing well. Jack had already told her that she absolutely had to sell it and have the money in her hands by the end of the year. He had also told her to strip the place and sell as much as she could separately. The furniture certainly. They had spent nearly five million dollars furnishing the house, some of which couldn't be recouped, like the marble they'd put in all the bathrooms, and the state of the art kitchen. But the Viennese chandelier they had paid four hundred thousand dollars for could be sold at auction in New York, and might even bring a profit. And there were other things she could remove and sell throughout the house. She also knew that once they started stripping the place, it would be upsetting for the children, and she was dreading it. She tried not to think of it as she smiled at him, and he smiled back. She had been a hell of a good sport for the past four months, and he admired her for it. Fernanda said she wondered if Allan had ever considered what this would do to her. Knowing him, Jack suspected it had been the farthest thing from his mind. All he thought about was business, and money. There were times when Allan only thought of himself, both during his meteoric rise to dotcom celebrity, and as he plummeted at record speed on his way down. He was a handsome, charming, brilliant guy, but there had also been something very narcissistic about him. Even his suicide had been all about his own despair, without even thinking about her, or the kids. Jack wished he could do more for her, but for the moment he was doing all he could. |
| 588 |
And now the mere mention of boats reminded her of how Allan had died. She never wanted to see a boat again. "We'll think of something else," he said kindly. They spent the next two hours going over business matters, and finished the last of their paperwork shortly before noon. She had a good understanding of all of it, and she was being responsible about the decisions she made. There was nothing frivolous about her. He just wished that there was more he could do. He invited her out to lunch, but she said she had some errands to do, and a dentist appointment that afternoon. In truth, the time she spent with him was so stressful, talking about how dire her situation was, that after seeing him, she felt as though she needed a breather and some time to herself. Inevitably, if they went to lunch, they would talk about her problems and Allan's debts. She knew Jack felt sorry for her, which was kind of him. But it made her feel waiflike and pathetic. She was relieved when she said good bye to him, and drove back to Pacific Heights on her own. She heaved an enormous sigh, and tried to get rid of the sensation of panic in her stomach. She had a knot in it the size of a fist whenever she left his office, which was why she had declined his invitation to lunch. Instead, he had volunteered to come to dinner the following week, and promised to call her. At least seeing him with the children would buffer the horror of facing the grim realities with him. He was a very pragmatic person, and he spelled things out much too clearly. She would have been shocked to realize he had romantic intentions toward her. It had never even occurred to her in the course of their many meetings. She had always thought Jack was wonderful, and as solid as a rock, and she had been sorry for him that he had never remarried. He always claimed to her and Allan that he hadn't met the right person. She knew how much he had loved his wife, and Allan had warned her several times not to bug him about fixing him up with friends, so she hadn't. |
| 589 |
He didn't like thinking of his mother in that context. She was his mother, and he didn't see anything wrong with her staying alone, if she was happy that way, and she said she was. That was good enough for him. His sister was far more astute, even at her tender age. They spent the weekend engaged in their usual pursuits, and while Fernanda sat in the bleachers, watching Will play lacrosse in Marin on Saturday, Peter Morgan was on his way to Modesto on a bus. He was wearing some of the new clothes he'd bought with the money Addison had given him. And he looked respectable and discreet. The person who had answered the phone at the halfway house told him Carlton Waters was registered there. It was the second one he had called. He had no idea what he was going to say when he got there. He needed to feel Waters out and see how things were going for him. And even if Waters didn't want to do the job himself, after twenty four years in prison, with a conviction for murder, he would certainly know who would. How Peter was going to get the information from him was another story, particularly if he didn't want to do the job himself, or took umbrage at being asked. The "research," as Addison had referred to it, wasn't as easy as it looked. Peter was thinking about how to approach it, as he rode to Modesto on the bus. As it turned out, the halfway house was only a few blocks from the bus station, and he walked there in the late spring heat. Peter took his leather baseball jacket off, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. And by the time he got to the address they'd given him on the phone, his new shoes were covered with dust. But he still looked like a businessman when he walked up the front steps and inside to the desk. When he asked for Waters, he was told he had gone out, and Peter went back outside to wait. They had no idea where he'd gone or when he was due back. The man at the desk said he had family in the area and might have gone there, or he might have gone almost anywhere with friends. |
| 590 |
Waters agreed to meet Peter at his hotel on Saturday. Carl could cover it from nine A.M. till six o'clock on weekends. Peter would follow them during the week, and on weekend nights. They were covered. Peter had a feeling she didn't go out much anyway, if she was alone with three kids. And it was only for a month. For ten million bucks, he could sit in a car all day, and cover nights. He reported in to Addison and told him they had the guys. Addison sounded pleased and said he was willing to pay for both the van and the car. They could dump both a month later, after the job was done. Peter bought a Ford station wagon that afternoon. It was five years old and had a lot of mileage on it, and conveniently, it was black. He bought an old van at a different lot the next day and rented a space for it in a public garage. At six o'clock that night, he was parked outside Fernanda's house. He recognized her and the children from the photograph in Phillip's file, and remembered their names. They were emblazoned on his mind. He saw Fernanda come in with Ashley, and then go out again, and he followed her. She drove erratically, and ran through two red lights. He wondered if she drank. He parked within three cars of her near the playing field in the Presidio and watched her get out. She sat in the bleachers watching Will play lacrosse, and as he walked back to the car with her afterward, Peter saw them hug before they got back in the car. Something about the way they did it made his heart ache, and he wasn't sure why. She was beautiful and blond and very small, and when they got to the house again, the boy was laughing when he got out of the car. He was in good spirits. They had won. Peter watched them walk up the steps to the house arm in arm. Seeing them made him want to be next to them, and he felt left out in an odd way when they went inside and shut the door. And as she went in, he watched her through the window to see if she was setting the alarm, which was important information for him. |
| 591 |
Peter saw the lights go on in the kitchen, and he imagined her cooking dinner for them. He had seen both Ashley and Will by then, but hadn't seen Sam yet. He remembered him from the photograph as being a smiling, redheaded little boy. Late that night, he saw her standing by the window in her bedroom. He watched her with binoculars, and saw that she was crying. She just stood there with tears rolling down her cheeks in her nightgown, and then she turned and walked away. It was a strange feeling, watching her like that. He kept getting glimpses into their life. The girl in the ballet leotard, the boy she hugged after he won his lacrosse game, and the tears running down her cheeks as she stood in her bedroom window, crying for her husband probably. It was two in the morning when Peter drove away. The house was dark, and had been for three hours. He realized now he didn't need to stay that late, but these were all things he needed to learn about them. He was back the next morning at seven o'clock. Nothing happened until nearly eight. He couldn't see any activity in the kitchen, because he couldn't tell if she'd turned the lights on. That side of the house was lit by morning sun, and at ten to eight she came flying out. She turned to talk to someone in the hallway behind her, and the ballerina came out dragging a heavy bag. The lacrosse player helped her with it, and then walked to the garage for his own car. The door to the house was still standing open, and Fernanda was looking impatiently toward it, and finally the youngest one came out. And as Peter sat watching him, he couldn't suppress a smile. Sam was wearing a bright red T shirt with a fire engine on his back, with navy corduroy pants and red high top sneakers, and he was singing at the top of his lungs, while his mother laughed and waved him to the car. He got into the back seat, because his sister was in the front seat, with the bag on her lap. And when they got to school, with Peter in the traffic behind them, Fernanda helped her out. |
| 592 |
Sam bounced into school behind her like a puppy, and turned with a grin to wave at his mom, as she stood there for a minute, blew him a kiss, waved, and got back in the car. She waited until he'd gone inside before she drove away. She drove to Laurel Village to the grocery store then, and pushed a cart around for a while, reading labels, and checking produce before she put it in the cart. She bought a lot of kid food, cereals and cookies and snacks, half a dozen steaks, and at the counter where they sold flowers, she stopped and looked at them, as though tempted to buy them, and then rolled past, looking sad. Peter could have stayed in the car, but he had decided to follow her, to get a better sense of who she was. And as he watched her, he found himself fascinated by her. She was the epitome of the perfect mom, in his eyes. All she did and all she thought about and all she bought seemed to be about and for her kids. He stood behind her in the check out line as she picked up a magazine, glanced at it, and put it back. He was impressed by how simply dressed she was. No one would have thought for a minute that her husband had left her half a billion dollars. She was wearing a pink T shirt, jeans, and clogs, and she looked like a kid herself. She turned to look at him, as they both waited, and unexpectedly she smiled at him. He looked immaculate in a new blue button down shirt, loafers, and khaki pants. He looked like all the men she'd grown up with, or friends of Allan's. He was tall and good looking and blond, and he knew from things he'd read about her now that he was only six months younger than she. They were virtually the same age. They had both gone to good colleges. She had gone to Stanford, and he had gone to Duke. He had gone to graduate school, while she married and had babies. And their kids were almost the same age. Sam was six, and Isabelle and Heather were eight and nine. She looked a little like Janet, but prettier, and more than he realized, he looked like Allan with blond hair. |
| 593 |
He liked everything about her, and listened to her chatting with the man adding up her groceries, who seemed to know her well. She said the kids were doing okay, and Will was going to camp to play lacrosse. Peter had to remind himself of what his mission was, and wondered when the boy was going to camp. It might mean, if it was in July, that Waters and his buddies would only be able to get two of the kids. And as he thought of it, he felt sick. This woman was so obviously decent, so loyal to her husband, and so devoted to her kids, that what they were about to do to her seemed more than ever like a heinous thing to him. They were going to make her pay a hundred million dollars just to keep all that she had and cherished now. The thought of it weighed on him, as he watched her go through two more red lights and a stop sign on California Street on the way home. Her driving stank. He wondered what she was thinking about when she cruised through the red lights. And he was puzzled by what he saw when he got back to the house. He expected a housekeeper, or even a fleet of them to come out and unload the car. Instead she opened the front door, left it standing open, and carried the groceries in herself, bag by bag. He wondered if it was the maid's day off. After that, he didn't see her again till noon. She came back out for something she had forgotten in the car, and dropped the roll of paper towels again, but this time he didn't pick them up as he had in the store. He didn't move. He couldn't let her see him. He just watched. She looked slightly disheveled when she came out in a rush at three o'clock. She jumped in her station wagon and drove off toward school, driving too fast, and nearly hit a bus. Just watching her for a day, he already knew that the woman was a menace on the road. She drove too fast, she went through lights, she changed lanes without signaling, and nearly hit pedestrians in crosswalks twice. She was obviously distracted, and she came to a rapid stop outside the two younger kids' school. |
| 594 |
Everyone had honked at her, and she had jumped out of the car and apologized profusely, and when she did, he saw that she was crying. Fernanda was driving him crazy. She was all he could think of now, not only because of what they had in store for her, but because of what he wished he could say to her, and the time he wished he could spend with her, if things were different. In other circumstances, he would have liked to get to know her. In his mind, she had become the perfect woman. Seeing her with her children, he had come to admire her so much. He loved watching her, and wondered what she'd been like when Barnes married her. Thinking of her as a young girl nearly drove him insane. Why hadn't he met her then? Why was life so cruel? While he had been busy screwing up his life, and his ex wife's, Fernanda had been married to a lucky guy, and building a family. She was spectacularly beautiful. And Sam had won his heart the first day he saw him. Ashley was a beauty. Will looked like the kind of son every man wanted. Whatever else Allan Barnes had done, and the name he had made for himself in the business world, it was obvious to Peter Morgan that he had left the perfect family behind. Peter felt like a Peeping Tom watching her, and when he went back to his hotel to sleep at night, invariably he found himself dreaming of her, and couldn't wait to go back in the morning to see her again. She had begun to haunt him like an old friend, or a lost love. In fact, for him, she was like a reminder of a lost world. A world he had always wanted to be part of, and had been for a time, but seeing her reminded him of the life and opportunities he had blown. She was everything he had always wanted and would never have again. He hated to turn her over to Carlton Waters on Saturday, when he gave him the car, and used the van to go to Tahoe. He had a listing of houses to rent he'd gotten on the Internet. He didn't want to work with a realtor. But as long as no one saw Carl and his boys, there was no problem. |
| 595 |
It was simple, Addison would have his daughters killed, and Peter himself shortly thereafter. And if he confessed to the police and did time for it, or was violated, Addison would have him killed in prison. It was all so simple. There was no turning back. They were on a roll now. And as he reached Truckee finally, Waters was following her to Marin, to one of Will's lacrosse games. He had seen all three kids by then, and she looked about the way he had expected her to. To him, she looked like a suburban housewife, which was of no interest to him. To him, she was a victim, and a lucrative one, and nothing more. To Peter, she looked like an angel. But in some ways, Waters didn't know what he was seeing. The kind of women that appealed to him were a lot jazzier looking than Fernanda. He thought she looked pretty but plain, and noticed that she didn't wear makeup. At least not when she went out with her children. In fact, she hadn't worn any since Allan died. It no longer mattered to her. Nor did fancy clothes, high heels, or any of the jewelry he'd given her. She had already sold most of it, and the rest had been in the safe since January. She didn't need jewelry or fancy clothes for what she was doing, or what her life was now. Peter drove to the first address on his list, and saw that it was bordered on three sides, and within two feet in each case, by other houses, which made it impossible for their purpose. He had the same problem with the next four. The sixth one was insanely expensive. The next four were equally unsuitable. And much to his relief, the last one was the right one. It was perfect. It had a long winding driveway that was full of potholes and weeds, the house itself looked ramshackle, and was so overgrown, you couldn't even see in the windows, which were shuttered, which was yet another bonus. The house had four bedrooms, a kitchen that had seen better days but was functional, and a large living room with a fireplace Peter could have stood up in. And behind it, there was a cliff of sheer rock face. |
| 596 |
In the first week of June, on the last day of school, Fernanda had her hands full. Ashley and Sam both had performances at school. She had to help them get all their art projects and books home afterward. Will had a playoff game for his baseball team, and later that night he had a lacrosse game, which she had to miss, in order to attend Ashley's ballet recital. She felt like a rat in a laboratory, running all day, to get from one child to the other. And as usual, there was no one to help her. Not that Allan would have, if he were still alive. But until January, she had had a nanny to help her cover the bases. Now there was no one. She had no family, had lost touch with even her closest friends for a variety of reasons, and realized now how totally dependent she had been on Allan. With him gone, all she had left now were her children. And their circumstances were too awkward for her to want to contact their old friends again. She might as well have been living on a desert island with her children. She felt completely isolated. Peter had spoken to her twice by then, once in the supermarket on the first day, and another time in a bookshop, when she glanced up at him and smiled, and thought he looked vaguely familiar. She had dropped some of the books she was carrying, and with an easy smile, he handed them to her. After that, he had stood watching her from the distance. He sat in the bleachers at one of Will's games in the Presidio once, but he was behind her, and she never saw him. He never took his eyes off her. He noticed that she had stopped crying at the bedroom window. He saw her standing there sometimes, looking out at the street vacantly, as though she were waiting for someone. It was like looking straight into her soul, when he saw her there at night. It was almost as though he knew what she was thinking. She was almost certainly dreaming of Allan. Peter thought he'd been a lucky guy to have a wife like her, and wondered if he knew it. Sometimes people didn't. |
| 597 |
But Peter appreciated every gesture she made, every time she picked up her kids, and every time she hugged them. She was exactly the kind of mother he would have wanted, instead of the one he'd had, who had been an alcoholic nightmare, and had eventually left him unloved, unwanted, and abandoned. Even the stepfather she'd left him with had ultimately left him stranded. But there was nothing abandoned or unloved about Fernanda's children. Peter was almost jealous of them. And all he could think of when he saw her at night was how much he would have loved to put his arms around her, and console her, and he knew he could never do it. He was confined to watching her, and condemned to cause her more grief and pain, by a man who had threatened to kill Peter's children. The irony of it was exquisite. In order to save his own children, he had to risk hers, and torture a woman he had come to admire, and who aroused a flood of powerful emotions in him, some of which confused him, and all of which were bittersweet. He had a sense of longing every time he saw her. He followed her to Ashley's recital that night, and stopped behind her at the florist where she had ordered a bouquet of long stemmed pink roses. She had bought one for the ballet teacher as well, and emerged carrying both of them. Ashley was already at the ballet school. And Sam was at Will's game, with the mother of one of Will's friends, who also had a son Sam's age and had volunteered to take him. He had announced that afternoon that ballet was for sissies. And Peter realized, as he watched them leave, that if Waters and the others had been planning to hit that night, they could have gotten both boys, if not Ashley. By then, Waters had bought the machine guns, through a friend of Jim Free's. The man they bought them from had shipped them from L.A. by Greyhound, in golf bags. They arrived undisturbed, and it was obvious that no one had checked them. Peter had been shaking from head to foot when he went to get them. |
| 598 |
He had dealt with men like him before, and always thought them extremely unpleasant. In fact, he enjoyed playing with them whenever possible. And he had every intention of tormenting Phillip, after they booked him of course. He knew that whatever bail they set for him, given the size of his net worth, he would be out in minutes. But until bail was set, he had all the opportunity he wanted to question Phillip. Holmquist spent the rest of the afternoon interrogating him. After which, he was formally booked, and informed that it was too late in the day for a federal judge to set bail. He would have to cool his heels in jail for the night, and could only be released after a hearing to set bail at nine o'clock the next morning. Phillip Addison was beyond outraged, and there was nothing his lawyer could do to help him. Addison was still unclear about what had set the investigation off in the first place. It appeared to be a matter of irregular debits and deposits and money disappearing over state lines, notably to a bank where he had an account under another name in Nevada, and the government wanted to know why, what he was doing with it, and where the money came from. He knew by now it had nothing to do with his crystal meth labs. All the money he used to run those came from an account he kept in Mexico City under another name, and the proceeds went into several numbered Swiss accounts. This current situation truly appeared to be a matter of tax evasion. Agent Holmquist said that over eleven million dollars had come in and out of the Nevada account in the past several months, and mostly out, and from what they'd been told, he had never paid taxes on any of it, nor on the interest. Phillip continued to look unconcerned as they took him away to a cell for the night, although he gave a look of fury to both Holmquist and his attorney. Holmquist met with the agents who had searched his offices after that, and nothing much had turned up. They had gone through computers and files, which would be used as evidence against him. |
| 599 |
They had also unlocked his desk, and found a loaded handgun in it, a number of personal files, and four hundred thousand dollars in cash, which Holmquist found interesting. That was a lot of cash for the average businessman to keep in his desk drawer, and they said he had no permit for the gun. They had two boxes with everything they'd found in Phillip's desk, and one of the agents handed them to Holmquist. "What do you want me to do with this?" Rick looked at them, and the agent who had handed it to him said he thought he'd want to go through it. Rick was going to tell them to put the boxes with the rest of the evidence, and at the last minute thought better of it, and carried them into his office. The gun had been put in a plastic evidence bag, and there were several plastic envelopes with small scraps of paper in them, and for no reason in particular, he started to read through them. There were notes with names and phone numbers on them, and he noticed that two of them had the name Peter Morgan on them, but the phone numbers were different. He was halfway through the second box when he found the file on Allan Barnes, which spanned three years of his career, and was as thick as the San Francisco phone book. It seemed like an odd file for him to keep, Holmquist thought to himself, and set it aside. He wanted to ask Addison about it. There were several photographs of Barnes from old magazine and newspaper articles, and there was even one of Barnes with his wife and children. It was almost as though Addison were obsessed with him, or even jealous. The rest of what Rick found in the boxes was meaningless to him. But might mean something to the U.S. Attorney's office. They had used master keys to open all his desk drawers, and the special agents who'd gone through them assured Rick that when they left Addison's office, his desk was empty. They had brought everything back with them, and seized it all as evidence, even his cell phone, which he had forgotten to take with him. |
| 600 |
She made as little fuss about it as she could, and thought it seemed less ominous if she did it for them, rather than a stranger. Shortly after that, talking quietly amongst themselves, the children went upstairs. Sam wanted to stay with her, but Will took him by the hand and said he wanted to talk to him. He thought his mother wanted to talk to Ted about what was happening, and he assumed correctly that Sam would get scared. There was a lot happening to them. A lot had already occurred in a very short time. And Fernanda knew that after midnight, with four armed policemen in the house night and day, their lives would dramatically change. "We're going to need photographs of them," Ted said quietly to Fernanda, after the others left the room. "And descriptions. Height, weight, distinguishing marks, everything you can give us. But the hair and fingerprints will help." "Will all this really make a difference if they get kidnapped?" She hated even asking him that, but she needed to know. All she could think of now was what it would be like if they took one of her children. It was so frightening, she couldn't even hold the thought in her mind for long. "It could make a big difference, especially with someone as young as Sam." He didn't want to tell her that sometimes children that age got snatched, and only turned up ten years later, living other lives with other people, having been kept prisoner in another country or state, and fingerprints and hair would help the authorities identify him, whether dead or alive. In the case of Will or Ashley, the circumstances that would lead them to need hair or fingerprints would be far more dire. And in this case, with a ransom involved, these kids weren't going to disappear into other lives. They were going to be taken, held, and hopefully returned when the ransom was paid. All Ted could hope, if it happened, was that no one would get harmed, and the kidnappers would keep the kids alive. He was going to do everything he could to see that it didn't happen. |
| 601 |
Ted had suggested that they go out as little as possible. He wasn't crazy about her being in a car, waiting to be ambushed. They had already discussed whether the officers would ride with her, or follow her. Ted preferred them in the car. Rick and the captain wanted her followed. It was the issue of being live bait again. And as a result, Ted suggested that if at all possible, she go nowhere. Fernanda called the family hosting Ashley at Tahoe that night, and explained the situation to them, in strictest confidence. They told her how sorry they were, and assured her that they'd keep a close eye on Ashley, and she thanked them. They said they understood about the rotation of sheriff's deputies that would be watching, and felt more comfortable knowing someone would be there to protect Ashley. Neither Ted nor Rick felt she would be pursued in Tahoe, but they both felt it was a good idea to be cautious. And Fernanda was relieved to know that she'd be safe there. Fernanda was lying on her bed that night, when the doorbell rang, and all four officers arrived together. Peter Morgan had gone home by then, and never saw them. He knew from her normal routines that she was in for the night by then. He usually left at nine thirty or ten, and rarely later, except when she and the kids went to the movies. But that night, he had gone home early. She'd been at home all night, as had the kids, and he'd gone back to his hotel. He was almost sorry it was almost over. He liked knowing he was close to her and the children, and loved imagining what they were doing, as he glimpsed them from time to time at the windows. Fernanda thought of calling Jack Waterman that night, to tell him what was happening, but she was too tired, and it sounded too crazy. What was she going to tell him? That a bunch of bad guys had a file about them, and one of them had been sitting in a parked car for weeks, watching them? And then what? There was still no concrete evidence that anyone wanted to kidnap them, just endless suspicions. |
| 602 |
When Will and Sam came down to breakfast the next day, Fernanda was making bacon and eggs for the two agents and two policemen sitting at her kitchen table. She set their plates in front of them, and Will and Sam took their places between them. She saw Sam staring at their guns with interest. "Are there bullets in them?" he asked one of the men, and the police officer smiled at him and nodded, while Fernanda cooked her children's breakfast. It was more than a little surreal watching four heavily armed men eat breakfast with her children. She felt like a gun moll. Sam wanted pancakes, and Will wanted eggs and bacon like the men, so she cooked both. Ashley hadn't woken up yet and was upstairs sleeping. It was still early. Will had to catch the bus at ten o'clock, and she had already discussed with two of the officers whether or not she should go with him to see him off. They thought it was a bad idea and would draw too much attention to the fact that he was leaving. If someone was following her, it was better for her to remain home with the other children. One of the officers was going to take Will to the bus. He had suggested that Will get in the car in the garage, and lie on the back seat, so no one would see that he was leaving. It was a little far fetched, but she could see that it made sense. So at nine thirty, she kissed Will good bye in the garage, he lay down on the back seat, and a few moments later the officer drove out of the garage, and appeared to be driving alone. He had Will wait a few blocks before he sat up, and once he did, they chatted on the way to the bus. He put Will on the bus, with his bag and his lacrosse stick, waited until the bus took off, and waved as though it were his own son. He was back at the house an hour later. Peter was in place down the street by then, and saw a man driving Fernanda's car back into the garage. He had seen him leave earlier that morning, and had never seen him come in the night before, as the night shift had all arrived after he left. |
| 603 |
Carlton Waters, Malcolm Stark, and Jim Free were going to stay with him that night. He still had a few things to get for them in the morning, which got him to Fernanda's late. Ashley had already left for Tahoe with her friends, and the shift had changed. By sheer luck, he never saw the cops of the previous shift leave at noon, nor the new ones come in, all through the back door again. And when he left for the last time that night, regretfully, at ten o'clock, he had no idea that there was anyone in the house with her. He wasn't there to see them leave at midnight, and others arrive. In fact, he didn't see Fernanda at all that day, nor her children. He wondered if she was tired from entertaining the day before, or just busy. And as the kids were out of school for the summer, they didn't have to go anywhere, and he suspected they were enjoying their vacation and being lazy. He saw her at the windows in the day, and he had noticed that she had drawn her shades at night. He always felt lonely when he couldn't see her, and as he drove away for the last time, he knew just how much he was going to miss her. He already did. He hoped he'd see her again one day. He couldn't imagine what his life would be like now without her. It saddened him, almost as much as what they were about to do to her. He still felt sick at the thought of it. And worrying about it distracted him from any sense that she and the children were being protected. He didn't repeat it to Addison because he was completely unaware of it. Surveillance was unfamiliar to him. Caring about her as he did, he finally forced himself to stop thinking about what it was going to do to her when his associates kidnapped one or all of her children. He couldn't allow himself to continue thinking of it, and forced his mind toward more agreeable subjects, as he drove away that night, and went back to the hotel, thinking of her. When he got there, Stark, Waters, and Free were already waiting for him and wanted to know where he'd been. |
| 604 |
They were hungry and wanted to go to dinner. He didn't want to admit to them how hard it had been for him to leave her, even if leaving her meant only driving away from a parking space on the street where she lived. He had never admitted to any of them how much he had come to respect and like her, nor how fond he had become of the children. As soon as Peter got to the hotel, the four of them went out to dinner. They went to a taco place Peter knew and liked in the Mission. All four of them had been to their parole agents the day before, and as they were on two week check in status now, no one would realize they were gone until they were out of the country. Just as Addison had assured him, Peter in turn had assured them that Fernanda would pay the ransom quickly for her children. Presumably within a few days. The three men who would be executing the plan had no reason to disbelieve him. All they wanted out of this was their money. They didn't care about her or her kids, one way or the other. It made no difference to them who they took, or why, as long as they got the money. They had already been paid a hundred thousand each in cash. The balance was to be paid to all four of them out of the ransom. Peter had detailed instructions from Addison as to where she was to transfer the money. It was to be wired into five accounts that could not be traced, in the Cayman Islands, and from those accounts into two in Switzerland for Addison and Peter and three in Costa Rica for the others. The children were to be held until the money was wired and Waters was to warn her at the outset that if she called the police, they'd kill the children, although Peter did not intend to let that happen. Waters was to make the ransom demand, according to the instructions Peter had already given him. There was no need for an honor system among the men. The three others still did not know Phillip Addison's identity, and if any of them squealed on the others, they would not only lose their share but be killed, and each of them knew it. |
| 605 |
She hadn't heard a single shot ring out. All she could think about was Sam, as she pointed to the door to the garage. One of the men was pointing his machine gun at her, and another tossed Sam to the third one. He slung the bag with Sam in it over his shoulder, and there was no sound and no movement, but she knew that nothing they had done to him so far could have killed him. The heavy set man spoke to her again then. They had been in Will's and Ashley's bedrooms before they got to her, and hadn't found them. "Where are the others?" "Away," she said, and they nodded and ran down the back stairs, while she wondered where the cops were. The kidnappers had backed up their van to the garage, and no one had seen them do it. They had looked innocuous when they arrived, looking like workmen, went around to the back, broke a window using a towel, unlocked it, and climbed in. They had disabled the alarm and cut the wires before they broke the window pane. It was a skill they had developed over the years and knew well. No one had seen anything. And no one did now, as they opened the garage door to access their van, and she watched them open the back door to throw Sam in. If she had had a gun, she would have shot them, but as things were, there was nothing she could do to stop them, and she knew it. She was afraid to even scream for her protectors, for fear that the kidnappers would kill Sam. The man carrying the bag with Sam in it climbed in and dragged him in, bumping Sam across the back bumper. The others threw their weapons in, ran around to the front, as the back door slammed. And seconds later they drove away, as Fernanda stood sobbing on the sidewalk. And much to her horror, no one heard or saw her. The windows of the van had been heavily tinted, and by the time the men took their ski masks off, they had turned the corner, and she saw nothing. She hadn't even seen their license plate and only thought of it afterward. All she could do was watch them drive her son away and pray that they wouldn't kill him. |
| 606 |
He hadn't wanted to go anywhere near Tahoe while they were there. All he wanted was his ten million dollars and to get out. He wasn't even sure he wanted that. The only reason he was doing this was to save his daughters. And going to Tahoe to be with Waters and the others put him at much greater risk for being caught. But he knew, as he had from the beginning of this mess, there was no way out. He tried not to think of Fernanda and what she must be going through, as he picked up his bag of toiletries and shaving gear, the two clean shirts and underwear he'd brought in a paper bag, and walked out of the motel ten minutes later. But whatever she was feeling now, or how terrified she was, one thing he was sure of, with a hundred million dollars at stake, they'd be sending back her son. So no matter how sick she was over it, it was going to turn out all right in the end. Peter reassured himself with that thought, as he left the motel and hailed a cab. He had it drop him off at Fisherman's Wharf, where he took another cab to a used car lot in Oakland. He had left the car he'd been using for the past month in a back alley in the Marina. He had removed the license plates and dropped them in a dumpster before walking half a dozen blocks to the motel, where he had paid cash for the room. In Oakland he bought an old Honda, paid cash for it, and an hour after his call to Phillip Addison, he was on the road to Tahoe. It seemed a lot safer to use a different car than he'd been using while following her for the past month, in case someone in the neighborhood had seen him. Now that Waters and the others had murdered four cops, the risk was greater for all of them, and for Peter, going to Tahoe increased the risks further. But he knew he had no choice in the matter. Addison was right. Peter didn't trust them with Sam, and he didn't want anything worse to happen than already had. Long before he reached Vallejo, photographs of Peter and Carlton Waters had been circulated all over the state on police computers. |
| 607 |
Rick Holmquist correctly suspected that Peter's job was a front, which made sense to Ted as well. Ted had also called the industrial cleaning service they used at homicide scenes, or the one they recommended. They were tearing Fernanda's kitchen apart that night. They even had to pull out the granite and strip the room, thanks to the weapons that had been used and the devastating physical damage they had caused. Ted knew that by morning, the place would be stripped and no longer elegant, but it would be clean, and there would be no visible evidence, in terms of bloodstains at least, of the grim carnage that had taken place there when the officers were killed and the kidnappers got Sam. Four more officers had been assigned to her, all cops this time. Fernanda was upstairs lying on her bed. Ted had been there all day and evening. He never left. He made whatever calls he had to make from his cell phone, while camping out in her living room. And there was a trained negotiator standing by, waiting for the kidnappers' call. There was no question in anyone's mind that it would come. The only question was when. It was nearly nine o'clock at night when she came downstairs, looking gray. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink all day. Ted had asked her a few times, and then finally he had left her alone. She needed some time to herself. He was there for her, if she wanted him. He didn't want to intrude on her. He had called Shirley a few minutes before, and told her what had happened, and that he was going to spend the night with his men. He wanted to keep an eye on things. She said she understood. In the old days, when he was on a stakeout, or working undercover in his youth, sometimes he'd been gone for weeks. She was used to it. Their crazy lives and schedules had essentially kept them apart for years, and it showed. Sometimes she felt she hadn't been married to him in years, not since the kids were small, or even before that. She did what she wanted, had her own friends, her own life. |
| 608 |
Half an hour later, Ted brought her a cup of tea, and she sipped it, sitting on the floor in the living room, hugging her knees. He knew she wouldn't sleep either. It was going to be an interminable wait for her. For all of them. But hardest for her. And she hadn't told the other kids. The police had agreed that she should wait until she heard something. There was no point panicking them, and it would. The local police at both locations had been notified, and they were on standby for both Ashley and Will. But now that they had Sam, Ted felt the other two were safe, and his superiors agreed. They weren't going to try to grab the other two. They had all they needed now with Sam. She lay on the rug in the living room, and didn't say anything. Ted sat near her, writing reports, and glancing at her occasionally. He went to check on his men, and after a while, she fell asleep. She was lying there asleep on the floor when he got back. He left her there. She needed the sleep. He thought of carrying her to her room, but he didn't want to disturb her. He lay down on the couch himself sometime around midnight, and dozed for a few hours. It was still dark when he woke up and heard her crying, lying on the floor, too grief stricken to move. He didn't say a word to her, he just sat down on the floor next to her and held her, and she lay in his arms and cried for hours. The sun was coming up when she finally stopped, thanked him, and walked upstairs to her room. They had cleaned the blood off the hall carpet. Ted didn't see her again until almost noon. They had still heard nothing from the kidnappers. And Fernanda looked worse by the hour. Jack Waterman called her that afternoon, the day after the kidnapping. The phone rang, and everyone jumped. They had already told her that she had to answer the phone herself, so the kidnappers didn't get scared off by the cops, although they would suspect they were there, since there had been cops in the house when they came for Sam. She answered and nearly burst into tears when it was Jack. |
| 609 |
Peter lay sleeping next to Sam until five o'clock that morning, and then as though some deep primal instinct told him to wake up, he opened his eyes and slowly stirred. Sam was still asleep beside him, with his head on Peter's shoulder. And the same inexplicable intuition told him to untie Sam's hands and feet. They kept him that way all the time so he couldn't escape. Sam had gotten used to it and come to accept it in the last week. He had learned that he could trust Peter more than the others. And as Peter untied the knots, Sam rolled over and whispered one word, "Mom." Peter smiled at him, and got up, and stood looking out the window. It was still dark outside, but the sky was more charcoal now than inky. And he knew that soon the sun would be coming up over the hill. Another day. Endless hours of waiting. He knew that they were going to call Fernanda, and kill the boy if she didn't have the money for them. They still thought she was holding out on them and playing games. Killing the boy meant nothing to them. And by the same token, if they had any idea what he'd done, nor would killing him. He no longer cared. He had traded his life for Sam's. If he was able to escape with him, it would be a mercy, but he didn't expect that to happen. Trying to flee with the boy might slow them down and put Sam at greater risk. He was still standing at the window, when he heard a sound that sounded like the first stirring of a bird, and then a single pebble flew toward him and landed with a soft thud in the dirt. He looked up and almost beyond his vision, he saw a stirring, and as he looked again, three dark forms were sliding down the rocks above them on black ropes. There was nothing to signal their arrival, and yet he knew they were there and felt his heart pound. He opened the window soundlessly and squinted into darkness, watching them lower themselves down until they disappeared. He put a hand over Sam's mouth so he didn't cry out, and gently moved him, until the child's eyes opened and Peter saw that he was awake. |
| 610 |
He didn't know what was happening, but he knew that whatever it was, Peter was going to help him. He lay totally still on the bed, and realized that Peter had untied him, and he could move his hands and feet freely for the first time in days. Neither of them moved, and then Peter went back to the window. He saw nothing at first, and then he saw them, crouching in the darkness, ten feet behind the house. A single black gloved hand beckoned, and he turned back and scooped Sam off the bed into his arms. He was afraid to open the window any wider than he had, and squeezed him through it. It was a short drop, and he knew the boy's arms and legs would be stiff. He was still holding him when he looked at him for the last time. Their eyes met and held for an endless moment, and it was the single greatest act of love Peter had ever committed as he dropped him, and then pointed, as Sam crawled like a baby into the bushes on all fours. He vanished from Peter's sight then, and then a black hand went up and beckoned him again. He stood staring at it, and heard a sound in the house behind him. He shook his head, closed the window, and lay back down on the bed. He didn't want to do anything to risk Sam. As Sam crawled across the dirt and into the bushes, he had no idea where he was going. He just went in the direction that Peter had pointed, and as two hands reached out and grabbed him, he was pulled into the brush with such speed and force, it took his breath away. He looked up at his new captors, and whispered to the man who held him with blackened face and black nylon skullcap, "Are you bad guys or good guys?" The man who was holding him tightly to his chest nearly cried, he was so relieved to see him. It had gone like clockwork so far, but they still had a long way to go. "Good guys," he whispered back. Sam nodded and wondered where his mom was, as the men around him signaled to each other, and flattened Sam down on the ground. He got a faceful of dirt, as long pink and yellow fingers began to streak across the sky. |
| 611 |
The kidnapping still had a quality of unreality to it, for all of them. Sam told his best friend in school, and the boy didn't believe him. The teacher gave him a serious lecture about lying after that, and inventing things, and Sam came home crying. "She didn't believe me!" he complained to his mother. Who would? She didn't believe it herself sometimes. It was so horrifying she still couldn't absorb it, and when she thought about it, it still frightened her so much, and made her so anxious, that she had to force herself to think about something else. She had taken the children to a psychiatrist who specialized in trauma after it happened, and the woman was impressed with how well they'd come through it, although now and then, Sam still had nightmares, as did his mother. Ted continued to visit Sam well into September, to gather evidence and testimony, and by October he had finished. He didn't call them after that, and Fernanda thought of him often, and meant to call him. She was showing the house, trying to find a smaller one, and looking for a job. She was nearly out of money, and trying not to panic. But late at night, she often did, and Will saw it. He offered to get a job after school, to try and help her. She was worrying about college for him. Fortunately, he had good grades and qualified for the University of California system, although she knew she'd still have to scare up enough to pay for the dorm. It was hard to believe sometimes that Allan had had hundreds of millions of dollars, although not for very long. She had never been as broke as she was at that moment. And it scared her. Jack took her to lunch one day, and tried to talk to her about it. He said he hadn't wanted to approach her too soon, or offend her right after Allan died, and then there was the kidnapping, and all of them had been so upset, understandably. But he said he had been thinking about it for months, and had made a decision. He paused, as though expecting a drumroll, and Fernanda never saw it coming. |
| 612 |
Her kids mattered. The rest didn't. And money, to whatever degree, was unimportant to her, except to feed her children. She had been planning to strip the house, and sell whatever she could at auction. But as it turned out, the buyers loved everything she had and paid a huge premium for it, over and above the price of the house. The wife thought she had terrific taste. So it worked out well for all involved. She and the children moved out in January. Ashley cried. Sam looked sad. And as always these days, Will was an enormous help to his mother. He carried boxes, loaded things, and he was with her the day she found the new house. She actually had enough left over to buy something small, and put a hefty mortgage on it, after the sale of the house. The house she found in Marin was exactly what she wanted. It was in Sausalito, high up on a hill, with a view of sailboats, the bay, Angel Island, and Belvedere. It was peaceful and cozy and unpretentious and pretty. And the children loved it when they saw it. She decided to put Ashley and Sam in public school in Marin, and Will was going to commute for the remaining months of school until he graduated. Two weeks after they moved into the house, she found a job, as curator of a gallery five minutes from her house. They had no problem with her leaving at three every day. The salary was small, but at least the money was consistent. And by then she had a new lawyer, a woman. Jack was still deeply offended by her refusing his proposal. And sometimes, when she thought of it, she thought it was both sad and funny. He had seemed so incredibly pompous when he asked her. She had never seen that side of him before. What didn't seem funny to her, and never would, was the memory of the kidnapping the previous summer. She still had nightmares about it. It seemed surreal to her, and it was one of the many things she didn't mind about leaving their old house. She could never sleep in it again without an overwhelming feeling of panic that something terrible was about to happen. |
| 613 |
A woman who had died at the feet of her husband, and had never loved anyone but him in any case? For what had he done it? his mother had screamed. For the love of Mussolini? "That pig, Sergio? That pig? You killed my firstborn for him?" He had trembled in the wake of his mother's rage, and knew that he would spend the rest of his lifetime trying to live with the truth. He had denied everything to his mother, denied that he betrayed Umberto, denied that he had done anything at all. But she had known, as had Serena. Those brilliant green eyes of hers had bored into him at the funeral, and he had been grateful to escape at last. Unable to fight the tides of Mussolini, and unwilling to expose the horror of her son's fratricide to the whole world, the elderly Principessa di San Tibaldo had taken Serena and the oldest of the servants and removed them from Rome. The palazzo was his now, she told him as she stood for a last moment in the brilliantly lit black and white marble hallway. She wished never to see him, or the house, again. He was no longer her son, he was a stranger, and for a last moment she had gazed at him with tears filling the wise old eyes once more. She shook her head slowly then and walked silently out the door. She and Serena had never seen her uncle, or the house, or Rome again. She had been twelve the last time she walked out the richly ornate bronze doors on the Via Giulia and yet even as she stood in the chill air of the Alps two years later she felt as though they had left Rome that afternoon. It had been a difficult two years, years of fighting off the memories of the sounds of her father being beaten by the soldiers in the courtyard, the frantic look of her mother as she had run out of the house the next morning, her hair barely combed, her eyes wide with fear, a red wool coat clutched around her, and the sight of their bodies when the soldiers had left them at the gate, sprawled on the white marble steps, their blood trickling slowly down into the grass. |
| 614 |
Her last words to Serena were "Go with God," and Serena had watched her wave from the dock as she waved frantically from the ship, this time with a smile on her face. That had been only nine days before. The memories of Mother Constance seemed to fill her mind as Serena glanced out the window and saw that the dawn had come as they sped along on the train. She stared at the pink and gray sky in amazement as they raced through fields that had not been harvested in years and that showed signs of the bombs, and her heart broke for her country, for her people, for those who had suffered while she was safe in the States. She felt as though she owed them all something, a piece of herself, of her heart, of her life. While she had eaten roast turkey and ice cream on the Hudson they had suffered and struggled and died. And now, here they were, together, the survivors, at the dawn of a new era, a new life. She felt her heart rise within her as the train continued on its journey, and she watched the sun ride up in the early morning sky. The day had come at last. She was home. Half an hour later they rolled into Santa Lucia Station, and slowly, almost breathlessly, she stepped from the train, behind the old ladies, the children, the toothless old men, the soldiers, and she stood there, at the bleak back door of Venice, looking at the same scene she had seen twice a year as a child when she and her parents had come to visit from Rome. But they were gone now, and this was not an Easter vacation. This was a new world, and a new life, and as she walked slowly away from the station she stared at the bright sunlight shining on the ancient buildings and shimmering on the water of the grand canal. A few gondolas bobbed at the landing, and a fleet of random boats hovered near the quay, drivers shouted to prospective passengers, and suddenly everything was in frantic motion around her, and as she watched it Serena smiled for the first time in days. It was a smile she hadn't felt in her heart for years. |
| 615 |
She felt as the ancient Venetians must have, after their endless journeys to foreign ports, only to return to rediscover with wonder and enchantment what they had left behind. "Beautiful, eh, signorina?" The gondolier glanced at San Marco with pride, and then back at her. But she only nodded. It was extraordinary to be back after so many years, yet nothing had changed here. The rest of the world had been turned upside down, but even the war had not touched Venice. Bombs had fallen nearby, but miraculously, Venice itself had remained untouched. He swept slowly under the Ponte di Paglia then, and rapidly under the illustrious Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs, and then drifted into the maze of smaller canals, past other less important palazzi and ancient statues carved into the magnificent facades. There were balconies and tiny piazzas and everywhere the ornate splendor that had drawn people to Venice for a thousand years. But now Serena was no longer fascinated by the architecture. Ever since they had turned into the maze of smaller canals, her face had been tense, and her brow furrowed as she watched familiar landmarks begin to slide by. They were coming closer now, and the answers to the questions that had tormented her for two years now were within reach. The gondolier turned to confirm the address with her, and then, having seen her face, he said nothing more. He knew. Others had come home before her. Soldiers mostly. Some had been prisoners of war, and come home to find their mothers and their lovers and their wives. He wondered who his young beauty could be looking for and where she had been. Whatever she was looking for, he hoped she found it. They were only a few hundred feet from the house now, and Serena had already sighted it. She saw the shutters falling from their hinges, boards over a few of the windows, and the narrow canal lapping at the stone steps just beneath the iron grille on the landing. As the gondolier approached the building Serena stood up. |
| 616 |
Serena suddenly dropped her face into her hands in the darkness. She didn't want to remember anymore. She didn't want to remember what had happened, how it had happened, what was no more. But it was as though whatever she did now that she had come back here there was no way to run from the memories anymore. The ghosts that had haunted her for seven years now didn't have to go far to find her. She had come home to find them. Without thinking, she wandered in the direction of the Fontana di Trevi, and stood there mesmerized by it, as she had been as a little girl. She sat quietly for a few minutes, hunched against a wall, watching, and feeling refreshed by the breeze that came off the water. Then slowly, approaching the fountain, she tossed a coin quietly into the water, and then smiled to herself as she wandered in the direction of the Palazzo del Quirinale and then into the Via del Tritone. She came rapidly to the Triton's Fountain, and then to the Piazza Barberini, where she stood for a long moment wondering where to go next. It was almost eleven o'clock now and she was suddenly exhausted as she realized that she had nowhere to spend the night. She had to find a hotel room, a pensione, a convent, some place, but as she enumerated the possibilities in her head, her feet seemed to follow their own direction, and then suddenly she realized where she was going and caught her breath, knowing what had happened, what she was doing, and not wanting to continue or turn back. It was for this that she had left the peaceful convent on the Hudson, crossed the Atlantic, and taken the train from France. A tiny part of her told her to wait until morning, until she was rested and her head was clear. It had been a long trying day, first in Venice and now here, with hours on the train, but it suddenly didn't matter, and Serena stopped letting her feet wander and stopped pretending to herself, that she had nowhere to go. She did have somewhere to go, a place she wanted to go to desperately, no matter how tired she was. |
| 617 |
She had only come to see it, not to stay there. To stand and gaze and remember, not to try and step inside the memories again. That was too much for her, she couldn't bear it. But as the old woman led her gently toward the rear entrance, Serena felt exhaustion overwhelm her... it was as though her whole day was telescoping into one instant and she couldn't bear it any longer. All she wanted was to lie down somewhere and stop thinking, stop trying to sort it all out. Soon she stood at the back door of what had once been her parents' palazzo. Marcella quickly inserted the heavy key and turned it, and the door creaked, just as Serena had remembered it, and as the door swung open she found herself standing downstairs, in the servants' hall. The paint was yellowing, she saw as Marcella turned a light on; the curtains were the same, only they were no longer a bright blue but a faded gray; the wood floor was the same only a little duller, but there were fewer hands around now to wax it and Marcella had grown old. But nothing had really changed. Even the clock on the wall in the pantry was the same. Serena's eyes opened wide in amazement, and for the first time in years there was no anger and no pain. At last she had come home. She had come full circle, and there was no one left to share it with but Marcella, clucking like an old mother hen as she led her down a familiar hallway into a room that had once belonged to a woman named Teresa, who had been a young and pretty upstairs maid. Like the others, she was long gone now, and it was into her room that Marcella led Serena, grabbing old frayed sheets and a blanket from a cupboard as she went. Everything was old and growing shabby, but it was still clean, and every bit of it was familiar, Serena realized as she sat down in a chair and watched Marcella make the bed. She said nothing. She only sat and stared. "Vai bene, Serena?" The old woman glanced at her often, afraid that the shock of all she'd heard and seen and learned would be too much. |
| 618 |
It was quite another to live eternally belowstairs in a house that had once been her own. And she knew that she wasn't ready yet to go upstairs. But if they gave her a job, she would have to. She would just have to tell herself that it was their house, that it had nothing to do with her, or anyone she knew, and that she had never seen it before, but she was still quaking a little inside as she rounded the end of the Via Nazionale and passed the Baths of Diocletian as she turned into the Piazza della Repubblica and found the address. What if they didn't give her a job? Then what would she do? Scrape up the last of her money and make her way back to the States? Or stay here, in Rome? But for what? For her heart, she told herself as she pushed open the heavy door into the American offices that had been established there. Rome was where she had to be. She smiled as she thought of it, and she was still smiling to herself as she stepped into the building and collided almost instantly with a tall man with a boyish grin and a headful of thick blond curls under his military hat. On him the hat looked jaunty and he had it perched at a rakish angle, and his gray eyes seemed to dance with amusement as he looked into Serena's green eyes. For an instant she was tempted to smile at him, but her face grew rapidly serious, and as always when confronted with a uniform, she averted her eyes. No matter how handsome the man was, or how friendly, the uniforms always reminded her of her old nightmares, and she couldn't bear to look the men in the eyes. "I'm sorry." He gently touched her elbow as though to convey his apology in case she did not speak his language. "Do you speak English?" His eyes combed her face, and he was instantly struck by her perfect creamy satin beauty, the wheat gold hair, the huge green eyes, but he noticed too the stiff way she pulled away from him after their brief collision, and then the chilly way she looked at him once she had regained her composure, caught her breath, and stepped back. |
| 619 |
When she finished, she washed the cup and saucer, dried them, and put away the last of the dishes, and then with a sigh, she opened the door to their basement quarters and walked slowly up the back stairs. She found everything in order in the main hallway. The grand piano still stood there as it had for decades, and the chandelier in the entry burned as brightly as it had when her parents were there. Without thinking, she turned her face up toward it, smiling to herself as she remembered how much it had enchanted her when she was a child. It had been the best part of her parents' parties, standing on the circular marble staircase, watching men in dinner jackets or tails and women in brilliantly colored evening clothes drift beneath the many faceted crystal chandelier as they wandered through the hall and out into the garden, to stand near the fountain and drink champagne. She used to listen to them laughing, trying to hear what they were saying. She used to sit there in her nightgown, just around the bend, peeking at them, and now as she thought of it again she laughed to herself as she walked up the same stairs. It gave her an odd feeling now to be here in the dark of night, with all of the others gone. The memories at the same time delighted and chilled her. They filled her with longing and regret all at the same time, and as she began to walk down the second floor landing, she suddenly felt a wave of homesickness overtake her, the likes of which she hadn't felt in years. Suddenly she wanted to be in her old room, to sit on her bed, to look out the window at the garden, just to see it, to sense it, to become part of it again. Without thinking, she put a hand up to the now dusty navy blue bandanna and pulled it slowly off her head and released the long shining blond hair. It was not unlike the gesture she used to make when she took off the hat to her school uniform as she came home every day and ran up the stairs to her room. Only now she checked in the doorway, and the room was almost empty. |
| 620 |
But as she brushed the tears away with the back of one hand, Charlie Crockman found them that way and stared down at them in sudden embarrassment. "Sorry." He muttered before backing out quickly. "Fa niente," Serena called after him. She liked him, but she seldom spoke to him in English. She had nothing to say. She had nothing to say to any of them. She didn't have to. It didn't matter. Nothing did. Except that she could go on living here. It had become an obsession with her in the past month, being at home again and clinging to the memories. It was all she thought of now as she went from room to room, cleaning, waxing, dusting, and in the morning when she made the major's enormous bed, she pretended to herself that it was still her mother's. The only thing that disturbed the dream was that the room smelled of lime and tobacco and spice, like the major, not of roses and lily of the valley as it had almost ten years before. When she had finished scrubbing Charlie Crockman's bathroom that morning, Serena took a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese and an orange and a knife and wandered slowly into the garden, where she sat down, looking at the hills beyond with her back against her favorite tree. It was here that the major found her half an hour later, and he stood there for a long moment, watching her as she peeled the orange carefully and then lay in the grass and looked up at the tree. He wasn't sure whether or not to approach her, but there was still something about her that intrigued him. There was a special aura of mystery that surrounded Marcella's hardworking young niece. He still seriously doubted the story that they were related, but her papers were in order, and whoever she was, she worked damn hard for them. What difference did it make who she was? But the strange thing was that it seemed to make a difference to him. He thought of her often as he had seen her on that first evening, standing in his office in the dark, leaning against the window, looking out at that willow tree. |
| 621 |
He had lost no one in this war. And he knew that his family was grateful that they had not lost him. Friends of his had died, but no cousins, no brothers, no uncles, no distant relations. It was a war that had barely touched the world he had lived in. And one of these days he knew that he would be going home too. Not yet though. He was still enjoying his work in Rome. An orderly had come then and interrupted them. There was a phone call from General Farnham and he had to come at once. He looked at Serena regretfully over his shoulder for a moment and then he hurried inside and she didn't see him again. When she climbed between the cool sheets that night after bidding good night to Marcella, she found herself thinking of the interlude that afternoon in the garden, of the long slender hands playing with the grass, the broad shoulders, the gray eyes. There was something so startlingly handsome about him, as though one expected to see him in evening clothes or playing football. He looked like other Americans Serena had seen in her four and a half years on the Hudson, but he was far more beautiful than any she had seen. Oddly her thoughts were not unlike what Bradford Fullerton was thinking at that precise moment about her. He was standing alone in his office with the lights off, his jacket cast over a chair and his tie on the desk, looking out at the willow tree. He could still see the sun reflected in her eyes as she handed him half of the orange, and suddenly for the first time in a long time he felt a physical yearning, an overwhelming hunger, his body craving hers, as it had craved no one else's for a long time. He had been home on leave once for a week at the end of the war, and he had made passionate love to Partie, but he had been faithful to her since coming back, and he really had no desire to stray. Until now. All he could think of as he stood there was Serena, the shape of her neck, the grace of her arms, the way her waist narrowed to almost nothing beneath the starched white apron strings. |
| 622 |
He stood there for what seemed like hours, staring out the window, his eyes glued to the tree, and then suddenly he saw her, like a vision, a magnificent ghost darting past the tree and then sitting quietly in the darkness, the long hair flowing in the breeze behind her, almost silver in the moonlight, the delicate profile turned up as though to sniff the night air, her eyes closed, and her body shrouded in what looked like a blanket as she stretched out her legs on the grass. He could see that her legs and feet were bare, and as he watched her he suddenly felt his whole body grow tense, as everything within him surged toward the mysterious girl. Almost as though he had no control over his actions, he turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind him, and hastily he ran down the long flight of marble stairs. He walked down the long stately hallway to a side door that he knew led into the garden, and before he could stop himself, he had walked softly across the grass until suddenly he stood there behind her, shivering in the breeze, trembling with desire and not sure of why he had come. As though she sensed him standing there, she turned and looked up at him with wide startled eyes, but she said nothing, and for a long moment he stood there and their eyes met and she waited, and silently he sat down beside her on the grass. "Were you talking to your tree?" His voice was gentle, as he felt the warmth of her body beside his. He wasn't sure what to say to her, and it seemed foolish, but as he looked down into her face he saw now that it was shimmering with tears. "Serena? What's wrong?" For a long time she didn't answer, and then she shrugged with a little palms up gesture and a lopsided smile. It made him want to take her in his arms, but he still didn't dare to. He wasn't sure what she would think. And he still wasn't sure what he thought himself. "What's the matter?" She sighed then, and almost without thinking, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. |
| 623 |
She was remembering the face she had seen so often in the pictures... "My family is very fond of Partie," she could hear him say. But would they be fond of her? It seemed unlikely. She felt ashamed now. As though she had been disgraced along with her Uncle Sergio and II Duce, her country had fallen apart around her and her life had too. She wandered out into the garden then and Marcella watched her go. October was a dream month for Serena. She and Brad had worked out their affair with miraculous precision, and every night after dinner he went to his room, as Serena waited in hers. When Marcella went to bed, the orderlies had usually retired, and she tiptoed softly into the main house and made her way quietly up the marble staircase to his bedroom, where he waited for her with things to tell her, funny stories, sometimes a letter from his younger brother, white wine or champagne, or a plate of cookies, or photographs he had taken of her the previous weekend, which they sifted through. There was always something to share, to chuckle over, to enjoy, to discuss, and then inevitably a little while later there was the miracle of their lovemaking, the endless discoveries and pleasures she found in his arms. Eventually the photographs of Pattie had been relegated to his office, and now she never saw them at all. They spent the nights cozily tucked into his bed, and then they rose together, before the rest of the household, just before six in the morning. They sat for a moment, watching the sun come up, looking down at the familiar garden, and then with a last kiss, a last touch, an embrace, she went back to her quarters, and they each began the day. In a strange way it was like being newly married, because each lived to return to the other at the end of the day. It was on a day at the very end of October that Serena came to him and found him upset and vague. He seemed jumpy when Serena put her arms around him, and when she said something to him about it, he appeared not to hear. |
| 624 |
Major B.J. Fullerton stood looking very tall and straight and handsome at the military airport outside Rome. Only his eyes looked faintly troubled, and there were weary smudges to indicate that he had slept little, and as he lit a cigarette he realized that his hands were trembling. It seemed foolish to be nervous about seeing Pattie, but he was. Her father, Congressman Atherton of Rhode Island, had arranged for her to join a military flight over, and she was due in ten minutes. For a brief moment B.J. wished that he had had a drink before he left the house. And then suddenly he saw the plane, circling high above and then drifting lower, heading toward the runway, and finally making a graceful landing, then taxiing down the runway toward the small hastily erected building where he stood. He stood very still as he watched two colonels and a major step down the gangway, then a small cluster of military aides, one woman dressed in the uniform of a military nurse, and then he felt his heart break into a gallop as he saw her, standing at the top of the gangway, looking across the tarmac until she saw him, waving and smiling gaily, the raven hair neatly tucked into a bright red hat. She was wearing a fur coat and dark stockings, and she touched the railing, as she made her way down the stairway, with one elegant little hand neatly encased in a black kid glove. He was struck, even at this distance, by how pretty she was. That was the right word for Pattie. Pretty. She wasn't beautiful like Serena. She wasn't striking. But she was pretty, with a brilliant smile, wide baby doll blue eyes, and a little turned up nose. In the summer her face was lightly dusted with freckles when she went to Newport with her parents and summered at their fourteen bedroom "cottage" with all the other friends she joined there every year. Pretty little Pattie Atherton. He felt his stomach quiver as he watched her. He wanted to run toward her as she was running toward him, but something stopped him. |
| 625 |
The major had sat with Marcella for almost an hour, trying to piece together what had happened and figure out where she might have gone. There weren't many places he could think of. She certainly wouldn't go to her grandmother's house in Venice with strangers living there, and as far as Marcella knew, there was nowhere else. She had no friends or relatives to go to, and the only thing that B.J. could think of was that she had gone back to the States. But she couldn't have done that at a moment's notice. She'd have to get another visa and make arrangements. Maybe she was staying somewhere in Rome and she would attempt to get a visa back to America in the morning. He couldn't call the American Embassy until the morning to check on that. There was nothing he could do. He felt powerless, empty, and afraid. Brad questioned Marcella until the old peasant woman was wrung dry. Serena had run into their quarters from the door that led into the garden, rushed into her room, and locked the door. Marcella knew that because she had tried to go in when she had heard her crying, but Serena wouldn't let her in. Half an hour later Serena had emerged, red eyed, pale, and with her suitcase in her hand. She had told Marcella simply that she was leaving, and in answer to the old woman's tears and entreaties, she had said only that she had no choice. At first Marcella thought that she had been fired, at this the old woman cast a sidelong glance of apology at the major, explaining that she had thought that it was all because of him. But Serena had insisted that it wasn't, that it was a problem that had nothing to do with him, and that she had to leave Rome at once. Marcella wondered if she was in danger, because the girl had looked so distraught that it was hard to tell if she were only upset or also frightened, and with tears, and kisses, and a last hug, Serena fled. Marcella had been sobbing hopelessly in her room for almost two hours when she heard the major's knock on the door, and hoped that it was Serena, having changed her mind. |
| 626 |
He'd go back to the States. He'd do anything, and eventually he would find her, and he would tell her that he loved her and ask her to be his wife. He was entirely sure of his feelings as he lay there, and not a single thought of Pattie crossed his mind as he whiled away the hours, lying there, thinking of Serena, and wondering again and again where she could have gone. It was only when a cock crowed in the distance at five thirty, that he suddenly shot up in bed with a look of amazement and stared out the window. "Oh, my God!" How could he have forgotten? It should have been the first place he thought of. With lightning speed he threw back the covers, ran into the bathroom, showered, shaved, and by ten minutes before six he was dressed. He left a note for his secretary and his assistants, explaining that he had been called away on a matter that was urgent, and for his secretary he left an additional note asking him to be kind enough to "cover his ass." He left all the memos where they would see them, and then slipped on a heavy jacket and hurried downstairs. He had to speak to Marcella, and he was relieved to see a light under her door when he got downstairs. He knocked softly twice and a moment later the old woman opened the door to him, at first with a look of astonishment to see him there, and then one of confusion when she saw that he was in civilian garb and not the uniform she was used to seeing him in every day. "Yes?" She still looked startled as she stepped back for him to enter, but he shook his head and smiled with a warm look in his deep gray eyes. "Marcella, I think I may know where to find her. But I need your help. The farm in Umbria... can you tell me how to get there?" Marcella looked more startled still for a long moment and then she nodded, frowning, thoughtful. She looked into his eyes again, with a hopeful gleam in her own. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering, and then brought him a pencil and a piece of paper, and waved him to a chair. |
| 627 |
It was here that one remembered that there had been a war on not so very long ago. One still saw signs of the damage everywhere, and there were times when B.J. thought that neither he nor the jeep would survive. He had brought with him all of his military papers, and had the jeep collapsed beneath him, he would have commandeered anything he had to, to reach the farm. As it was, it was after dark when he got there, traveling down the uninhabited, rutted road in the direction that Marcella had described to him, but he began to wonder in a few moments if he had taken the wrong turn. Nothing looked familiar according to the directions, and he stopped the car in the darkness. It didn't help him that there was even no moon by which to travel, and there were dark clouds passing through the sky as he looked up and then at the horizon beyond. But as he did so, he suddenly saw a cluster of buildings in the distance, huddling together as though for warmth, and he realized with a long tired sigh that he had found the farm. He turned the jeep back until he found a narrow, rutted lane, and followed it through overgrown bushes in the direction of the building he had seen on the horizon, and a few moments later, splashing through deep potholes, he reached what must have once been a large courtyard, or a kind of main square. There was a large house facing him, barns stretching out toward the right, and an orchard both to the left and behind him. Even in the darkness he could see that it was a large place, that it was deserted. The house looked weather beaten and empty, the doors of the barns had fallen off their hinges, there was grass growing waist high between the cobblestones in the courtyard, and what farm equipment there had once been stood rusting and broken in the orchard, which obviously had not been tended for years. He stood there for a long moment, wondering where to go now. Back to Rome? Into a village? To a nearby farm? But there were none. There was nothing here, and no one, and surely not Serena. |
| 628 |
An animal? A cat? A dream? Or perhaps someone very frightened at his intrusion. Realizing how mad he was to have come on this solitary adventure, he kept his eyes in the direction of what he had seen, and walked slowly backward toward the jeep. When he reached it, he leaned inside, and took out his pistol, he cocked it and then began to walk forward, wielding an unlit flashlight in his other hand. He was almost certain now of where he had seen the movement, and he could see a form huddled in a corner, crouched behind a bush. For an instant he realized how insane it was that he should be pursuing this encounter, that he might perhaps die, for no reason at all, on a deserted farm in the Italian countryside in search of a woman, six months after the end of the war. After all he had survived in the years before that, it seemed ironic that he could die now, he thought as he inched his way forward along the building, his heart racing. When he had come within a dozen feet of where he had seen the movement, he pressed himself into a narrow nook, took what refuge he could find, and instantly shot one arm forward with the flashlight held aloft. He switched it on, and set it down, poised at the same instant with his gun, and like his victim's, his eyes blinked for a moment in the sudden light, as he realized with terror that it was not a cat at all. It was someone hunched over and hiding, a dark cap pulled low over his brow, hands held aloft. "Come out of there! I'm with the American army!" He felt a little foolish saying the words, but he hadn't been sure what else to say, and the form, a tall angular shape in the dark blue wool, moved forward and stood staring at him now, as he gave a whoop and then grinned. It was Serena. She stood wide eyed, her face white with terror and then with astonishment as he approached. "Come here, damn you! I told you to come out of there!" But B.J. didn't wait for her to move, he ran toward her, and before she could say a word, he had enfolded her in his arms. |
| 629 |
And moments later she was being whisked down the driveway, then passing familiar sights on the way to Termini Station, from where she would leave Rome. She caught a quick glimpse of the Fontana di Trevi, the Spanish Steps, the Piazza Navona, and then she was there in the bustle of people hurrying to catch trains, carrying suitcases and packages, looking hopeful, or tired, or excited like Serena, who suddenly looked terribly young as she took her suitcase from the orderly who had brought her to the station, and then stuck out her hand to shake his before she boarded the train. "Thank you. Grazie mille." She was beaming at him. The tears she had shed with Marcella were long gone, and all she could think of now was B.J. She felt not as though she were leaving, but as though she were going home. "Good bye..." she whispered softly to herself as the train picked up speed, and she saw the familiar outline of her city begin to fade in the distance. There were no tears in her eyes this time, all she could think of now was Paris and what awaited her there. They arrived in Paris just after noon. As they approached the city she saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and assorted monuments she knew nothing about and then slowly the train drew into the Gare de Lyon, and as it rolled slowly the last feet into the station, Serena stood up and pressed her face against the window, peering into the distance to see if she could find B.J. waiting for the train. There were small clusters of people waiting, but nowhere could she see him, and she began to worry that she wouldn't find him at all. It was a big station and she felt suddenly very much alone. She picked up her suitcase as the train came to a full stop, and reached for the little basket Marcella had put her provisions in, and then slowly she filed out of the compartment with the others and stepped hesitantly off the train. Once again she looked around, her eyes combing the long platform and the unfamiliar faces as her heart pounded madly within her. |
| 630 |
In return they had cared for the beautiful home with constant love and attention, hidden the most valuable objects and the best paintings in a secret room beneath the basement, which even the Germans had not found, and now during the reign of the Americans in Paris, they were still tending the house as though it were theirs. Like the palazzo in Rome, the halls here were of marble, but here the marble was a soft peachy rose. The Louis XV benches, set at regular intervals down the hallway, were trimmed with gilt and upholstered in a pale peach velvet. There were two exquisite paintings by Turner, of rich Venetian sunsets, a large inlaid Louis XV chest with a pink marble slab on top, and several other small exquisite pieces scattered here and there. From the hall one could glimpse the garden, visible through tall French windows, which led out onto the little paved paths bordered by pretty flowers in spring. Now the garden had little to offer, and it was into the main salon that they turned, as Serena stared in awe. The room was done in deep red damask and white velvet, there were heavy Napoleonic pieces, upholstered chaise longues in bold raspberry and cream stripes, and two huge Chinese urns beside a priceless desk. There were huge portraits of members of the baron's family, and a fireplace, large enough for the major to stand in, in which there was now a blazing fire. It was a room designed to cause one to catch one's breath in admiration and wonder, and yet at the same time it was a room that beckoned one to come inside and sit down. Serena glanced around with delight at little Chinese objets d'art, Persian rugs, and a series of smaller portraits by Zorn, of the baron and his sisters as children, and B.J. led the way into a smaller wood paneled room beyond. Here too there was a roaring fire waiting, but the fireplace was smaller, and three walls of the room were filled with beautifully bound books. Here and there were gaps on the shelves, which Pierre pointed to with dismay. |
| 631 |
The German had been a man of honor, and had not removed anything else. On the same floor there was also a beautiful little oval breakfast room that looked out on the garden, and a formal dining room beyond it, with exquisite murals of a Chinese village on the wall. The paper had been preserved since the eighteenth century and had been designed in England originally for the Duke of Yorkshire, but one of the baron's ancestors had bought it directly from the artist and spirited it into France. The furniture had the typical clawed feet and scroll backs of Chippendale, and there was a splendid English sideboard that was waxed to a rich shine. And as Serena passed admiringly through the rooms she was reminded of her grandmother's house in Venice, but this was less sumptuous and yet more so. The Italian palazzi she had lived in had all been larger and showier than this, and yet this house was filled with such exquisite pieces that, even though it was smaller, it seemed somehow more impressive. It was more like a museum and as she wandered through it she marveled to herself and sotto voce to B.J. that they had been able to preserve everything as it was throughout the war. It was also especially touching that the old butler had trusted B.J. enough to bring out some of the really good things. "The old boy is quite something." B.J. indicated Pierre in a whisper as they followed the old butler upstairs. Marie Rose, his wife, had disappeared to the kitchen to get Serena something to eat. "From what he tells me, he had most of this hidden in the basement. And I get the feeling that some of the best pieces are still there." But he couldn't have hidden the furniture, Serena knew, or not all of it, and it was remarkable that none of the beautiful pieces she saw around her had been damaged or taken over the years. Upstairs there were four pretty bedrooms. A large handsome master bedroom done in a rich blue satin, with smooth, shining woods everywhere, a handsome chaise longue, a cozy love seat, a small desk, and another fireplace. |
| 632 |
And then he saw him, standing fifty yards away, watching them, a grin lighting up his face, making the blue eyes dance, Brad knew, without even seeing him closely. He could already imagine the little wrinkles near his eyes when he smiled. He had a way of smiling that lit up his whole face and made two deep dimples that had been his misery as a child. He was wearing white flannel slacks, a blue blazer, and a boater, and he looked wonderful to Brad as he hurried toward them. Suddenly all he wanted to do was hug him tight, but it was to Serena that Teddy was hurrying, a huge bouquet, of red roses tucked into his arms, the smile Brad loved lighting up his face, and his eyes only for her, like a long lost brother or friend. He stopped dead in front of her, looking dumbstruck at her overwhelming elegance and beauty, and threw his arms around her, in a hug that took her breath away. "Hello, Serena. Welcome home!" He said it with an emphasis and enthusiasm that brought smiles to their faces and tears to their eyes, and Serena returned his hug with equal strength as he held her. It was like being enfolded by someone one had always loved and wanted to be loved by. "I'm so glad you're both here." He looked over her shoulder at his favorite brother, and Brad couldn't wait a moment longer. He threw his arms around them both, and they stood there, laughing and crying, the three of them locked in a bear hug and standing beside the huge ship that had brought them home. It seemed ages before Teddy let her go, and she stood back to look up at the younger brother she had heard so much about. He was even taller than Brad, and in some ways better looking, and yet not, she realized as she looked at their faces while they chattered eagerly about everything, the wedding, their parents, the trip. Brad's features were more perfect, his shoulders broader, and he seemed a great deal more sophisticated as she looked at her husband with pride. Yet Teddy had something special, and it was impossible not to see it. |
| 633 |
A moment later they pulled up in front of the awning of their building, and the doorman rushed forward to open the door, as Jimmie stepped out to take over. "Is Mother upstairs?" Brad wanted the meeting over with. His eyes bored into Teddy's, as if trying to take support and energy from his younger brother to help protect and buffer his wife. "Not yet. She won't be home till three. We'll have the place to ourselves, while Serena gets acquainted." It was a kind of blessing. Serena meekly followed her husband and brother in law inside, into a richly paneled, tapestry hung lobby, with high ceilings and marble floors, immense plants, and a chandelier worthy of Versailles twinkling down at them. Brad and Ted whisked her into the elevator and up to the top floor, where the hallway led to a single apartment, the penthouse overlooking Central Park, where all three boys had grown up, and which sent a little shiver of excitement down Brad's spine now as Teddy unlocked the door and stood aside for them to enter. Two maids in black uniforms with lace aprons and caps were frantically dusting the main hallway. It was paneled in extraordinarily beautiful Japanese screens, the floors were a harlequin black and white marble, and here again was a beautiful chandelier, but this one much more so than the one in the lobby. It was a Waterford piece, over two hundred years old, and a work of art in itself, which matched the elaborate sconces along the walls. The whole entrance reminded Serena of a brilliantly lit ballroom. The maids were quick to welcome Brad home, and they went off to report to the cook that he was back, and he promised to go out to the kitchen to see her in a minute. But first he wanted to show Serena the apartment where he had grown up. In its own way it reminded her of the palazzo. It was smaller of course, and it was after all an apartment, yet it had a grandiose quality to it more typical of a house, and the way it was decorated looked not unlike the assorted homes in which she had grown up. |
| 634 |
They left her with an enormous fortune. She had been well counseled by the partners in her father's law firm and a year later she had married Charles Fullerton and merged her fortune with his. Hers had been born of the country's steel mills, and had been sweetened over the years with important land holdings and the acquisition of numerous banks. Charles Fullerton, on the other hand, was of a family whose money had been derived from more genteel sources. They had made a fortune in tea in the previous century, had added to it enormous profits from coffee, had huge holdings in Brazil and Argentina, England and France, Ceylon and the Far East. It was a fortune that had boggled even her mind, and Margaret Hastings Fullerton didn't boggle easily. She had always had a remarkable understanding of the financial world, a fascination with politics and international affairs, and had her parents lived, her father would probably have seen to it that she married a diplomat or a statesman, possibly even the President of the United States. As it was, she met Charles Fullerton instead, the only son of Bradford Jarvis Fullerton n. Charles had three sisters, all of whose husbands had gone to work for Charles's father. They traveled extensively and constantly throughout the world, managed the companies well and satisfied the old man in all possible ways, except one. They were not his sons, and Charles was, but Charles had no interest whatsoever in inheriting his father's throne at the head of the empire. He wanted a quiet life, to practice law, to travel as little as possible, and to reap the fruits of all that his father and grandfather had created. It was Margaret who found the Fullerton investments fascinating, who wanted him to join the others, and eventually take over the firm. But she knew within months of their marriage that there was no hope of that. She was married to one of the country's richest men, and he didn't give a damn about the excitement of how that fortune had been created. |
| 635 |
He joined several friends from law school, formed his own firm, and practiced law in his own quiet way. He had none of the flamboyance or ambition of his forebears. Nor did he have the steely drive of his wife, who in truth was much like his father. She and the old man had got along famously until he died, and it was she who had truly mourned when the empire was sold off bit by bit. Gone were the vast holdings in exotic countries, gone the dreams that one day Charles would change his mind and take his place in charge of it all, gone her hopes of being the force behind the throne. She had turned her ambitions then from international business to politics. And here, for a brief time, she had succeeded. She had managed to convince Charles that what he wanted most in life was a seat in the Senate. It would enhance his career, help his law firm, delight his wife and friends, and she assured him that it was everything he wanted. In truth, he had found it tedious and boring, he had disliked spending time in Washington, and he had refused to run again when his term came to an end. With relief he had returned to his law firm in New York, leaving Margaret with no illusions and few dreams. He had carved a niche for himself that he wanted, a quiet spot behind a desk in New York, and he wanted nothing more. If it was not enough for her, it was nonetheless more than adequate for him. All that remained for Margaret Fullerton was to turn her hopes toward her sons. Bradford was certainly the most enterprising of her sons, but like his father, he was untractable and did exactly as he wished. None of the jobs he had had so far had been what Margaret would have called important, he refused to use the connections he had, and although he had some interest in politics, she was beginning to doubt that it was enough ambition in that direction to make him alter the course of his life. What he wanted, not unlike his father, Margaret had often thought with dismay, was a life that was "pleasant" and meant something to him. |
| 636 |
He had no interest in power, as she saw it, industry or commerce on a grand scale, or an empire like that of his ancestors. Greg, on the other hand, was a great deal more malleable. Though he was not as bright as Brad, in him she saw more hope, and by marrying a congressman's daughter, he would certainly be in the right circle to pursue politics if that was the direction in which he was pushed. And Margaret knew that she could count on Pattie to get Greg moving. Teddy was another matter entirely, and Margaret had known that about her youngest child, almost from the day he was born. Theodore Harper Fullerton moved at his own pace, in his own time, in precisely the direction he wanted. He had his mother's drive, but in none of the same veins. And now he was about to pursue his career in medicine with the same kind of energy and determination that she would have had, if she had had a career of her own. One couldn't help but respect Teddy, but she steered clear of him too. He was not someone she could influence, or even move at times, and it was with him that she locked horns constantly. They disagreed about everything, from politics to the weather. Particularly this recent business about Brad's little harlot from Rome. She had told the entire family exactly what she thought about that nonsense, and more specifically she had told her husband precisely what she thought needed to be done. It was a shame that nothing could be done before he brought her to New York, but with Greg's wedding coming so quickly, she didn't have time to go to Paris to see them. She would just have to take care of it when they came to New York. And she was sure that there would be no problem. It was obvious that the girl was after his money, from what Pattie had said, but it still wasn't too late to buy her off. They would pay her passage back to Europe, give her a handsome sum to unload her, and the annulment proceedings would be begun at once. If she was smart and willing to cooperate, Brad didn't even have to know about their arrangement. |
| 637 |
When Serena came down the stairs of the apartment before the rehearsal dinner, it was easy to believe that she was a principessa. For the glimmer of an eye, even her mother in law looked slightly awed. She was wearing a shimmering white silk dress, woven with threads of gold, draped over one shoulder and falling in a gently draped cascade of shimmering folds. The dress fell straight from her shoulder to her feet, and didn't show her slowly enlarging waistline. She looked like a goddess, as she stood beside her husband, with a white flower in her hair, gold sandals on her feet, and her lovely face made up to perfection. Teddy whistled and even Greg looked more than a little stunned. The group left together a few minutes after they had assembled in the front hall, the three brothers, their parents, and Serena. Pattie and her parents were meeting them at the club, where a private room for the rehearsal dinner had been arranged. The groom's mother was wearing a floor length red satin dress with a little cape in the same fabric, which she had ordered from Dior, and her white hair looked startling in contrast, as she swept into the car, with Greg and Teddy on either side. Her husband chose to sit on one of the jumpseats in the limousine, and Brad and Serena sat in front, which at least kept Serena away from Margaret, a fact for which Teddy was thankful, as he attempted to maneuver things that way from the first. He had promised himself that he would do all he could to make Serena's evening bearable. Since her husband didn't know what agony his mother had caused, the least Teddy could do was be there for her. Serena was deeply grateful to him once again, as their eyes met, and she knew he understood and would not betray her. It was extraordinary to realize that she had only finally met him the day before and they were already fast friends. It was as though he were her brother too, and always had been, as she glanced into the backseat and caught his eye and he grinned at her. |
| 638 |
And she couldn't even see Brad or Teddy directly from where she was sitting. She felt as though she were stranded in the midst of strangers, and where he was sitting, Brad felt exactly the same way. He was particularly annoyed at the seating, which had been arranged by his mother. Sitting him next to Pattie seemed a tactless thing to do, but traditionally, as he was the best man, no one could really find fault with his sitting next to the bride. The maid of honor was seated next to Greg, and all of the other bridesmaids and ushers were seated down the sides of the table. On the whole it was a very convivial evening, and Brad managed to talk a great deal to the girl on his left, a tall girl with red hair who had gone to school with Pattie at Vassar, and she had just returned from a long stay with friends in Paris, so at least they had something in common and something to say. She had also spent several years in San Francisco as a child, so she knew that city, and she told him some of the things she thought he needed to know before moving out there, about parts of town that were more or less foggy in case he didn't want a house on the base, ideal spots to spend a day on the beach, places to fish, favorite parks, wonderful places to go with children. None of it was very serious conversation, but it gave them something to talk about and it relieved him at least of having to talk to Pattie, until he suddenly found himself alone with her right after the dancing started, the redheaded girl having been claimed by the usher on her left, and Greg having gone off with the matron of honor. It left Brad, next to Pattie, with almost all of the others on the dance floor, and it suddenly seemed very uncomfortable to be seated next to her alone. He glanced to his right, and found that she was looking at him, and somewhat ruefully he smiled at her, trying not to think of what had happened in Rome. "Looks like we've been deserted." It was a dumb thing to say, but he couldn't imagine what to say to her. |
| 639 |
Serena was sedately led to her seat by her brother in law Teddy, in St. James Church on Madison Avenue, in New York, at exactly ten minutes before eleven. The church was filled with towering trees of white flowers and everywhere there were garlands of fragrant white blossoms, lily of the valley, fressia, white roses, tiny spicy white carnations, with mists of white baby's breath intertwined among the larger flowers. There were white satin ribbons threaded between the trees, and a long white satin runner down the aisle. But the atmosphere in the church was solemn more than festive, and on either side of the aisle were elegantly dressed women and men in dark suits or striped trousers, there were large flowered hats and bright colors, and old people and young faces, as the organ began to play softly. Serena had been placed in a pew by herself, and a few moments later two imposing looking dowagers joined her. One wore an elaborate crepe dress in deep purple, with amethyst brooches, and a huge rope of pearls, and a lorgnette through which she frequently glanced at Serena. The lady with her was more somberly dressed, but her quiet gray silk suit was highlighted by several very large diamonds. Here and there Serena saw familiar faces from the rehearsal dinner, and at frequent intervals she found herself glancing at Teddy, as though for comfort. She had only known him for a few days, and yet she already thought of him as someone she loved and could depend on. He stopped near where she was sitting once, squeezed her shoulder gently, and went back to his duties. And at exactly one minute to eleven the huge front doors were closed, the organ began to play more loudly, and there was a sudden hush in the church, unbroken even by whispers, and as though by magic the ushers and bridesmaids began to appear, in a solemn procession of cutaways and striped trousers and organdy dresses in palest peach. There were picture hats to match, and the dresses were so lovely that Serena gazed at them in fascination. |
| 640 |
They had enormous Victorian sleeves and high necks, tiny waists, and full skirts with elegant little trains. Each bridesmaid carried a bouquet of tiny roses in the same color, and when the last of the bridesmaids had passed by and the flower girl appeared, she was wearing a miniature version of the same dress, except that the sleeves were tiny round puffs and there was no train over which she could fall. She carried a silver basket filled with rose petals, and she had an angelic face, as she giggled at her brother who wore a short black velvet suit and solemnly carried a velvet cushion on which lay both rings. Serena smiled at the children with damp eyes, and then turned to see who came behind them, and as she did she caught her breath at the vision that stood there. It was a fairy princess in a dress of lace so magnificent that Serena thought she had never seen anything like it. It was obviously an heirloom. A gasp and a murmur ran through the church as Pattie stood there in the high necked full sleeved gown of her great grandmother. The dress was well over a hundred years old. There was a short necklace of exquisite diamonds that she wore at her neck, a tiny tiara that had been made to match, and pearls and diamonds glittered in her ears, and all around her hung a cloud of veil that seemed to sweep behind her for miles, covering her train and most of the aisle as she marched regally by on her father's arm. It was impossible not to feel dwarfed beside her, her dark beauty in sharp contrast to the soft white, and Serena was absolutely certain that she was the most beautiful bride she had ever seen. It was impossible to associate, even for a moment, this totally perfect scene with all that Brad had told her about Partie. This couldn't be the same woman, Serena found herself thinking. This was a goddess, a fairy princess. It was she who looked like a principessa, Serena mused as she sat there. And then with a heavy heart she realized that it was she who could have been Brad's wife. |
| 641 |
He had worn his uniform for their arrival, since officially he would be reporting for duty, and he stepped into the main building with his hat under his arm, and disappeared while Serena waited and looked around her. The influence of the architecture seemed to be mostly Spanish, the view of the bay and the bridge were superb, and some of the houses on the base looked very handsome. She was amazed at how quickly Brad emerged from the building, with a broad smile, and a set of keys in his hand, which he dangled at her. He gave the driver instructions, and they wound their way back up another hill, through the woods, and stopped when they reached a point that seemed to float above the entire setting. Here there was a cluster of four houses, all very large and quite solid, in the same Spanish style, and Brad pointed to the one at the end of the cluster. "For us?" Serena looked stunned. The house was splendid. "Yes, ma'am." Serena was impressed at how well they treated a colonel, but he was grinning at her oddly as he opened the door and carried her inside. "Do you like it?" "It's so lovely!" They wandered around their house then. Someone had had the foresight to leave them some towels and sheets. Serena realized that they would have to go out and buy furniture, but the house itself was lovely. It had a big Spanish style kitchen, which someone had redecorated in blue and white Mexican tile. There were overhead hooks for plants, huge windows that looked out over the bay, and a door that opened into the garden. There was also a handsome formal dining room, with a domed ceiling, a small chandelier, and a fireplace; a living room, which also had a splendid view of the Bay, and an even larger fireplace. Upstairs there was a cozy wood paneled den, and three very pleasant bedrooms, all of them with views of the water. It was perfect for them, the baby, and even gave them a room for Teddy. Serena was quick to point that out, and Brad looked at her, as though he had never been as happy. |
| 642 |
But as things turned out, it wasn't quite as ferocious during the first semester as he had feared. And although he had a mountain of reading to do most of the time, he still managed to come into town to see them, particularly at the end of Serena's pregnancy. He wanted to be there if something momentous happened. He had already told Brad that when the time came he wanted to be around. Brad had promised to call him at Stanford in case she went into labor, and they both assumed that Teddy would have time to come into town on the train and walk the halls with his brother for as long as it took the baby to arrive. On the third weekend in December, Teddy was on vacation from school and staying with them, and Serena's due date was still four days away. Brad was gone for the day on mock war maneuvers in San Leandro, and Teddy was upstairs studying for exams. Serena was in the baby's room, folding tiny white nightgowns and checking things over for what Teddy accused her of being the four hundredth time. She was just putting the nightgowns back into the drawer when she heard a strange sound almost like a pop, and then suddenly felt a gush of warm water run down her legs, and splash onto the shiny wood floor. She stood there for a moment, looking startled, and then walked slowly into the baby's bathroom, to get some towels so that the fluid wouldn't stain the floor. She felt an odd sensation of cramping both in her back and low in her stomach and knew that she had to call the doctor, but first she wanted to take care of the floor. He had already explained to her that at the first sign of pains, or if the bag of waters ruptured, she was to call him, but she knew from that time it would still take many hours. She wasn't even worried about Brad being in San Leandro. He would be back in time for dinner, and there was nothing he could do after he drove her to the hospital anyway. They wouldn't let him see her while she was in labor, and at least this way he would be spared some of the pacing with Teddy. |
| 643 |
There was no reason at all why Teddy couldn't take her to the hospital and then come back later with Brad. She felt a sudden surge of excitement as she realized that the time had come and in a few hours she would be holding her baby and she laughed to herself as she knelt on the floor with the towels, but the laughter caught in her throat and she had to clutch the chest of drawers to keep from screaming, a cramp had seized her so brutally that she could barely breathe. It seemed hours before it had ended, and there was a damp veil of sweat on her forehead when at last it had passed. It was definitely time to call the doctor, she realized, and she was a little startled to discover that the first contraction could be so painful. No one had warned her that it would start with such vehemence. In fact the doctor had told her that at first she probably wouldn't even know what the pains were. But there was no mistaking this, or the next one, as it brought her to her knees halfway back to the bathroom with the damp towels, and she suddenly felt a pressure so sharp and so heavy that she fell to all fours on the floor. She held her stomach and moaned both in pain and terror, and in his room Teddy thought he heard a strange sound like an animal moaning, but after a moment he decided it was the wind and went back to his studies, but a minute or so later he heard it again. He picked up his head and frowned, and then suddenly he realized that it was someone groaning and he heard the sound of his own name. Frightened, he stood up, not sure of where it had come from, and then realizing that it was Serena, he ran out into the hall. "Serena? Where are you?" But as he stood only a few feet away around a bend in the hallway, she was in the grips of yet another pain so forceful that she was unable to breathe or speak his name again. "Serena? Serena? Where are you?" A terrible moan met his ears, and he hastened toward it, coming through the door of the baby's room and finding her in the bathroom doorway, crouched on the floor. |
| 644 |
God, how he wanted to stay with her, he thought to himself as he looked at her. Yet he knew that he had to go. It was something that he had to do for himself and his brother, no matter what anyone said. His mother had flown out from New York in a fury, threatening to pull strings, use connections, and get him kicked out of the service. But he was so vehement about his decision that in the end even she capitulated. One had to respect his motives and his way of thinking. What was terrifying was the possibility that he might be killed. Serena tried not to think about it as she reached out to touch him just one last time. They had an extraordinary bond between them, had had from the beginning, and it had strengthened when he had delivered Vanessa. But in the past two months there had been something more, being with Teddy was like holding on to a part of Brad. It allowed her to hold on to him in some distant, melancholy way. And now she was losing Teddy too. But hopefully not forever. "Serena..." He started to say something, and then stopped as the boat horn sounded, blotting out everything else that anyone said. It bleated three more times, and a gong sounded. It was time to go, and Serena felt a rush of panic, as he grabbed her, pulled her toward him, and held her tight. "I'll be back. Just know that." "I love you." Her eyes filled with tears and she shouted it in his ear as she clung to him. He nodded, picked up his bag, and moved onto the ship with the others. It was several minutes before she saw him again, standing high above her, on the deck, waving slowly, and she couldn't fight back the tears. They streamed down her face unrestrained, until at last the horns bleated again, in concert with the foghorns in the distance, and the ship began to pull out slowly. She felt as though it were pulling her heart with it, and when the ship was swallowed up entirely by the fog, she turned away slowly and went back to her car with her head down, and tears still pouring from her eyes. |
| 645 |
But she needed more than that now. She needed someone there to hold her hand, to reassure her that she would make it. There were times in the ensuing months when she really wondered if she would survive. Months when she could barely pay the rent, when bills were overdue, when they ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or only eggs. She had never known this kind of poverty before. During the war the nuns had kept her safe, and at the palazzo in Rome after that, she and Marcella had been well provided for, but now there was no one to turn to, no one to help her, no one to lend her money when she only had two dollars left and wouldn't get paid for another three days. Time and again she thought of the agreement she had signed with Margaret Fullerton. If she had never been forced to sign that damned piece of paper, at least she and Vanessa would have been able to eat. Vanessa would have had pretty clothes to wear and more than just one beat up pair of little shoes. Once, in desperation, she almost turned to them for help, but she couldn't, and in her heart of hearts she knew it wouldn't have done any good. Margaret Fullerton was so vehement and irrational in her hatred of Serena that there was nothing Serena could say or do to change her mind. It was a hatred so broad and deep that it even reached out to envelop Vanessa, her only grandchild. Margaret didn't give a damn if they did starve. Serena suspected that she probably hoped they would. Only the joy of finding Vanessa at the end of a day kept her going. Only the letters from Teddy warmed her heart. Only the money from her modeling at the department store kept them alive. There were days when she thought she would drop from exhaustion and when she wanted to cry with despair. But day after day, six days a week, she went downtown to model, to wander around the floors in the latest creations, to hand out perfume samples, to stand near the front door in a striking fur coat, to model in the fashion shows when they had them. |
| 646 |
It wasn't until the second year that she was promoted to the designer salon. And then she modeled for special customers, or in the big shows. She wore only their finest designer dresses from New York or Paris, and she was rapidly learning the tricks of her trade, how to do her hair in half a dozen flattering styles, how to do her makeup to perfection, how to move, how to smile, how to sell the clothes just by weaving a kind of spell. And whereas she was beautiful before, with the new skills she was learning, she was even more remarkable looking than she had been before. People talked about her in the store, and often people stared at her. The women customers looked at her in envy, but more often with a kind of fascination, as though she were a work of art. Their husbands stared at Serena, utterly awed by her beauty, and it wasn't long before the store's advertising agency saw her, and they made her their main model for the store. Every week her photograph was in the papers, and by the end of her second year at the store people began to recognize her around town. Men asked her out. She got invited to parties by relative strangers, but her answer was always the same. Without exception she declined. Her only interest was in returning home to Vanessa, to play with the little golden haired child who looked so much like B.J., to sing silly songs with her at the little piano Serena had bought at an auction, to read her stories, and to share their dreams. Serena told her that one day she would be a beautiful, famous lady... "Like you, Mommy?" Serena smiled. "No, much prettier than I am, silly. Everyone will stop to stare at you in the street, and you will be successful and happy." Serena would stare into space for a moment, thinking of her own dreams. Was that what she wanted? To be stared at? To be successful? For her, modeling had been the only answer, but it was a strange life, making her living by how she looked, and often she felt foolish and unimportant, like the mannequin she literally was. |
| 647 |
After a while no one even tried to make friends with her. They had no way of knowing how lonely she was behind the cool facade of the princess. Only Teddy knew when he read her letters, her pain and loneliness and the still fresh grief for her husband were obvious between the lines. "It's amazing to see," she wrote to him after Christmas, "how they all misunderstand me. They think me cold and snobbish, I suppose, and I let them. It's easier, and safer perhaps, than allowing them to know how much I hurt inside." She still missed Brad, but it was more than that now. She missed someone. Someone to talk to and to share with and to laugh with, and go for walks on the beach with. She couldn't bear to do the things she had done with Brad, or even with Teddy, they only made her feel more lonely, and reminded her of how alone she was. "I feel at times as though this will go on forever. I will always be alone, here, with Vanessa, night after night and year after year, in this apartment, working at the store, and no one will ever know me. It frightens me sometimes, Teddy. It is as though you are the only one left who has truly known me..." There was of course Marcella, but it had been years since she had seen her, and Marcella was part of another life now. The letters that she dictated to someone else to be sent to Serena were always stilted and awkward, and left an empty chasm there too. In effect there was only Teddy, thousands of miles away in Korea, and it was only in the last few months of the war that they both began to realize what had happened. After two and a half years of writing letters, baring their souls to each other, holding each other up across the miles, she finally understood why there had been no one in almost three years. She was waiting for him. The morning that she heard the news that the war was over, she was working at the store, and wearing a black velvet evening suit with a stiff white organdy collar, and she stood in the middle of the designer salon with tears streaming down her face. |
| 648 |
How different it was from the day he had left on the ship in Oakland. And how different he felt. He had been gone for three years, and he had just turned thirty. And he felt as though in three years of war everything about him had changed. His interests, his needs, his priorities, his values. On the long flight over from Japan he had wondered again and again how he was going to fit in. For almost three years he hadn't seen his family. His mother's letters had been newsy, but he had always felt light years away from home. Greg had only managed one or two letters a year. His father had died the year before. And most of his friends had eventually stopped writing, except Serena. His main contact with civilization had been with her, and now suddenly he was back, in the midst of a world no longer familiar, looking for a woman he hadn't seen in three years. His eyes searched the crowd, and he wandered slowly toward where the visitors were gathered. Signs waved, bunches of flowers were held aloft, tears streamed down faces, frantic hands reached out to husbands and sons and lovers who had been gone for years. And then suddenly he saw her, so staggeringly beautiful that he felt his heart lurch. She stood very tall, and wide eyed and quiet, in a red silk dress that hung straight and narrow on her body, with her silky blond hair loose on her shoulders, and the emerald green eyes looking straight at him. Like her, he was oddly silent, there were no wild gestures, no running, he just walked steadily toward her, and then as though they both knew, he pulled her into his arms and held her with all his might, as tears ran down both their cheeks, and then forgetting the years that had drifted between them, he kissed her full on the mouth, as though to ease away all the years of loneliness and pain. They held each other that way for long moments, and then at last pulled apart and looked at each other, but her eyes were full and sad as they reached up to his. Teddy had come to her, she knew now, but Brad never would. |
| 649 |
What if she didn't find work here? What if he had been wrong? There was no certain knowing. "I'm glad too. Frightened out of my wits," she said, smiling, "but happy." The very tempo of the town had filled her with excitement on the way in from the airport. He spent the rest of the evening explaining to her how to get around the city, what was where, where not to go, and what were the safest areas. And the more she listened, the more she liked it. She had to go to the agency for her first interview the next day, and she was so excited, she could barely stand it. When Serena appeared at the Kerr Agency the next morning, she was startled at what she found there, gone were the easygoing, relaxed people she had run into modeling in San Francisco. Here everything was business, it was quick fire, high pressure, rushed, and hurried, and there was no fooling around. No casual air surrounded this business, it was an office filled with well dressed, well made up women sitting at desks, speaking on phones with stacks of composites piled up before them, file cards referring to jobs pinned up on boards in front of them, and telephones ringing every time one turned around. Serena was ushered to one of the desks in a businesslike way, and she found herself being looked over by an attractive dark haired woman. The woman at the desk was wearing a crisp beige wool suit, a matching silk shirt, her hair was impeccably combed in a shoulder length pageboy, and hanging over the silk blouse was a thick rope of pearls. "I saw your photographs a few weeks ago," she told Serena. "You're going to need new ones, probably a whole book, and a composite." Serena nodded dumbly, feeling terribly stupid and almost too inarticulate to speak. "Have you got anyone who can do that?" With wide eyes she shook her head. She had worn a pale blue sweater, a gray skirt, a simple navy blue cashmere blazer she had bought at the store in San Francisco, and her long graceful legs seemed endless as she crossed them and the woman noticed the black Dior pumps. |
| 650 |
For an insane moment Serena wanted to laugh. It was almost impossible not to be overwhelmed by what was starting to happen. It couldn't be. It wasn't real. It was crazy. But she glanced at the clock and knew that she had to get moving. "Do I have to wear anything special for the photographs?" "No, Dorothea said she'd have everything sent over. She particularly liked the idea of your being a princess. I think she's going to have him play that up in the shots." For an instant Serena felt acutely nervous, perhaps she shouldn't have told them. But it was too late to stop them now. The woman in beige explained once again all the places where she was expected, wished her luck, and then went back to the stack of composites and file cards on her desk. She arrived at Andrew Morgan's studio at exactly eleven thirty, as she had been told. And she didn't leave it again until almost nine o'clock that night. He shot black and white and color, he did head shots, candid, high fashion, evening dresses, tennis clothes, bathing suits, ermine, chinchilla, sable, Balanciagas, Diors, Givenchys, and jewels. He did her hair up and down and her makeup subtle and heavy and wild and crazy. She had had more clothes and furs and jewels and different outfits on in nine hours with Andrew Morgan than she had worn in all of the years she had worked in San Francisco. He was a tiny elf of a man, with a wonderful smile that lit up his black eyes, horn rimmed glasses, and a shag of silvery gray hair that fell constantly in his eyes, he wore a black turtleneck sweater and black slacks and soft kid jazz dance shoes, and he seemed to leap through the air as he took the pictures. He reminded her constantly of a dancer, and she was so totally enamored of him, that she did all that he told her to do. More than that, he seemed to cast a kind of spell as he worked. She worked tirelessly with him for hours, and it wasn't until she walked in her front door that she realized how exhausted she was. Vanessa was already asleep. |
| 651 |
She wanted to reach for the phone and confide in Dorothea, but she was ashamed to admit that she had fallen so easily for Vasili's charms. As she sat and stared out the window that night, the phone rang. It was Vasili, in Paris, he already missed her and wanted to know how she was, and his voice was so gentle and so sexy that she found herself swept off her feet again. By the next morning the apartment was filled with flowers. There was four baskets of white roses for his princess, and by noon she had received a box from Bergdorf Goodman, containing a spectacular fur coat. "Oh, my God." She stood staring into the mirror, in her nightgown and the mink coat, wondering how she would explain it, and once again the full force of what she had done came to mind. In two hours she had to pick up Vanessa at Grand Central Station, and she knew that Teddy would be back from Newport late that night. She wanted to tell him something, but she felt strange explaining Vasili to him. It had all happened so quickly and with such force. She was pensive and a little nervous as she stood there debating, but the phone rang again and it was Vasili. He wanted her to meet him in London for a few days the following week. And it seemed to her that if she did that, it would at least give her another chance to evaluate how she felt. She accepted quickly, thanked him profusely for the coat, said that she really couldn't accept it, but he insisted. And after they hung up, she put it back in the box and hid it in a suitcase. When she picked up Vanessa at Grand Central, the child was filled with her adventures at camp. She introduced her mother to all of her friends before they tearfully parted at the station, and on the way home she didn't stop once to catch her breath. Serena was grateful that nothing was required of her, all she had to do was ooh and ahh, and make the appropriate affectionate gestures, but she felt as though her mind were already crammed full with her own confusion, and there was no room for anything else, not even Vanessa. |
| 652 |
She had bought beautiful little quilts and some wonderful old children's paintings of storybook characters in watercolors and oils. She herself was going to paint a mural, and Vanessa had been giving up dolls and stuffed animals, anticipating that she'd have a real doll soon. As June drew to an end she was excited about the baby. Serena was eight months pregnant, and it seemed incredible that the time was almost here. Vanessa had been invited to cruise the Greek Islands with Andreas and his family, but she wanted to stay near her mother to see the baby, and she still felt uneasy about going away alone. She didn't want to leave Serena, not even to visit Teddy, who had offered her a vacation in the States with him. "After the baby comes" was her answer to everyone, and Serena laughed when Vasili said the same thing to all invitations. The pregnancy had been surprisingly easy, and the only thing that worried her now was that the same thing might happen with this baby as had happened with Vanessa, and if she started to give birth at home, she knew that Vasili didn't have Teddy's cool head. He was already a nervous wreck at the prospect, and every time she moved in bed, he leaped up, his black eyes starting, a look of shock on his face. "Is it now? Is it now?" "No, silly, go back to sleep." Serena would smile at him, and she lay in bed, thinking of their baby and the years ahead. Everything was peaceful between them and the episode of his heroin use seemed like a distant nightmare now, until one day in the first week of July Vasili didn't come home at night. At first she thought that something awful had happened, like a car accident perhaps, and then as the hours ticked by she began to wonder if it was all happening again. She was racked by terror and anger as she waited up for him until four thirty in the morning, and at five o'clock she heard him come up the front steps. The door slammed soundly behind him, and on bare feet she tiptoed down the front stairs, trembling, with the baby seeming to leap inside her. |
| 653 |
She hardly had time to think about the baby. Vasili's addiction was the only thing on her mind. "No, not yet, but soon. I'll let you know." "I'll try to come before you have it." That night she felt calmer than she had in weeks, knowing that Teddy and Andreas were both coming. She knew that Vanessa would be cared for, and with any luck at all Vasili would be put away for a while. Now all she had to do was try not to have the baby before they got to London. She lay thinking about it all night and Vasili did not come home, and as she began to doze off just before dawn she felt something damp and warm on her legs, as though she were swimming in very warm water. She tried to fall asleep in spite of the impression, not wanting to know what it was, and then suddenly she felt her whole belly seized as though in a giant vise, and she awoke with a start, knowing instantly what she was feeling. "Damn..." she muttered softly. All the women she knew went into labor gently. They had mild pains for hours and wondered if what they were feeling was even labor, instead she leaped into it with both feet. But as she sat up in bed she remembered what both Teddy and her English doctor had told her. She knew she had to hurry if she didn't want to have another baby in her bed, and this time there was no one to help her. She got out of bed as quickly as she could, but she suddenly felt very awkward, the baby had dropped even lower in the past few hours, and she felt severely encumbered as she walked to the bathroom for some towels. As soon as she got there she had another pain, and she had to pant softly in order to bear it. She straightened up then, grabbed a dress off a hanger, pulled off her nightgown, slipped on the cotton dress, slipped her feet into sandals, and grabbed her handbag. She began to laugh softly to herself, feeling excited as she had almost nine years before. To hell with Vasili. She would leave him as soon as she had the baby. All she had to do now was wake Vanessa and get to the hospital. |
| 654 |
They were going to wait until, at the very least, the following morning. And no, they had been unable to turn the baby, but they had every confidence that subsequent efforts would set matters aright. Subsequent efforts would mean that when Serena was in midpain, a nurse or an intern would shove both hands as far in as they could get them and try to turn the baby upside down. The very thought of it was almost more than he could bear when he thought of Serena. He went straight from his office to the airport and checked in at Idlewild at two thirty. The next flight to London left at four, and he called the hospital again. There was no change, but this time they sounded slightly more impressed. Not all of their patients had attending physicians flying in from New York. The four o'clock flight was due to reach London at two o'clock the next morning, which was eight o'clock in the morning in London. He assumed that with any luck at all he could reach the hospital by nine or nine thirty. It was the best he could do, and once he was on the flight, he explained to the steward what he was doing. He was flying to London to deliver a baby by Caesarean with complications for a very important patient. What he needed was a police escort or an ambulance to take him as quickly as possible from the airport to the hospital. The steward spoke at once to the captain, the message was passed along once they established radio contact with London, and when they arrived, Teddy was whisked through customs, out a side door to a waiting ambulance, the sirens were put on, and they sailed through the streets on the way to London. Luck had also been on their side, the flight had arrived half an hour early. It was exactly five minutes after eight when Teddy stepped out of the ambulance into the streets of London. He thanked the ambulance driver, gave him an enormous tip, rushed inside, inquired for the maternity ward, and ran up the stairs, his bag in his hand, to emerge into a large unfriendly waiting room, where he saw Vanessa asleep in a chair. |
| 655 |
There were flowers everywhere for her, mountains of gifts and equipment and goodies for the baby, a stack of dolls and new toys for Vanessa. He had bought them everything he could think of, including an incredible diamond bracelet for Serena. As before when they had tried again, he couldn't do enough for them, and the first time he held the baby, his face looked like a male Madonna. He was totally enthralled by the tiny creature, and completely enamored with her mother. He couldn't be with them enough, and he could hardly wait until Serena could get out with him a little. After two weeks at home she was allowed to go for walks nearby. And after another week he took the baby and Vanessa out with the pram for their first outing. By then it was early September, the weather was balmy, and Vanessa had gone back to school. She was in fourth grade now, and her ninth birthday was approaching. "Happy, darling?" He looked at her proudly as they strolled along, his camera around his neck. He had already taken hundreds of pictures of the baby. "Very much so." But there was something subdued about Serena now, as though she was never happy anymore as she had once been. He sensed it and at times it made him very nervous. He was always afraid now that one day she would leave him. It was as though the days in the Garden of Eden were truly over. They went back to the house that afternoon and played with the baby. He had still not gone back to work after his own stint in the hospital to recover from his addiction. Now he wanted time with Serena and the baby, and Serena began to wonder if his constant absences weren't beginning to affect his career. But Vasili didn't seem to care, and a few days later he said he was going to attend to some business in Paris. He left in great spirits and told her that he would call her from over there, but he didn't. When she tried to reach him at the apartment, she couldn't, and eventually she gave up, and assumed that she would hear from him, but once again the worries set in. |
| 656 |
He was deathly afraid that Vasili would never get out of jail. But Teddy's worries were even greater. Vanessa had been in a kind of stupor ever since she had seen her mother killed. She had begun screaming that morning, and the baby sitter said she had screamed until the police came, and then they had gently led her away. She had clutched Charlie to her until Teddy arrived and took the baby from her. He had taken both children home with him, called a doctor for Vanessa, got a nurse for the baby, and since then he had taken Vanessa to the doctor several times. She seemed to have totally blanked out everything that happened, and she seemed to remember absolutely nothing from day to day. She moved through each day like a little robot, and when Teddy tried to hold her, she just shoved him away. The only one she wanted and whose love she would accept was little Charlotte, whom she would hold in her arms and croon to for hours. But she never mentioned her mother, and the doctor had told Teddy not to say a word. At some point it would all come back to her, it was only a question of when. It could take twenty years, the doctor warned him, but in the meantime it was important that she not be pushed. As a result Teddy saw to it that she didn't go to the funeral. It was almost more than he could bear himself. The only woman he had truly loved had been murdered, and he went alone and stood in the second pew, his eyes riveted to the casket, tears pouring silently down his cheeks, as he longed just to touch her once more... to see her walk across the room, beautiful and proud, her green eyes dancing. He couldn't believe that she was gone and he felt empty to the depths of his soul without her. He too was still in shock, in a way, as he filed into the courtroom and the judge began the custody hearing. He tried to force himself to think rationally as the judge droned on. A petition was filed by Teddy's attorney, offering to take custody of both girls, and he had hoped to convince the judge that it was a sensible decision. |
| 657 |
It began the week after Christmas and droned on for almost two weeks. Teddy and his attorney presented every kind of evidence they could think of, Pattie and Greg brought out all of Pattie's friends to testify as to how fond they had been of Brad and how much they wanted his daughter. They claimed that Serena had been jealous and that was why they had never been "allowed" to see the child. Their testimony was heavily laced with pure fabrication, and doggedly Teddy attempted to convince the court that his home was the right place for the child. He promised to buy a larger place, to only tend to his practice four days a week, to hire a female housekeeper and a nurse for the child. He brought out people who had seen him over the years with Vanessa. All to no avail, it seemed. And on the last day of testimony the judge requested that they bring forth the child. She was too young to have any say in the matter, but the court wanted to hear her answer some questions. In a little pleated gray skirt and white blouse, shiny Mary Janes and white socks, her shining blond hair in braids, she was led forward by a matron and seated on the stand. Teddy's mother was watching the proceedings as well, but she had taken the stand for no one. She was merely watching, and most of all she had kept an eye on Greg. Miraculously he had stayed sober for all of the court proceedings, and she had pointed out frequently to Teddy that if he were truly an alcoholic he wouldn't have been able to do that. And Teddy said that wasn't true. As it was, they all knew that within ten minutes of leaving the courtroom he was usually too drunk to get out of the car. But that was just tension, his mother insisted. Teddy didn't choose to argue the point, although he had had his lawyer suggest to the court that Mr. Gregory Fullerton had a problem with alcohol. His wife denied it, under oath, on the stand, and the family doctor was so evasive and protective of privileged information, that Teddy ended up looking like a fool for the accusation. |
| 658 |
It went on to discuss Vasili's other wives, the fact that he had been spirited out of the country and was currently in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps. And the article further explained that Vanessa was now the object of a custody fight between both of her father's surviving brothers: Greg Fullerton, head of the family law firm, and "socialite Surgeon," Dr. Theodore Fullerton. The articles every day were awful, and eventually Vanessa had to be taken out of school. Before that, some effort had been made to maintain normalcy for her, but she had followed almost nothing in her classes, and much of the time she hadn't gone at all. The psychiatrist took a full week to come to his conclusions. Vanessa waited in the judge's chamber as the doctor's testimony was given. The child was in a state of severe shock, suffering from depression, and had partial amnesia. She knew who she was, and remembered her life clearly up until the point at which her mother had married Vasili Arbus. In effect she had totally blocked out the last year and a half, and she had repressed it so severely that the doctor had no idea when she would be aware of the truth, if ever. She had some recollection of her mother being extremely ill, and it was, as Teddy had suspected, her memory of her mother in the hospital in London that had conveniently surfaced, but she did not recall that it had happened in London or that the reason for the "sickness" was that her mother was in labor. Along with all memory of Vasili, the memory of the baby she had loved so much, tiny Charlie, had vanished. She had repressed it all to avoid the agony it had brought her. She was not crazy, the doctor insisted. In fact in some ways what she had done was healthy, for a time. She had cut out the part of her life that was so painful to her, and buried it. It had happened unconsciously, possibly moments after her mother's death or, as the psychiatrist and Teddy both suspected, at the moment when the baby had been taken from her and given to Andreas Arbus in court. |
| 659 |
It had been at that moment in time that it had all become too much for her. And she hadn't been the same since. She would recover, the psychiatrist felt certain, but whether she would ever remember the truth was a question he could not answer. If she did, it could come upon her at any time, in a month, in a year, in a lifetime. If she didn't, in some way the unresolved pain would always haunt her. He advocated psychiatric treatment for a time, to see if the memories would surface. He insisted though that she should not be pushed or prodded, that the way her mother had died should not be told to her. She should be left alone with her forgotten memories, and if they came of their own, it was all to the good. If they wouldn't come, she should be allowed to keep them buried. It was a bit like living with a time bomb, because one day they would probably surface, and it was impossible to say when. He hoped, he explained to the court and all of the parties involved, that when the child felt more secure again, her presently traumatized psyche would relax enough to allow her to deal with the truth. It would have to be dealt with, he said sadly. One day. If not, it would severely damage the child. The judge inquired whether the doctor felt that she was in particular need of a mother figure, or if he thought that she would fare as well without. "Absolutely not," the doctor exploded. "Without a woman to relate to, that child will never come out of her shell. She needs a mother's love." The judge pursed his lips then, and Teddy waited, and half an hour later the decision was announced. Permanent custody was to be granted to Greg and Partie. Greg looked relieved as he left the court, and Pattie was elated. She didn't even look at Teddy, as she forced Vanessa to walk ahead of her. The child walked like a machine, without looking, seeing, feeling. Teddy didn't even dare reach out to touch her. He couldn't bear it. And as he walked slowly down the steps in the chill air, his mother came up beside him. |
| 660 |
They had grown up together, hand in hand, learning and growing, and occasionally fighting like cats and dogs, but there was an enormous respect between them. His mother had died when Vanessa had been twelve, but that was no particular loss to Vanessa. Her grandmother had never accepted the child, and that never changed right up until her death. She left Vanessa none of her vast fortune. She left it all, equally divided, between her two sons. Two years later Greg had died, predictably of cirrhosis, and Pattie had eventually moved to London and married "someone terribly important." From the rumors he occasionally heard, Teddy assumed she was happy, but he didn't really care if he never saw her again. Once she lost custody of Vanessa, she had entirely lost interest in the girl, and they never saw her. So over the years Teddy and Vanessa had been alone. He had never married, and he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to the task of being a bachelor father. It had its moments of absolute despair, there were moments that were hysterical beyond words, and moments that were worth an entire lifetime. When she had graduated from Vassar the previous spring, it had been a moment that he knew he would always cherish. In some ways she was as lovely as her mother had been, but it was more a similarity of spirit. She had grown up to look exactly like Brad, and sometimes it amused Teddy to see how much she was like him. She had his same long lanky blond good looks, her sense of humor was much the same, her eyes were the same gray blue, and when she laughed, it was as though he had come back for another life, as a woman. It was extraordinary to watch her, and be with her, she was so dynamic and so alive. It was her energy and her drive that she got from her mother. And she wanted to be not a model but a photographer. She had studied fine arts at Vassar and done very nicely, but all she cared about was what she saw in her camera lens, and after that what she did with it. Teddy knocked softly on the door, and Vanessa answered. |
| 661 |
She was always in jeans, with her incredible blond hair swinging, and assorted army surplus jackets and vests, which made up the rest of her wardrobe. She wanted to be comfortable enough to take pictures at all times. She was in no way preoccupied with her wardrobe. "I'll get dressed." He disappeared into his own bedroom and loosened his tie. He had led two lives for years, that of a sedate, successful surgeon at Columbia Presbyterian, in dark pin striped suits, white shirts, and dark ties, and then a whole other life with Vanessa. A life of ice skating and pony rides and the zoo and father's days at camp, and hockey games and ice cream parlors. A life of blue jeans and sweat shirts and pink cheeks and windblown hair. She had kept him even younger than his forty five years and he hardly looked more than thirty. His own blond good looks had held up well, and he actually looked a great deal like her. They had the same lanky frames, the same shoulders, the same smile, it was perfectly conceivable that she could have been his daughter. Once in a while when she was little, she had introduced him as her "Daddy," but she still called him Teddy, and most of the time she told friends that he was her uncle. She remembered in every glorious detail the day she had been finally awarded to him in court, but of the ugliness of the past, she still remembered nothing. He had consulted several psychiatrists over the years and they had eventually convinced him not to worry. It was disturbing that none of that had ever surfaced, but it was possible now, they all felt, that she would never remember. She was happy, well adjusted, there was no reason for any of the past to come leaping out. And they also suggested that if he wanted to, once she was an adult, he might want to tell her. He had decided not to do that, she was happy as she was, and the burden of knowing her mother had been murdered by her husband might have been too great for Vanessa. The only possibility that could be of concern was if she suffered some major trauma. |
| 662 |
Doctors seemed to be famous for them, but he had a nice voice, and she felt genuinely sorry for his niece. Besides, it was a case that had always intrigued her. She remembered studying the file when she'd taken over the practice. They hung up and Teddy went back to work, not feeling greatly encouraged, but when he went home that night, Vanessa was busy in the darkroom again and seemed in good spirits. The maid had left them a pot roast and they ate dinner at home, they both talked about work, she went back to the darkroom for a while, and he went to bed early. And when he awoke with a start, he saw from the clock on his night table that it was two thirty in the morning. He knew instantly that it was Vanessa who had woken him. In the distance he could hear her screaming. He jumped out of his bed and ran to her bedroom. And he found her sitting there, staring into space, muttering darkly. She was still asleep, and it was obvious that she had been crying. He sat beside her for the next hour, and she muttered and whimpered and cried softly for a while, but she never woke up, and she didn't scream again. He called Dr. Evans back in the morning and reported to her. She urged him to relax and just see what happened, and the same thing happened again the next night, and the night after that. It went on for weeks, but nothing really surfaced. In the daytime Vanessa was cheerful and busy and entirely herself, and at night she lay in bed and moaned and cried softly. It was as though deep down some part of her knew, but the rest of her didn't want her to know it. It was agonizing watching her that way every night, and at the end of three weeks he went to see Dr. Evans. He waited in the waiting room for fifteen minutes, and then the nurse told him that she was ready to see him. He was expecting, he had decided, a short, heavyset, serious looking woman with thick legs and glasses. What greeted him instead was a statuesque brunette, with a radiant smile, big green eyes, and her hair pulled back in a chignon like a ballet dancer. |
| 663 |
She had called him. And she had no idea at all what to expect now. Surely he would come alone. He would not bring Charlotte with him. But at least she would see him, and maybe she would get some answers from him. The only trouble was that she was not yet sure of the questions, but perhaps when she would see him, she would know. She waited nervously in her room, tapping her foot and waiting. She had combed her hair, washed her face, she was wearing gray slacks and a cashmere sweater, brown Gucci shoes and, as always, there was a camera over her arm, and she nervously took it with her when at last she went downstairs. She stood rooted to one spot in the lobby, watching people come in, and then realized that she hadn't told him what she looked like, and she had no idea what to expect of him. She stood there for another ten minutes, wondering if perhaps he were already there, and then, as she watched the door, she saw him. She had no recollection of him at all, yet when she saw him, she knew it was he. He was well built, and very elegant, he was wearing a dark blue suit that looked as though it had been made in London or Paris, and he had an interestingly chiseled face and salt and pepper hair. His eyes as he looked around were quick and intelligent, and his face was heavily lined, she noticed. He looked like an interesting man, and as he inquired at the desk and then came toward her, she felt a magnetism in his eyes that surprised her. He was an odd combination, she could see. In some ways he looked very young, and at the same time in a certain way he looked quite old. He was in fact fifty eight years old, but he didn't look it. He had kept his body youthful, and he looked no more than forty eight or so. He came toward her slowly, as though afraid to approach, and the dark eyes were smiling gently. "Vanessa?" The voice rang a distant bell. "I'm Andreas." He held out a hand and she walked toward him. There was something in his eyes that made her trust him. "Hello." She smiled and he watched her. |
| 664 |
His eyes insisted that she take it. And then suddenly they were being rushed onto the plane and he was gone and she and Charlie were both crying. They boarded the plane with their arms around each other, and it wasn't until after they took off that they felt like talking. Charlie was subdued, and Vanessa looked at her, thinking that she looked absolutely splendid. She was the prettiest girl Vanessa had ever seen, and she had noticed a number of heads turn as they had taken their seats. It was the combination of the ivory skin, the emerald eyes, and the sheet of black satin hair. It was a dazzling combination. It wasn't until later that Vanessa opened the small package Andreas had given her. A thin gold chain fell into her hand, and at the end of it a starkly beautiful single diamond in a setting that made it look like a star, and as she hung it around her neck she understood its meaning. It was their falling star. As she touched it with her fingers she felt her eyes fill with tears again. She had only known him for six weeks, but it seemed like a lifetime. The plane landed in London an hour and a half later, and they had to change planes, and discovered that they had to wait for two hours until they could board the plane to New York. "Do you want something to eat?" Vanessa looked at her sister after they had checked in, and Charlotte looked excited. She had bounced back after leaving Athens, and now there was a fresh spark in her eyes. She had met two English boys and a girl her own age on the plane and had talked to them at length. They were on their way to London, she explained to them that she was on her way to New York. Vanessa marveled at how lively and open she was, at how easily she talked to people. She had none of Vanessa's restraint, no fears at all about being hurt or rejected. She was used to being loved, to spreading joy wherever she went. They walked into the coffee shop arm in arm and took a table, and Charlie ordered a hamburger and Vanessa ordered tea. |
| 665 |
The small single engine Cessna Caravan pitched and rolled alarmingly over the swamps west of Miami. The plane was just high enough for the landscape to have a postcard quality to it, but the wind rushing in through the open hatch distracted the young woman clutching the safety strap so that all she could see was the vast expanse of sky beneath them. The man standing behind her was telling her to jump. "What if my parachute doesn't open?" she said, glancing over her shoulder at him with a look of terror. She was a tall, beautiful blonde with a gorgeous body and exquisite face. Her eyes were huge with fear. "Trust me, Belinda, it will open," Blake Williams promised her with a look of total confidence. Skydiving had been one of his many passions for years. And it was always a joy for him to share the wonders of it with someone else. Belinda had agreed to it the week before, over drinks in a very prestigious private nightclub in South Beach. The following day, Blake had paid for eight hours of instruction for her and a test jump with the instructors. Belinda was ready for him now. It was only their third date, and Blake had made skydiving sound so enticing that after her second cosmopolitan, she had laughingly said yes to the invitation to skydive with him. She didn't realize what she was getting into, and she still looked nervous now, and wondered how she had let him talk her into it. The first time she'd jumped, with the two instructors he'd arranged, had scared her to death, but it was exciting too. And jumping with Blake would be the ultimate experience. She could hardly wait. He was so charming, so handsome, so outrageous, and so much fun that even though she barely knew him, she was ready to follow him and try almost anything in his company, even stepping out of a plane. But now she was terrified again, as he turned her face toward him and kissed her. The sheer thrill of being in his presence made the jump easier for her. Just as she had been taught in her lesson, she stepped out of the plane. |
| 666 |
He was generous beyond belief, as Belinda's friends had told her. He was the kind of man every woman wanted to be with rich, smart, good looking, and devoted to having fun. And in spite of his enormous success before he retired, he didn't have a mean bone in his body. He was the catch of the century, and although most of his relationships in the last five years had been brief and superficial, they never ended badly. Even when their fleeting affairs with him were over, women loved him. And as they floated slowly down to a well chosen strip of unpopulated beach, Belinda looked at him with eyes filled with admiration. She couldn't believe she had jumped out of a plane with him, but it had been the most exciting thing she'd ever done. She didn't think she'd do it again, but as they held hands in midair with the blue sky all around them, she knew she would remember Blake and this moment for the rest of her life. "It's fun, isn't it?" he shouted, and she nodded. She was still too overwhelmed to speak. Her jump with Blake had been much more exciting than the one with the two instructors days before. And she couldn't wait to tell everyone she knew what she'd done, especially with whom. Blake Williams was everything people said he was. He had enough charm to run a country, and the money with which to do it. Despite her initial terror, Belinda was actually smiling when her feet touched the ground a few minutes later, and two waiting instructors unhooked her parachute, just as Blake landed a few feet behind her. As soon as they were free of their parachutes, he had her in his arms and kissed her again. His kisses were as intoxicating as everything else about him. "You were fantastic!" he said, sweeping her off the ground, as she grinned and laughed in his arms. He was the most exciting man she'd ever met. "No, you are! I never thought I'd do something like that, it was the craziest thing ever." She'd only known him for a week. Her friends had already told her not to plan on having a serious relationship with him. |
| 667 |
Commitment was not for him, although it had been once upon a time. He had three kids, an ex wife he said he was crazy about, a plane, a boat, half a dozen fabulous houses. He just wanted to have a good time, and made no pretense of wanting to settle down, since his divorce. For the time being anyway, all he wanted to do was play. His early killing in the high tech dot com world had been legendary, as had been the success of the companies he'd invested in since. Blake Williams had everything he wanted, all his dreams had already come true. And as they walked away from the beach where they'd landed, toward a waiting Jeep, Blake put an arm around Belinda, drew her closer to him, and gave her a long, searing kiss. It was a day and a moment that Belinda knew would be engraved in her mind forever. How many women could boast that they had jumped out of a plane with Blake Williams? Possibly more than she knew, although not every woman he went out with was as brave as Belinda. The rain pelted against the windows of Maxine Williams's office on East 79th Street in New York. It was the highest recorded rainfall in New York in November for more than fifty years, and cold, windy, and bleak outside, but cozy in the office where Maxine spent ten or twelve hours a day. The walls were painted a pale buttery yellow, and she had quiet abstract paintings on the walls in muted tones. The room was cheerful and pleasant, and the big overstuffed easy chairs where she sat talking to her patients were comfortable and inviting, and upholstered in a neutral beige. The desk was modern, stark, and functional, and so impeccably organized it looked as though you could perform surgery on it. Everything about Maxine's office was tidy and meticulous, and she herself was perfectly groomed without a hair out of place. Maxine had her entire world in full control. And her equally efficient, reliable secretary, Felicia, had worked for her for almost nine years. Maxine hated mess, disorder of any kind, and change. |
| 668 |
It was like telling Blake about someone else's children. He was more like their favorite uncle than their father. The trouble was, he had been that way as a husband too. Irresistible in every way, and never there when there was something hard to do. First, Blake was building his business, and after his windfall, he was just never around. He was always somewhere else having fun. He had wanted her to give up her practice, and Maxine just couldn't. She had worked too hard to get where she was. She couldn't imagine walking away from it, and didn't want to, no matter how rich her husband suddenly was. She couldn't even conceive of the kind of money he'd made. And eventually, although she loved him, she couldn't do it anymore. They were polar opposites in every way. Her meticulousness was in sharp contrast to the mess he made. Wherever he sat, there was an avalanche of magazines, books, papers, half eaten food, spilled drinks, peanut shells, banana peels, half drunk sodas, and bags of fast food he forgot to throw away. He was always dragging the blueprints for his latest house, his pockets were full of notes about phone calls he had to return and never did. And eventually, the notes got lost. People were always calling wondering where he was. He was brilliant in business, but otherwise his life was a mess. He was an adorable, charming, lovable flake. She got tired of being the only grown up around, particularly once they had kids. As the result of a movie premiere he flew out to attend in L.A., he had missed Sam's birth. And when a babysitter let Sam roll off the changing table eight months later, and he broke a collarbone and an arm, and got a hell of a knock on the head, Blake was nowhere to be found. Without telling anyone, he had flown to Cabo San Lucas to look at a house for sale, built by a famous Mexican architect he admired. He had lost his cell phone on the way, and it took two days to locate him. In the end, Sam was okay, but Maxine had asked Blake for a divorce when he got back to New York. |
| 669 |
Blake wrote the checks, although he didn't know the names of most of them. Both his parents had been solidly behind him but had died when he was first married to Maxine. Blake was sorry they had never known his children. They had been wonderful people, and had been loving, devoted parents. They hadn't lived to see his meteoric rise to success either. He sometimes wondered how they would have reacted to the way he was living his life now, and occasionally, late at night, he worried that they might not approve. He was well aware of how fortunate he had been, how he indulged himself, but he enjoyed himself so much with everything he did, it would have been difficult to roll the film backward now. He had established a way of life that gave him immense pleasure and enjoyment, and he wasn't doing anyone any harm. He wanted to see more of his children, but somehow there never seemed to be enough time. And he made up for it when he saw them. In his own way, he was their dream dad come to life. They got to do everything they wanted, and he was able to indulge their every whim and spoil them as no one else could. Maxine was the solidity and order they relied on, and he was the magic and the fun. In some ways, he had been that to Maxine too, when they were young. Everything changed when they grew up. Or rather, she did, and he didn't. He asked Max then how her parents were. He had always been fond of her father. He was a hardworking, serious man with good values and solid morals, even if he lacked imagination. In some ways, he was a sterner, even more serious version of Maxine. And despite their very different styles and philosophies about life, he and Blake had gotten along. Her father had always teasingly called Blake a "rogue." Blake loved it when he called him that. To him it sounded sexy and exciting. Max's father was disappointed in recent years that Blake didn't see more of the children, although he was well aware that his daughter more than made up for it wherever Blake fell short. |
| 670 |
She hung up, and opened the door to her office, as her patient wandered in. He sat down in one of the two big easy chairs before he looked at her directly and said hello. "Hi, Ted," she said comfortably. "How's it going?" He shrugged, as she closed the door and their session began. He had tried to hang himself twice. She had hospitalized him for three months, and he was doing better after two weeks at home. He had begun showing signs of being bipolar when he was thirteen. She was seeing him three times a week, and once a week he went to a group for previously suicidal teens. He was doing well, and Maxine had a good relationship with him. Her patients liked her a lot. She had a great way with them. And she cared about them deeply. She was a good doctor and good person. The session lasted fifty minutes, after which she had a ten minute break, managed to return two phone calls, and started her last session of the day with a sixteen year old anorexic girl. As usual, it was a long, hard, interesting day, that required a lot of concentration. Afterward, she managed to return the rest of her calls, and by sixthirty she was walking home in the rain, thinking about Blake. She was glad that he'd be coming for Thanksgiving, and she knew their children would be thrilled. She wondered if that meant he wouldn't be coming to see them for Christmas. If anything, he'd probably want them to meet him in Aspen. He usually ended the year there. With all his interesting options and houses, it was hard to know where he'd be at any given time. And now, with Morocco added to the list, it would be even harder to track or pin him down. She didn't hold it against him, it was just the way he was, even if it was frustrating for her at times. There was no malice in him, but no sense of responsibility either. In many ways, Blake refused to grow up. It made him delightful to be with, as long as you never expected too much. Once in a while he'd surprise them, and do something really thoughtful and wonderful, and then he'd fly off again. |
| 671 |
She wondered if things would have been different, if he hadn't made the fortune he did at thirtytwo. It had changed his life and theirs forever. She almost wished he hadn't made all that money on his dot com windfall. Their life had been sweet at times before that. But with the money, everything had changed. Maxine met Blake while she was doing her residency at Stanford Hospital. He had been working in Silicon Valley, in the world of hightech investments. He had been making plans for his fledgling company then, she'd never fully understood it, but was fascinated by his incredible energy and passion for the ideas he was developing. They had met at a party she didn't want to go to, but a friend had dragged her along. She'd been working in the trauma unit for two days straight and was half asleep the night they met. Blake had woken her up with a bang. The next day he had taken her for a helicopter ride, and they had flown over the bay, and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Being with him had been thrilling, and their relationship had taken off like a forest fire in a strong wind after that. They were married in less than a year. She was twenty seven when they got married, and it had been a whirlwind year. Ten months after their wedding, Blake sold his company for a fortune. The rest was history. He turned the money into even more, seemingly without effort. He was willing to risk it all and was truly a genius at what he did. Maxine had been dazzled by his foresight, skill, and brilliant mind. By the time Daphne was born, two years after their wedding, Blake had made an unheard of amount of money, and wanted Max to give up her career. Instead, she became chief resident in adolescent psychiatry, gave birth to Daphne, and found herself married to one of the richest men in the world. It was a lot to adjust to and digest. And as a result of either denial or overconfidence in the ability of nursing her baby to keep her from getting pregnant, she got pregnant with Jack six weeks after Daphne was born. |
| 672 |
Her maternity leave was shorter than one of Blake's trips, and he was all over the map by then. They hired a live in nanny, and Maxine went back to work. It was a handicap working while Blake wasn't, but the life he was leading frightened her. It was too freewheeling, opulent, and jet set for her. While Maxine opened her own practice, and signed up for an important research project on childhood trauma, Blake hired the most important decorator in London to do their house, and a different one to do Aspen, and bought the house in St. Bart's as a Christmas gift for her, and a plane for himself. For Maxine, it was happening much too fast, and after that, it never slowed down. They had houses, babies, and an unbelievable fortune, and Blake was on the covers of both Newsweek and Time. He went on making investments, which continued to double and triple his money, but he never went back to work in any formal sense. Whatever he did, he managed to accomplish on the computer and phone. And eventually, their marriage seemed to be happening on the phone as well. Blake was as loving as ever when they were together, but most of the time, he just wasn't around. At one point, Maxine even thought about giving up work, and talked to her father about it. But in the end, her conclusion was that there wasn't much point. What would she do then? Fly around with him from one house to another, hotels in other cities where they didn't have houses, or on the fabulous vacations he took, on safari in Africa, climbing mountains in the Himalayas, financing archaeological digs, or racing boats? There was nothing Blake couldn't accomplish, and even less that he was afraid to attempt. He had to do, try, taste, and have it all. She couldn't imagine dragging two toddlers along to most of the places he went, so much of the time she stayed home with the kids in New York, and she could never quite bring herself to let go and give up her work. Every suicidal kid she saw, every traumatized child, convinced her that there was a need for what she did. |
| 673 |
Eventually, Blake stopped begging her to come with him, and resigned himself to traveling alone. He was no longer able to sit still, the world was at his feet, and never big enough for him. He became an absentee husband and father almost overnight, while Maxine tried to make a contribution to bettering the lives of suicidal and traumatized adolescents and young children, and their own. Her life and Blake's couldn't have been further apart. No matter how much they loved each other, eventually the only bridge they had left between them was their kids. For the next five years, they led separate lives, meeting briefly all over the world, when and where it suited Blake, and then she got pregnant with Sam. He was an accident that happened when they met for a weekend in Hong Kong, right after Blake had been trekking with friends in Nepal. Maxine had just won a new research grant on anorexia in young girls. She discovered she was pregnant, and unlike the other pregnancies, this time she wasn't thrilled. It was one more thing for her to juggle, one more child for her to parent by herself, one more piece of the puzzle that was already too complicated and too big. But Blake was overjoyed. He said he wanted half a dozen kids, which made no sense to Maxine. He hardly saw the ones they had. Jack was six and Daphne seven when Sam was born. Having missed the birth, Blake flew in the day after, with a box from Harry Winston in his hand. He gave Maxine a thirty carat emerald ring, which was spectacular, but not what she wanted from him. She would much rather have had time together. She missed their early days in California, when they were both working and happy, before he won the dot com lottery that radically changed their lives. And when Sam rolled off the changing table eight months later, broke his arm, and hit his head, she couldn't even find his father for two days. When she finally caught up with him, after Cabo, he was on his way to Venice, looking at palazzos, trying to buy one as a surprise. |
| 674 |
He loved being a patron of the arts, far more than he liked staying home. He loved his wife and adored his children, but he was bored just hanging around New York. Maxine had made it through eight years of the changes in their circumstances, but she couldn't do it anymore. She wanted stability, sameness, and the kind of settled life that Blake now abhorred. He loved pushing the outer limits of the envelope until there was no envelope at all. He defined the term "free spirit" in ways Maxine could never have predicted. And since he was never around anyway, out of touch most of the time, she figured she might as well do it alone. It had gotten harder and harder to kid herself that she had a husband, and that she could count on him at all. She had finally realized that she couldn't. Blake loved her, but ninety five percent of the time he was gone. He had his own life, interests, and pursuits, which hardly included her at all anymore. So with tears and regrets, but the utmost civility, she and Blake had divorced five years before. He gave her the apartment in New York and the house in Southampton, would have given her more houses if she'd wanted, but she didn't, and he had offered her a settlement that would have stunned anyone. He felt guilty about what an absentee husband and father he had been in recent years, but he had to confess that it suited him very well. He hated to admit it but he felt as though he were in a straitjacket in a matchbox, confined to the life Maxine lived in New York. She refused the settlement, and took only child support for their children. Maxine made more than enough in her practice to support herself, she wanted nothing from him. And as far as she was concerned, it was Blake's windfall, not hers. None of his friends could believe that in her position she had been so fair. They didn't have a prenuptial agreement to protect his assets, since he'd had none when they met. She didn't want to take anything from him, she loved him, wanted the best for him, and wished him well. |
| 675 |
All of that had combined to make him love her even more in the end, and they had remained close friends. Maxine always said he was like her wild wayward brother, and after her initial shock over the girls he went out with, most of them half his age, or hers, she had gotten philosophical about it. Her only concern was that they be nice to her kids. Maxine herself had had no serious relationships since him. Most of the physicians and psychiatrists she met were married, and her social life was limited to her kids. For the past five years, she had had her hands full with her family and her work. Occasionally she dated men she met, but she hadn't had sparks with anyone since Blake. He was a tough act to follow. He was irresponsible, unreliable, disorganized, an inadequate father despite all his good intentions, and a lousy husband in the end, but there wasn't a man on the planet, in her opinion, who was kinder, more decent, more good hearted, or more fun. She often wished that she had the courage to be as wild and free as he. But she needed structure, a firm foundation, an orderly life, and she didn't have the same inclination as Blake, or the guts, to follow her wildest dreams. Sometimes she envied him that. There was nothing in business or life that was too high risk for Blake, which was why he had been such a huge success. You had to have balls for that, and Blake Williams had them in spades. Maxine felt like a mouse compared to him. Although she was a remarkably accomplished woman herself, she was far more human scale. It was just too bad their marriage hadn't worked out. And Maxine was infinitely glad they had their kids. They were the joy and hub of her life, and all she needed for now. At forty two, she wasn't desperate to find another man. She had rewarding work, patients she cared about deeply, and terrific kids. It was enough for now, more than enough sometimes. The doorman tipped his hat as Maxine walked into the building on Park Avenue, five blocks from her office. |
| 676 |
Sam was lying on the couch, watching cartoons on TV. He had eaten breakfast an hour before when he got up. Everyone came and went at leisure on Saturday mornings, and Maxine cooked for them as they came in. She loved the domestic side of life that she didn't have time for during the week, when she was in a hurry to see patients at the hospital before she went to her office. She was usually out of the house well before eight o'clock, when the kids left for school. But with rare exceptions, she managed to have dinner with them every night. She reminded Sam then that he had a sleepover at a friend's that night, and Jack chimed in that he did too. Daphne said three of her friends were coming over to watch a movie, and a couple of boys might drop by too. "Now there's a new chapter," Maxine commented with a look of interest. "Anyone I know?" Daphne just shook her head with a look of irritation and walked out of the room. Clearly, to her, the question didn't deserve an answer. Maxine rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and an hour later, she and all three of her children were headed to the park. At the last minute, the two older ones had decided to come along too. She had plastic disks for two of them, and she and Daphne wrapped garbage bags around their bottoms, and slid down the hills with the boys, and other children, with squeals of glee. It was still snowing, and her children were still young enough to act like little kids once in a while, instead of grown up, as they wanted to be. They stayed out till three o'clock and then walked home through the park. It had been fun, and she made them hot chocolate with whipped cream and s'mores when they got home. It was nice to think they weren't so old after all, and still enjoyed the same childhood pastimes they always had. She dropped Sam off for his sleepover at five o'clock, on East 89th Street, Jack in the Village at six o'clock, and was back at the apartment in time for Daphne's friends to show up with a stack of rented movies. |
| 677 |
But his mother didn't want to hear that, and Maxine was trying to be firm but compassionate and gentle, she always was. "I think that right now he needs the protection and the support. I don't want to bring him home too soon, and the holidays are going to be hard for him without his dad too. I seriously think he'll do better at Silver Pines. You can have Thanksgiving with him there." Helen just cried harder. Maxine was anxious to see her patient. She told Helen they would talk about it later, but they both agreed that he should spend the night at Lenox Hill. There was no other choice, he was in no shape to go home. Helen was in full agreement with that, just not the rest. She hated the idea of Silver Pines. She said it sounded like a cemetery to her. Maxine checked Jason quietly while he was sleeping, read the chart, and was alarmed to see how much of the drug he'd taken. He had taken far more than a lethal dose, unlike last time when he had barely taken enough to kill himself. This time had been a far more serious attempt, and she wondered what had brought it on. She was going to spend time with Jason the next morning when he woke up. There was no hope of talking to him now. She made some notes on Jason's chart of what she wanted. They were going to move him to a private room later that night, and her orders included a nurse with him, on suicide watch. There had to be someone there to observe him even before he woke up. She told the nurse she'd be back the next morning at nine o'clock, and if they needed her sooner, they should call. She left them her home and cell phone numbers, and then sat down again with Jason's mother outside. Helen seemed even more devastated than before, as reality began to hit her. She could easily have lost her son that night, and been alone in the world. The very thought of it nearly drove her over the edge. Maxine offered to call her physician, in case she wanted sleeping pills, or some mild sedation, which Maxine didn't want to prescribe herself. |
| 678 |
Maxine had no doubt in her mind that he was suicidal and severely clinically depressed. He had been ever since his father's death. It was more than his mother wanted to face, but at this point she had no choice. If she took him home with her the next day, it would be against doctor's orders, and she would have to sign a release. Maxine hoped it wouldn't come to that. Hopefully, she'd calm down by the next day, and do the safest possible thing for her son. Maxine didn't like admitting him either, but she had no doubt about how important it was for him. His life was at stake. Maxine asked the nurses to set up a cot for Helen in her son's room, once they moved him out of the ER. She left her with a warm touch on her shoulder, and checked Jason again before she left. He was doing fine. For now. There was a nurse with him, who would go to his room with him. He would not be left alone again. There was no locked ward at Lenox Hill, but Maxine thought he would be fine with a nurse close at hand, and his mother there too. And it would be many hours before he woke up. She walked back to the apartment in the icy cold. It was after one A.M. when she got home. She glanced into Daphne's room, and everything seemed peaceful there. All the girls had fallen asleep, two in sleeping bags, the rest on Daphne's bed. The movie was droning on, and they were still dressed, and then as she looked at them, she noticed an odd smell. It wasn't a smell she had ever noticed in Daphne's room before. She had no idea why, but she walked to her closet and opened the door, and was startled to see two empty six packs of beer. She looked at the girls again, and realized they weren't just asleep, they were drunk. They seemed a little young to her to be sneaking beer, but in fact it wasn't unknown at that age. She wasn't sure whether to cry or to laugh. She didn't know when it had started, but they had taken full advantage of her going to the hospital. She hated to do it, but she would have to ground Daphne the next day. |
| 679 |
They both heard the door close softly behind her. Maxine was sure she was crying, but she wanted to leave her alone for now. "And this is only the beginning," Zelda said glumly, and then both women laughed. It didn't seem like the end of the world to either of them, but Maxine wanted to make a big impression on her daughter so it didn't happen again anytime soon. Thirteen was too young for them to be having beer parties on the sly in her bedroom, so she had made her point. Daphne stayed in her room for the rest of the afternoon, after turning her cell phone in to her mother. The phone was her lifeline, and giving it up was a major sacrifice. Maxine picked up both boys by five o'clock, and when he got home, Daphne told Jack what had happened. He was startled but impressed, and told her what she already knew, that it was a really dumb thing to do, and that their mother had been bound to find out. According to Jack, their mother knew everything and had radar of some kind and X ray vision implanted in her head. It was part of the options package that came with moms. The four of them had a quiet dinner in the kitchen that night, and all of them went to bed early, since the next day was a school day. Maxine was sound asleep at twelve o'clock when the nurse at Silver Pines called her. Jason Wexler had made another suicide attempt that night. He was in good condition and stable. He had taken off his pajamas and tried to hang himself with them, but the nurse assigned to him had found him and revived him. Maxine realized they had moved him out of Lenox Hill in the nick of time, and thank God his mother hadn't listened to the pompous, idiotic Dr. West. She told the nurse she'd be out to see Jason the following afternoon, and she could only imagine how his mother would take the news. Maxine was grateful he was alive. As she lay in bed afterward, she realized that it had been a busy weekend after all. Her daughter had gotten drunk on beer for the first time, and one of her patients had attempted suicide twice. |
| 680 |
Maxine was in her office at eight o'clock the next morning. She saw patients back to back until noon, then drove to Long Island to see Jason Wexler at Silver Pines, and was there at one thirty. The only thing she'd eaten was half a banana while driving, and she returned calls from the speakerphone in her car. She was pretty well caught up and on schedule when she got there. She spent an hour alone with Jason, met with the attending psychiatrist about the events of the night before, and talked to Jason's mother for half an hour. They were all grateful he was at Silver Pines, and that his third suicide attempt had been foiled. Helen was quick to give Maxine credit, and say that she'd been right. She shuddered to think what would have happened if she'd insisted on taking him home. More than likely, this time, he would have succeeded. Unlike what Helen's internist had suggested, these were not bids for attention. Jason wanted out. He was profoundly convinced he had killed his father. He had had conflicting feelings about him all his life, and given that and the argument they'd had the night before, Jason remained convinced that the combination of those facts had killed him. It would take months, or even years, to show him otherwise, and assuage his guilt. Both Helen and Maxine knew now that it was going to be a long haul for Jason. And contrary to his mother's initial hopes, he would not be home in time for Christmas. Maxine was now hoping that they would keep him there for six months to a year, although it was still too soon to say that to his mother. She was badly shaken by his near success at hanging himself the night before. And he had told his mother that morning that if he wanted to kill himself, he would. Nothing could stop him. And much to her chagrin, Maxine knew from experience, he was right. What they had to do now was heal his wounded soul and spirit, and that was going to take time. Maxine was back on the freeway at four o'clock, and in her office, after some traffic on the bridge, just after five. |
| 681 |
Her five thirty patient was there, on the dot. A fourteen year old anorexic who was doing better than she had the year before, after a six month hospitalization at Yale. "Thanks again for your call. It was nice of you to do that," Maxine said pleasantly. He wasn't such a bad guy after all. Calling her to acknowledge his mistake had been a decent thing to do. "Not at all," he said, and they hung up. Maxine got up from her desk and let a pretty young girl into her office. She was still extremely thin and looked far younger than she was. She looked ten or eleven, although she was about to turn fifteen. But she had nearly died of her anorexia the year before, so things were looking up. Her hair was still thin, she had lost several teeth during her hospitalization, and there would be some question for years to come about her ability to have children. It was a serious disease. "Hi, Josephine, come on in," Maxine said warmly, motioning to the familiar chair, which the pretty teenager curled up in like a kitten, with huge eyes that sought out Maxine's. Within minutes, she had confessed, of her own volition, to stealing some of her mother's laxatives that week, but after careful consideration, she hadn't used them. Maxine nodded and they talked about it after that, among other things. Josephine had also met a boy she liked, now that she was back in school, and was feeling better about herself. It was a long, slow road back from the terrifying place she had been, when she weighed barely more than sixty pounds at thirteen. She was up to eighty five now, still light for her height, but no longer as disastrously emaciated. Their current goal was a hundred. And for the moment, she was still gaining a pound a week, and hadn't slipped. Maxine had one more patient after that, a sixteen year old girl who cut herself, had scars up and down her arms, which she covered, and had attempted suicide once at fifteen. Maxine had been called in by her family physician, and they were making slow but steady progress. |
| 682 |
Daphne wanted to take a cab, but Maxine said the walk would do them good. It was a beautiful sunny November day, and the children were all looking forward to their father's arrival that afternoon. He was flying in from Paris, and they were due at his apartment in time for dinner. Maxine had agreed to go along. It would be nice to see Blake. The doorman at her parents' apartment building wished them all a happy Thanksgiving as they got into the elevator. Maxine's mother was waiting for them at the door when they got out. She looked strikingly like Maxine, in an older, slightly heavier version, and Maxine's father was standing just behind her with a broad smile. "My, my," he said kindly, "what a good looking group you are." He kissed his daughter first, shook hands with the boys, while Daphne kissed her grandmother, and then smiled at her grandfather, while he gave her a hug. "Hi, Grampa," she said softly, and they followed their grandparents into the living room. Their grandmother had done several beautiful arrangements of fall flowers, and the apartment looked as neat and elegant as ever. Everything was impeccable and in good order, and the children sat down politely on the couch and chairs. They knew that at their grandparents' house they had to behave. Their grandparents were kind and loving, but they weren't used to having that many children around at once, particularly boys. Sam sneaked a deck of cards out of his pocket, and he and his grandfather started a game of Go Fish! while Maxine and her mother went out to the kitchen to check on the turkey. Everything had been meticulously set out and prepared gleaming silver, immaculately pressed linens, the turkey was all cooked, and the vegetables were cooking. Sharing Thanksgiving was a tradition they all loved. Maxine always enjoyed visiting with her parents. They had been supportive of her all her life, and particularly so since her divorce from Blake. They had liked him, but thought he had been over the top ever since his big win in the dot com boom. |
| 683 |
They worried about his influence on the children, but had been relieved to see that Maxine's solid values and constant attention had continued to ground them. They were crazy about their grandchildren and loved having them come to visit and sharing holidays with them. Maxine's father was still busy with his practice, teaching and still attending surgeries of special cases, and he was extremely proud of his daughter with her own medical career. When she had decided to go to medical school and follow in his footsteps, it had pleased him no end. He was a little startled by her decision to specialize in psychiatry, a world he knew little about, but he was impressed by the career and reputation she had forged for herself in her field. He had proudly given away many copies of both of her books. Her mother checked on the sweet potatoes in the oven, poked the turkey again to make sure it wasn't drying out, and turned to Maxine with a warm smile. She was a quiet, reserved woman who had been satisfied all her life to be in the background, be supportive of her husband, and she was proud to be a physician's wife. She had never felt the need for a career of her own. She was of a generation that was happy to stand behind their men, bring up their children, and as long as there was no pressing financial need, stay home instead of work. She had done extensive charity work for the Junior League, was a volunteer at the hospital where her husband was on staff, and she enjoyed reading for the blind. She was satisfied, happy, and her life was full, but she worried that her daughter had too much responsibility on her shoulders, and worked too hard. It bothered her more than it did her husband that Blake was an absentee father, although her own husband hadn't been directly involved with his own daughter either. But the reasons for it, and his demanding practice, seemed far more comprehensible and respectable to Marguerite Connors than Blake's obsessive and totally irresponsible pursuit of fun. |
| 684 |
Had Maxine felt the need, she would have been more inclined to discuss things with her father, who had a more realistic view of the world. Her mother had been so sheltered through nearly fifty years of marriage that she was far less able to be helpful in any practical way. And Maxine hated to worry her. "Are you working on a new book?" "Not yet. And my practice always gets a little crazy before the holidays. There's always some lunatic doing something to put kids in jeopardy or traumatize them, and my adolescent patients get upset about the holidays, like everyone else. Holidays always seem to drive everyone a little nuts," Maxine said, helping her mother put the rolls in the bread basket after they'd been warmed. Their dinner looked beautiful and smelled great. Although she had help during the week, her mother was a terrific cook, and took great pride in cooking holiday meals herself. She always prepared Christmas dinner too, which was a huge relief for Maxine, who had never been as domestic, and was more like her father in many ways. She also had his realistic, practical view of the world. She was more scientific than artistic, and as the breadwinner in her own family, she was more down to earth. To this day, her father still wrote the checks and paid the bills. Maxine was well aware that if anything ever happened to him, her mother would be completely lost in the real world. "Holidays are always busy for us too," Marguerite said as she took the turkey out of the oven. It looked like it was ready to be photographed for a magazine. "Everyone seems to break something during ski season, and as soon as it gets cold, people start falling on the ice and breaking hips." She had done it herself three years before, and had had a hip replacement. She had come out of it very well. "You know how busy your father gets this time of year." Maxine smiled in answer, helping her get the sweet potatoes out of the oven, and setting them down on the island in the center of the kitchen. |
| 685 |
He apologized to Sam and looked at his daughter with a grin. He'd been having a good time. "I think he cheats," her father commented about his grandson. "Definitely," Maxine agreed, as her father disappeared into the kitchen to do his job. Ten minutes later the turkey was carved, and he brought it to the dining table, as his wife called out to all of them to come and sit down. Maxine found great pleasure in the family ritual, and was grateful that they were all there together and her parents were in good health. Her mother was seventy eight, and her father seventynine, although both were in great shape. It was hard to believe that her parents were now that old. Her mother said grace, as she did every year, and then her father passed the turkey platter around. There was stuffing, cranberry jelly, sweet potatoes, wild rice, peas, spinach, chestnut puree, and rolls her mother made from scratch. It was a veritable feast. "Yumm!" Sam said as he piled the sweet potatoes with the marshmallow topping onto his plate. He took gobs of cranberry jelly, a healthy portion of stuffing, a slice of white turkey meat, and no vegetables at all. Maxine said nothing to him, and let him enjoy the meal. As always, the conversation was lively whenever they got together. Their grandfather asked them respectively how they were doing in school, and was particularly interested in Jack's soccer games. And by the time lunch was over, they were so full they could hardly move. The meal had been finished off with apple, pumpkin, and mince pies, with a choice of vanilla ice cream or perfectly whipped cream. Sam's shirttail was hanging out when he left the table, the neck of his shirt was open, and his tie was askew. Jack looked more respectable, but had taken his tie off too. Only Daphne looked like a perfect lady, the way she had when she arrived. All three children went back to the living room to watch football, as Maxine sat and relaxed over coffee with her parents. "It was a fantastic meal, Mom," Maxine said honestly. |
| 686 |
There had to be somewhere in the world, and people in it, where you could still be a kid. It was too hard to be a grown up all the time. That was the nice thing about still having parents, there was a feeling of safety not having to be the oldest member of the family yet. She wondered sometimes if Blake's crazy wild behaviors stemmed from a fear of getting old. She couldn't totally blame him if that was the case. In many ways, responsibility was what he feared most, and yet he had been so extraordinary in business. But that was different. He had wanted to be a "wunderkind" or golden boy forever, and now he was all grown up and middle aged. She knew it scared him more than anything else, and he couldn't run fast enough to get away from facing himself. It was sad in a way, and he had missed so much. While he was running faster than the speed of sound, his kids were growing up, and he had lost her. It seemed like a high price to pay to be Peter Pan. "Well, don't talk yourself into being old yet," her father said then. "You're still a young woman, and any man would be lucky to have you. At forty two, you're still a kid. Don't lock yourself up, and forget to go out and have some fun." They all knew that she didn't go out much. He was afraid sometimes that she was still in love with Blake and pining for him, but her mother insisted that wasn't the case. She just hadn't met anyone yet. And they both wanted her to find the right man this time. Her father had tried to fix her up with a few physicians initially, but it had never worked out, and Maxine had said she preferred to find her own dates. She helped her mother clear the table and make order in the kitchen, but Marguerite told her the housekeeper would be back the next day, so they joined the others in the living room, avidly watching the game on TV. And reluctantly, at five o'clock, Maxine pried the children away. She hated to do it, but she didn't want them to be late for Blake. Every moment they shared with him was precious. |
| 687 |
They loved his projection room and the enormous, comfortable seats. He had every modern high tech gadget there was, since he was a kid himself. Blake always reminded her of Tom Hanks in the movie Big, an enchanting boy masquerading as a man. "See you at seven," Blake promised as Maxine hung up and reported to the kids. They had an hour to relax and pack their things to stay with him. Sam looked a little uncertain about it, and she reassured him that he'd be fine. "You can sleep with Daffy if you need to," she reminded him, and he looked pleased with that. She mentioned it to Daphne a few minutes later and told her to take care of Sam, and suggested that Sam sleep with her. Daphne didn't mind. All four of them were in a cab together an hour later, on their way to Blake's apartment. Just going up in the elevator reminded them of being in a rocket ship. You needed a special code to get to his penthouse apartment. He had two entire floors, and from the moment he opened the door to them, it was pure Blake and the magical world he lived in. The music on the extraordinary sound system was blaring, the art and lighting were amazing, the view was beyond spectacular with glass exterior walls, picture windows, and enormous skylights. The inner walls were mirrored to reflect the view, the ceilings were nearly thirty feet tall. He had taken over two floors and turned them into one apartment with a circular staircase in the middle, and he had every possible game, toy, stereo, TV, gimmick, and gadget. He had a movie playing on a screen that covered an entire wall, and handed Jack the headphones to watch it. He kissed and hugged all of them, and gave Daphne a new cell phone in pink enamel with her initials engraved in it, and he showed Sam how to work the new video game chair and paddles he'd had installed in his absence. They were all busy playing with toys, and getting acclimated to their rooms again, when Blake finally had a peaceful moment to smile at his ex wife and put a friendly arm around her. |
| 688 |
Maxine had been seeing her for two years. She was the only child of extremely dedicated, loving parents who had done everything they could. There were some kids that, no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't help. Maxine had hospitalized her four times in the last two years, with very little effect. The minute she was discharged from the hospital, she was off and running again with the same disastrous friends. She had told Maxine repeatedly that she couldn't help herself. She just couldn't stay clean, and she claimed that the medications Maxine prescribed for her never took the edge off like what she bought on the street. Maxine had been afraid of this outcome for the last two years. She was dressed in less than five minutes in loafers, a heavy sweater, and jeans. She grabbed a warm coat out of the closet, picked up her purse, and rang for the elevator. She found a cab immediately, and was at the hospital fifteen minutes after Thelma Washington, her relief doc, had called. Thelma had gone to Harvard with her, was African American and one of the best psychiatrists she knew. And after school, and over the years of covering each other's practices, they had become friends. Privately or professionally, she knew she could always count on Thelma. They were very similar in many ways, and equally dedicated to their work. Maxine felt completely at ease leaving her patients in her hands. Maxine saw Thelma before she saw the Andersons, and Thelma quickly brought her up to speed. Hilary was in a deep coma, and so far nothing they had administered to her had brought her around. She had done it alone at home, while her parents were out. She hadn't left a note, but Maxine knew she didn't need to. She had often told Maxine that she didn't care if she lived or died. For her, and for others like her, being bipolar was just too hard. Maxine looked upset as she read the chart, and Thelma stood by. "Jesus, she took everything but the kitchen sink," Maxine said, looking grim, and Thelma nodded. |
| 689 |
He called her in the afternoon, and she told him what had happened the night before. He was sympathetic, and praised her again for what she did. She didn't feel deserving of it at the moment. He said he was taking the children shopping that afternoon, and invited her to come. He insisted they'd have a ball, but she resisted, and he could hear that she was down. In fact, he had been planning to take the children Christmas shopping for her, and Tiffany and Cartier were on their list, but he didn't mention it to her. Instead, he invited her to meet them for dinner, and she declined that too. He felt sorry for how upset she was about the death of her patient, and whispered to the children to be extra nice to her, when he passed the phone to them so they could speak to her too. She spoke with Sam, and he was happy and doing fine. When Sam begged her to join them, she promised to go to dinner with them the following night. They were having a ball with Blake. He had taken them to 21 for brunch, which they always loved, and for a helicopter ride that morning, a favorite pastime with him. She promised to meet up with them the next day, and felt a little better when she hung up. She called Thelma Washington then and told her how things had turned out, and her friend wasn't surprised. Maxine thanked her for her help, and then called the Andersons. Predictably, they were in bad shape, and still in a state of shock. They had funeral arrangements to make, friends and grandparents to call, all the nightmarish things one had to attend to when one lost a child. Maxine told them again how very sorry she was, and they thanked her for all her help. But even knowing she had done everything possible, Maxine still had an overwhelming sense of defeat and loss. Blake called her again, as she was dressing to go out for a walk. He was checking up on her to make sure she was okay. He didn't tell her, but he and the children had just bought her a beautiful sapphire bracelet. She assured him she was fine, and was touched by the call. |
| 690 |
So far, it hadn't been a problem, but it could be. And Daphne looked as though she was willing to battle for the privilege he had offered. "I'll talk to him about it," Maxine said simply, as Daphne stomped off to her bedroom. What Maxine was planning to say to Blake was to warn him not to be manipulated by his children, nor to set them up for disaster by giving them too much freedom as they headed into their teens. She just hoped that he was willing to cooperate with her. If not, the next several years were going to be a nightmare. All she needed was for Blake to give Daphne keys to his apartment. The thought of it and the kind of things that could go on there made her shudder. She was definitely going to say something to him about it. And for sure, Daphne wouldn't like it. As usual, Maxine had to be the heavy. Maxine finished her article that night, and the children watched television in their bedrooms. They were tired after three days of nonstop excitement with their father. Being with him was like traveling with the flying Wallendas, with all of them on the high wire at the same time. It always took them a while to calm down. The next morning at breakfast was chaos. Everyone had woken up late. Jack spilled cereal all over the table, Daphne couldn't find her cell phone and refused to leave for school until she did, Sam burst into tears when he discovered he'd left his favorite shoes at his father's apartment, and Zelda had a toothache. Daphne managed to find her phone in the nick of time, Maxine promised Sam that she would buy him the exact same shoes at lunchtime, and prayed that she could find them, and she left for her office to see patients as Zelda was calling her dentist. It was one of those mornings that made you want to rip your hair out and got the day off to a rough start. Zelda took Sam to school on her way to the dentist, and it started raining, as Maxine walked to work. She was soaked by the time she got there, and her first patient was already waiting, something that almost never happened to her. |
| 691 |
He suggested a restaurant that was near her office, to make it convenient for her. It was small and pleasant and she occasionally had lunch there with her mother. It had been years since she took time out to lunch with girlfriends. She preferred to see patients, and at night she stayed home with the kids. Most of the women she knew were just as busy as she was. She hadn't had much of a social life in years. They made a date for noon on Thursday, and Maxine looked startled as she hung up the phone. She wasn't sure if it was a date, or a professional courtesy, but either way, she felt slightly silly. She hardly remembered what he looked like. She had been so upset about Hilary Anderson on Friday morning that all she remembered was that he was tall, and had graying blond hair. The rest of his appearance was a blur, not that it mattered. She made a note in her book, returned two more calls as quickly as she could, and saw her last patient. She had to cook dinner for the children that night, since Zelda was in bed on painkillers. The day ended as it began, harried and stressful. And she managed to burn dinner, so they ordered pizza. The next two days were equally stressful, and it was Thursday morning when she suddenly remembered the lunch date she had made with Charles West. She sat at her desk looking at her appointment book bleakly. She couldn't imagine what had made her do it. She didn't even know him, nor want to. The last thing she needed was lunch with a total stranger. She glanced at her watch and realized that she was already five minutes late, grabbed her coat, and hurried out of the office. She didn't even have time to put on lipstick or comb her hair, not that she cared. When Maxine reached the restaurant, Charles West was already waiting at a table. He stood up when he saw her walk in, and she recognized him. He was tall, as she had remembered, and nice looking, and appeared as though he was in his late forties. He smiled and stood up as she approached the table. |
| 692 |
Jack had a soccer game, and she had to provide the snacks for their team. Sam went to two birthday parties, and she carpooled for both of them, and Daphne had ten friends in for pizza. It was the first time she had had friends over since the fateful beer party, so Maxine kept a close eye on them, but nothing untoward happened. Zelda was back on her feet again, but had the weekend off. She was going to an art exhibit and planning to see friends. Maxine worked on another article in her spare time late at night. And two of her patients were hospitalized over the weekend, one for an overdose, and the other for observation as a suicide risk. She had six kids to visit in two different hospitals on Monday, and a slew of patients in her office. And when she got home, Zelda was sick as a dog with flu and a fever. And she was worse on Tuesday morning. Maxine told her not to worry about it and to stay in bed. Daphne could bring Sam home from school, since Jack had soccer practice and was being carpooled. They could manage. And they would have, if the gods hadn't conspired against her. Maxine had patients back to back all day. Tuesday was her day to see new patients, she had histories to take, and first meetings with adolescents were crucial, so she needed her wits about her. At noon, Sam's school called her. He had thrown up twice in the last half hour, and Zelda was in no condition to go and get him. Maxine had to do it. She had a twenty minute break between patients, got a cab, and picked Sam up at school. He looked miserable, and threw up all over her in the taxi. The driver was furious, she had nothing to clean it up with, and she tipped him twenty dollars. She got Sam upstairs, tucked him into bed, and asked Zelda to keep an eye on him, in spite of her fever. It was like leaving the wounded with the maimed, but she had no other choice. She showered, changed, and had to get back to the office. She was ten minutes late for her next patient, which made a poor impression, and the girl's mother complained about it. |
| 693 |
Blake was a tough act to follow, for anyone, and in her own way, so was she, although she was very modest. There was nothing arrogant or pompous about Maxine, in spite of her very successful psychiatric career, and even the books she had written. She was very low key, and he liked that about her. He wasn't nearly as much so, and he knew that about himself. Charles West had a fairly good opinion of himself, and wasn't shy by any means about his own accomplishments. He hadn't hesitated to try to strong arm her into doing things his way over the Wexler boy, and only backed off later when he found out who Maxine was, and how expert she was in her field. Only then had he conceded that she knew better, particularly after Jason's third suicide attempt, which had left Charles unnerved and feeling foolish. He usually hated to admit he was wrong, but had no other choice in that case. Maxine was powerful, but both feminine and gentle. She didn't need to throw her weight around, and rarely did, except when a patient's life was at stake, but never to feed her ego. In many ways, to Charles, she seemed like the perfect woman, and he had never met anyone like her. "How do your children feel about your dating?" he asked her as they finished dinner. He didn't quite dare ask her what they had said about him, although he wondered. It had been clear on Tuesday night that they had been startled to see him. And she obviously hadn't prepared them, since she had forgotten their date completely. His appearance on the scene had taken everyone by surprise, including Maxine when he walked in. And in turn, with everything that had happened after that, they had surprised the hell out of him. He had told a friend about it the next day, who had roared with laughter at Charles's description of the chaotic scene, and had said in no uncertain terms that it would do him good and loosen him up a little. "Couldn't happen to a nicer guy" had been his comment. As a rule, Charles preferred not to go out with women with children. |
| 694 |
He found it hard to spend time together when they were so wrapped up in their children's lives. Usually at least they had ex husbands who took the kids half the time. Maxine had no one to take the heat off her, except a nanny, who was human and had her own problems. There was a lot resting on Maxine's shoulders, and being with Maxine would be a challenge for him because of that. "They were pretty surprised," Maxine said honestly. "I haven't dated in a long time. They're used to the women in their father's life, but I don't think it has even occurred to them that there might be someone in mine one day." And she hadn't adjusted to the idea either. The men she had gone out with briefly had been of so little interest to her, and so unappealing that she had given up the concept. The doctors she met always seemed pompous to her, or she had nothing in common with them, and they found the demands of her practice and home life too taxing. Most men didn't want a woman or a wife who went to the hospital for emergencies at four in the morning, and had that many demands on them outside the home. Blake hadn't loved it either, but her medical career had always been important to her, and her children even more so. Her cup was very full, and as Tuesday night had proven, it didn't take much for it to run over. There wasn't much room, if any, for anyone else. And he suspected that that suited her children. It had been clearly written on all their faces when he met them, that they wanted her to themselves, and he was not welcome in their midst. They didn't need him. And he suspected she didn't either. She didn't have that desperate quality of most women her age, who wanted more than anything to meet a man. What she conveyed instead was that she was happy, fulfilled, and doing fine on her own. And that appealed to him too. He had no desire to be anyone's savior, although he did want to be the hub of a woman's life. And with Maxine, he never would be. There were both positives and negatives to that. |
| 695 |
The dinner had been delicious, and the wines he had chosen superb. "To answer your question, I don't know the answer to that. I could only make the adjustment for the right man. I'd have to really believe it could work. I don't want to make another mistake. Blake and I were just too different. You don't notice it as much when you're young. After a certain point, when you're grown up and know who you are, it really matters. You can't kid yourself at our age, that something will work when it really doesn't. It's a lot harder to make the gears mesh later on, because there are more of them. It's all good fun when you're a kid. Later, it's another story. And it's not so easy to find the right match, there are a lot fewer candidates, and even with the good ones, there's a lot of baggage. It has to be worth the effort of making the adjustment. And my children give me an excuse not to try. They keep me busy and happy. The trouble is that one day they'll grow up, and I'll wind up alone. I don't have to face that right now." She was right, and he nodded. They were a buffer against loneliness for her, and an excuse to be lazy about letting a man into her life. Somewhere, he suspected she was scared to try again. He had the impression that Blake had taken a big part of her with him, and even if they were "too different," as she claimed, he had the feeling she still loved him. That could be a problem too. And who could compete with a legend who had become a billionaire and had that much charm? It was a hell of a challenge, one that few men would take on, and clearly hadn't. They moved on to other topics then, more about their work, her passion for her suicidal adolescent patients, her compassion for their parents, her fascination with trauma caused by public events. By comparison, his practice was far less interesting than hers. He dealt with the common cold, a host of more mundane ailments and situations, and the occasional sadness of a patient with cancer whom he immediately referred to a specialist and lost sight of. |
| 696 |
Tonight had been entirely the reverse. It was perfect. "I'd like that too," she said simply. "I'll call you," he said, and made no move to kiss her. She would have been shocked and put off if he did. That wasn't his style. He moved slowly and deliberately when he liked a woman, setting the stage for something to happen later on, if they both chose that. He was in no rush, and never liked to push women too hard or too soon. It had to be a mutual decision, and he knew Maxine was nowhere near that point. She had been off the dating scene for too long, and had never really been in it. The concept of a relationship was not even on her mind. He would have to bring her around to that slowly, if he decided it was what he wanted. He wasn't sure about it yet either. She was nice to talk to and spend time with, the rest remained to be seen. Her kids were still a big hurdle for him to get over. She thanked him again and gently closed the door. Jack was asleep in his room by then, after the party he'd gone to, as was Zelda in hers. The apartment was quiet as Maxine got undressed, brushed her teeth, and got into bed, thinking about Charles. It had been nice, there was no question about that. But it felt weird to her to be out with a man. It was so grown up, and so polite. And so was he. She couldn't imagine hanging around with him on a Sunday afternoon, with her kids around her, as she did with Blake when he was in town. But then again, he was their father, and his life wasn't home centered either. He was only a tourist passing through their lives, although an appealing one. Blake was a comet in their skies. Charles was solid, and they had a lot in common. He was very serious, and he appealed to that side of her. But he wasn't light hearted or playful or a lot of fun. For a moment, she missed that in her life, and then realized that you couldn't have everything. If she ever got seriously involved with anyone again, she had always said she wanted someone solid she could rely on. Charles was certainly that kind of man. |
| 697 |
They were one of his favorite groups, and he and Mick Jagger were old friends. He had introduced Blake to a number of other players in the rock star world, and several remarkable women. Blake's brief affair with one of the biggest female rock stars in the world had made headlines everywhere, until she spoiled everything and married someone else. That wasn't his game, and he was honest about it. He never pretended to anyone that he wanted to get married, or was even open to it. He had far too much money now. Marriage was much too dangerous for him, unless he married someone who had as much as he did, and those were never the women he went after. He liked them young, lively, and unencumbered. All he wanted to do was play. He didn't hurt anyone. And when it was over, they left with jewels, furs, cars, presents, and the best memories they ever had. And then he moved on to the next one, and started all over again. And when he got back to London, he was free at the moment. He had no one to take to the Rolling Stones concert, so he went by himself, and to a fabulous party at Kensington Palace afterward. Every royal, model, actress, socialite, aristocrat, and rock star was there. It was everything that Blake loved, and his world. He had talked to half a dozen women that night, met some interesting men, and was thinking about leaving, when he ordered one last drink at the bar, and saw a pretty redhead smiling at him. She had a diamond in her nose, was wearing a ruby bindi and a sari, had spiky hair, and tattoos running down her arms, and she was staring unabashedly at him. She didn't look Indian, but the ruby bindi between her eyebrows confused him, and the sari she wore was the color of a summer sky, the same color as her eyes. He had never seen an Indian woman with tattoos before. Hers were flowers running up and down her arms, and there was another on her taut flat stomach, which the sari exposed. She was drinking champagne, and eating olives from a glass bowl on the bar. |
| 698 |
Just the bare bones necessary to make the appointment for lunch. He wondered if she'd show up in the bindi and the sari. All he knew was that he couldn't wait to see her. He hadn't been this excited about anyone in years. Blake arrived at Santa Lucia promptly at one the next day, and stood at the bar waiting for her. Arabella walked in twenty minutes later, her short red hair sticking up straight, a miniskirt, high heeled brown suede boots, and an enormous lynx coat. She looked like a character in a movie, and there was no sign of her bindi. She looked more like Milan or Paris, and her eyes were the electrifying blue he remembered. She beamed the moment she saw him, and gave him a warm hug. "You're so nice to take me to lunch," she said, as though that had never happened to her before, which was obviously not the case. She was very glamorous, and at the same time very unassuming, and Blake loved that about her. He felt like a puppy at her feet, which was rare for him, as the headwaiter took them to their table, and made as big a fuss over Arabella as he did over Blake. The conversation flowed with ease over lunch. Blake asked her about her work, and he talked about his experience in the high tech dot com world, which she found fascinating. They chatted about art, architecture, sailing, horses, dogs, his kids. They exchanged thoughts about everything imaginable and left the restaurant at four o'clock. He said he'd love to see her work, and she invited him to the studio the next day, after her next session with Tony Blair. She said other than that, she had an easy week, and was of course leaving for the country on Friday. Everyone who was anyone in England went to the country on the weekend, to their homes or someone else's. When they left each other on the street, he could hardly wait to see her again. He was suddenly obsessed with her, and sent her flowers that afternoon, with a clever note. She called the minute they arrived. He had sent orchids and roses, with lily of the valley tucked in. |
| 699 |
He had used the best florist in London, and had sent everything exotic he could think of, which seemed fitting for her. Blake thought she was the most interesting woman he had ever met, and sexy beyond belief. He went to her studio late the next morning, just after Tony Blair left, and was totally startled by how Arabella looked. She was a woman of many faces, exotic, glamorous, childlike, a waif, one moment a beauty queen, and the next an elf. She opened the door to her studio wearing paint splattered skintight jeans, high top red Converse sneakers, and a white T shirt, with an enormous ruby bracelet on one arm, and she was wearing the bindi again. Everything about her was a little crazy, but utterly fascinating to him. She showed him several portraits in progress, and some old ones she had done for herself. There were some beautiful horse portraits, and he thought the one of the prime minister extremely good. She was as talented as Mick Jagger had said. "They're fantastic," he said to her, "absolutely wonderful, Arabella." She opened a bottle of champagne, she said to celebrate his first visit to her studio, the first of many, she hoped, as she toasted him. He drank two glasses with her, in spite of his aversion to champagne. He would have drunk poison for her, and then he suggested they go back to his place. He wanted to show her his treasures now too. He had some very important art, and an absolutely spectacular house that he loved and was very proud of. They found a taxi easily, and half an hour later, they were wandering through his house, as she screamed with excitement over the art she saw. He opened another bottle of champagne for her, but he drank vodka this time. He turned on the sound system, showed her the theater he had had built, he showed her everything, and by nine o'clock they were in his enormous bed, making mad, passionate love to each other. He had never had an experience like that with any woman, even on drugs, which he had experimented with lightly at one point, and never liked. |
| 700 |
The cab stopped in front of her building, and she suddenly realized how bone tired she was as she got out. Her legs felt like cement, and the high heels were killing her. She was still wearing the white lab coat over her evening dress, and carrying her black evening coat. Charles had worn a good looking conservative dark suit, a white shirt, and a navy tie. She liked the way he dressed. And he still looked impeccable after the long night. "I feel like I've been dragged through a bush backward," she said, and he laughed. "You don't look it. You were absolutely fantastic tonight." "Thanks, it's all about the team, no one person, and how the luck runs on any given night. You just never know how it will turn out. You do your best, and pray a lot. I always do." He looked at her with eyes full of fresh respect and admiration. It was six thirty in the morning, and he suddenly wished he could go home and go to bed with her. He would have liked to sleep with his arms around her, after the night they had shared. Instead, he bent down, as he stood outside her building with her, and brushed her lips with his. It was sooner than either of them had planned to kiss, but tonight had changed a lot of things for both of them. They had somehow formed a bond. He kissed her again, harder this time, and she kissed him back as he slipped his arms around her and held her close to him. "I'll call you later," he whispered. She nodded, and went into her building. She sat in her kitchen for a long time afterward, thinking about all of it, her patient, the long night, and Charles's kiss. It was hard to say which of the three had shaken her most. Her patient's suicide attempt undoubtedly, but she felt as though lightning had struck her when Charles kissed her. But it felt nice too. She had loved having him there for her. In so many ways, Charles seemed like everything she had ever wanted. And now that he was here, she was scared of what it meant, and how she would do it. She wasn't sure there was room in her life for him and her kids. |
| 701 |
Anything was possible. She couldn't imagine Blake ever marrying again or staying with the same woman long term, but you never knew. Maybe one day he would. Maxine wondered how she would feel about that when it happened. Maybe not so great. Just like her children, she liked the way things were. Change was never easy, but maybe one day she'd have to face it. In Blake's life, and her own. That's what Charles was all about. Change. It was scary for her too. The trip took longer than she expected because of the snow, and she got to Charles's place at eight o'clock. It was a small, neat little New England house with a peaked roof and a rustic fence around it. It looked like something on a postcard. He came out to greet her as soon as she drove up, and carried in her bags. There was a front porch with a swing and two rockers on it, and inside there was one big bedroom, a living room with a fireplace and a hooked rug, and a cozy country kitchen. She was disappointed to note that there would have been nowhere to put her kids, if it ever came to that. Not even a guest room where she could have crammed all three into one bed. It was a house suitable for a bachelor, or at most a couple, and nothing else, which was how he lived. And he liked it that way. He had made that clear. The house was cozy and warm when she walked in, and he set her bags down in the bedroom, and showed her the closet where she could hang her things. It was an odd feeling being alone there with him. It seemed a little premature since she had never slept with him, and now they would be sharing a bed. What if she decided not to sleep with him? she asked herself. But it was too late now, she was there. She suddenly felt very brave coming up, and shy as he bustled around showing her where things were. Towels, sheets, washing machine, the bathroom, of which there was only one. And everything in his kitchen was immaculate and neat. He had cold chicken and some soup waiting for her, but after the long drive she was too tired to eat. |
| 702 |
There was a heady atmosphere all around them, and as she lowered the tinted windows to see better, the aroma of spices, flowers, people, and animals mingled to create an impression that had an aura all its own. The traffic around them was insane. There were mopeds and motorcycles darting among the cars, the traffic was crazy and disorganized, as horns sounded, people shouted, and street musicians added to the cacophony of sounds. Arabella turned to Blake with a wide, happy smile and her eyes dancing. It was even better than India for her, because she was sharing it with him. "I love this!" she said excitedly, as he beamed at her. And he couldn't wait to show her his palace. He thought Marrakech was the most romantic place he'd ever been, and Arabella agreed. In spite of her travels in India, she loved this even more. Arabella came to life in exotic places in ways Blake had never seen her before. They drove through the gigantic palm trees bordering the driveway, as they approached the peach colored stucco of La Mamounia Hotel. Arabella had heard about it for years, and had always wanted to come here, and doing so with Blake was the best of all possible worlds. Men in white Moroccan outfits with red sashes greeted them, as Arabella noticed the carved wood and mosaic designs outside the hotel, and the manager appeared. Blake had already stayed there several times since buying the ancient palace, and had reserved one of the hotel's three luxurious private villas, which he was keeping until the remodeling and decoration would be complete. Just to show Arabella, they walked into the main lobby where they stood on white marble floors, bordered in black marble, beneath a huge elaborate chandelier. They had entered the lobby through multicolored stained glass doors, in red, yellow, and blue, as a bevy of men in white pajamas, gray vests, and red hats surrounded them and greeted Arabella and Blake. There were five luxurious restaurants and five bars for the guests' convenience, Turkish baths, and every possible amenity. |
| 703 |
It was a perfect little town, with the restaurants, the bazaars with their exotic wares, and the beauty of nature beyond them. And there was a lively social life as well. Arabella had several French friends who had moved to Marrakech, and she and Blake had dinner with them before they left. It had been a terrific trip. They dropped the architect off in London, and then flew to the Azores, and from there to St. Bart's. Arabella loved his house there, and a week later they took off on his boat. It was the largest sailboat she had ever seen, and they headed for the Grenadine Islands, just north of Venezuela. She had had to reorganize all her portrait sitting sessions to be with him, and travel with him, but it was worth it. She lay naked on the sun deck with him, as they glided quietly through the transparent green waters. It was February by then, and they both agreed it was the perfect life. It was snowing everywhere else in the world but eternal summer for them. Best of all, it was the summer of their love. Maxine was walking through snowdrifts then on the way to her office, and she was busier than ever. She'd had a number of new referrals, and a rash of school shootings around the country had her flying to several cities to consult with teams of psychiatrists and local authorities about how to deal with the children who'd been involved. In her personal life, things were going well with Charles. The winter was flying by. And even Daphne was settling down. She and Charles might never be best friends, but she had stopped making overtly rude comments about him, and once in a while she even let her guard down when he was around, and they had a good laugh. He was making a superhuman effort with her kids. It was easiest for him with Jack and Sam, and he had taken both of them to several basketball games. Daphne was too busy with her own social life to join them, although he always invited her as well. Maxine was extremely careful not to let them know that she and Charles were sleeping with each other. |
| 704 |
Blake's plane took off from Newark airport on Thursday night, just after eight P.M. Maxine settled back comfortably in one of the luxurious seats, and she was planning to use one of the two bedrooms to get a good night's sleep. The rooms had king size beds, beautiful sheets, and warm comforters and blankets, and there were big fluffy pillows. One of the two flight attendants on board brought her a snack, and shortly after that, a light dinner of smoked salmon and an omelette they had prepared on board. The purser gave her the details of the flight, which would take seven and a half hours. They would arrive at seven thirty A.M. local time, and a car and driver would be waiting to take her to the village outside Marrakech where Blake and several other rescue workers had set up camp. The International Red Cross was there too in full force. Maxine thanked the purser for the information, ate the light meal, and went to bed by nine. She knew she'd need all the rest she could get before she got there, and it was easy to do in the luxury of Blake's plane. It was handsomely decorated in beige and gray fabrics and leathers. There were cashmere blankets on every seat, mohair couches, and thick gray wool carpets throughout the plane. The bedroom was done in a pale yellow, and Maxine fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. She slept like a baby for six hours, and when she woke up, she lay in bed, thinking about Charles. She was still upset that he was so angry at her, but she knew that going to Morocco had been the right decision. She combed her hair and brushed her teeth, and put her heavy boots back on. She hadn't used them for a while and had retrieved them from the back of her closet, where she kept clothes for situations like this. She had brought rough gear with her, and suspected she'd be sleeping in what she wore for the next few days. She was actually excited about what she was going to do, and hoped she could make a difference, and be of some assistance to Blake. |
| 705 |
She emerged from the bedroom looking fresh and rested, and enjoyed the breakfast the flight attendant served her. There were fresh croissants and brioche, yogurt, and a basket of fresh fruit. And she did some reading after she ate, as they started to descend. She had pinned a caduceus to her lapel when she got up, which would identify her as a physician at the disaster site. And she was ready to roll when they landed, her hair in a neat braid, and wearing an old tan safari shirt under a heavy sweater. She had T shirts, and a rough jacket too. Jack had checked the weather for her online before she packed. And she had a water canteen that she filled with Evian before she left the plane. There were work gloves clipped to her belt, and surgical masks and rubber gloves in her pockets. She was ready to work. As Blake had promised, there was a Jeep and driver waiting for her when she got off the plane, and she carried a small shoulder bag with clean underwear in case there was a place for her to shower on site, and she had medicines in the event that she got sick. She had brought the surgical masks with her in case the stench of rotting bodies was too much, or they were dealing with infectious diseases. She had alcohol wipes with her too. She had tried to think of everything before she left. It was always a little bit like a military operation going into situations like that, even if there was utter chaos. She wore no jewelry except a watch. And she had left her engagement ring from Charles in New York. She was all business as she hopped into the waiting Jeep and they drove off. Her French was rudimentary, but she was able to talk to the driver on the way. He said many people had been killed, thousands, and many people were hurt. He talked about bodies lying in the streets, still waiting to be buried, which to Maxine meant diseases and epidemics in their immediate future. You didn't have to be a doctor to figure that out, and her driver knew it too. It was a three hour drive to Imlil from Marrakech. |
| 706 |
It was cooler on the way to Imlil than it had been in Marrakech, and the countryside was greener as a result. There were mud brick villages, goats, sheep, and chickens on the roads, men on mules, and women and children carrying bundles of sticks on their heads. There were signs of damaged huts, and the trauma of the earthquake from Asni to Imlil, and there were footpaths between all the villages, most of which had been destroyed. Openbacked trucks from other areas carried people from one village to another. Once they began to approach Imlil, Maxine could see flattened mud huts everywhere, with men digging through the rubble for survivors, sometimes with their bare hands, for lack of tools with which to do it. They pawed through the debris looking for loved ones and survivors, often crying, as Maxine felt tears sting her eyes. It was hard not to feel for them, as she sensed and knew only too well that they were looking for their wives, children, siblings, or parents. It reminded her of what she would see when she finally reached Blake. As they reached the outskirts of Imlil, she saw International Red Cross and Moroccan Red Crescent workers assisting people near the flattened mud houses. There seemed to be almost no structures left standing, and hundreds of people wandering by the side of the road. There were a few mules, and other livestock wandering loose, often interfering with traffic on the road. It was slow going on the last miles to Imlil. There were firemen and soldiers in evidence too. Every possible form of rescue worker had been deployed by the Moroccan government and other countries, and helicopters were buzzing overhead. It was a familiar sight from other disaster areas she had worked in. Many of the villages lacked electricity and water at the best of times, conditions were rough, particularly farther up the mountains, past Imlil. Her driver was giving her details of the regions as they crawled through the villagers, refugees, and livestock on the roads. |
| 707 |
But after years of traveling, his French was pretty good. The driver also explained that above Imlil was also the Kasbah du Toubkal, a governor's former summer palace. It was a twenty minute walk from Imlil to get there. There was no other way except by mule. He said they were bringing the wounded in from the villages by mule as well. The men they saw were wearing djellabas, the long hooded robes worn by the Berbers. And everyone looked exhausted and dusty, after traveling by mule, walking for hours, or digging people out of their homes. As they got closer to Imlil, Maxine could see that even buildings made of concrete blocks had been destroyed by the earthquake. Nothing was left standing, and they began to see the tents the Red Cross had erected as field hospitals, and shelter for the countless refugees. The more typical mud huts were all in rubble on the ground. The concrete block buildings had fared no better than the mud and clay homes. There were wildflowers by the side of the road, whose beauty seemed in sharp contrast to the devastation Maxine was seeing everywhere. The driver told her that the United Nations headquarters in Geneva had also sent a disaster assessment team to advise the Red Cross and the many international rescue teams who were offering to come in and help. Maxine had worked with the UN on several occasions, and realized that if she worked with any international agency on longterm solutions, it would most likely be with them. One of their great concerns at the moment was the fear of malaria spreading in the destroyed villages, as it was common in the area, spread by mosquitoes, and cholera and typhoid were real dangers too, from contamination. Bodies were being buried quickly, according to the traditions of the region, but with many bodies still unrecovered, the spread of disease as a result was a real concern. It was more than a little daunting, even to Maxine, to see how much work there was to do, and how little time she had to advise Blake. |
| 708 |
She had obligations, responsibilities, and her own children to return to in New York, and she didn't want to push Charles more than she already had. But Maxine knew that rescue teams and international organizations would be working here for months. She wondered if Blake would too. Once in Imlil, they saw more huts that had fallen down, trucks that had been overturned, fissures in the ground, and people wailing over their dead. It got steadily worse as they advanced into the village to where Blake had said he'd be waiting. He was working out of one of the Red Cross tents. And as they drove slowly toward the rescue tents, Maxine was aware of the hideous, acrid stench of death that she had experienced before in similar situations, and that one never forgot. She pulled one of the surgical masks out of her bag and put it on. It was as bad as she had feared, and she had to admire Blake for being there. She knew the whole experience must be a shock to him. The Jeep drove her into the central part of Imlil, where houses were collapsed, rubble and broken glass were everywhere, bodies were lying on the ground, some covered with tarps, some not, and people were shuffling around still in shock. There were children crying, carrying other younger children or babies, and she saw two Red Cross trucks where volunteers were serving food and tea. There was a medical tent with a huge Red Cross on it, and smaller tents set up in a camp. The driver pointed to one of them, and then followed her as she approached it on foot over rough ground. Children stared up at her with matted hair and filthy faces. Most of them were barefoot, and some had no clothes on as they had fled in the night. The weather was warm, mercifully, and she took her sweater off and tied it around her waist. The smell of death, urine, and feces was everywhere as she walked into the tent, looking for a familiar face. There was only one person she would know here, and she found him within minutes, talking to a little girl in French. |
| 709 |
There were crying children everywhere, and every volunteer seemed to be holding a baby. "What's going to happen to them?" Maxine asked. "Has anything official been organized yet?" She knew they would have to wait for confirmation that parents were dead and family members couldn't be found. It would be a mess until then. "The government and the Red Cross and Moroccan Red Crescent are working on it, but it's still pretty chaotic right now. It's mostly word of mouth, and what people are telling us. I'm not involved in the rest of it, I've been concentrating on the kids." Once again, it struck her as odd for a moment, since he had always spent so little time with his own, but at least his instincts were good, and his heart was in the right place. She spent the next two hours roaming around the camp with him, talking to people in the best French she could muster. She offered her services at the medical tent, if they needed them, and she identified herself to the head surgeon as a psychiatrist, specialized in trauma. He had her talk to several women and an old man. One woman had been pregnant with twins and lost them both from a blow when her house collapsed around her, and her husband had been killed, buried under the rubble. He had somehow saved her life and lost his own, she explained. She had three other children, but no one could find them. There were dozens of cases like hers, and one beautiful young girl had lost both arms. She was crying pitifully for her mother, and Maxine just stood with her and stroked her hair, as Blake turned away in tears. It was nearly sunset when she and Blake stopped at the Red Cross truck, and took steaming cups of mint tea. And as they stopped to listen, they both heard the mystical call to prayer that reverberated from the village, started by the main mosque. It was an unforgettable sound. She had promised to go back to the medical tent later that night, to outline some plans for helping them deal with trauma victims, but that meant almost everyone here, including the workers. |
| 710 |
It was an amazing project. She was too moved to even tell him how impressed she was. And it would take her time and several visits to properly assess the situation for him. They slept in the Jeep again that night, and she made rounds with him again all the next day. The children they saw were adorable and in such dire need that it made his idea of turning his house into an orphanage for some of them all the more poignant. And in the coming months, there would be much work to do. Blake had already called his architect that day, and was working on setting up meetings with government agencies to implement his plan. She spent her last hour in the camp at the medical tent again. She had the feeling that she had done very little while she was there, but one always felt that way in situations like this. Blake walked her to the Jeep at the end of the day. He looked worn out. He had so much on his mind. "When are you going back?" she asked him with a look of concern. "I don't know. When they don't need me anymore. A few weeks, a month. I have a lot to organize here now." They were going to need help for a long time, but eventually the worst of the crisis would be over, and he would go back to London, where Arabella was waiting patiently for him. He was so busy he had hardly had time to call her, but she was loving and adorable whenever he did. She told him how wonderful and what a hero he was and that she was in awe of him. And so was Maxine. She had been monumentally impressed by his efforts and plans for setting up an orphanage in his palace in Marrakech. "Don't forget you have the boat for two weeks in July," he reminded her. They both felt awkward talking about it here. A vacation on a superyacht seemed totally out of place in this context. She thanked him again for it. Charles would be joining them this time, albeit reluctantly, but she had insisted that it was one of their traditions, and the children would be upset if they didn't do it. And he was part of the family now. |
| 711 |
He was in no mood for dessert, and Maxine didn't care. The jet lag had finally caught up with her, and she didn't want to fight with Charles about Blake, or anything. He walked her back to her building in silence, and left her outside. He said he'd see her the next day, hailed a cab, and left without another word to her. Things were definitely stressful between them, and she hoped the wedding plans didn't make things worse. They were meeting with the caterer in Southampton that weekend. Charles had already told her he thought both the tent and the wedding cake were too expensive, which was annoying since she was paying for all of it herself. Charles was a little tight about things like that. But Maxine wanted everything beautiful for their wedding. As she rode up in the elevator, she thought about telling Blake not to do the rehearsal dinner, but she knew that he'd be so disappointed. And the kids would be upset too, if they got wind of it. She hoped that Charles would get used to the idea, and even relax about Blake in time. And if anyone could soften Charles up, it was Blake. He had an easy way with everyone, and no one had ever been able to resist his charm and sense of humor. If Charles could, it would be a first. In spite of his anger at her the night before, the next morning Maxine had to ask Charles to come by that night, to go over the guest list and details about the wedding. The caterer had called for more information, and wanted to know several things before their meeting on Saturday. Charles grudgingly came over after dinner, still in a bad mood from the night before. He was mad about the rehearsal dinner, and he still hadn't completely swallowed her trip to Morocco. There was a little too much Blake Williams in his life these days, even at his wedding. It was a lot for Charles to digest. Charles sat down at the kitchen table with the children as they were finishing dessert. Zelda had made apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and he willingly had a piece, and said it was very good. |
| 712 |
Zelda looked like ten miles of bad road after another sleepless night. She was awake with the baby every night, for most of the night, holding him. "The doctor said it could take a while for the drugs to get out of his system. I think he's a little better," Zellie said, looking down at her son blissfully. She had totally bonded with Jimmy as though she'd given birth to him herself. The social workers had come to check on him several times, and no one could have faulted Zellie for how devoted she was to him. He just wasn't a lot of fun for anyone else. Maxine was relieved they'd be leaving on vacation in a few weeks, and with luck by the time they got back, Jimmy would have settled down. It was all she could hope for now. Zellie was a wonderful mom, and just as patient and loving as she had been with Jack and Sam when they were born. And little Jimmy was a lot harder to deal with. In the meantime, plans for the wedding were under way. Maxine hadn't found a dress yet, and she needed one for Daphne too. Daphne refused to have any part of it, and was threatening not to go to the wedding at all, which was yet another challenge Maxine had to face. She didn't say anything about it to Charles. She knew how hurt he would have been. So she went shopping on her own, hoping to find dresses for both of them. She had already gotten khaki suits for the boys, and one for Charles too. At least that was done. Blake had called from Morocco, told her all that he'd accomplished since she left. The new construction to transform his palace into a home for a hundred kids was already under way. He had turned staffing, and the running of the future orphanage, over to a group of very competent people, and he had done all he could for now. He planned to come back every month to make sure they were moving ahead as planned. So he was going back to London for the time being, and he told Maxine that everything was ready on the boat for them. She and the kids could hardly wait. It was their best vacation together every year. |
| 713 |
She thought it was a wonderful thing to do. He decided to surprise her when he flew back to London. He was coming home a week earlier than he'd said he would. He had done everything he could, and he had work to do now in London, setting up the financial arrangements for the orphanage, and a hundred orphans. He arrived at Heathrow at midnight, was at his house forty minutes later, and let himself in. The house was dark, and Arabella had said she'd been working hard, so he assumed she was asleep. She'd said she had hardly been going out, and it was no fun without him. She was desperate for him to come home. Blake was exhausted after the flight to London, and everything he'd been doing in the past weeks. He had a deep tan on his face and arms. Beneath where his T shirt had been, his skin was white. All he wanted now was to get his hands on Arabella, and jump into bed with her. He was starving for her. He tiptoed into his bedroom, in case she was asleep. He saw her shape under the sheet, sat down next to her, and leaned down to kiss her, only to discover that there were two bodies, not one, and they were intertwined and half asleep. His eyes flew wide open, and he turned on the light for a better look. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, and at first he wanted to believe it was a mistake. It was no mistake. An extraordinarily handsome dark skinned man sat up in bed with her, with a look of panic. Blake suspected it was one of the important Indian men she knew, or perhaps a new one. It didn't matter who he was. He was in Blake's bed with her. "I'm terribly sorry," the man said politely, instantly wrapped himself in the sheet that was floating loose on the bed, after what must have been a lot of activity, and swept out of the room as fast as he could. Arabella stared at Blake in horror and started to cry. "He just dropped by," she said faintly, which was clearly a lie, because he was packing two alligator suitcases in Blake's dressing room, so he must have been there for a while. |
| 714 |
Three of Blake's crew members and the captain were waiting at the Nice airport for them, and took them to the boat in two cars. Charles had no idea what to expect, but was a little surprised by the crisp uniforms, and the professionalism of the crew. This was obviously no ordinary boat. And Blake Williams was no ordinary man. She was called Sweet Dreams, and Maxine didn't tell Charles, but Blake had built the boat for her. And she was a very, very sweet dream. She was a two hundred forty six foot sailboat, the likes of which Charles had never seen. There was a crew of eighteen on board, and staterooms more beautiful than most houses, or any hotel. There was a fortune in art on the burnished wood walls. The children always had a ball when they were on board. They scampered around her like she was their second home, which in some ways she was. They were delighted to see the crew, who were equally happy to see them. The crew were trained to meet every imaginable need, and spoil them in every possible way. No request was too menial or too small or ever ignored. It was the only time of the year when Maxine was totally pampered, and could completely relax. The crew entertained the children, and took out the toys at every stop. There were Jet Skis, and tiny sailboats, speedboats, and rafts to pull behind them, and a helipad for when Blake came on board. And there was a fullsize theater to entertain them at night, a fully equipped gym for them to exercise in, and a masseur to give them all massages. Charles sat on deck looking startled and uncomfortable, as the enormous sailboat left the dock. A stewardess offered him a drink, and another one offered him a massage. He declined both, as he watched Monaco shrink behind them, and they set sail toward Italy. Maxine and the kids were below unpacking and making themselves comfortable. Fortunately, none of them ever got seasick, and on a boat this size, Charles suspected he wouldn't either. He was watching the coast with binoculars when Maxine came upstairs to find him. |
| 715 |
She was graceful and small, with skinny little legs. And the dog was a chocolate Lab. They walked slowly down from the gated community toward the public beach at the far end. There was almost no one on the beach that day, it was too cold. But she didn't mind, and the dog barked from time to time at the little swirls of sand raised by the wind, and then bounded back to the water's edge. He leaped backward, barking furiously, when he saw a crab, and the little girl laughed. It was obvious that the child and the dog were good friends. Something about the way they walked along together suggested a solitary life, as though one could sense that they had walked along this way often before. They walked side by side for a long time. Some days it was hot and sunny on the beach, as one would expect in July, but not always. When the fog came in, it always seemed wintry and cold. You could see the fog roll in across the waves, and straight through the spires of the Golden Gate. At times you could see the bridge from the beach. Safe Harbour was thirty five minutes north of San Francisco, and more than half of it was a gated community, with houses sitting just behind the dune, all along the beach. A security booth with a guard kept out the unwelcome. There was no access to the beach itself save from the houses that bordered it. At the other end, there was a public beach, and a row of simpler, almost shacklike houses, which had access to the beach as well. On hot sunny days, the public beach was crowded and populated inch by inch. But most of the time, even the public beach was sparsely visited, and at the private end, it was rare to see anyone on the beach at all. The child had just reached the stretch of beach where the simpler houses were, when she saw a man sitting on a folding stool, painting a watercolor propped against an easel. She stopped and watched him from a considerable distance, as the Lab loped up the dune to pursue an intriguing scent he seemed to have discovered on the wind. |
| 716 |
She was far enough away that he was not aware of her at all. She just liked watching him, there was something solid and familiar about him as the wind brushed through his short dark hair. She liked observing people, and did the same thing with fishermen sometimes, staying well away from them, but taking in all they did. She sat there for a long time, as the artist worked. And she noticed that there were boats in his painting that didn't exist. It was quite a while before the dog came back and sat down next to her on the sand. She stroked him, without looking at him, she was looking out to sea, and then from time to time at the artist. After a while, she stood up and approached a little bit, standing behind him and to the side, so he remained unaware of her presence, but she had a clear view of his work in progress. She liked the colors he was working with, and there was a sunset in the painting that she liked as well. The dog was tired by then, and stood by, seeming to wait for a command. And it was yet another little while before she approached again, and stood near enough for the artist to notice her at last. He looked up, startled, as the dog bounded past him, sending up a spray of sand. It was only then that the man glanced up and saw the child. He said nothing, and went on working, and was surprised to notice that she hadn't moved, and was still watching him, when he turned his head again, and mixed some water in his paints, half an hour later. They said nothing to each other, but she continued to watch, and finally sat down on the sand. It was warmer, keeping low in the wind. Like her, the artist was wearing a sweatshirt, and in his case jeans, and an old pair of deck shoes that were well worn. He had a gently weathered face and a deep tan, and she noticed as he worked that he had nice hands. He was roughly the same age as her father, somewhere in his forties. And as he turned to see if she was still there, their eyes met, but neither smiled. He hadn't talked to a child in a long time. |
| 717 |
She would have given all of it to spend the rest of her life with Ted, and to have Chad alive too. There had been some tough times between her and Ted, but even then, her love for him hadn't faltered. But there was no question, it had been rocky between them at one point, and more than once because of Chad. But that was all over now. Their troubled son was at peace at last. And Ted, for all his brilliance and awkwardness and chemistry and charm, had vanished from her life. She spent hours at night rolling the film of their life backward in her head, trying to sort it out, trying to remember what it had really been like, savoring the good times, and trying to fast forward past the bad. And as she did, she did some careful editing. What was left in the end was the memory of a man she had deeply loved, whatever his faults. Her love for him had been unconditional, not that it mattered now. They solved the dinner dilemma with sandwiches, although Pip had barely eaten that day, and the silence in the house was deafening. They never put music on. They barely spoke. And as Pip sat eating the turkey sandwich her mother had made, she was thinking about Matt. She wondered again where New Zealand was, and felt sorry for him that he lived so far from his kids. She could imagine how hard that was. And she was glad she had told him about her father and Chad, although she hadn't explained how sick Chad had been. But it seemed disloyal to her to tell him that. She knew Chad's sickness had been a secret they kept to themselves. And there was no point telling him about it now. Chad was gone. His illness had left a deep mark on her, on all of them. Living with him had been traumatic and difficult, and just as Chad had known how much his father resented him and the mental illness he refused to name, Pip had been aware of it herself. She had mentioned it to her father once, when Chad was in the hospital, and he had shouted at her and told her she didn't know what she was talking about, but she knew better than that. |
| 718 |
And the doctor had a profound respect for the man who ran it, Blake Thompson. He had a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, had done grief work for nearly twenty years, and was somewhere in his mid fifties. He was a warm, practical man, who was open to trying anything that worked, and reminded the group often that there was no one right way to go through the grief process. As long as they were doing whatever worked for them, he was more than happy to support it. And when it wasn't working, he was tireless in his efforts, encouragement, and creative suggestions. He often felt that when people left the group, they had broadened their lives to something more than the life they'd been living prior to their loss. And to that end, he had just suggested singing lessons to a woman who had lost her husband, scuba diving lessons to a man who'd lost his wife in a car accident, and a religious retreat to a woman who had been a confirmed atheist, and was finding deep religious feelings for the first time since the death of her only son. All he wanted for the people in the group was for their lives to be better than they had been before he met them. And for twenty years, his results had been fairly impressive. The group was challenging, and painful at times, but much to every one's surprise, not depressing. All he asked from them when they began was to be open minded, kind to themselves, and respectful of each other. What they discussed in the group was to be kept only among themselves. And he was adamant about a four month commitment. And although some people had met their new spouses in his groups, he strongly discouraged people from dating each other while they were in it. He didn't want people either showing off, or hiding things, in order to impress each other. That request and the privacy of the group he had borrowed from the twelvestep model, and he had found them helpful, although now and then there were people in the group who grew attached to each other and started dating before the group ended. |
| 719 |
She had been so happy when they moved into it, and now it made her so unhappy. But she had to admit, last night had turned out better than she'd expected. And she was grateful for Matt's input, and creative ideas. She walked slowly up the stairs with Mousse, and sighed as she unlocked the front door. She still had a few things to unpack, and groceries to order, and that afternoon she wanted to go by the homeless shelter. It was enough to keep her busy until she picked Pip up at three thirty. But as she walked past Chad's room, she couldn't help herself. She opened the door and looked in. The shades were drawn and it was dark, and so empty and sad, it nearly tore her heart out. His posters were still there, and all his treasures. The photographs of him with his friends, the trophies from when he'd played sports when he was younger. But the room looked different than when she last saw it. It had a dry quality, like a leaf that had fallen and was slowly dying, and a musty smell. And as she always did, she went to his bed, and put her head on his pillow. She could still smell him, although more faintly. And then, as always happened when she walked into this room, the sobs engulfed her. And no amount of Chinese food or loud music would change that. They only postponed the inevitable agony, as she realized once again that Chad was never coming home. She had to tear herself away finally, and went back to her bedroom, feeling drained and exhausted. But she refused to give in to it. She saw Ted's clothes hanging there, and it was almost too much for her. She lifted a sleeve to her face, and the rough tweed felt incredibly familiar. She could still smell his cologne and almost hear him. She almost couldn't bear it. But she forced herself not to give in to it. She couldn't. She knew that now. She couldn't afford to become a robot again, to stop feeling, or to let the feelings destroy her. She had to learn to live with pain, to go on in spite of it. If nothing else, she had to keep going for Pip's sake. |
| 720 |
It was in a narrow back street South of Market, in a fairly dicey neighborhood, but she told herself that she could hardly expect it to be in Pacific Heights. But the people she saw at the desk and wandering in the halls were all friendly. She told them she wanted to make an appointment to sign up as a volunteer, and they asked her to come back the next morning. She could have called to make the appointment, but she wanted to see it. And as she left, two old men were standing outside with shopping carts full of everything they owned, as a volunteer handed them styrofoam cups full of steaming coffee. She could see herself doing that. It didn't seem very complicated, and it might do her good to feel useful. Better than sitting at home crying, and smelling Ted's jackets and Chad's pillow. She just couldn't let herself do that, and she knew it. Not again. Not for yet another year. The year before, of mourning them, had been a nightmare and nearly killed her. Somehow she had to make this year better. The anniversary of their death was coming up in four weeks, and although she was dreading it, she knew that in the second year of their grief, she had to make it better. Not just for herself, but for Pip as well. She owed it to her. And maybe working at the shelter would help her. She hoped so. She was on her way to pick Pip up at school, and was stopped at a light, when she glanced into the window of a shoe store. She wasn't paying attention at first, and then she smiled to herself when she saw them. They were giant fluffy slippers for grown ups, that were made of Sesame Street characters. There were giant blue ones of Grover, and a red pair of Elmo. They were perfect, and without thinking, she pulled over and double parked, and ran into the shoe store. She bought Grover for herself, and Elmo for Pip, and then she ran back out to the car with them in a shopping bag. She made it to school just in time to see Pip come out of the building and head for the corner where she always waited for her mother. |
| 721 |
At forty two, she had spent a lifetime becoming Fiona Monaghan, a woman men admired and women envied, and came to love when they knew her well and she was their friend. If pressed, she could be a fearsome opponent. But even those who disliked her had to admit they respected her. She was a woman of power, passion, and integrity, and she would fight to the death for a cause she believed in, or a person she had promised to support. She never broke a promise, and when she gave her word, you knew you could count on her. She looked like Katharine Hepburn with a little dash of Rita Hayworth, she was tall and lean with bright red hair and big green eyes that flashed with either delight or rage. Those who met Fiona Monaghan never forgot her, and in her fiefdom she was all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, and all caring. She loved her job above all else, and had fought hard to get it. She had never married, never wanted to, and although she loved children, she never wanted any of her own. She had enough on her plate as it was. She had been the editor in chief of Chic magazine for six years, and as such she was an icon in the fashion world. She had a full personal life as well. She had had an affair with a married man, and a relationship with a man she had lived with for eight years. Before that, she had dated randomly, usually artists or writers, but she had been alone now for a year and a half. The married lover was a British architect who commuted between London, Hong Kong, and New York. And the man she had lived with was a conductor, and had left her to marry and have children, and was living in Chicago now, which Fiona considered a fate worse than death. Fiona thought New York was the hub of the civilized world. She would have lived in London or Paris, but nowhere else. She and the conductor had remained good friends. He had come before the architect, whom she had left when the affair got too complicated and he threatened to leave his wife for her. She didn't want to marry him, or anyone. |
| 722 |
She hadn't wanted to marry the conductor either, although he had asked her repeatedly. Marriage always seemed too high risk to her, she would have preferred to do a high wire act in the circus than risk marriage, and she warned men of that. Marriage was never an option for her. Her own childhood had been hard enough to convince her that she didn't want to risk that kind of pain for anyone. Her father had abandoned her mother when her mother was twenty five and she was three. Her mother had attempted two more marriages to men Fiona hated, both were drunks, as her father had been. She never saw her father again after he left, nor his family, and knew only that he had died when she was fourteen. And her mother had died when she was in college. Fiona had no siblings, no known relatives. She was alone in the world by the time she was twenty, graduated from Wellesley, and made it on her own after that. She crawled her way up the ladder in minor fashion magazines and landed at Chic by the time she was twenty nine. Seven years later, she became editor in chief, and the rest was history. Fiona was a legend by the time she was thirty five, and the most powerful female magazine editor in the country at forty. Fiona had nearly infallible judgment, an unfailing sense for fashion and what would work, and a head for business that everyone she worked with admired. And more than that, she had courage. She wasn't afraid to take risks, except in her love life. In that arena she took none at all, and had no need to. She wasn't afraid to be alone, and in the past year and a half she had come to prefer it. She was never really alone anyway, she was constantly surrounded by photographers, assistants, designers, models, artists, and a flock of hangers on. She had a full calendar and an active social life and a host of interesting friends. She always said that it wouldn't bother her if she never lived with anyone again. She didn't have room in her closets anyway, and had no desire to make room for anyone. |
| 723 |
The meeting was merely a matter of form to meet each other. He had been reorganizing the London office when she decided to hire the firm, and now that he was back in town, they had agreed to meet. He had suggested lunch, but she didn't have time, so she'd suggested he come to her office, intending to keep it brief. She returned half a dozen calls before the meeting, and Adrian Wicks, her most important editor, dropped in for five minutes to discuss the couture shows in Paris with her. Adrian was a tall, thin, stylish, somewhat effeminate black man who had been a designer himself for a few years before he came to Chic. He was as smart as she was, which she loved. Adrian was a graduate of Yale, had a master's in journalism from Columbia, worked as a designer, and had finally landed at Chic, and together they were an impressive team. He was her right arm for the last five years. He was as dark as she was pale, as addicted to fashion as she, and as passionate about his ideas and the magazine as Fiona. In addition, he was her best friend. She invited him to join the meeting with John Anderson, but he was meeting with a designer at three, and just as Adrian left her office, her secretary told her that Mr. Anderson had arrived, and Fiona asked her to show him in. As Fiona looked across her desk to the doorway, she watched John Anderson walk in, and came around her desk to greet him. She smiled as their eyes met, and each took the other's measure. He was a tall, powerfully built man with impeccably groomed white hair, bright blue eyes, and a youthful face and demeanor. He was as conservative as she was flamboyant. She knew from his biographical material, and mutual friends, that he was a widower, he had just turned fifty, and he had an M.B.A. from Harvard. She also knew he had two daughters in college, one at Brown and the other at Princeton. Fiona always remembered personal details, she found them interesting, and sometimes useful to help her know who she was dealing with. |
| 724 |
She said it helped her think. "I'm sorry about the air conditioning. We've had brownouts all week." She smiled agreeably. "So have we. At least you can open your windows. My office has been like an oven. It's a good thing we decided to meet here," he said with a smile, glancing around her office, which was an eclectic hodgepodge of paintings by up and coming young artists, two important photographs by Avedon that had been a gift to her from the magazine, and layouts from future issues leaning against the walls. There was a mountain of jewelry, accessories, clothes, and fabric samples almost entirely covering the couch, which she unceremoniously dumped on the floor, as her assistant brought in a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of cookies. Fiona waved John Anderson toward the couch, and handed him a glass of the ice cold lemonade a moment later, and sat down across from him. "Thank you. It's nice to finally meet you," he said politely. She nodded, and looked serious for a moment as she watched him. She hadn't expected him to look quite that uptight, or be that good looking. He seemed calm and conservative, but at the same time there was something undeniably electric about him, as though there were an invisible current that moved through him. It was so tangible she could feel it. Despite his serious looks, there was something very exciting about him. She didn't look as he had expected her to either. She was sexier, younger, more striking, and more informal. He had expected her to be older and more of a dragon. She had a fearsome reputation, not for being disagreeable but for being tough, though fair, in her dealings, a force to be reckoned with. And much to his surprise, as she smiled at him over the lemonade, she seemed almost girlish. But despite her seemingly friendly air, within minutes she got to the point of their meeting, and was clear and concise in outlining Chic 's expectations. They wanted good solid advertising campaigns, nothing too trendy or exotic. |
| 725 |
The magazine was the most established in the business, and she expected their advertising to reflect that. She didn't want anything wild or crazy. John was relieved to hear it. Chic was a great account for them, and he was beginning to look forward to his dealings with her. More so than before the meeting. In fact, as he drank a second glass of lemonade, and the air conditioning finally came back on, he had actually decided that he liked her. He liked her style, and the straightforward way she outlined their needs and issues. She had clear, sound ideas about advertising, just as she did about her own business. By the time he stood up to leave, he was almost sorry the meeting was over. He liked talking to her. She was tough and fair. She was totally feminine, and strong at the same time. She was a woman to be feared and admired. Fiona walked him to the elevator, something she did rarely. She was usually in a hurry to get back to work, but she lingered for a few minutes, talking to him, and she was pleased when she went back to her office. He was a good man, smart, quick, funny, and not as stuffy as he looked in his gray suit, white shirt, and sober navy tie. He looked more like a banker than the head of an ad agency, but she liked the fact that he wore elegant expensive shoes that she correctly suspected he'd bought in London, and his suit was impeccably tailored. He had a definite look about him, in sharp contrast to her own style. In all things, and certainly her taste and style, Fiona was far more daring. She could wear almost anything, and make it look terrific. She left the office late that afternoon and as always was in a hurry. She hailed a cab outside their offices on Park Avenue, and sped uptown to her brownstone. It was after six when she got home, already wilted from the heat in the cab. And the moment she walked in she could hear chaos in her kitchen. She was expecting guests at seven thirty. She kept her house ice cold, as much for her own comfort as for that of her ancient English bulldog. |
| 726 |
Everyone was having a good time, and by the time they reached the dinner table, the conversations had intertwined, people felt like old friends, and Jamal passed trays of champagne and the hors d'oeuvres the caterers had provided. The evening was a success almost before it started. Fiona loved evenings like that, and entertained often. Her dinner parties always appeared casual but in fact were always more carefully orchestrated than she admitted, however impromptu or last minute the arrangements. She was a perfectionist, although she enjoyed eclectic people, and collected an odd assortment of acquaintances from a wide range of artistic fields. And by coincidence more than design, the people at her table were often wonderful to look at. But the star who always stood out among them as the most intriguing, most fashionable, most impressive was Fiona. She had a gift of style and grace and excitement like few others. And she drew interesting people to her like a magnet. When the last of the guests left at two A.M., she went up to bed, after thanking Jamal for his efforts. She knew that he would leave the house impeccable, the caterers had left the kitchen immaculate, and Sir Winston was long since snoring in her bedroom. He sounded like a lawn mower, and it never bothered her, she loved him. She dropped her sari on a chair, slipped into bed in the nightgown Jamal had left out for her, and she was sound asleep five minutes later. And up again the moment the alarm went off at seven. She had a long day ahead of her, they were putting the last of the August issue to bed, and she had a meeting scheduled about the September issue. She was up to her ears in editors when her secretary buzzed her intercom to tell her John Anderson was on the phone, and she was about to tell her she was too busy and wouldn't take the call, and then thought better of it. It might be important. She had raised a number of questions at their meeting that needed answers, mostly about the budget. "Good morning," John said pleasantly. |
| 727 |
He seemed like a nice guy, and a decent person. He was waiting downstairs in a black Lincoln Town Car with a driver. He smiled broadly the moment he saw her. She was wearing pink linen slacks, a white sleeveless shirt, and sandals, and with a straw bag over her shoulder, she looked as if she were going to the beach. It was another day of torrid heat, but it was blissfully cool in the air conditioned car. And as she got in, she smiled at him. "You look terrific," John said admiringly, as she slid in beside him, and they drove off to the deli he had promised. It was only a few blocks, but it was too hot to walk. It was just over a hundred degrees outside. He was wearing a beige suit and a blue shirt, and another serious looking dark tie. All business, in sharp contrast to Fiona's summer look. She had her hair piled in a loose knot on her head with ivory chopsticks stuck in it. He couldn't resist wondering suddenly what would happen if he pulled them out. He liked the thought of her red hair cascading to her shoulders, as he tried to concentrate on what she was saying. She was telling him about the meeting she'd just been in, and he realized as he looked at her that he hadn't heard a word she said. By then, they had reached the deli, and the driver opened the door and helped her out. The deli was busy and full, looked efficient and clean, and the food smelled delicious. Fiona ordered a salad and iced tea, John ordered a roast beef sandwich and a cup of coffee, and as he looked at her, he found himself randomly wondering how old she was. She was forty two, but looked ten years younger. "Is something wrong?" Fiona asked him. He had an odd look on his face, as though he had been struck by something, as the waiter poured his coffee. "No." He wanted to tell her he liked her perfume, but was afraid she would think him a fool if he did. She didn't look like the sort of person to mix business with pleasure, and normally neither did he. But there was something vastly unsettling about her, and almost mesmerizing. |
| 728 |
Six of the world's most important supermodels were in it, four major designers were represented, and the photographs were shot by Henryk Zeff. He flew in from London for the shoot, with four assistants, his nineteen year old wife, and their six month old twins. The shoot was fabulous, and Fiona was sure the photographs would be extraordinary, and inevitably the entire week turned into a zoo. The models were difficult and demanding, one of them used cocaine for most of the shoot, two of them were lovers and had a humongous fight on the set, and the most famous and essential of them was so anorexic, she fainted after eating literally nothing for the first three days they worked. She said she was "fasting," and the paramedics who came to revive her suspected that she was suffering from mono too. They shot some of the photographs on the beach, wearing fur coats, and the blazing sun and relentless heat were nearly enough to kill them all. Fiona stood watching them up to her hips in the water, it was the only relief, as she fanned herself with a huge straw hat. Her cell phone rang late that afternoon, for the ninety second time. Every other time it had been her office with some new crisis. They were deep into the September issue by then. The shoot they were doing was for October, but this was the only time Zeff had been able to give them, he was solidly booked for the rest of the summer. And this time when the phone rang, it wasn't Fiona's office. It was John Anderson. "Hi, how are you?" He sounded relaxed and cheerful, despite a long, aggravating day at his end. But he wasn't one to complain, particularly not to someone he didn't know well. He had been fighting all afternoon to keep a major account, which was threatening to walk. He had saved it finally, but felt as though he had spent the entire day giving blood. "Is this a bad time?" Fiona chuckled at the question. One of the models had just passed out from the heat, and another one had just thrown a bottle of Evian at Henryk Zeff for taking her out of a shot. |
| 729 |
There was hardly any of the pungent bread left by the time Fiona and John got to the table Jamal had set up in the garden, and the gardenias Jamal had decorated the table with sent off a heady romantic scent, as John picked up one of them and tucked it into her braid. "Thank you for inviting me. I love being here." He felt as though he had entered a magic world that night, and he had. Fiona's world. He saw her as the magic princess at the center of it, weaving her spell on them all. He could feel the essence of her seeping into his pores, at the same time weakening him and giving him strength. His head was nearly spinning at the excitement of her, and in spite of herself, she was beginning to feel the same way about him. She didn't really want to, but she was beginning to feel an irresistible pull toward him. They shared a small iron bench as they ate dinner, and chatted quietly, as Adrian watched with interest from the living room. He knew her well, and could see that Fiona was definitely smitten, but so was John. He looked totally bowled over by her, but who wouldn't be, Adrian commented to a photographer who had noticed it too, and said they made a handsome though unlikely pair. They both knew that Fiona hadn't been involved with anyone in nearly two years, and if this was what she wanted, they were glad for her. She hadn't said anything to Adrian yet, but he knew she would before long, if there was anything to it. He had a feeling they were going to be seeing a lot of John Anderson, and he hoped so for Fiona's sake, if that was what and whom she wanted, for however long. They both knew that forever after wasn't in her plans. But a year or two would suit her fine. Adrian always thought it was unfortunate that she was alone, although she claimed that she preferred it that way. He never quite believed her, and suspected she was lonely at times, which explained her excessive attachment to her ridiculous old dog. In truth, when she came home at night, Fiona had no one else. |
| 730 |
And after making the rounds of the most important houses on the first day, she met with Adrian and both their assistants that afternoon. Jet lag hadn't even had time to hit her by then, and Adrian was up to his ears in last minute arrangements for the party they were giving. Fiona had already told him to put John on the list. She and Adrian had dinner at Le Vaudeville that night, which was a small bistro they both liked, near the stock exchange, and where they were less likely to meet fashion people. Otherwise, they both liked L'Avenue, but Fiona wasn't in the mood to meet a dozen other editors, or a million models, who hung out there and at Costes as well. Her favorite restaurant of course had always been Le Voltaire, on the Left Bank on the Quai Voltaire. But they were both tired on their first evening, and happy to share a huge platter of oysters, and a salad, and go back to the hotel. They both knew that by the next day everyone would be in high gear and moving at full speed. The first show would be that night, and John was arriving from London in the late afternoon. Adrian had already teased her about it, and she had brushed him off, they had plenty of other things to talk about. The clothes they were going to be seeing, some of which Fiona had previewed that day, were for the winter season, and they were going to be fabulous if the samples she'd seen were any indication. The wedding dress at Chanel was beyond belief, with a heavy white velvet bell shaped skirt bordered in white ermine, and a matching ermine cape trailing behind it, and it looked as if there were shimmering snowflakes resting on the veil. It was magical. When she and Adrian said good night, she closed her door, took off her clothes, and was in bed in less than ten minutes. And she didn't hear another sound until her wake up call the next day. It was a glorious, sunny summer day in Paris, and the sunlight was streaming into her room. She always slept with her curtains open in Paris, because she loved the light and the sky, night or day. |
| 731 |
The chairs seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. And the theme was, as Fiona already knew, African jungle. It was eight thirty when they finally started the show. The entire train station where they sat went dark, and an antique train came slowly toward them, as what seemed like a thousand drums began beating in the pulsating rhythms of the jungle, and a hundred men dressed as Masai warriors appeared from nowhere and stood glaring at them. When the lights came back on, it was awesome, and John was watching it in fascination. He had already spotted Catherine Deneuve, Madonna and her entourage, and the queen of Jordan sitting nearby. They were in impressive company, and John alternated between watching what was happening and keeping an eye on Fiona. She sat quiet and still, concentrating on what was coming, and within instants, it began to happen, as the music got louder, and three men with two tigers and a snow leopard walked slowly through the crowd. And as she saw them, Fiona smiled. "This," she said with a look at John, "is pure Dior." The only thing missing was an elephant, and within moments, one arrived with two handlers and a huge rhinestone covered saddle. John couldn't help wondering if the animals were likely to panic in the crowd, but no one seemed to care, they were waiting with bated breath for the clothes, which came next. Each model was preceded and followed by a Masai warrior, in authentic dress, with spears, and scars, and heavily painted. And each model was exquisite, as one by one they stepped off the train. The clothes were beaded, colorful, exotic, with long sweeping painted taffeta skirts, or lace leggings covered with beads, extraordinary intricately beaded bustiers, or some stepped off the train with their breasts bare, as John tried not to stare. In fact, one of them walked straight up to John, enveloped in a huge embroidered coat, and slowly opened it, unveiling her flawless body, wearing only a G string, as Fiona watched with amusement. |
| 732 |
The models loved playing with the crowd. John fought valiantly to appear calm and not squirm in his chair as the model walked away. It had been an unforgettable moment. And all the while, Fiona sat watching the girls file past with an unreadable expression, which was part of her mystique. She had a well trained poker face that allowed no one to guess if she approved of the clothes or not. She would let the world know what she thought when she was ready to and not before. And John didn't ask her. He loved watching her, and the proceedings. The evening gowns that came toward the end of the show were equally fabulous and unique. He couldn't imagine any of the women he knew wearing these creations to the opening of the Met, or any of the events he went to, but he loved watching them, and seeing all the drama and spectacle that surrounded the models. And when the bride came out, she was wearing a huge exaggerated version of a Masai headdress, a white painted taffeta skirt so enormous she could hardly get it off the train, and a gold breastplate entirely encrusted with diamonds. And at the instant the model stepped off the train, John Galliano appeared on a white elephant, wearing a loincloth, and an identical breastplate himself. And half a dozen of the painted warriors lifted the bride up to him, and sat her behind him on the elephant, as they both waved and were led away. The tigers and snow leopard had been removed by then, which seemed fortunate to John, as the crowd around them went absolutely berserk, screaming and shouting and cheering and applauding, as the rest of the models filed past, and the drum music got deafeningly louder. And moments later the warriors and models got on the train, and were carried out of the station. It was pandemonium on the platform, as Fiona finally turned to look at John. "Well?" She looked amused, and could see that he was stunned. He had been mesmerized by the performance. It was heady stuff for a novice, or even an aficionado of the couture shows. |
| 733 |
It was the antithesis of the way he'd lived, with a long marriage, a wife he had loved, and two kids. And even though he'd been devastated when Ann died, he thought the years they'd shared before were well worth it. When he went, he wanted to be mourned by more than a dog. But Fiona didn't. She was very clear about it. She had seen her mother's pain each time a man left her life, and felt her own when her two long term relationships had ended. She could only imagine that marriage, and losing a spouse, would be far worse, perhaps even unbearable. It was easier, in her mind at least, not to have one in the first place. So she filled her life with other things, pastimes, pursuits, projects, and people. "Besides," she continued thoughtfully, "I don't like being encumbered. Maybe I just like my freedom." She grinned impishly at him as she shrugged her shoulders, but she did so without apology. "My life suits me as it is." And in spite of his own very different ideas, he agreed with her. She seemed perfectly content with her existence, and made no bones about it. Once back in the Ritz, they walked past the vitrines full of expensive items of jewelry and clothing, as he took her to the elevator on the Cambon side. Their rooms were on the third floor, and his was just down the hall from hers. He stood outside her door, as she reached into her bag to find the large blue plastic key. They put it on a heavy brass ring, and she always took the key off and left the brass part on the desk in her room. It was too heavy to drag around in her bag. John waited politely until she found it, inserted it in the electronic lock, and the door opened as she turned to thank him for coming to Paris with her. It had been fun sharing the Dior evening with him, from beginning to end. Or rather, from train station to pool. "Do you have time for breakfast tomorrow morning, or will you be too busy?" he asked, as she noticed that he looked as impeccably groomed as he had at the beginning of the evening. |
| 734 |
She had a sudden overwhelming urge to say "being with you" but didn't, and was shocked at herself that it had even come to mind. "The wedding dress maybe, or the painted skirts." She was going to write about them for the magazine, and hoped that the photographs of them were good. "I thought the tigers and leopard were great too," he said, sounding boyish. He could hardly wait to tell his daughters what he'd seen. They knew he had gone to Paris, but they didn't know why or with whom. He always let his daughters know where he was, particularly now that Ann was gone. "I should have taken you to the natural history museum or the zoo instead of Dior," Fiona teased him, and they both laughed, as she scolded him for the irreverence, and lack of fascination with fashion, but she knew he'd had a good time, which was all that mattered. They lingered for a moment, sensing each other more than saying anything, and then he gently kissed her on the forehead and walked to his own room with a wave. Fiona felt haunted by him as she walked into her own room. He was damnably attractive, responsible and normal, sensible and so undeniably all male. For a mad moment, she wanted to run down the hall after him, but she had no idea what she would do after that, if she did. She was trying to keep her head clear despite his proximity, but suddenly it seemed harder to do. She felt overwhelmingly attracted to him. But fortunately, he had closed the door to his room by then, and Fiona congratulated herself silently for her self control. It would serve no purpose getting involved with him, she told herself. She had made that decision in the course of the evening. He was handsome as hell, and she was physically attracted to him, but she was wise enough to know that they were just too different. She wasn't a kid anymore, after all, and some gifts, no matter how alluring they were, were better left wrapped and unopened. All she had to do now was get through the next few days of the shows without losing control. |
| 735 |
He was a consummate good sport. He had been on the trip, whenever anything went wrong, although very little had. But he was unfailingly polite and easygoing, and she loved that about him. He didn't seem to have a temper, and had a happy disposition. They went straight to her house that night. Jamal had left it immaculate for her, and filled the house with flowers. And the refrigerator was full of everything she liked to eat. There was even a bottle of champagne, which she opened to share with John, and they toasted each other, standing in the living room. She had never been as happy in her life. Sir Winston was coming home the next day, she could hardly wait to see him. The next morning John cooked breakfast for her. He made a cheese omelette and English muffins, and they left the house at the same time for their respective offices. Jamal arrived just as they went out, and he stared at Fiona in surprise. Men had spent the night from time to time over the years, and the conductor had lived with her, but he hadn't seen anyone at the house in the morning in a very long time. He didn't know if this was a temporary fling for her, or someone who was going to stick around. Her next words to him spelled it out. "This is Mr. Anderson, Jamal. I need a key for him," she said offhandedly, she had an important meeting at the office and was in a hurry. "Just make a copy and leave it on my desk." She reminded him that he had to be there when they brought Sir Winston home at four o'clock, and with that she and John hailed cabs simultaneously, kissed in the middle of the street, and left for their respective workdays. They had promised to meet at her place that night. He was going to his apartment first to pick up some stuff. It was as easy as that. Presto magic, she was living with a man in her house. For the summer at least. Until his daughters and housekeeper came back. Once the girls left for school again, she assumed he would move back in with her again, as long as they both liked it. |
| 736 |
They had just closed October and were starting on November. And in another month they were going to be up to their ears in Christmas, which was always a big issue. And Fiona was disappointed to discover that two of her favorite junior editors had quit while she was away and had already left. Adrian had hired replacements for them while she was gone. She was startled to realize there was a major shoot scheduled for later that week with Brigitte Lacombe. And an even more complicated one with Mario Testino over the weekend. It was going to be a totally insane week. Welcome home. But in spite of everything happening, she managed to leave the office by six o'clock and almost flew home. Adrian had sent someone out for the racks for her, and Jamal had set them up in the guest room, although she didn't discover until they collapsed twice with all her evening gowns on them that he had set them up wrong. He had been holding the diagram upside down. And he helped her get them right. "You must really like this guy," Jamal commented, as she picked all her evening gowns up off the floor for the third time and put them on the rack. She had taken all of two minutes to kiss and hug Sir Winston, and he had given her the cold shoulder. He did not like going to "camp," and whenever he did, he took it out on her for weeks afterward. She was in the doghouse. And he was stretched out on her bed, snoring loudly. "He's a great guy," she said about John, as she added some of her beach clothes to the rack, and about a dozen nightgowns. By the time she was through, she had made space in about a third of one closet for him to hang suits, and there was room for about four or five pairs of shoes on the floor. And she had freed up two drawers. It didn't look like much, but it had taken her two hours to do it. John had called at seven and explained that he had gotten held up at the office, he hadn't gotten to the apartment yet, and hoped to be home by nine. And if she wanted him to, he would bring pizza and wine. |
| 737 |
He was too tired to negotiate with a dog. It had been a hellish day, and they had new problems on two accounts. Nothing insoluble, but it had eaten up his day and worn him out. He was dead, and all he wanted was a shower and bed. He walked into the bathroom, while Fiona hung up his clothes, and when he came back out twenty minutes later, he felt human again, and clean, and all his things were put away. Fiona showed him his two drawers. He felt like a kid at camp, or his first day in boarding school, learning where his locker was. Everything was unfamiliar here, but he didn't mind. All he wanted was to be with her. And then she showed him where she had hung his suits and shirts. They were nicely squeezed in to the left of hers, without a centimeter of spare room, but they fit. He stared at them for a moment, wondering why she hadn't made more room, but decided not to say anything. There was some sort of gown with feathers on it draped over one of his dark suits. "Not a lot of room, is there," he commented, and she hated to admit it, but the closet seemed to have shrunk since that afternoon. She had been so proud of the space she'd made for him, and now it didn't seem like enough. She promised herself to study the problem again the next day. She needed more racks. But John was too tired to care. He turned on the TV, and lay on the bed, as Sir Winston lifted his head, looked at him in despair, and appeared to collapse deeper into the bed. But at least he didn't growl. John wasn't sure he could sleep with the noise he made, but he was willing to try, and he was so tired that night, it actually didn't bother him. He fell asleep with the television on, and Fiona in his arms. That was all he wanted. And when he awoke the next morning, Fiona had orange juice and coffee waiting for him, handed him the newspaper, and made him scrambled eggs. The dog was already outside. All was well in their little world. Their first night had gone well. Fiona was enormously relieved as she left for work. |
| 738 |
The dog had actually been Ann's. Fiona had fantasies about the two dogs meeting, and falling instantly in love. And she was both nervous and excited about meeting the girls. She had volunteered to pick them all up at the airport on Monday night. John thought it a terrific plan. He wanted the four of them to have dinner that week, so Fiona could get to know the girls before they went back to college. They were going to be in town for only a few days. And after that he and Fiona had to figure out what they were going to do about their living arrangements. She didn't really have room for him, although he was happy staying with her, but her closets were a nightmare, and she couldn't seem to find space for him. But he also felt a little odd bringing her into the apartment where he had lived with Ann. And he wasn't sure how the girls would feel about it either. It still seemed a little delicate to him. And Fiona said it made her feel odd as well. They hadn't figured that out yet, and they had talked about the possibility of commuting between their two homes, although it created a problem for Fiona with her dog. She didn't want to uproot him, nor leave him alone all night at her house. Sooner or later she knew they would figure it out. The main thing was that they were happy and got along, better than she ever had with anyone. Adrian was thrilled for them. And in the end, Fiona decided to spend the Labor Day weekend in town, instead of going to Martha's Vineyard, as she did every year. They had been away every weekend, and with John in California for the weekend, she had some things she wanted to fix and put away at her house. She had been relentlessly busy all month, and it was going to be nice to just stay home and chill out. She and Adrian went to a movie one night. And the next night she took her old mentor to dinner. It was nice to have some free time on her hands. She had less of it now that she was unofficially living with John. They were together all the time, and kept to themselves like two lovebirds. |
| 739 |
It was nine o'clock by then, and Fiona apologized to her as well for being late, and the older woman refused to even look at her, as she turned on her heel and stomped back into the kitchen. She clearly was on the side of the two girls, and the late Mrs. Anderson. Fiona couldn't help wondering if John's late wife would have been this unreasonable. It was hard to believe the level of hostility she was getting from them, harder still to understand. John waited for the girls to stand up, and followed them into the dining room. It was definitely not going to be an easy dinner, and Fiona felt desperately sorry for him. He was doing all he could to keep the ship afloat. But she felt as though they were having dinner on the Titanic, and were going down fast. The girls took their places, as John motioned Fiona to a seat next to him, with a look of grief stricken apology, and she smiled at him to reassure him. Somehow she knew they were going to get through it, whatever it took, and afterward they could talk about it with compassion and humor. She was determined to be there for him, and was trying to give him all the strength she could. And as she looked at him lovingly, Mrs. Westerman walked into the dining room and slammed dinner on the table. The roast beef was dry and charred beyond all recognition, and the potatoes around it had been burned to a crisp. The vegetable, whateve it had once been, was unrecognizable, and literally nothing on the table was edible. Instead of slowing dinner down when Fiona was late, or taking things off the stove, Mrs. Westerman had just let everything keep cooking, to prove the point, and register her own disapproval of her employer's alleged treason. She had pledged her allegiance to the girls when they came home from San Francisco the night before and told her what had happened over the summer while they were all gone, and she was outraged and said that everything their father was doing, whatever it was, was a sin. And she didn't want to work for a sinner. |
| 740 |
And before either of them knew what had happened, she had sunk her teeth with full force into Fiona's ankle. It had surprised her more than anything, but the dog absolutely refused to let go, as Fiona clutched John, and he poured a pitcher of water onto the dog, and then yanked her away from Fiona and threw her toward the kitchen. The dog left yelping, and soaked, as Mrs. Westerman screamed that he had tried to kill the dog, and ran shrieking into the kitchen in tears with the dog in her arms, and no apology to Fiona, who was bleeding profusely from a nasty little wound. John put a wet napkin on it, and sat her down. Fiona was shaking, and felt utterly ridiculous for the mess she was making. But her ankle wouldn't stop bleeding, as John put pressure on the wound, and then looked at her miserably as he helped her hobble into the kitchen, and shouted a warning to Mrs. Westerman to lock up the dog. But she had already retreated to her room with Fifi. They could hear the dog barking furiously through the door. All John wanted to do was get the hell out, and go home with Fiona, but he knew he had to stay till the girls went back to school at least. He had never been through anything like this. He studied her ankle, as she sat on the kitchen counter, with her foot in the sink, and he looked at her with embarrassment and grief. "I hate to say it, Fiona, but I think you need stitches." "Don't worry about it," she said calmly, wanting to make the horror of the evening better for him, "these things happen." "Only in horror movies," he said grimly. He tied a kitchen towel around her leg, helped her off the counter, and walked her out of the apartment gingerly, as they both watched the blood stain the towel quickly. It had already soaked through by the time they hailed a cab, and blood was dripping down her foot as John carried her into the hospital and deposited her in the emergency room with a look of disbelief. When the doctor on duty examined her finally, he said it was a deep wound, and she needed stitches. |
| 741 |
Their adjustment to living together full time seemed effortless, and she tried to keep the chaos in her life down to a dull roar, so she didn't upset him. She tried to get Jamal to dress more respectably, and not run around the house vacuuming in harem pants and loincloths. And when people dropped by, as they had for years, she suggested that they call her first in future. She staged no shoots in the house, didn't let it out as a backdrop, as she had before, and no longer allowed photographers from out of town to stay there. She was, if nothing else, trying to be respectful of John. He led a different life than hers, and she couldn't be quite as free and easy as she had been while living by herself. She had taken Adrian's advice, and she wanted John to be happy. The only place where she drew the line was over Sir Winston. She wouldn't have made any changes about the dog. He still slept on her bed, and was as spoiled as any child. But fortunately John had come to love him and found him funny. And she only had a tiny scar on her ankle, courtesy of Fifi. She had never gone to his apartment again. She found it depressing anyway. He only went there when one of his daughters came to town for the weekend, which was seldom. They were busy at school. And they never mentioned Fiona, nor did he. But he still thought it was a miserable situation, and wanted to change it. He just didn't know how to convince them, or win them over. Mrs. Westerman kept the embers hot and the fires burning, whenever she spoke to them. She reminded them that their first loyalty had to be to their mother. It was a vendetta Mrs. Westerman was hellbent on pursuing. And after her years of kindness and loyalty to them, and the girls' attachment to her, John didn't have the heart to send her back to North Dakota, although he would have liked to. And since the dog had been Ann's, he didn't have the heart to do anything about her either. He was planning to stay at the apartment with the girls for a week over Christmas. |
| 742 |
But neither was Fiona. She wanted to keep everything as it had been, and every time John moved something, or changed something, she had a fit when she came home from the office. And she told Jamal not to let John change anything. So they had a huge fight when she was in L.A., supervising a shoot of Madonna. John had been putting some of his books in the library, and Jamal wouldn't let him. John had called her in L.A. and threatened to move out if she didn't call Jamal off. It was the first time he had done that, and she was frightened and told Jamal to let him do whatever he wanted. Jamal had argued with her on the phone, that she had told him not to let John change anything, and she nearly got hysterical screaming at him, and told him to just do what she told him and not make more problems. Jamal called her in tears that night and threatened to quit, and she begged him not to. She wanted familiar people, places, and things around her. And suddenly everything was changing. She had two stepdaughters she couldn't stand, and a man who wanted to make his mark in her life, and had a right to. But after a lifetime of doing things her way, and controlling her environment, she felt every change he wanted to make like an assault on her person. Even seeing his books in her library unnerved her slightly. He had put some of hers on a top shelf, to make room for his own. It was as though they were constantly at each other's throats these days, arguing and shouting and accusing. Mrs. Westerman had threatened to quit, John was thinking of selling the apartment, and his daughters were outraged. And if he did sell it, Fiona knew his daughters would come to stay at her place. And whatever happened, she was not willing to take the dog. She had threatened to put it down if he brought it to her house, and he had said something about it to Hilary and Courtenay, and now they hated her more. It was an endless vicious circle of misunderstandings and misquotes, and raw nerves, and constantly stressful situations, for all concerned. |
| 743 |
And Adrian was out with the flu. She had a massive headache herself by midafternoon, which was threatening to become a migraine. As soon as she got home, she took a pill she found in her medicine cabinet in an unmarked bottle that someone had given her in Europe. It was relatively mild and had worked before. Everything was in control. And half an hour before the dinner party, the caterers had everything in order, Jamal was wearing his uniform, the table looked beautiful, and the crystal and glass shone. And when John checked it all out before the guests arrived, he looked relieved and pleased. The table looked like a layout in a magazine. It was perfect, and the food smelled delicious. The guest of honor and his wife arrived right on time, in fact they were five minutes early, which Fiona found slightly unnerving. She was just zipping up a plain black dress when the doorbell rang, and John hurried downstairs. She put on high heeled black satin pumps, and a pair of big coral earrings. She looked so simple and respectable, she barely recognized herself, as she glanced in the mirror and went down to join their guests. She still had the headache, but was feeling better since she'd taken the pill, and she smiled warmly at John's client, when John introduced her first to Matthew Madison, and then to his extremely uptight wife. Neither of them looked as though they had cracked a smile in years. The rest of the guests took a little of the stiffness out of it as they arrived one by one. There were to be ten guests in all, and with Fiona and John, it made twelve. Jamal passed the first plate of hors d'oeuvres, and everything went fine, just as Fiona felt her headache returning with a vengeance. John's obvious concern over the evening didn't help, and she felt stressed just watching him. He wanted everything to be perfect, and it was. Fiona decided not to take another pill for her headache. She quietly asked Jamal for a glass of champagne instead. And by the time she finished the glass, it seemed to help. |
| 744 |
Fiona did not go to the Hamptons all summer. She stayed at home, nursed her wounds, sat home alone at night, went to the office, and cried often. It was as though all the life had gone out of her, all the joy and excitement and passion. She felt as though she were in a dark tunnel, lost in the darkness. Everything she had hoped for and loved and trusted had been taken from her. And every time she saw Jamal cavorting through the house, she berated herself again for the mistakes she'd made. Right or wrong, she entirely blamed herself. John had shown her all she had ever wanted, and never let herself hope for, and when she failed to understand, he took it all away again. Nothing in her life had ever hurt so much, not even when her mother died, or she lost men later on. The loss of the marriage she had shared with John was the death of hope for her. She was like a naughty child who had been punished. For her poor judgment and foolish ways, she had been given an adult sentence, and put to death, or so she felt. She didn't deserve either the punishment he meted out to her, nor the abuse she heaped on herself afterward, and nothing anyone could do or say made it right for her again. As she dragged through the summer toward September, she could barely work. And on the Labor Day weekend, in crushing heat, disaster struck again. Sir Winston had a heart attack and was on life support for two weeks. She visited him twice daily, before and after work, stroked his face, kissed his paws, and just sat quietly beside him. And finally, with a snore and a peaceful look at her, he closed his eyes one afternoon and went quietly to sleep for good. It was a peaceful death. And yet one more blow to her. He had been a beloved faithful friend. Two days later, they had a major meeting with their ad agency, and there was no way she could avoid it. She discussed it with Adrian beforehand, and he said she absolutely had to go, no matter how hard it was for her. She hadn't heard a word from John all summer. |
| 745 |
She couldn't leave the magazine without a rudder, in fact when she went away for a week, all hell broke loose, and everything got out of control. Two days later he learned that she had recommended him for her job. It was the right decision, and a wise recommendation, and within two weeks of her resignation, Adrian was named editor in chief of Chic magazine, and they told her that within another week, when the dust had settled, she was free to go. Everything had moved very fast. She left her office quietly, without a glance over her shoulder. There were tears in her eyes when she walked out, carrying a box of books and a single plant her mentor had given her years before. Adrian was crying openly as he took the box from her. They both knew that the waters closed rapidly over old editors, and they were soon forgotten, but there was no denying that Fiona Monaghan had made her mark, and she had trained him well. They had wanted to give her a party when she left, but she had declined it. She just wasn't in the mood. Five minutes after she left her office, Adrian put her in a cab and handed her the box he'd been carrying for her. "I love you," she whispered as she smiled sadly, and their eyes met and held. "You're the best friend I ever had." There were tears in his eyes. "You too. See you tomorrow." He was coming to the house in the morning to help her pack. She had already rented her house, and was sending all her furniture to storage. She was taking almost nothing to Paris. She had rented a small room at the Ritz, at a discount they'd offered her, till she found an apartment. Thanks to wise investments over the years, she was in good shape, and wouldn't have to work for a long time. She was going to find an apartment and, if she felt up to it, write a book. Maybe in the spring. Before that she was going to take long walks, sleep a lot, and try to heal. The good news was that she would never have to see John Anderson again. She was going to miss the magazine, she knew, but not nearly as much as she missed him. |
| 746 |
And that night, when she went back to the hotel, she started to write. It wasn't the book she had thought she would do. It was a book about a little girl, with a childhood like hers, and it followed her into womanhood, the mistakes she made, and the healing she pursued. It was a catharsis of sorts writing it, and things came clearer to her as she did. It was so much easier to see it now, the paths she had chosen, the men she had feared, those she had chosen instead, her determination, her career. The things she had used as substitutes for real relationships, the job that had meant so much to her that it had obscured all else, the sacrifices she'd been willing to make, the children she'd never had. The pursuit of perfection, and driving herself. Even the dog who had become a substitute child. And the compromises she hadn't made for John, because she had been too afraid to make room for him, not in her closets but in her heart. Because if she had given him everything, which she had anyway, she would have lost too much if she lost him, which she had. It was all there in the story, page after page, as December oozed into January. She was deep into it when Adrian arrived, and he thought she looked better, although still too thin and so pale she was almost gray. But she didn't leave her room for days. She was writing furiously. And he was still in Paris when the realtor called to say she had an apartment for her. In the Seventh Arrondissement, on the Boulevard de La Tour Maubourg. She called Adrian, who was staying at the Ritz too, as usual, and he promised to come and see it with her after the Gaultier show. She had been carefully avoiding all the people from the fashion world. She had nothing to say to them anymore. She sneaked out of the hotel with him, wearing dark glasses with her hair pulled back, and a coat with a hood. It was pouring rain. But even in the rain, the apartment was beautiful. The house it was in was behind another building, on a cobbled courtyard, with a small meticulously kept garden. |
| 747 |
He could see her being happy there, and she told him about the book. She had no idea when she would finish it. She hoped it would be by spring at the rate she was going. But it didn't matter how long it took. She didn't even know if she would publish it, but writing it was doing her good. As she signed the lease the next day, and wrote a check, she realized that it would have been her first wedding anniversary. She didn't know if it was some kind of omen, or an unhappy coincidence, and she went back to the Ritz after that and got drunk on champagne with Adrian in her room. He was still worried about her, with good reason. She was drifting loose, and the more she drank, the more she talked about John that night, about forgiving him for what he'd done, and running out on her, that she understood and it was all right, and it didn't matter, and he'd been right, she'd been terrible to him. But not as terrible as she'd been to herself since, Adrian realized. She was still blaming herself, and he wondered if she missed her job, although she said she didn't, but he wasn't sure if he believed her. Her life seemed so empty to him now, so unpopulated except for the characters in her book. And more than anything, he knew, she needed to forgive herself, and he wondered if she ever would, or if she would be haunted forever by the ghosts of what could have been. It still broke his heart to see her that way. And it made him furious with John for leaving her. Their life may have been chaotic, but she was a hell of a good woman. Adrian thought John had been a fool for leaving her, and running out of patience so soon. Adrian hated to leave her, when he left Paris at the end of the week. She was moving into her apartment the next day, but he couldn't stay to help her. He had meetings in New York he had to get back to, one of them with John Anderson. Chic was having trouble with the agency, but he didn't tell Fiona that. It wasn't easy stepping into her shoes, and it was a challenge for him. |
| 748 |
He had asked Fiona's advice on several things, and was impressed as always by her clear head, her fine mind, her infallible judgment, and her extraordinary taste. She was a remarkable woman, and he was sure the book would be good. She was putting her heart and soul into it. As Adrian flew out of Charles de Gaulle, he thought of her, as he always did, and prayed she would be safe. She seemed so vulnerable and so frail, and yet so strong at the same time. He admired her courage even more than he did her style. As Adrian flew back to the States, Fiona was moving into the apartment on the Boulevard de La Tour Maubourg. The rooms were drafty, and the sky was gray, and she found a small leak in the kitchen, but the place was clean. It came with linens and dishes, and pots and pans. There were two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a tiny living room, a cozy kitchen where she could entertain friends, and the studio upstairs, which would be filled with sunlight on a good day. It was all she needed. For the first few days she missed the Ritz and the familiar faces there, the night maid who always checked on her, the telephone operator who recognized her voice, the doorman who tipped his hat to her, the baby faced bellboys in the round blue caps who looked like little boys and carried packages to her, and the concierges who took care of all her minor secretarial needs. She never went anywhere, so she didn't need reservations, but they got things for her, mailed her letters and packages, had pages xeroxed, bought books she needed for research, and were always pleasant when she stopped at the desk to talk to them. It was lonely in the apartment at first. She had no one to talk to. She couldn't order something to eat at any hour, but in some ways it was good for her. She had to get dressed and go out, even if it was only in jeans and an old sweater. There was a bistro around the corner where she ate once in a while, or had coffee, and a grocery store a few blocks away where she stocked up on food. |
| 749 |
He was relieved to see her eating well, although she had smoked intermittently throughout the meal. "What about getting another dog one of these days?" Adrian had been meaning to suggest it to her for a long time, but he had been waiting for the wound of losing Sir Winston to heal. It had been long enough now for him to risk suggesting it to her, but she lit another cigarette and shook her head. "Remember me? I'm back to my old self again. No responsibilities, no attachments, no encumbrances. I don't want to own anything, love anyone, or get too attached to people, places, or things. It's a rule that seems to work well for me." It told him that she was still wounded, and perhaps always would be. And the wound John had left, for however short a time he had been in her life, had been the worst of all. But Adrian had the sense that she had at least begun to forgive herself, for whatever mistakes she'd made, and whatever she had been unable to give him. In her months of solitude, she had fought hard for deeper insights into herself. For the first time since she had left the magazine and moved to Paris, Adrian felt she had done the right thing. She was deeper and wiser, and more profound than she had been. Her life was less frivolous, there were no strange house men running around in harem pants. She was less fashionable, and less interested in fashion and the clothes she wore. She seemed less perfectionistic, and not as hard on herself. She seemed a lot more relaxed and more philosophical in many ways, and she said she enjoyed cleaning the apartment herself. But the one thing that worried him was that she was leading a lonely life, and she had isolated herself. At forty four, she was still too young to shut herself out of the world. She said she had no interest in dating, and she didn't want a social life. All she wanted was to finish her book. She had set a goal to complete it by the end of the summer, and then she was going to come to New York briefly to find an agent, to sell it for her. |
| 750 |
It was October before she was ready to come to New York. She had three agents to see, and she was going to stay with Adrian. She still had tenants at her place, and she had decided to sell her house. She was going to put it on the market while she was in town, and she was going to offer it to her tenants first. If they could make a deal, it would save them both real estate agents' fees, which might be good for both of them, and they loved the house. She had made a decision not to come back to New York to live. She was happy in Paris, and she had nothing in New York anymore. Except Adrian, and he didn't mind coming to Paris to see her. And as soon as she got back, she was going to start another book. She had already started the outline, and she worked on it some more on the plane. Fiona met Adrian at the magazine, and it felt strange to her, like visiting a childhood home where other people now lived. And it was even stranger, visiting her house. They had painted the rooms other colors, and filled it with furniture she thought was hideous, but it was theirs now, and no longer hers. And they were thrilled at the prospect of buying it. They settled on a mutually agreeable price within two days, avoided the agents' fees, and the trip had been worthwhile if only for that. She and Adrian spent nights in his apartment, and she went to meet the literary agents she'd lined up. She strongly disliked two of them, but the third one she saw seemed just right. He was intelligent and ambitious, interesting to talk to, knew his business backward and forward, and was roughly her own age. She told him what the book was about, and he liked it. She left a manuscript with him, and she felt as though she were leaving her baby with strangers. She was a nervous wreck when she went back to Adrian's apartment that night. She had stayed with the agent for hours, and Adrian had dinner waiting for her. He knew how stressful it was for her meeting with agents about her book. "What if he hates it?" she said, looking anxious. |
| 751 |
She listened and pretended to be interested, but all she could think of was John. He had called her a dozen times since he'd left. But she didn't take the calls, nor return them. She wasn't going to speak to him again. She had meant what she told him. It was over. Their night together had been a brief reprieve from a life separate from each other. And in every possible way, it had made it harder. Which made her all the more determined not to speak to him, or see him. She had never loved anyone as she had him, and she didn't want to go through the pain again, especially with him. She loved him too much to try again. And she knew that eventually he'd stop calling. It took her nearly a week to get back to work. She walked, she smoked. She talked to herself. She tried to work, and couldn't. It was like detoxing from a highly addictive drug. She not only pined for him and longed for him, she craved him. All of which proved to her how dangerous he was for her. John had been gone for a week when Andrew Page called and told her the second publisher wanted to buy her book. Not only that, they were offering her a three book contract. It was the first and only good news she'd had since John left, and after she hung up, she realized that even that hadn't cheered her. She felt almost as miserable as she had when he divorced her. And in the last two days, he had finally stopped calling. She went out to buy groceries that afternoon, which seemed stupid to her since she wasn't eating anyway, but she needed cigarettes and coffee. And as she walked into her courtyard carrying the bags, she heard a footstep behind her. She turned to see who had followed her, and saw John standing there, looking at her. He looked ravaged. He didn't say a word to her, he just walked toward her. "What are you doing here?" she asked in a flat voice. She didn't have the energy to fight him. But she felt no differently than she had when he left. She had meant everything she said to him, and her agony in the past week confirmed it. |
| 752 |
It was a small, dark Gothic church made of stone, and when they got there, it was entirely lit with candles. She said almost nothing on the ride there, and Adrian didn't press her. She sat staring silently out the window. He took her hand in his and held it. When they got to the church, John was waiting for her there. He smiled the moment he saw her. It had been complicated to arrange, but John had handled all the details. All their papers were in order. They had been married in a Protestant church before, so they were able to do it in a Catholic church now, which made it feel more official to her. She had told Adrian before he'd come, in case he wanted to cancel his trip, but he insisted he wanted to be there. He was going to visit friends in Morocco when she and John left for Italy on their honeymoon. They were going to spend Christmas together, as planned, and take off on their respective travels the day after. And she had wanted Adrian to be there, as their witness. It still seemed slightly insane to her, and she was amazed at herself that she was willing to do it. She hadn't thought she could trust him again, but she knew she did. And in the end, what they owed each other as much as love was forgiveness. The priest did the ceremony in French, but he had them say their vows in English, so they knew what they were saying. And as John held her hand in his, and then slipped on the ring, she felt more married to him than ever. There were tears in his eyes when he answered her, and tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she made her vows to him. It was an unforgettable moment. And when the priest declared them man and wife, John stood for a long moment before he kissed her and just held her. And then he smiled at her with a look she knew she would never forget. When they left, the church was all lit up behind them, and they stood for a moment looking out at the snow, and then dashed to the car, laughing, with Adrian right behind them throwing snow at them instead of rice. |
| 753 |
She didn't have a single bad angle. Her face was virtually perfect for the camera, with no flaws, no defects. She had the delicacy of a cameo, with finely carved features, miles of naturally blond hair that she wore long most of the time, and blue eyes the color of sky and the size of saucers. Matt knew she liked to party hard and stay out late, and amazingly it never showed in her face the next day. She was one of the lucky few who could get away with playing and never have it show afterward. She wouldn't be able to get away with it forever, but for now she still could. If anything, she only got prettier with age, although at twenty one, one could hardly expect her to be touched by the ravages of time, but some models started to show it even at her age. Candy didn't. And her natural sweetness still showed through just as it had the first day he'd met her, when she was seventeen and doing her first shoot for Vogue with him. He loved her. Everyone did. There wasn't a man or woman in the business who didn't love Candy. She stood six foot one in bare feet, weighed a hundred and sixteen pounds on a heavy day, and he knew she never ate, but whatever the reason for her light weight, it looked great on her. Although she was thin in person, she always looked fabulous in the images he took of her. Just like Vogue, which adored her and had assigned him to work with her on this shoot, Candy was his favorite model. They wrapped up the shoot at twelve thirty, and she climbed out of the fountain as though she had only been in it for ten minutes, instead of four and a half hours. They were doing a second setup at the Arc de Triomphe that afternoon, and one that night at the Eiffel Tower, with the sparklers going off behind them. Candy never complained about difficult conditions or long hours, which was one of the reasons photographers loved working with her. That, and the fact that you couldn't get a bad photograph of her. Her face was the most forgiving on the planet, and the most desirable. |
| 754 |
He liked L'Avenue too, and it was close to where they were going to shoot that afternoon. He knew it didn't matter where they went, she wasn't likely to eat much anyway, just consume gallons of water, which was what all the models did. They flushed their systems constantly so they didn't gain an ounce. And with the two lettuce leaves Candy usually ate, she was hardly likely to put on weight. If anything, she got thinner every year. But she looked healthy, in spite of her enormous height, and ridiculously light weight. You could see all the bones in her shoulders, chest, and ribs. Just as she was more famous than most of her counterparts, she was also thinner than most. It worried Matt for her sometimes, although she just laughed when he accused her of having an eating disorder. Candy never responded to comments about her weight. Most major models flirted with or suffered from anorexia, or worse. It went with the territory. Humans didn't come in these sizes, not after the age of nine. Adult women, who ate even halfway normally, just weren't that thin. They had a car and driver who took them to the restaurant on the Avenue Montaigne, and as usual at that hour and time of year, it was mobbed. The couture collections were being shown the following week, and designers, photographers, and models had already started to fly in. In addition, it was high tourist season in Paris. Americans loved the restaurant, but so did trendy Parisians. It was always a scene. One of the owners spotted Candy immediately, and showed them to a table on the glassed in terrace, which they referred to as the "Veranda." It was where she liked to sit. She loved the fact that she could smoke in any restaurant in Paris. She wasn't a heavy smoker, but indulged occasionally, and she liked having the freedom to do it, without getting dark looks or ugly comments. Matt commented that she was one of the few women who made smoking look appealing. She did everything with grace, and could make tying her shoelaces look sexy. |
| 755 |
But her family was even more important to her. Much more so than the men in her life, who thus far had been brief and fleeting, and from what Matt had observed were usually jerks, either young ones just trying to show off by being out with her, or older ones who often had a more sinister agenda. Like many other beautiful young women, she was a magnet to men who wanted to use her, usually by being seen with her, and enjoying the perks of her success. The most recent one had been a famous Italian playboy who was notorious for the beautiful women he went out with for about two minutes. Before that, there had been a young British lord, who looked normal but had suggested whips and bondage, and Candy found out later he was bisexual and deep into drugs. Candy had been startled, and ran like hell, although it was not the first time she'd had that kind of offer. In the last four years, she'd heard it all. Most of her relationships had been short lived. She didn't have the time or the desire to settle down, and the kind of men she met were not the kind she wanted to stay with. She always said that she'd never been in love, although she had been out with a lot of men, but none of them worthwhile, since the boy she'd been involved with in high school. He was still in college now, and they had lost touch. Candy had never gone to college. Her first big modeling break had happened in her senior year in high school, and she had promised her parents she'd go back to school later. She wanted to take advantage of the opportunities she had, while she had them. She put aside a ton of money, although she'd spent plenty on a penthouse apartment in New York, and a lot of great clothes and fancy pastimes. College was becoming an ever more unlikely plan. She just couldn't see the point. Besides, as she always pointed out to her parents, she wasn't nearly as smart as her sisters, or so she claimed. Her parents and sisters denied it, and still thought she should go to college when her life slowed down, if it ever did. |
| 756 |
She had dreamed of studying art in Italy all her life, and had finally come here, after Paris, and this was where she knew she was meant to be. She took drawing classes every day, and was learning the painting techniques of the old masters. In the past year, she felt she had done some very worthwhile work, although she still felt she had much to learn. She was wearing a cotton skirt and sandals she had bought from a street vendor for fifteen euros, and a peasant blouse she had bought on a driving trip to Siena. She had never been as happy in her life as she was here. Living in Florence was her dream come true. She was planning to attend an informal life drawing class with a live model, at an artist's studio at six o'clock that night, and she was leaving for the States the next day. She hated to leave, but had promised her mother she'd come home, as she did every year. It was wrenching for her to leave Florence even for a few days. She was returning in a week, and then leaving for a trip to Umbria with friends. She had seen a lot of Italy since she'd been there, gone to Lake Como, spent some time in Portofino, and it seemed as if she had visited every church and museum in Italy. She had a particular passion for Venice and the churches and architecture there. She knew with absolute certainty that Italy was where she was meant to be, she had come alive since she'd been there. It was where she had found herself. She had rented a tiny garret apartment in a crumbling building, which suited her to perfection. The work she was doing showed the fruits of her hard work for the past several years. She had given her parents one of her paintings for Christmas, and they had been astounded by the depth and beauty of her work. It was a painting of a madonna and child, very much in the style of the Old Masters, and using all of her new techniques. She had even mixed the paint herself, according to an ancient process. Her mother said it was truly a masterpiece, and had hung it in the living room. |
| 757 |
Annie had carried it home herself, wrapped in newspapers, and unveiled it for them on Christmas Eve. Now she was going home for the Fourth of July party they gave every year, which she and her sisters moved heaven and earth to attend. It was a sacrifice for Annie this year. There was so much work she wanted to do, she hated to pull herself away, even for a week. But like her sisters, she didn't want to disappoint her mother, who lived to see them, and thrived having all four of her girls home at the same time. She talked about it all year. There was no phone in Annie's quaint apartment, but her mother called her often on her cell phone to see how she was, and she loved hearing the excitement in her daughter's voice. Nothing thrilled Annie more than her work and the deep satisfaction she derived from studying art, here at its most important source, in Florence. She got lost for hours at times in the Uffizi, studying the paintings, and drove often to see important work in neighboring towns. Florence was Mecca for her. She had recently become romantically involved with a young artist from New York. He had arrived in Florence only six months before, and they had met only days after he arrived, when she got back from spending Christmas with her family in Connecticut. They met at the studio of a fellow artist, a young Italian, on New Year's Eve, and their romance had been hot and heavy ever since. They loved each other's work, and shared their deep commitment to art. His work was more contemporary, and hers more traditional, but many of their views and theories were the same. He had taken some time out to work as a designer, which he had hated, calling it prostitution. He had finally saved enough money to come to Italy to paint and study for a year. Annie was more fortunate. At twenty six, her family was still willing to help her. She could easily see herself living in Italy for the rest of her life, nothing would please her more. And although she loved her parents and sisters, she hated to go home. |
| 758 |
Every moment away from Florence and her work was painful for her. She had wanted to be an artist ever since she was a little girl, and as time went on, her determination and inspiration grew more intense. It set her apart from her sisters, whose pursuits were more worldly, and who were more involved in the moneymaking world, her oldest sister as an attorney, her next sister as the producer of a TV show in L.A., and her youngest sister as a supermodel whose face was known around the world. Annie was the only artist in the group, and could not have cared less about "making it" in the world as a commercial success. She was happiest when deeply engrossed in her work, and never even considered whether it would sell. She realized how lucky she was to have parents who supported her passion, although she was determined to become self supporting one day. But for now, she was soaking up ancient techniques and the extraordinary atmosphere of Florence like a sponge. Her sister Candy was in Paris often, but Annie could never tear herself away from her work to see her, and although she loved her youngest sister deeply, she and Candy had very little in common. When she was working, Annie didn't even care if she combed her hair, and everything she owned was splattered with paint. Candy's world of beautiful people and high fashion was light years from her world of starving artists, and discovering the best way to mix her paints. Whenever she saw Candy, her supermodel sister tried to convince Annie to get a decent haircut and wear makeup, and Annie just laughed. It was the farthest thing from her mind. She hadn't been shopping or bought anything new to wear in two years. Fashion never made a blip on her radar screen. Annie ate, slept, drank, and lived art. It was what she knew and loved, and her current boyfriend Charlie was as passionate about it as she. They had been nearly inseparable for the past six months, and had traveled all over Italy together, studying both important and obscure works of art. |
| 759 |
But as an American, he couldn't work legally in Italy, and his money would run out eventually. With her parents' backing, Annie could live as long as she wanted in Florence. She was well aware of and deeply grateful for the blessing they provided her. Annie had promised herself to be financially independent by the time she was thirty, hoping to sell her paintings in a gallery by then. She had had two shows in a small gallery in Rome, and had sold several paintings. But she couldn't have managed without her parents' help. It embarrassed her at times, but there was no way she could live on the sales of her paintings yet, and maybe not for many years. Charlie teased her about it at times, without malice, but he never failed to point out that she was one lucky girl, and if she was living in a threadbare looking garret, it was something of a fraud. Her parents could have afforded to rent her a decent apartment, if she so chose. That was certainly not the case for most of the artists they knew. And however much he might have teased her about her parents supporting her, he had a deep respect for her talent and the quality of the work she produced. There was no question in his mind, or anyone else's, that she had the potential to be a truly extraordinary artist, and even at twenty six she was well on her way. Her body of work showed depth, substance, and remarkable skill with technique. Her sense of color was delicate. Her paintings were a clear indication that she had a real gift. And when she mastered a particularly difficult subject, Charlie told her how proud of her he was. He had wanted to travel to Pompeii with her that weekend, to study the frescoes there, and she had told him that she was going home for the week, for the Fourth of July party her parents gave every year. "Why is that such a big deal?" He wasn't close to his family, and had no plans to visit them during his sabbatical year. He had mentioned more than once that he thought it was childish of her to be so attached to her sisters and parents. |
| 760 |
The holidays were sacred times for all of them. Charlie had been mildly annoyed, and rather than waiting for another week to go to Pompeii with her, he said he would make the trip with another artist friend. Annie was disappointed not to go with him, but decided not to make an issue of it. At least that way he'd have something to do while she was gone. He had recently hit a slump in his work, and was struggling with some new techniques and ideas. For now, it wasn't going well, although she was sure he'd pull out of it soon. He was a very talented artist, although an older artist who had advised him in Florence said that the purity of his work had been corrupted by the time he had spent doing design. The senior artist thought there was a commercial quality to his work which he needed to undo. His comments had insulted Charlie profoundly, and he hadn't spoken to his self appointed critic for weeks. He was extremely sensitive about his art, as many artists were. Annie was more open to critiques, and welcomed them, in order to improve her work. Like her sister Candy, there was a surprising modesty about her, and who she was. She was without artifice or malice, and was astonishingly humble about her work. She had been trying to get Candy to visit her for months, and between her trips to Paris and Milan, there had been ample opportunity, but Florence was off Candy's beaten path, and Annie's scene among starving artists wasn't for her. Candy loved going to places like London and St. Tropez between jobs. Annie's art scene in Florence was light years from Candy's life, and the reverse was true as well. Annie had no desire to fly to Paris to meet her sister, or stay in fancy hotels like the Ritz. She was much happier wandering around Florence, eating gelato, or going to the Uffizi for the thousandth time in her sandals and peasant skirt. She preferred that to getting dressed up or wearing makeup or high heels, as everyone in Candy's crowd did. She disliked the superficial people Candy hung out with. |
| 761 |
She had promised to cook him dinner the night before she left, after her class. She bought fresh pasta, tomatoes, and vegetables, and she planned to make a sauce she had just heard about. Charlie brought a bottle of Chianti, and poured her a glass while she cooked, as he admired her from across the room. She was a beautiful girl, completely natural and unassuming. To anyone who met her, she seemed like a simple girl, when in fact she was extremely well educated in her field, highly trained, and came from a family that he had long since guessed was very well off, although Annie never mentioned the advantages she had had in her youth, and still did. She led a quiet, hardworking artist's life. The only sign of her somewhat upper class roots was the small gold signet ring she wore on her left hand, with her mother's crest. Annie was quiet and modest about that too. The only yardstick she measured herself and others by was how hard they worked on their art, how dedicated they were. "I'm leaving tomorrow," she reminded him, as she set down a big bowl of pasta on the kitchen table. It smelled delicious, and she grated the Parmesan herself. The bread was hot and fresh. "That's why I'm cooking for you tonight. When are you and Cesco going to Pompeii?" "Day after tomorrow," he said quietly, smiling at her across the table, as they sat down on two of the unmatched, slightly shaky chairs she had found discarded in the street. She had acquired most of her furniture that way. She spent as little as possible of her parents' money, just for rent and food. There were no obvious luxuries in her life. And the little car she drove was a fifteen year old Fiat. Her mother was terrified it wasn't safe, but Annie refused to buy a new one. "I'm going to miss you," he said sadly. It was going to be the first time they'd been separated since they met. He told her he was in love with her within a month of their first date. She liked him better than she had anyone in years, and was in love with him too. |
| 762 |
It was going to be a hard decision for her when he left. Despite her love for him, she was loath to give up the opportunity for ongoing studies in Florence for any man. Until now, her art had always come first. This was the first time she had ever questioned that, which was scary for her. She knew that if she left Florence for him, it would be a huge sacrifice for her. "Why don't we go somewhere after we get back from Umbria?" he suggested, looking hopeful, and she smiled. They were planning to go to Umbria with friends in July, but he loved and needed time alone with her. "Wherever you want," she said, and meant it. He leaned across the table and kissed her then, and she served him the pasta, which they both agreed was delicious. The recipe had been good, and she was a very good cook. He often said that meeting her had been the best thing that had happened to him since he'd arrived in Europe. When he said it, it touched her heart. She was taking photographs of him to show her sisters and her mom, but they had figured out that this was an important relationship for her. Her mother had already said to her sisters that she hoped Charlie would convince Annie to move back. She respected what Annie was doing in Italy, but it was so far away, and she never wanted to come home anymore, she was so happy there. It had been a great relief when she'd agreed to come home for the Fourth of July, as usual. Her mother was afraid with each passing year that one of them would break tradition and stop coming home as they always had. And once that happened, it would never be the same again. So far none of the girls was married or had children, but their mother was well aware that once that happened, things would change. In the meantime, until it did, she savored her time with them, and cherished their visits every year. She realized that it was nothing short of a miracle that all four of her daughters still came home three times a year, and even managed to visit whenever possible in between. |
| 763 |
It had been the number one show for the past two seasons. All Tammy ever did was work. Her last relationship had ended nearly two years ago. Since then she'd had two dates with men she had hated. She felt like she never had the time to meet anyone else or the energy to go anywhere when she finally left the office at night. Her best friend was Juanita, her three pound toy chihuahua who sat under her desk and slept while Tammy worked. Tammy was turning thirty in September, and her sisters teased her that she was going to be an old maid. They were probably right. At twenty nine, she had no time to date, meet men, get her hair done, read magazines, or go anywhere for the weekend. It was the price she was willing to pay for creating and producing a hit television show. They had won two Emmys for the last two seasons. Their ratings had gone through the roof. The network and sponsors loved them, but she knew better than anyone that that would be the case only as long as their ratings stayed up. Any downward shift would drop kick them into oblivion. Hit shows had gone from the top to the bottom faster than anyone could blink. Especially with their major star pregnant and on bedrest. It was going to be a major challenge to overcome, and Tammy didn't know how she would do it. Yet. She knew she'd solve the problems, as she always did. She was a genius at pulling rabbits out of a hat and saving the day. By ten thirty that morning, Tammy had returned all her phone calls, spoken to four agents, answered all her e mails, and given her assistant a stack of letters to type. She needed to sign them before she left, and she had to leave for the airport at one for a three o'clock flight to New York. It was impossible to explain to her family what her life looked like on an everyday basis, and what kind of pressure she was under to keep the show on top of the ratings charts. After grabbing her third cup of coffee, she walked back into her office, glancing down at the tiny dog sleeping soundly under her desk. |
| 764 |
People who came to see Tammy often in the office knew to watch where they walked. If anything happened to Juanita, it would kill Tammy. She was unnaturally attached to her dog, as her mother had commented more than once. She was a replacement for everything Tammy didn't have in her life, a man, children, women friends to hang out with, her sisters on a daily basis since they had all left home. Juanita seemed to be the sole recipient of all of Tammy's love. Juanita had gotten lost in the building once, and everyone had joined the search, while Tammy cried uncontrollably and even ran out to the street, looking for her. They had found her sound asleep next to a space heater on the set. She was famous all over the building now, as was Tammy, for her enormous success with the show, and her obsession with her dog. Tammy was a stunning looking woman, with a mane of long curly red hair that was so lush and luxurious that people accused her of wearing a wig sometimes, but it was all her own. It was the same color as her mother's, a bright fiery red, and she had green eyes, and a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, which made her look impish and young. She was the shortest of her sisters with a young girl's body, and irresistible charm when she wasn't running in fourteen directions and a nervous wreck about her show. Getting out of her office and onto a plane was almost like severing an umbilical cord, but she always went home for the Fourth of July to be with her sisters and parents. It was a good time of year to go, with the actors on hiatus. Thanksgiving and Christmas were harder for her, as it was the middle of their season and the ratings battles were always tough. But she went home then too, no matter what. She took two cell phones with her and her computer. She got e mails on her Black Berry and was in constant communication with her staff wherever she went. Tammy was the consummate professional, the archetypal female television executive. Her parents were proud of her but were worried about her health. |
| 765 |
It was impossible to be as stressed as she was, have as much responsibility as rested on her shoulders, and not wind up with health problems one day. Her mother kept begging her to slow down, while her father admired her openly for her huge success. Her sisters cheerfully said she was nuts, which she was to some degree. Tammy herself said you had to be crazy to work in television, which was why it suited her so well. And she was convinced that the only reason she survived it was because she had had a normal home life while growing up. It had been what most people dreamed of and never had. Loving parents who were deeply devoted to each other, who had been rock solid for their four girls and still were. She missed their happy home life sometimes. Her life had never seemed entirely complete since she left. And they were all so spread out now. Annie in Florence, Candy all over the world shooting layouts for magazines or doing runway shows in Paris, and Sabrina in New York. She missed them so much at times, and usually when she finally had a chance to call them late at night, the time difference was all wrong, so she e mailed them instead. When they called her on her cell phone, when she was running from one meeting to another, or on the set, they could only exchange a few words. She was really looking forward to spending the weekend with them. "Your car is downstairs, Tammy," her assistant Hailey told her at twelve forty, as she stuck her head in the door. "Do you have the letters for me to sign?" Tammy asked, looking anxious. "Sure do," Hailey said, clutching a file to her chest, and then set it on Tammy's desk and handed her a pen. Tammy glanced at the letters briefly, and scribbled her signature at the bottom of each of them. At least now she could leave with a clear conscience. All the most important things had been done. She couldn't stand leaving for the weekend without clearing her desk, which was why she usually came in on Saturdays and often Sundays, and hardly ever went anywhere for the weekend. |
| 766 |
She had a house in Beverly Hills, which she loved. She'd had it for three years and still hadn't finished it. She didn't want to hire a decorator and was determined to do it herself, but never had time. There were still boxes of china and decorative doodads that she hadn't bothered to unpack since she sold her last house. One day, she told herself and promised her parents, she was going to slow down, but not yet. This was the high point of her career, her show was hot, and if she lost the momentum now, maybe everything would go down the drain. And the truth was she loved her life just as it was, hectic, crazy, and out of control. She loved her house, her work, and her friends when she had time to see them, which was almost never, she was always too busy with the show. She loved living in Los Angeles, as much as Annie loved Florence, and Sabrina loved New York. The only one who didn't care where she lived was Candy, who was happy anywhere as long as she was staying in a five star hotel. She was just as happy in Paris, Milan, or Tokyo as she was in her penthouse in New York. Tammy always said that Candy was a nomad at heart. The others were far more attached to the cities where they lived, and the place they had carved out for themselves in their own worlds. Although Candy was only eight years younger than Tammy, she seemed like a baby. And their lives were so incredibly different. Candy's professional life was all about how beautiful she was no matter how modest she was about it. Tammy's work was about how beautiful others were, and how smart she was, although she was an extremely attractive woman, but she never thought about it. She was too busy putting out fires to even think about her looks, which was why there hadn't been a serious man in her life for more than two years. She didn't have time for men, and rarely liked the ones who crossed her path. The men she met in show business were not the kind of men she wanted to be involved with. Most of them were flaky, self centered, and so full of themselves. |
| 767 |
She often felt she was almost too old for them now. They preferred dating actresses, and most of the men who asked her out were married and more interested in cheating on their wives than in having a serious relationship with a single woman. She had no patience with the bullshit, the lies, the narcissists, and she certainly had no interest in being anyone's mistress. And the actors she met seemed like freaks to her. When she first came to L.A. and started working in the business, she had had a million dates, most of which had turned out badly or been disappointing for one reason or another. She had been set up on dozens of blind dates. Now, when she finally left the office, she was just as happy relaxing in her house with Juanita and decompressing from the insanity of her day. She didn't have the time or energy to spend bored to death with some loser at a fancy restaurant, while he explained to her how bad his marriage had been, how crazy his soon to be ex wife was, and how his papers were coming through any day. Healthy single guys were hard to come by, and at twenty nine she was in no rush to get married. She was far more interested in her career. Her mother reminded her every year that time went by quickly, and one day it would be too late. Tammy didn't know if she believed her, but she wasn't worried about it yet. For now, she was on the fast track of Hollywood, and thoroughly enjoying it, even if she didn't have a social life or even a date. It was working for her. At five minutes after one she grabbed Juanita and put her in her Birkin, grabbed a stack of files and her computer, and shoved them in her briefcase. Her assistant had already sent her suitcase to the car waiting downstairs. Tammy didn't need much for the weekend, mostly blue jeans and T shirts, a white cotton skirt for her parents' party, and two pairs of high heeled Louboutin espadrilles. She had a row of bangle bracelets on her arm, and despite her lack of effort in that department, she always looked stylish and casual. |
| 768 |
Sabrina left her office at six o'clock. She had meant to leave earlier, but there were documents she had to proofread and sign. Nothing was going to get done over the holiday weekend, but she was taking an extra day off and her secretary had to file the papers with the court when she got back to the office on Tuesday. Sabrina never liked leaving loose ends. She was a family law attorney in one of the busiest practices in New York. Mostly, she handled prenuptial agreements and divorces and tough custody cases. What she had seen in her eight years as an attorney had convinced her that she never wanted to get married, although she was crazy about her boyfriend and he was a good man. Chris was an attorney in a rival firm. His specialty was antitrust law, and he got involved in class action suits that went on for years. He was solid, kind, and loving, and they had been dating for three years. Sabrina was thirty four years old. She and Chris didn't live together, but they spent the night with each other, at his apartment or hers, three or four times a week. Her parents had finally stopped asking her if and when they were getting married. The arrangement they had worked for them. Chris was as solid as a rock. Sabrina knew she could count on him, and they loved the time they spent together. They enjoyed the theater, symphony, ballet, hiking, walking, playing tennis, and just being together on weekends. By now most of their friends were married and were even having second kids. Sabrina wasn't ready to think about it yet and didn't want to. They had both been made partners in their law firms. He was almost thirty seven, and made noises occasionally about wanting children, and Sabrina didn't disagree with him. She wanted kids one day maybe, but not now. Although at thirty four she was among the last of her friends still holding out. She felt that what she and Chris shared was almost as good as being married, without the headaches, the risk of divorce, and the pain she saw in her practice every day. |
| 769 |
She never wanted to be like one of her clients, hating the man she had married, and bitterly disappointed by how things had turned out. She loved Chris, and their life, just as it was. He was coming to her parents' party the next day and would spend the night at the house in Connecticut. He knew how important these weekends with her family were to her. And he liked all of her sisters and her parents. There was nothing about Sabrina he didn't like, except maybe her aversion to marriage. He couldn't really understand it, since her parents were obviously happily married. He knew the nature of her law practice had put her off. At first, he had thought they'd be married in a couple of years. Now they had settled into a comfortable routine. Their apartments were only a few blocks apart, and they went back and forth with ease. He had a key to her apartment, and she had the key to his. When she worked late, she called him, and he went by her place and picked up her dog. Beulah, her basset hound, was their substitute child. He had given her the dog for Christmas three years before, and Sabrina adored her. She was a black and white harlequin basset, with the mournful look of her breed and a personality to match. When Beulah didn't get enough attention, she got severely depressed, and it took days to cajole her out of it. She slept at the foot of their bed, although she was a sixty pound dog. But Chris couldn't complain since he had given her the dog. The gift had been a huge success at the time and ever since. Sabrina left her office and went home to pick her up, and found Beulah sitting in her favorite chair next to the fireplace in Sabrina's living room with an insulted look. It was obvious that she knew her mistress was late to pick her up, walk her, and feed her. "Come on," Sabrina said to her as she walked in, "don't be such a sourpuss. I had to finish my work. And I can't give you dinner before we go, or you'll get sick in the car." Beulah got carsick, and hated long rides. |
| 770 |
As far as Sabrina was concerned, they didn't see enough of each other. She and Chris had gone to California to visit Tammy two years before, but they hadn't been able to since, although they kept promising to make time to go out there again. They had had a great time with Tammy, although she was constantly working. The two oldest sisters in the group definitely had the strongest work ethic and Chris accused them both of being workaholics. He was much better about leaving the office at reasonable hours, and refusing to work on weekends. Sabrina always had her overstuffed briefcase near at hand, with things she had to read, or prepare for a case. Chris was a good lawyer too, but he had a more relaxed attitude about life, which made them a good combination. He made her loosen up a little, and she kept him on track, and didn't let him procrastinate, which he had a tendency to do. Sabrina sometimes nagged him, but he was a good sport about it. She wished Tammy would find a man like him, but there were none in her world. Sabrina hadn't liked a single man that Tammy had gone out with in the past ten years. She was a magnet for self centered, difficult men. Sabrina had chosen someone like their father, easygoing, kind, good natured, and loving. It was hard not to love Chris, and they all did. He even looked a little like her father, which the others had teased her about when they first met him. Now they all loved him as she did. She just didn't want to be married to him, or anyone else. She was afraid it would screw things up, as she had seen so often. So many times couples told her that everything had been great while they were living together, sometimes for years and years, and then it all fell apart when they got married. One or both of them turned into monsters. She wasn't afraid that Chris would do that, or even that she would, but why take the chance? Things were so perfect as they were. Beulah looked at Sabrina miserably as she set her suitcase down next to the front door. |
| 771 |
She hated the fact that they were all so spread out now. She really missed them. She saw Candy now and then when they both had time. Sabrina made a point of meeting her for lunch or dinner, or even coffee, but she hardly saw the other two and seriously missed them. Sometimes she thought she felt it more than the others. Her bond to her sisters and sense of family was strong, stronger than her bond to anyone else, even Chris, much as she loved him. She called him from her car phone once she got on the highway. He had just come home from playing squash with a friend and said he was exhausted, but happy he had won. "What time are you coming out tomorrow?" she asked. She already missed him. She always missed him on the nights they didn't spend together, but it made the nights they did spend with each other even sweeter. "I'll get there in the afternoon, before the party. I thought I'd give you some time alone with your sisters. I know how you girls are. Shoes, hair, boyfriends, dresses, work, fashion. You have a lot to talk about." He was teasing her, but he wasn't far off the mark. They were still like a bunch of teenagers when they got together, they laughed and talked and giggled, usually late into the night. The only difference now from when they were young was that they smoked and drank while they did it, and they were a lot kinder about their parents than they had been as kids. Now they realized how lucky they were to have them, and how great they were. As teenagers, she and Tammy had given their mom a tough time. Candy and Annie had been easier, and had enjoyed the freedoms that Tammy and Sabrina had fought for earlier and that in some cases had been hard won. Sabrina always said that they had worn their mother down, but she had held a hard line at times. Sabrina knew it couldn't have been easy to raise four girls. Their mom had done a great job, and so had their dad. However, he often left a lot of the difficult decisions to their mother and often deferred to her, which always made Sabrina mad at him. |
| 772 |
She was proud of all four of her girls, and in their own way, each of them was doing well. More important, all four of them were happy, and had found their niche. Their mother never compared them to each other, even as children, and saw each of them as individuals, with different talents and needs. It made their relationship that much better with her now. And each in her own way was crazy about their mom. She was like a best friend, only better. They had her unconditional love and approval, and she never lost sight of the fact that she was their mother, and not a friend. Sabrina liked it that way, and all of her friends had liked her mother too. As kids, all their friends had loved hanging out at their house, and knew they were always welcome there, as long as they were polite and behaved. Their mother had never tolerated alcohol or drugs when they were young, and with few exceptions, their friends had respected the rules. And when they didn't respect them, she had been tough. It was just after ten o'clock when Sabrina pulled into their driveway. She let Beulah out of the car, and walked to the pool, where she knew she'd find everyone. The girls were in the water, and her parents were sitting on deck chairs, chatting with them. Sabrina's arrival was met with excitement and squeals of delight. Candy leaped out of the pool and hugged her, and Sabrina was instantly soaking wet, and then she hugged and kissed Annie, and all three girls laughed with delight. Annie said it had been worth the trip all the way from Florence just to see her, and she said Sabrina looked great. She had cut her almost jet black hair, which hung just past her shoulders and had been longer before. As a child, Annie always said that Sabrina looked like Snow White, with creamy white skin, dark blue black hair, and big blue eyes, just like Candy's. Their father's eyes were blue. Both Tammy and Annie had their mother's green eyes. And her mother's hair was as red as Tammy's, although hers had always been straight. |
| 773 |
She wore it short now. Tammy was the only one in the family with wildly curly hair, and she had hated it growing up. She had ironed it for years. Now she just let it run wild, in a mane of soft curls. Sabrina had always been jealous of Tammy's hair. Sabrina's was thick and dark and straight. And like her sisters, but in a totally different way, she was a beautiful young woman. She had long legs and a trim figure. She wasn't as tall as Candy, but she was tall. Tammy was tiny, like their mother, and Annie was somewhere between the two and of average height, but she was an unusually pretty girl too. "So what's with this guy Charlie?" Sabrina asked Annie, as she dangled her feet in the pool, and her mother handed her a glass of lemonade. She looked thrilled to have three of her girls at home and the fourth one only hours away. This was what she loved best, her entire family in one place. She looked lovingly at her husband, and he smiled at her. He knew how much it meant to her. He leaned over and kissed her. After nearly thirty five years, they were still very much in love, and it showed. They had had their arguments over the years, though never serious ones. Their marriage had been stable since the day they married. Sabrina wondered sometimes if that was why she was hesitant about marriage. She couldn't imagine being lucky enough to have a marriage like theirs, and she didn't want anything less. If anyone was likely to be a good husband, Chris was, but she couldn't imagine being as good a wife as her mother had been for all these years. Jane Adams seemed like the perfect wife and mother to her. Sabrina had said that to her once, and her mother was stunned. She said she had the same insecurities and flaws as everyone else. She gave Jim the credit for how good their marriage was, and said he had been the perfect mate. It was easy to see that in retrospect, but she said that when she got married, she had been scared too. Marriage was a big step, but she had told Sabrina she thought it was well worth taking the risk. |
| 774 |
She got too much positive reinforcement, and made too much money, for being too thin. They were sitting in the kitchen, talking, when Tammy's limousine drove up. They heard the car door slam, and a moment later she ran into the kitchen, and they were all in each others' arms again, hugging and laughing and talking all at once while Juanita barked fiercely at everyone. She was on the floor for all of two seconds before she ripped Zoe's bow out, and had Beulah cowering under a chair. Her personality did not reflect Tammy's, but she was definitely the fiercest dog in the pack, although the smallest. Tammy picked her up and scolded her, but the minute she set her down again, she had both dogs on the run. "She's hopeless," Tammy apologized, and then looked her sisters over carefully. "God, you all look great. I missed you so much." Tammy put her arms around her mother and hugged her, and a few minutes later Jane stood up. Her job was done. She had welcomed them all home and could leave them to their own devices now. She knew they'd sit up for hours, catching up, and exchanging secrets and stories about their respective lives. It was time for her to retire and leave them alone. "I'll see you in the morning," she said with a yawn, as she left the kitchen. It was so good to have them home. These moments were the high point of her year. "Sleep tight, Mom, see you tomorrow," they all said, and kissed her goodnight, just as they had as children. They helped themselves to a bottle of wine after she left, and sat and talked until after four in the morning, and then they walked upstairs. Their home had been unusual in that each of the girls had had her own room as a kid. They all commented on how strange it felt at times to be back here, and in their old beds, where they had grown up. It made them feel like children again, and brought back so many memories. They all said that they thought their mom looked well, and they promised to discuss the anniversary party the next day, to make a plan. |
| 775 |
Their father had eaten breakfast hours earlier and was outside by the pool, reading the paper. He liked to leave them time with their mother, and planned to get back in the thick of things again later. He knew how crazy things were going to get with all five of his women buzzing around him. He preferred his mornings peaceful and quiet. Sabrina was always an early riser and was the first to get up. She came downstairs, found her mother in the kitchen, and offered to help her cook breakfast for the others. Jane insisted that she loved doing it herself. Sabrina noticed how happy her mother seemed that morning, and knew how much it meant to her that they were all at home, even for a brief time. She had put a pot of coffee on, and Sabrina helped herself to a cup of the steaming brew, and sat down at the kitchen table to chat with her mother while waiting for the others. She had only taken two sips when Tammy walked in with Annie right behind her. Candy was still the latest riser. Some things never changed even after all these years. She was still sound asleep upstairs in her bedroom, although her Yorkie had wandered downstairs and was playing in the kitchen with Juanita. Sabrina had let the basset out to check things out for herself, and hopefully she would find something to chase. "Good morning, girls," Jane said brightly. She was wearing white shorts with a pink top and low heeled sandals. Sabrina couldn't help noticing that she still had great legs. All three older sisters had been blessed and got their legs from her. Candy's were endless and were more like their dad's. "What can I make you?" They all started out by muttering that they didn't normally eat breakfast, no one was hungry, and coffee was fine. They were on a wide variety of time zones. It was already nearly dinnertime for Candy, who was still sleeping, and for Annie, who didn't want to admit it but was starving. She grabbed an orange from a bowl of fruit on the counter, and started unwinding the rind, as her mother poured coffee for Annie and Tammy. |
| 776 |
For Tammy it still felt like the middle of the night, but she was wide awake. They all were. In spite of the late night the night before, they all were energetic. Jane suggested scrambled eggs, and put a plate of muffins on the table, with butter and jam. All three girls helped themselves while chatting. Sabrina suggested that one of them should wake Candy, so she didn't get up in the middle of the afternoon. Annie silently disappeared from the room and went to rouse her, and ten minutes later they both came down. By then, their mother was making scrambled eggs and bacon. They all insisted they weren't hungry, but as soon as the eggs were ready, they helped themselves to generous portions, including several strips of bacon. Sabrina was pleased to see that Candy took some of the eggs too, half a muffin, and a single strip of bacon. It was probably the most she'd eaten for breakfast in several years. Jane even sat down with them and had a plate of eggs herself. "What do you all want to do this morning?" she asked with interest. There wasn't much to do, since it was the holiday and everything was closed. But she thought they might want to call some of their friends who still lived in town. Many had moved away, gotten married, or had jobs in other cities, but the girls still stayed in touch with some. "I just want to hang around with you guys and Mom," Annie said, echoing what they all felt. "And Dad, if he doesn't feel too outnumbered." They knew he enjoyed having them home too, but he had always been someone who needed his own space. When they were younger, he had spent a lot of time playing tennis and golf with friends, and they knew from their mother that he still did. At fifty nine, he still acted and moved like a young man, and hadn't changed much. There was more gray in his hair, but still the same spring in his step. And they all agreed that their mother looked better than ever. Her face was still beautiful and hardly lined. She could easily have lied and taken ten years off her age. |
| 777 |
She didn't want to give the relationship that much importance, particularly in her mother's eyes, who was ever hopeful that Annie would come home. And she didn't want to give her mother false hope. They found a parking space at the supermarket easily, and went inside together. They put the few items they wanted in a cart, and qualified for the express lane. They were back in the parking lot in less than five minutes. The weather was extremely hot, and they were both anxious to get home and jump in the pool. It was hours before the guests would come. Jane was looking forward to spending the day with them, mostly in and around the pool. The temperature was supposed to go over a hundred that afternoon. She just hoped it would cool off a little by that night. If not, the guests were going to be sweltering outside at seven o'clock, and it would still be sunny and bright. It wouldn't get dark till after eight o'clock. "This is even hotter than Florence," Annie commented as they got back in the air conditioned car. She was grateful for the blast of cool air on her face when her mother turned on the ignition. They had to cross the highway to get back to the house, and Annie was talking about Charlie as they got behind a truck that was carrying a load of steel pipes on a flatbed behind it. Jane was listening to her intently, and as Annie talked, they both heard a loud snap, and saw the steel pipes begin to fall off the truck. Some rolled off to the sides, causing cars on the other side of the road to swerve to avoid them, and the rest of the pipes shot backward off the truck toward Jane's Mercedes. She was trying to slow down as Annie gasped and saw three of the pipes shoot off the truck straight at them. Instinctively, she reached out toward her mother and shouted "Mom!" But it was already too late. Like a scene in a movie she couldn't stop, Annie saw the pipes come straight through the windshield into the car, as Jane lost control of the wheel, and the car plunged into the oncoming lane. |
| 778 |
They had found Jane's driver's license in her handbag in the car, and they could tell from Annie's that she was Jane's daughter. She still had her parents' Connecticut address on her U.S. driver's license. She had an Italian license in her handbag as well. If necessary, highway patrolmen were allowed to notify next of kin by phone, in case of an accident. But Chuck Petri, the officer in charge at the scene, thought it was inhuman to do that. If something had happened to his wife or daughter, he would want a real live human being to come and tell him, not a phone call. So he sent two patrolmen to the Adamses' address and handled traffic at the scene himself, as they directed a single file of cars to move past the crushed cars and tarped bodies, going five miles per hour. The highway would be tied up for hours. The two patrolmen ringing the bell looked acutely uncomfortable. One was a rookie and had never done anything like it before. The senior officer with him was his partner and had promised to do the talking when someone answered. It took a few minutes for someone to come to the door, since they couldn't hear the doorbell clearly from the pool. Sabrina had just said she wondered where their mom and Annie were. They had been gone for nearly an hour, a lot longer than it took to get to the store they had in mind. Maybe the store was closed and they had had to go somewhere else for the pickles and mayonnaise. Tammy went to answer the door when they heard it; she was going to the kitchen to get something to drink anyway. She pulled open the front door and saw them through the screen door, and as soon as she did she could feel her heart pound, and forced herself to believe that this couldn't be as ominous as it appeared. They were probably there about some minor infraction, like the sprinkler leaving spots on the neighbor's window, or the dogs making too much noise. That had to be it. The young officer was smiling nervously at her, and the older officer looked at her with a somber frown. |
| 779 |
Annie was on life support in the meantime. Her heart had stopped twice on the way in, and she was no longer breathing on her own. But her brain waves were normal. As far as they could tell, there was no major brain damage so far. The swelling of her brain was going to cause some real problems very shortly, but what the resident said he was most worried about were her eyes. If she survived the accident at all, there was a good chance her brain would return to normal. From what he had seen of the damage Annie had sustained in the accident, he couldn't imagine their being able to save her sight. His greatest concern was that her optic nerves were damaged beyond repair. But miracles did happen, and they needed one now. The brain surgeon walked in as they were looking at the films of Annie's brain. After looking at them himself, he explained what the procedure would be, what the risks were, and how long it would probably take. He didn't pull any punches either, and said that there was a very real possibility that Annie could die in surgery. But they had no other choice. He said clearly that without surgery to relieve the swelling, Annie could be severely brain damaged forever, or might die. "Annie would hate that," Tammy whispered to her sisters, about her being brain damaged. They agreed to let him operate, and both Sabrina and Tammy signed the release forms. Their father was in no condition to do anything except sit in a chair in the waiting room, crying for his wife. His daughters were afraid he'd have a heart attack, and Candy had to sit down, saying she thought she was going to faint. Candy and their father sat there together, crying and holding hands. Sabrina and Tammy were just as shocked as they were, but they were on their feet and talking, and in the front lines. Moments after the brain surgeon left to examine Annie again, the ophthalmologist walked in, and explained his part of the procedure to them. It was infinitely delicate surgery, and he was honest when he looked at the films. |
| 780 |
Their father and Candy hadn't moved since they left them and looked even worse than before, if that was possible, which gave Tammy an idea. She looked up their family doctor's phone number in the address book they'd brought with them. She put it into her cell phone and walked discreetly away. They were able to patch her through to the doctor at his home, and she explained to him what had happened. She asked if he could come to the hospital to identify her mother's body so her father wouldn't have to do it. She didn't want any of them remembering her that way, and the resident had warned her that the damage to her mother had been extensive and she looked pretty grim. Their family physician promised to meet them at the hospital immediately. She told him that her father and youngest sister were in pretty bad shape and might benefit from some form of sedation, if that seemed reasonable to him. "Of course. And how are you?" He sounded concerned. "I don't know," Tammy said honestly, glancing at Sabrina, who had walked over to be near her. "In shock, I think. We all are. This is pretty tough, and Annie's in bad shape." She explained what they were planning to do to her in surgery, and he promised to be there within the hour, to offer moral support, if nothing else. It was something at least, and would relieve her father of the horrifying task of identifying his beloved Jane's remains. Tammy couldn't bear to think of her that way, nor could he. She explained to her father that their doctor was coming, and that he would identify Mom for them. After that she could be released to a funeral parlor, but none of them had thought of that yet. They were too stunned by everything that had happened, and too worried about Annie. While Tammy was on the phone, the resident had come to say that Annie was already in surgery, and they'd be starting in a few minutes. He promised to send them reports as soon as they knew anything, but he warned them again that she would be in surgery for many hours. |
| 781 |
He handed Sabrina a bottle of Valium and told her to distribute it as needed. He thought her father would benefit from one now and suggested someone take him home. He was in good health, but had always had a mild heart murmur, and he'd been through so much that day. He could see that Candy was a mess too. She had hyperventilated twice since they'd arrived, and said she felt as though she was going to vomit. She felt sick every time she stood up. Sabrina gave each of them a pill with a paper cup full of cold water, and conferred with Tammy quietly as soon as the doctor went downstairs to the morgue to identify Jane. He asked the girls if they had contacted a funeral parlor yet, and they said they hadn't had time. They had come straight to the hospital to see Annie. No calls had been made. Neither of their parents had siblings, and their grandparents were all dead and had been for years. The entire family was at the hospital. All decisions could be made right here, although Sabrina and Tammy were obviously in charge and had the clearest heads, in spite of the fact that both were deeply affected by what had happened. But their father and Candy were falling apart. Tammy and Sabrina weren't, no matter how heartbroken they were. The doctor had told them what funeral parlor to call, and as soon as he left, Sabrina called them and said they would try to come in the next day to discuss arrangements, but circumstances were difficult, with their sister in critical condition. She just hoped they wouldn't be planning two funerals. One was bad enough, their mother's, which was beyond their worst nightmares and fears. The worst had happened to them. Sabrina refused to think of Annie dying too. "I think one of us should take them home," Tammy said to Sabrina as they stood next to the water cooler down the hall from where Candy and their father were sitting. They were both beginning to look a little woozy from the Valium they'd taken, and their father looked like he was going to sleep. |
| 782 |
He just hoped Annie would be okay. That would just be too much for them. Losing their mother was bad enough and a terrible shock. Losing Annie too would drive them all over the edge. He couldn't even think about it. Or the possibility of her surviving blind. For an artist, on top of it. He just hoped that she'd survive, in whatever condition. Sabrina called the caterers first, to cancel, and then everyone on the list. It took two hours, and was nearly unbearable. She had to tell each person what had happened. And all of their friends were in shock once she had. Many of them offered to go over and see her dad, but she told them she thought it was too soon. He had been in no state to see anyone when he left the hospital. She had called Tammy at the house several times, and she said they were both sound asleep, mercifully. The Valium had done its job. Tammy had taken nothing. She wanted to be alert, just as Sabrina was. It was six o'clock when Chris arrived, looking flustered and worried about her. He found her in the waiting room, staring into space, thinking. Annie had been in surgery for four hours by then. The resident said they were halfway through the surgeries, and it was going well so far. Her vital signs were holding firm, which was something at least, but not enough. They hadn't started the eye surgery yet, and were still operating on her brain. Sabrina tried not to think about it, and collapsed in sobs in Chris's arms when he walked in. They sat together and talked for several hours, about her mother, Annie, her father, all of them. There was so much to think about and so little that any of them could do right now. All they could do was wait, and pray for Annie. Tammy had called the funeral parlor again from the house, and started to make arrangements, and decisions. She told Sabrina that they had to go there in the morning and pick a casket. And they had to go to the church too, and set a day and time for the funeral, pick the music, find a photograph of their mother for the program. |
| 783 |
It sounded sensible to her too. It was nearly ten when Annie finally came out of surgery. She had been there for almost eight hours, and as far as the doctors were concerned, it had gone well. She had survived it. She was still on the respirator, but they were going to try and take her off it in a few days. She was young and strong, and her vital signs were good, even during surgery. They had managed to take the pressure off her brain, and they were hopeful that there was no long term damage. If she regained consciousness soon, it would bode well for her future. They gave them all the good news first. She was still in critical condition, but as they told her sisters, they were guardedly optimistic, depending on how she came through the next forty eight to seventy two hours. But they were hopeful that she would live, without long term damage to her brain. And then came the bad news. They had saved the worst for last. The most important was that she had survived the surgery, and the operation on her brain had gone well. But the eye surgery hadn't. Her optic nerves had been severed and could not be repaired. The damage to her eyes was so severe that even a transplant could not help her. There was no question and no hope. If Annie lived, she would be blind. Tammy and Sabrina sat in shocked silence when they heard it, and made not a sound. They were too stunned to move, and then finally Sabrina spoke up. "She's a very talented artist," she said, as though that would change their verdict, but it didn't. The ophthalmologist just shook his head and told them he was sorry. He felt she would be very lucky if she lived, and they agreed. But what kind of life would she have if she was blind? Knowing her as they did, they couldn't imagine it, and suspected she would rather be dead than blind. Everything in her life was about art and sight. What would Annie do without that? Her entire education and life were related to art. It was horrifying to think about, but losing her completely would be worse. |
| 784 |
But maybe that was a blessing in its own way. "But you know anyway, poor baby," Chris said about Annie's eyes, and then took Sabrina in his arms and held her. He put her to bed as though she were a child, which was just what she needed. It was as though overnight she and Tammy had become the parents. Her mother was gone, her father was falling apart, and her sister was blind. And she and Tammy were carrying it all on their shoulders. With one single moment and act of fate, their whole family had been struck down, and nothing would ever be the same again. For Annie most of all, if she survived, which wasn't sure yet either. Nothing was anymore. Sabrina fell asleep in Chris's arms, and had never been so grateful for any human in her life, except her mother. But Chris was a close second, and he cradled her and comforted her all night. She knew she would never forget it, and would be grateful to him forever. She, Chris, and Tammy got up early the next morning. He cooked breakfast while the girls showered and got ready to go to the funeral parlor. Candy and their father were still asleep. Chris took care of the dogs, and was waiting at the breakfast table with scrambled eggs and bacon and English muffins. He told them they had to eat to stay strong. Sabrina had called the hospital as soon as she got up, and they said that Annie had had a good night and was doing well, though still heavily sedated so she didn't move too much and jostle her brain so soon after the surgery. They were going to start reducing the sedation the next day. She and Tammy were planning to go back and see her, but they had so much to do first, and all the "arrangements" to make. Tammy said she had always hated that word, and all that it implied, and even more so now. They went to the funeral home and were back in two hours. They had done all the awful things they had expected, chosen a casket, funeral programs, mass cards, a room to hold "visitation" in, where their friends could come to visit the night before the funeral. |
| 785 |
They visited Annie in the hospital that afternoon. She was still unconscious, and would remain that way for another day or two, from the sedation. As it turned out, she was going to sleep through their mother's funeral on Tuesday, which the others thought was a blessing for her. They had dinner together at the house that night, and Sabrina and Chris cooked. They were tired and depressed, and their father hardly said two words all night and went back to bed. Candy stuck around at least, and the four of them sat and talked long into the night, about their childhoods, their hopes and dreams, the crazy memories that surfaced at hard times like this. On Monday the doctors took Annie off the respirator. Tammy and Sabrina were with her, and Candy and Chris were in the waiting room, in case anything went wrong. It was a tense moment, but they got through it. The two older sisters clutched each other's hands and cried when she took her first breath on her own. Sabrina looked at Tammy afterward and said that she felt as though she had just given birth to her herself. They reduced the sedation after that and expected her to wake up gently on her own in the next few days. The visitation at the funeral parlor was that night, and was beyond awful. Hundreds of their parents' friends came, childhood friends of theirs, people Jane had been on committees with, others whom none of them even knew. They spent three hours shaking hands and accepting condolences. The girls had placed beautiful photographs of their mother around the room. They were all drained when they got home, and that night everyone went straight to bed. They were too tired to talk, think, or move. It was hard to believe that their mother had still been alive only two days before. Everyone at the visitation asked for Annie, and they had to explain what had happened to her as well, although they hadn't told anyone yet that she was blind. For the sake of her dignity, and out of respect for her, her sisters had decided that Annie ought to know first. |
| 786 |
It gave them time to prepare for what they were going to say to her. She complained that she couldn't see anything with the bandages on, and asked weakly to have them taken off. Sabrina explained that her eyes had been hurt in the accident, she'd had surgery on them, and it would hurt if they took the bandages off. They kissed her and held her hands and told her how much they loved her. All three of her sisters and Chris had come to visit her. Their father was just too wiped out to face yet another emotional event. He promised to visit her the next day. They still had their mother's burial to get through the following afternoon. It was going to be a short ceremony at the graveside, and then they'd leave her there. The girls were anxious to get that over with. It was another day of torture for their father and them, and in the past four days they'd had more than enough. Their mother's burial was the last step in the series of traditions that seemed barbaric to all of them now, and this would be the final one. Seeing Annie talking and moving again, and speaking to each of them was an affirmation of life. She asked where their parents were, and Tammy said simply that they hadn't come. They had all agreed not to tell her about her mother's death yet. She had only just woken up, and it seemed cruel to hit her with that before she regained at least a little of her strength, particularly with the shock she had in store about her sight. "You scared the hell out of us," Tammy said, kissing her again and again. They were so grateful to have her back, and Candy lay down next to her on the bed, and dangled her feet off, which made them all laugh. She snuggled up to Annie, and smiled for the first time in four days. "I missed you," Candy said softly, lying as close to her as she could, like a child cuddling up to her mother. "Me too," Annie said in a tired voice, reaching out to touch each of them. Chris even came into the room for a few minutes, but said he didn't want to wear her out. |
| 787 |
Their mother's burial on Wednesday was the last painful ritual the Adams family had to endure. And as Sabrina had asked him to do, the priest kept it short and sweet. Her mother's ashes were in a large handsome mahogany box. None of them liked to think about her having disappeared out of their lives and being reduced to something so seemingly insignificant and small. Her impact on them had been huge for all of their lives. Now they were leaving her here, to be buried at a cemetery with strangers, in the family plot. They didn't wait to see the box lowered into the ground. Sabrina and Tammy had agreed at the funeral parlor that no one could have tolerated the agony of it, and when they checked with him, their father had agreed. The priest made a point of saying during the brief ceremony that they had something to celebrate now, the survival and hopefully full recovery soon of their daughter and sister Anne, who had been spared the same fate as her mother during the accident on the Fourth of July. The priest had no idea that Annie was now blind, nor did anyone else. People would become aware of it gradually later when they saw her, but the family was keeping it quiet for now. It still felt like a very private, painful thing, for them, and above all for Annie herself, once she found out. They had no idea when they were going to tell her, and wanted to discuss it with her doctors first. Sabrina was afraid of telling her too soon, and having her get severely depressed, on the heels of their mother's death, but she knew they couldn't wait too long, and her bandages from the surgery were due to come off by the end of the week. There would be no way of keeping it from her then. And their father still insisted the diagnosis they'd made was wrong. It was inconceivable to him that one of his beautiful daughters was now blind. In the past five days everything had gone so wrong. Their family, which had never been touched by tragedy before, had been dealt a double blow, which had staggered them all. |
| 788 |
They were all dressed in somber black, and looked elegant and dignified. They had always been a beautiful family, and now, even without her, they still were. People who saw them were always struck by how handsome they were. And Jane had been Jim's bright, shining star. He couldn't bring himself to believe that she was gone. "Maybe it's better like this," Sabrina said softly, as he continued to stand there, staring at the box where her ashes were. "Now she'll never get sick or old. She didn't suffer. She lived to see all her children grow up. You'll always remember her still beautiful and young." She had hardly ever changed. Her beauty was timeless, and she exuded warmth, energy, and youth. She had been a dazzling woman right till the end. They would always think of her that way. Their mother had had enormous grace. He nodded at what his daughter had just said, without saying a word in response. He took one of the long stemmed white roses and laid it on top of the box with the others, and then he took a second one, held it in his hand, and walked away with his head down. The past few days had been the hardest of his life, as his children knew only too well. He looked as though he had aged a decade in five days. Her father got into the limousine without comment and sat next to Sabrina. He sat staring out the window on the way home. Tammy was in the car with them as well. Chris and Candy were riding in the second limousine. They had kept the interment private, and all three daughters were relieved that the painful rituals associated with their mother's passing had come to an end. It had been a rigorous three days, between visitation, funeral, hundreds of guests at the house afterward, and now this last poignant event, leaving her in the place of her final rest. They had talked about keeping her ashes at home, but Sabrina and Tammy had decided that it would be too hard for them, and especially for their father. It was better to leave the discreet wooden box at the cemetery. |
| 789 |
Since she had left no directions about funeral arrangements, they had had to guess all along the way, and they had consulted their father about each minute detail. He just wanted the nightmare to end, and for her to come back to them. Sabrina had a strong sense that the reality of it hadn't sunk in yet for any of them. She had been gone for only these few days, as though she had gone away for the long weekend and might still return. Sabrina knew they had to concentrate on Annie now, her full recovery from the brain surgery, and her adjustment to a whole new, challenging life now that she was blind. They hadn't even begun to travel that road with her yet, and she was fully expecting the transition from artist to woman who no longer had sight to take a long time. This was no small cross for her to bear. Her father said when they got back to the house that he needed to go to the bank that afternoon. Sabrina offered to take him, but he said he wanted to go on his own. Like the others, she was trying to be there to support him, when he wanted, and to give him space when he seemed to want to be alone. Like all of them, his spirits went up and down. Sometimes the full weight of the tragedy nearly crushed him, and at other times he felt all right for a few hours, and then fell through a hole in the floor again, suddenly, brutally, with all the force of her loss weighing on him. He felt as though his whole world were upside down, and in many ways it was. He had told his office not to expect him at all that week and maybe not the following week as well. He wanted to wait to see how he felt. He had been a personal investment adviser for all of his career, and his clients would be sympathetic about his absence after the death of his wife. The most important ones had been notified, and many of them had sent flowers. The family was going to be together till the end of the week, and then Tammy was going back to California, Chris was going back to work, and eventually their father would too. |
| 790 |
It was frightening to see how shattered he was, how lost without her. When Sabrina was alone in the library after the burial ceremony, she called the realtor in New York who had found her current apartment, and told her what she was looking for. Three bedrooms, since Tammy had decided not to join them but would stay in California so she could still produce her hit show. Sabrina told the realtor she wanted a bright, sunny apartment, preferably on one floor, with three good sized bedrooms, three separate bathrooms, a good sized living room, a dining room if possible, and maybe even a small den, although that was optional. They wanted a building with a doorman and some kind of security, since Candy came in at all hours, and Annie would need help when she came and went from the building, and she and Candy wouldn't always be there to help, if they went out, or were at work. They wanted the Upper East Side more than they wanted SoHo, Tribeca, or Chelsea. Sabrina was happier uptown, and Candy insisted she didn't care where she lived as long as she was with them. She had a gorgeous penthouse apartment she was planning to rent. Its beauty and views had done nothing for her. She had never bothered to decorate it, or put the finishing touches on it. She was out of town too much to really care. Like Sabrina, she was interested in their safety, and a sense of protection when she came home at night. The others didn't go out as much as Candy did, they led more sedentary lives. "That's a tall order," the realtor told her honestly, "unless I find you some kind of fluke, like someone renting their co op for a year." Sabrina had said they didn't care about terraces or views. And a cozy apartment in an old building would suit them too. The main thing was that they could live together, and provide an environment where Annie could flourish and feel comfortable, and above all safe, while she learned to handle the challenges of her new life. Sabrina was also hoping they'd find a place with a decent kitchen where they could cook. |
| 791 |
And Sabrina alternated real meals with salads, to compensate for it when she indulged, which wasn't too often. The realtor promised to call her back as soon as she had something to show her. Sabrina knew they might not find it right away, and she was open to renting a brownstone too, but she didn't want to start with that because they were so often more expensive. She had explained their plan to her father on the way home from the cemetery, and he smiled as she talked about it. "That's going to be so good for you. Just like the old days, when you girls all lived together at home. I can just imagine the mischief the three of you will get into. What about Chris in all this, Sabrina? Living with that many women could be challenging for any man. Even your dogs are females, and your friends of course." Sabrina said Chris was used to it by now. Wherever she lived, particularly with her sisters, was always chaotic to visit and even more so to stay there. They loved the lively atmosphere they created among them, and Chris seemed to adjust to it well. In any case, the realtor had their requirements, and she didn't think it would be an impossible task to find something. Of course it made it more challenging that Sabrina told her they needed it soon. Annie would be out of the hospital in a few weeks, and Sabrina wanted to get them all moved in. She'd have to give notice on her own apartment, and Candy was planning to rent out her penthouse once they found something. If need be, she could pay rent at the apartment she planned to occupy with her sisters, and pay maintenance on her penthouse at the same time, since she owned it. She made such staggering amounts of money from her modeling that she could afford luxuries the others couldn't, even though she was the youngest of the group. Even Tammy, with her big Hollywood job as a producer, didn't make the kind of money Candy did. Candy readily admitted herself that the fees supermodels raked in were insane, and she was more in demand than ever. |
| 792 |
Their father had said on the way home from the cemetery that he would pay Annie's share of the rent, and even a little more if it helped them. He was willing to pay as much as half, because he thought their project to help their injured sister was noble of them, although he still refused to believe that she would be permanently blind. He now said that maybe her vision would come back one day. The blow of her new reality was just too much for him to endure. Sabrina knew he would have to come to believe it over time. But losing his wife, nearly losing his daughter, and her becoming permanently blind were almost too great a shock for him to bear. His mind refused to take it all in, or believe what had happened in the past five days. It was barely easier for his daughters to understand. And Annie knew nothing about any of it yet. Tammy and Chris made sandwiches when they got back. People had been dropping food baskets off to them, and there was a wide assortment of delicacies, snacks, and cooked meals crowded into the kitchen. It looked like Christmas, when friends and their father's clients sent baskets of gourmet treats and wine. But this was by no means Christmas. In fact, Sabrina was already dreading the holidays now that her mother was gone. They would be agonizing for all of them this year. She knew that their mother's absence would be felt even more acutely then, by all. Their father went to the bank when the girls went to visit their sister that afternoon. Chris had offered to drive him. He was so distracted at the moment that his daughters didn't want him to drive. None of them wanted another accident to happen, like the one that had happened over the holiday weekend, although they all agreed it had been a freak thing. Chris was startled to notice, when Jim came out to the car, that he was carrying a tote bag and a small valise. Chris had no idea what he was doing, but he seemed very intent, and said little to Chris as they drove to the bank, which was unusual for him. |
| 793 |
She had lived her life, had died too young, but had lived fully and joyously till the end. It was Annie who was going to have such enormous challenges to meet now, whose suddenly limited life was going to be so hard, who would never again be able to see a painting, or create one, when all her life she had lived for art. It was Annie who had been cheated out of her sight and was still so young. Their hearts ached for her, as much as for their mother. They stayed with Annie for a long time that afternoon. They didn't want to leave her alone after they had told her the news about their mom. Sometimes they talked about it, sometimes they just sat in silence and held hands, sometimes they cried together, or laughed through their tears at a story one of them remembered and the others had forgotten. As close as they had been before, losing their mother had created an even stronger bond. They were four very different young women with a powerful love for each other and deep respect, which had been a gift to them above all from their mother, but from their father as well. They clung to him and each other, as the remaining powerful symbols of their damaged world. It was seven o'clock when they finally left the hospital. Annie was exhausted, and so were they. They drove back to the house, talking about her, and found Chris chatting quietly with their dad. He said that at least a dozen people had come by, to check on them and pay their respects. It was such a strange time for all of them. Their mother had left such a huge hole in their lives, and their community, where for years she had been so loved and admired, as a wife, mother, friend, human being, and hard worker at many charities. She had been so much more to so many than just their mother or Jim's wife. Tammy suggested they order Chinese takeout or sushi so Chris didn't have to cook again, but their father said he had something he wanted to do with them first. He looked sorrowful and shaken, as he had since Saturday, but determined. |
| 794 |
It had startled him when Jim had told him what he was doing, after they went to the bank that afternoon. It seemed soon to him, but the older man had pointed out that it would be months before all his daughters would be home again at the same time. And he knew that this was what his wife would have wanted. It was early, but it was time. She had been generous with her husband, daughters, and friends all her life. As the girls followed their father into the dining room, they were shocked at what they saw there. They hadn't been prepared for this, and he hadn't warned them. Tammy gave a little gasp of pain and took a step back. Sabrina covered her eyes for a moment with her hand. And Candy just stood there and started to cry. "Oh Dad..." was all Tammy could say. She didn't want to face this yet. It hurt just looking at the familiar pieces, but it was now one of her many gifts to them, with their father's grace. He had laid out all of her jewelry on the dining room table, in neat rows, the familiar rings and bracelets and earrings she had worn, the string of pearls from her own mother, the gifts he had given her over the years, for important birthdays, Christmas, major events, like their births. With his success in business, the gifts had grown over the years. They weren't important jewels, like some of what Tammy had seen in Hollywood, or Candy wore in fashion layouts for Vogue, or ads for Tiffany or Cartier. But they were lovely pieces that her mother had worn and loved. Each piece on the dining room table would remind them of their mother each time they wore them, although it felt a little like stealing them from her, raiding her jewel box while she was out, and having to explain it to her when she got back. They all still wanted to believe that she was coming back. Laying her jewelry out as he had was a way of acknowledging that she was gone forever, and they had to step into the world as adults now, with nothing to buffer them from what life had in store for them, good or bad. |
| 795 |
Her mother had more serious pieces than that, but there were some that would look well on Annie, if she wanted to appear more grown up. And even if she never wore it, it was a memory of their mother, and nice to have. They each knew the piece she had gotten when they were born. A narrow sapphire bracelet for Sabrina, a ruby band ring for Tammy, a pearl necklace for Annie, and a beautiful diamond bracelet for Candy, who had come along thirteen years after Sabrina, in more prosperous times. As they stood at the dining room table, they chose those items first. And then began to loosen up. They put the first items on. The ruby band was exactly the right size for Tammy, and she swore she'd never take it off. She was exactly her mother's size. One by one, they began to choose items that they remembered so well. There were a few pieces of their grandmother's, which were outdated but pretty. They had the look of the forties, some big topaz pieces, some aquamarines, and a beautiful cameo they chose for Annie, because she could feel it and they agreed that the face on the brooch looked like her. It wouldn't have surprised their mother, or their father, that they were extremely respectful of each other. When one of them loved an item, the others immediately backed off and urged her to take it. There were a few pieces that looked like none of them, but they chose them out of sentiment. There was a handsome sapphire brooch their father had given her for her fiftieth birthday, which they all said Sabrina should have and she took. There were beautiful diamond earrings that looked great on Tammy, and some long diamond and pearl drop earrings she had worn when she was young, which were perfect for Candy, as well as a gorgeous diamond bangle that they all thought Annie should have, and set aside for her. They were lovely things, and halfway through they began to look less sad, and smiled and laughed with each other as they put them on, and commented on how they looked. It was bittersweet, both happy and sad. |
| 796 |
It was all a little more grown up than they were used to wearing, but they agreed that they'd grow into it over time, and even wear it now, to remind them of their mother. There was something very tender and moving about having her jewelry now. And when they had finished dividing it up, they tried on the furs. They worked out perfectly too. They all agreed that the fox coat looked like Annie. It was almost the same color as her chestnut hair, it was full and long, it would undoubtedly fit her, and she could wear it with jeans. There was a black mink coat that looked gorgeous on Sabrina and fit her since the style was loose and her mother wore her fur coats a little on the long side. Sabrina looked very elegant in the coat. And the rich brown mink looked spectacular on Tammy, who said she would wear it to the Emmys next year. It was very chic. And the three quarter lynx was pure Candy. She put it on and looked fabulous in it. She was so thin that it fit, and the length looked great with her long legs. The sleeves were a little short, but she said she liked it that way. Her mother had worn it only once, and all four of the coats were in great shape and seldom worn. She only wore them when they went to dinner in the city, or some major event. Their mother had had a penchant for fur, and had indulged it only in recent years. She had had a Persian lamb coat of her grandmother's from the thirties that she had worn when she was young, but it was long gone. These coats were almost brand new, very stylish, and looked fabulous on them. They all set the coats down respectfully when they had chosen, and went back to the den to thank their dad. He saw them walk into the room with smiling faces, and they each kissed him and told him how much it meant to them to have their mother's things. He had kept her wedding ring and engagement ring, which had a very small stone, and put them in a little box on his desk, where he could see them whenever he wanted. He couldn't have parted with them. |
| 797 |
The jewelry had seemed important to him, as they needed to be together to do it, and he didn't want to wait five months, when they came back for Thanksgiving. It had shaken them to see her things at first, and to help themselves to them, but it had been done in an orderly, loving way. They had been as respectful to each other as they had been to their mother. It was typical of them, and what she had taught them as they grew up, to love each other, with kindness, generosity, and compassion. They had learned the lesson well. Their father and Chris had ordered dinner while the sisters were looking at the jewelry. They had ordered curry from a nearby Indian restaurant, and it was very good. They chatted over dinner, and for a moment life almost seemed normal as they talked and laughed and teased each other. It was hard to believe they had just divided up their mother's jewelry, buried her that afternoon, and had a funeral for her yesterday. It was all so surreal. As they cleaned up the kitchen, Tammy realized how much she was going to miss her sisters when she went back to L.A. Despite the sad occasion, she loved being with them. This was where she was happiest, in their midst. And whenever she was with her family, her life in California seemed so distant and without meaning. This was what mattered most to her. It was hard to compare the two worlds, and yet that was where she lived and worked, and what seemed so important when she was there, especially the show she had helped to create and which was so precious to her. But it was nothing compared to all this. She looked at her sisters as they left the kitchen, and Sabrina put an arm around her, and gave her a hug. "We're going to miss you when you go back. I always do." "Me too," Tammy said sadly. Her life there seemed so empty, without her sisters. Here they shared family meals, she could talk to them at any hour of the day, and their father looked over them benevolently. It reminded her of their childhood, which she thought had been perfect in every way, and so rare. |
| 798 |
The girls spent Thursday afternoon and Friday morn ing at the hospital with Annie. She was getting restless and her head still hurt, which was hardly surprising. A physical therapist came to work with her, and she broke down and cried several times about their mother. She still couldn't believe what had happened, and neither could they. But they were focusing their worries on her now. Within days, she would know that she was blind. The bandages were due to be taken off on Saturday. And all three of her sisters felt sick, thinking about the impact it would have on her. Reality was coming toward her with lightning speed. Their father went to see her on Thursday night, and dropped by again while the girls were there on Friday morning. She thanked him for her mom's jewelry, she hadn't seen it yet, but she remembered the pieces that the girls described, and she liked them all. She was happy with the choices they had made on her behalf, and she had always loved her mother's fox coat. She said it would be fun to wear in Florence, because the winters were so cold, and Italian women wore a lot of fur. No one seemed to get upset about it there. She said she would have been nervous wearing it in the States. She was anxious to know too when she could go back to Italy, and worried that she hadn't heard from Charlie. She had asked her sisters several times to put a call through for her. She had called him on his cell phone, and it always went straight to voice mail. She assumed he was in Pompeii with his friends, and maybe the reception was bad there. She didn't want to leave a message that her mother had died and she'd been in an accident, and worry him, but it was upsetting not being able to get hold of him for so long. It had only been a week. So much had happened since then. More than she could even imagine, since she didn't know yet about her sight. Sabrina never mentioned having spoken to him, of course, and her sisters were silent when she talked of him in glowing terms. It was all Sabrina could do not to snarl. |
| 799 |
Candy's agency had called about a shoot in Paris, but she turned it down. She was staying home for now. She was in no mood to work, and neither were the others. Sabrina still had another week off the following week, having changed her vacation, and Tammy was going back to L.A. on Monday. She hated to leave, but had no choice. Fires were burning at her office, and they still had to find a replacement for their star, and alter the scripts once they did. It was going to be a knotty problem to work out, and she was in no mood to think about it now. All she could think about were her mother and Annie. It was going to be very hard being so far away, and leaving it all on Candy and Sabrina's shoulders. And she wanted to be there for Annie, and her father. Annie already knew that she was going to have to spend a couple of weeks at her father's home, convalescing. The doctors had told her that she needed to stick around till the end of the month, if all went well. They thought she could leave the hospital in another week. But she had no idea that when she did, she would be blind. She kept saying that she couldn't wait until they took the bandages off her eyes, and every time she said it, her sisters silently cried. When the bandages came off, Annie's world would still be dark, forevermore. It was a tragedy beyond words. When they left the hospital late Friday afternoon, all three of her sisters looked tired. They had all agreed to be there the next day when the ophthalmologist came. When the bandages came off, Annie was going to feel that her entire life had come to an end. The others were all dreading it for her. And they talked about it with their father that night. They had agreed amongst themselves that he shouldn't be there. It was going to be too emotional for him. He had enough on his plate, adjusting to the loss of his wife. When Sabrina walked into the kitchen of her parents' house, she saw two messages from the realtor she had called, and thought it was a hopeful sign. |
| 800 |
She had bought some pretty antiques and wonderful art, and although the house wasn't finished, it was a pleasure to come home to at night, even if she was alone. Like Candy, her income allowed her to live in a wonderful place and buy pretty things. Sabrina lived on a tighter budget than her sisters. And Annie lived on a shoe string, out of respect for her parents, since she had almost no income except for the occasional painting she sold. She had simple needs. And none of them could imagine Annie making any kind of income now that she was blind. There was nothing she was trained for except art. Painting hadn't been her hobby, it was her life. She could have taught art history, because of her master's degree, but Sabrina couldn't imagine that blind teachers were in high demand. She just didn't know. This was a whole new world for her, and it would be for Annie too. Aside from the physical aspects, depression was her greatest fear for her sister now, and all too real. She couldn't imagine it being otherwise. All three girls thought the brownstone sounded like a good possibility, and even Chris was enthused. He had never loved Sabrina's apartment she had taken it because it was close to his, the building was clean, and it was cheap. But it had absolutely zero charm. The brownstone sounded much more interesting, even if somewhat impractical and a little quaint. "Annie ought to be able to manage the stairs once she gets used to it. I think there are things you can do to make places easier to get around for people who don't have their sight. There are probably a lot of tricks we can all learn to help her out." It was new to all of them, and Sabrina thought he was sweet to say it. Sabrina mentioned the house to her father that night, and he thought what they were planning to do for Annie was wonderful. He would worry about her a lot less knowing that she was living with two of her sisters, especially Sabrina, since she was considerably more responsible than Candy, and nearly fourteen years older. |
| 801 |
With a fourth bedroom in the house, if they took it, she'd have that option. All three sisters left for the hospital at ten o'clock the next morning, with a fair amount of trepidation. The eye surgeon was due at ten thirty. None of them had had the guts to prepare Annie for what was coming. The doctor in charge of her case had said to leave it to the surgeon. He was used to dealing with these things and would know what to tell her, and how. They already knew that she would have to have special training. She could go away to a rehab place for blind people for several months, or she could do it on an outpatient basis. What she needed now were life skills adapted to her blindness, and eventually maybe, if she was amenable, a seeing eye dog. Knowing how Annie hated dogs, none of her sisters could imagine her doing that. She always claimed she thought dogs were noisy, neurotic, and dirty. A seeing eye dog might be different, but that was still a long way off. She had a lot of very basic things to learn first. At least Annie didn't have long months or years of surgeries ahead of her, Sabrina said on the way to the hospital, looking for the bright side. But other than that, there was none. A blind artist was about as depressing as it could get, and they were all sure that Annie would feel that way too. She had lost her career, and everything she had trained for, as well as her mother. She had been torturing herself all week about what she should have done in the accident, and how it might have been different if she could have grabbed the steering wheel from her mother, but there hadn't been time. She had classic survivor guilt, and her sisters told her over and over, to no avail, that it wouldn't have made a difference. It all happened too fast. They assured her again and again that no one blamed her, but she clearly blamed herself. Annie was lying in bed quietly when they walked into the room. Candy was wearing short shorts, a thin white T shirt, and silver sandals, and heads had turned when she walked down the hall. |
| 802 |
She was one of those tall, portly, overly blond women who wore too much perfume and teased her hair. And from the deep rumble of her voice, Sabrina could tell she smoked. She had the keys to the house in her hand. Sabrina introduced her to Candy, once she was off the phone, and the realtor unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, and let them in. "We'll see if you like it. I have some other ideas too, downtown, but I think this one would work best." Sabrina hoped that they'd agree. It would certainly be easy if the first house they saw was it. Finding a place to live was an agony she had never enjoyed. Candy looked a lot more excited than she did and thought it was fun. She wandered through the house, checking out every room, and opening every door. The entrance hall was dark, and painted a forest green, which seemed gloomy to Sabrina, but the floor was done in white and green marble squares, and she noticed that there was a pretty antique mirror on the wall, and English hunting prints that gave the entrance a certain British air. The living room was open and sunny and faced south, the library was small and dark and cozy, and had a small, handsome fireplace that looked like it worked. The walls were lined with books, many of which Sabrina had read. Candy looked around and smiled and nodded her approval to Sabrina. Already on the first floor, they liked the feeling of the house. They communicated it to each other with a nod and a smile. It was inviting and warm. The ceilings were high, and there were attractive antique sconces on the walls. There was plenty of light. And even for a tall person like Candy, the scale felt right. They walked into the basement to check out the kitchen and dining room after that. The kitchen was modern enough, serviceable, and there was a nice round table in it, big enough for eight or ten to eat at, and it opened out into the garden, which was friendly and unkempt. There were two deck chairs, a patio, and a built in barbecue that looked well used. |
| 803 |
It was off the market in three days, at a profit to Candy. She was going to make enough from it to cover her rent. And Sabrina got out of her lease, for a minimum penalty. She sold some of her furniture, put other pieces in storage, and earmarked what they'd need on East Eighty fourth Street. Candy had rented her penthouse fully furnished, so they had nothing to move from there. Sabrina had told Candy to book the movers for August first. It was something she could do to help. And between the four hundred phone calls she had to make, Sabrina visited Annie every day. She had finally agreed to move in with them and see how it went. After her second meeting with Dr. Steinberg, Annie had told both of her sisters that if they babied her or made her feel helpless, she would move out. And both Candy and Sabrina had agreed, and said they would be respectful of her and wait until she asked for their help, unless she was about to fall down the stairs. By the third week of July, when Annie was released from the hospital, all three girls were excited about the house and living together again, in spite of why they were moving there. Annie's first days at her father's house were difficult. Being there without their mother was newer to her than to the others. They had already been there for three weeks without her. For Annie, it was all fresh. She knew the house perfectly, so could move around fairly easily, but in every room she expected to hear her mother's voice. She walked into her closets, and felt her clothes with her fingers and put them to her face. She could smell her perfume, and almost sense her in the room. It was agony at times being there, and reminded her again and again of her last vision of the steering wheel slipping out of her mother's hands as she flew out of the car. The memory haunted Annie, and she spoke of it during every session with Dr. Steinberg. She couldn't get it out of her mind, nor the feeling that she should have done something to stop it, but there hadn't been time. |
| 804 |
She even dreamed of it at night, and losing Charlie after the accident just made things worse. In some ways, she was glad she was moving to New York, and not back to Florence. She needed a fresh start. But her father had agreed not to give up her apartment there for a while. Her treatment plan when she left the hospital was fairly straightforward, and the ophthalmologist explained it to Sabrina as well. Sabrina was beginning to feel more like Annie's mother than her sister. She was responsible for everyone now. Annie, Candy because she was still so young and irresponsible at times, and their father, who seemed to be getting more helpless by the hour. He lost things, broke things, cut himself twice, and couldn't remember where anything was, or worse, had never known. Sabrina commented to Tammy on the phone late one night that their mother must have done everything except chew his food for him. He had been totally pampered, protected, and spoiled. She had been the consummate wife, and it wasn't Sabrina's style. She tried to get him to do some things for himself, with very little success. He complained a lot, whined constantly, and cried often. It was understandable, but Sabrina was at her wit's end dealing with him and everything else. Annie's doctor wanted her to have follow up CT scans after her brain surgery, and he had strongly recommended that she attend a training school for the blind in New York for six months. He had told her and Sabrina that it would allow Annie to become independent, and able to live successfully on her own, which was ultimately their goal. Annie had been sullen about it for days after they talked, and wandered around her father's house looking depressed. She had a white cane, but wouldn't use it. In her parents' house she managed well, as long as no one moved anything. Candy left a chair out of place in the dining room, and as Annie cruised through the room unsuspectingly, she fell flat on her face. Candy apologized profusely as she helped her up. |
| 805 |
Intent was all that mattered to her, not result. Annie was determined to bathe herself alone, and forbade her sisters to come into the bathroom with her, although she'd never been modest before, and no one in the family really was. Their father was circumspect and never appeared at breakfast without a robe, and their mother had been as well, but the girls had always drifted in and out of each other's bathrooms, looking for hair dryers, curling irons, nail polish remover, clean panty hose, and a missing bra, in various states of undress. Now Annie went in fully dressed and closed and locked the door. Her second day home, her bathtub had overflowed, and as water poured through the dining room chandelier directly below it, Sabrina realized what had happened, and ran upstairs. She pounded on the door, and Annie finally let her in. Sabrina turned the tub off for her, standing in two inches of water on the marble floor. "This isn't working," Sabrina said calmly. "I know you don't want it, but you need help. You need to learn some tricks of the trade here, or you're going to drive yourself and everyone else nuts. What can I do to help?" Sabrina asked, cleaning up the bathroom. "Just leave me alone!" she shouted at her and locked herself in her room. "Fine," Sabrina steamed, but said nothing more. In the end, she had to call an electrician, a carpeting firm to dry the carpets, and a painter to repair the damage. Annie was furious with both her sister and herself. It took two more incidents for Annie to agree to at least think about going to school in September, to learn how to deal constructively with being blind. Until then she pretended to herself that it was a temporary condition and she could deal with it on her own. She couldn't. That much was clear to all of them, and her anger at all of them was very wearing. She was no longer anyone they recognized. She wouldn't even let Sabrina or Candy help her comb or brush her hair, and the second week she was home she chopped it off herself. |
| 806 |
She found Annie and her father in the kitchen twenty minutes later. Annie could feel the food on the plates and rinsed them off. She did a much better job of it than their father, who wasn't blind, just helpless and spoiled. It was depressing to see how lost he was since their mother had died. The strong, wise father they had all looked up to had vanished before their eyes. He was weak, scared, confused, depressed, and cried all the time. Sabrina had suggested seeing a shrink to him too, and he refused, although he needed one as much as Annie, who seemed to be liking hers. She let Annie babysit for him, while she and Candy went into the city to get ready for their move. Annie had already been to the house and felt her way around it. She said she liked her room, although she couldn't see it. She liked having her own space, and said it was a decent size, and she was pleased with having Candy across the hall, in case she needed help. But she didn't want anyone's assistance unless she asked. She had made that clear. She got into jams constantly, but tried valiantly to work them out for herself, sometimes with good results. At other times she didn't, which usually led to temper tantrums and tears. She wasn't easy to live with these days, but she had a more than valid excuse. Sabrina hoped that going to a training school for the blind would improve her attitude. If not, Annie was going to be tough to be around for a long time. Between their father's crushing depression over losing his wife and Annie's anger over her blindness, the atmosphere around them was extremely stressful for them all. And Sabrina noticed that Candy was eating less and less. Her eating disorder seemed to be in full bloom since their mother's death. The only normal person Sabrina could talk to was Chris, who had the patience of a saint, but he was busy too, with his latest mammoth suit. Sabrina felt as though she was being pulled in fourteen directions, caring for all of them and organizing the move, especially now that she was back at work. |
| 807 |
She wondered how she did it. But she had done nothing else while they grew up. Sabrina was working at her law firm, trying to move into the new house, run back and forth from Connecticut to the city, and keep everybody's spirits up, except her own. "I'm not doing anything about Candy. She used to see someone for her eating disorder when she was younger. And she's been better for a while, not great but better. Now it's completely out of hand again. I'll bet you anything she's lost five pounds, maybe ten, since Mom died. But she's an adult. She's twenty one. I can't force her to go to a doctor if she doesn't want to. And when I mention it, she goes nuts. The danger is that she'll wind up sterile, lose her teeth or hair, or worse, develop a heart problem, or die. Anorexia is nothing to screw around with. But she won't listen to me. She says she doesn't want kids, she gets hair extensions so her hair looks great anyway, and so far her health doesn't seem to be affected. But one of these days it's all going to take its toll, and she'll wind up in the hospital with an IV in her arm or worse. Mom used to handle it better than I did, but she had more clout. No one listens to me, they just want me to solve the problems and get off their backs. I don't know how I got stuck with this, but it's a really shit job." They both knew how she had gotten stuck with it. Her mother had died. And Sabrina was next in line, as oldest child. And she had a personality that let her take on everyone else's problems and try to solve them, no matter what it did to her life. She did it at work too. And no matter what Chris said, or how often he urged her to take it easy, she always did just one more thing, for someone else. And the person who always got short shrift and didn't get her needs met was her, and now him as well. They had hardly had five minutes of peace alone in the last three and a half weeks since the accident. He kept her father entertained and cooked for the entire family every weekend, and she did everything else. |
| 808 |
They both knew it was true. They were at the house on East Eighty fourth Street at five minutes to eight o'clock, after stopping at Starbucks. Sabrina felt better with a cappuccino under her belt, and so did Chris. Candy had a grande iced black coffee, which should have kept her nerves raw for a week, but she claimed she loved it. She drank four of them every day when she was working in the city. No wonder she didn't eat. She was high on caffeine all the time, and smoked, which cut down her appetite too. The movers were already there when they arrived, and got started quickly. By one o'clock they had unloaded the truck, and spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking the boxes and crates. By six o'clock, there were things everywhere, dishes, books, paintings, clothes. The place was a total mess, and Sabrina was trying to put her belongings away where she wanted them, with Chris's help. Candy had left two hours before for her massage, manicure, and pedicure, and said she'd be back by seven. Sabrina called her father and told him they were going to spend the night in the city, at the new house, to deal with the mess. He said he and Annie were fine. He said he was cooking dinner for her, which meant frozen egg rolls and instant soup. Sabrina smiled. He sounded better than he had all week. And he said Annie was helping. She had set the table. They were all children again. For now, it was the best any of them could do. Chris was carrying a huge box of games upstairs to the top floor playroom, when she crossed him on the stairs, as she was coming down. He blew her a kiss and said the place was looking great. It would, she knew, but it wasn't yet. They still had a long way to go, and days of work. And they were supposed to move in officially the following night. She was thinking of asking Candy and Annie to wait a week to move in, so she and Chris could finish the job. Annie couldn't manage, with boxes all over the place and everything a mess. She couldn't have threaded her way through the obstacles. |
| 809 |
Tammy's week went from bad to worse. Problems with actors, problems with the network, problems with the unions and the scripts. By the end of the week, she was a total mess. And she felt guiltier every day for not being with her sisters to help deal with the aftermath of her mother's death. Her father sounded terrible. And Candy was in Europe for three weeks, so Sabrina was handling everything alone. She was singlehandedly supervising Annie, trying to bolster their father's spirits as best she could from the distance, and carrying an enormous workload at her office. None of it seemed fair. And now with Annie to take care of, and their father to visit whenever she could, she felt as though she hardly had time to see Chris. He slept at the house a few times a week, but she said she barely had time to talk to him. All of the responsibilities were on her shoulders, and no one else's. And even when she had been at home, Candy was too young and immature to really help. She was twenty one going on twelve, or six. Tammy spent a long, quiet, reflective weekend. The show was shut down because of the strike, and they already knew they weren't going to be able to shoot the following week because of it. The union said they could hold out for months. And the network was going to lose a fortune if they did. But there was nothing Tammy could do. What she was contemplating now was her own life. She spent a lot of quiet time with Juanita, stroking her quietly as the little dog slept on her lap. Holding the dog always gave Tammy a sense of peace, and by Sunday night she knew what she wanted to do. The decision had been hard. It was the scariest thing she'd ever done. On Monday morning, she made an appointment with the senior executive producer of the show for later that afternoon. And another appointment with the head of the network the following day. She wanted to speak to them both. She owed it to them, and to herself. She looked somber when she walked into the senior executive producer's office, and he smiled as he looked up. |
| 810 |
They had agreed that she would leave by the following Friday. She had nine workdays left, and then her career in television was virtually over. For now anyway. And she might never get a decent job again. She knew that as she left his office, but she truly felt she had no choice. Her meeting with the head of the network the next day was less emotional. He was angry at first, and then resigned. He thought that what Tammy was doing was a crazy thing to do. He told her she was throwing her career away. And as he pointed out, giving up her job, which was so much more than just a job, would not give her sister back her sight. Tammy pointed out that that was true, but it might help support her through a terrible time, and the others who were with her. He could see her point, but it was not the decision he would have made. Which was why he was the head of the network, and she wasn't. But Tammy also knew that his home life was a mess. His wife had left him two years before for another man, and both of his children were on drugs. So maybe from a career standpoint, he was right. But personally, she wouldn't have traded her life for his. She'd rather screw up her career than let her sisters down. And maybe one day there would be another opportunity for her, even at a different network. For now, she just had to trust the fates. She was doing her part right, maybe they'd do theirs. She thanked the head of the network for his time, and left his office. The deed was done. All she had to do was finish out these two weeks. And she had decided not to tell Sabrina and Annie anything about it. She knew they would object for her sake. This was a gift she was giving them, and it was her choice. She packed quietly over the next two weeks. She had decided not to rent her house. For now, she could afford to keep it as it was, and just close it. She had been careful with her money, and had plenty set aside, even if she didn't work for the next year, although she was planning to look for something in New York. |
| 811 |
She had nothing else to do. Mrs. Shibata arrived promptly for the interview and was wearing a kimono. As it turned out, she didn't totally "not speak English," she said about ten words that she repeated frequently, whether appropriate or not. She did in fact look immaculately clean, and she left her shoes politely at the door when she got there. The only detail the agency had failed to mention, and probably wasn't allowed to, was that she looked about seventy five years old and had no teeth. She bowed to Tammy every time she spoke to her, which made Tammy bow too. And she didn't seem to mind the dogs, which was something at least. And several times she said "Dog verry cute." Better yet. Somehow through using sign language, speaking loudly, which served no purpose, and pointing at her watch, Tammy managed to convey to her to come back the following morning to try out. She had no idea if she'd show up or not, but was delighted when she did. Mrs. Shibata walked in the front door, took off her shoes, bowed politely to everyone, including Candy in a thong and see through T shirt, Annie as she flew out the door to school, Sabrina as she left for work, the dogs several times whenever she saw them, and turned into a whirling dervish. Much to Tammy's delight, she stayed till six and everything was impeccable when she left. The beds were changed and made with military precision, the refrigerator had been scrubbed out, their personal laundry was done, the towels were clean and folded. She had even fed the dogs. The only problem was that she had fed them seaweed, left over from the lunch she'd brought, of pungent pickles, seaweed, and raw fish, all of which smelled awful, and the seaweed made the dogs violently sick. Tammy spent more time cleaning up the mess they made than she would have cleaning the house. So when Mrs. Shibata came to work the next day, as Tammy had pantomimed her to, she pointed to the dog bowls, the dogs, the seaweed, and made faces worthy of kabuki, asking her not to do it again. |
| 812 |
Her older sisters said they no longer cared what excuse she had for the weight she was losing. She had two choices, a hospital or a shrink. Candy looked stunned. "Are you serious? How can you be so mean? It's so rude of you to make an issue of my weight like this. Mom would never have done that. She was a lot nicer than either of you." "That's true," Tammy said, without denying it. "But we're here and she's not, and you're not going to be here much longer either if you don't do something about this. Candy, we love you and you're going to get really sick. We lost Mom. We don't want to lose you." They were loving but firm. She slammed the door of her room, threw herself on her bed, and cried for hours, but her sisters would not be moved. They were both aware that she made enough money to move out and get her own apartment, but she didn't. She didn't speak to them for two days, while she mulled it over, and finally, much to everyone's amazement, she gave in and opted for the shrink. She said there was nothing wrong with her eating, and they just didn't see her eat, and what she ate was healthy. For a canary maybe, or a hamster, but not a woman who stood six feet one in bare feet. They assured her that she didn't need to get fat to please them, and no, they weren't jealous of her. She even pointed out that Tammy was gaining weight, which was true, although she wasn't heavy either, but she was a lot shorter so whatever she gained showed, and she had gained about five pounds since arriving in New York. But the only issue of any consequence, as far as they were concerned, was that Candy's eating problem was out of control. Tammy made the shrink appointment, and took her to the first meeting. She didn't go in with her, but called and spoke to the doctor first. Candy was furious when she came out, but she gave them a shopping list, which Tammy bought immediately, and at least they saw her eat now, and they weren't just ignoring the problem. This was what they were there for. |
| 813 |
Candy was on shoots every day once she got back from Europe. The intervention over her eating disorder had helped a little. She had never been bulimic, she just didn't eat, and was anorexic. But she was doing better, and was on weekly weigh ins that Sabrina monitored diligently, and called the doctor to check on. They weren't allowed to tell Sabrina what Candy's weight was, but they could say if she had come in to be weighed. And when she skipped it, Tammy and Sabrina raised hell with her. They were keeping a close eye on the problem, and she looked as though she had gained a few pounds, although she was still grossly underweight, which was the nature of her business. She got paid a fortune to look that way. It was a tough battle to win, but at least they weren't losing ground. Her shrink had referred to it as "fashion anorexia" to Sabrina, when they talked about it. She didn't have deep seated psychological problems about her childhood or womanhood. She just loved the way she looked when she was rail thin, and so did millions of women who read fashion magazines, and the people who put them together. It was cultural, visual, and financial, not psychiatric, which the shrink said was an important factor. But her sisters worried about her health. They had no desire to lose another member of the family, even if she died looking gorgeous, was rich, and was on the cover of Vogue. As Tammy said bluntly, "Fuck that." After two months Annie seemed to be doing well at the Parker School, and she and Baxter were fast friends. They got together on weekends sometimes, and talked about art, their opinions, the things they thought were important about it, the work they had seen and loved. She talked to him for hours about the Uffizi in Florence, and instead of being angry now, she said she was grateful to have seen it before she went blind. She never talked about Charlie, he had been a huge disappointment, and she felt betrayed by him still. But not nearly as much as she would have if she had known the truth. |
| 814 |
It was a running battle between them, with Sabrina constantly asking her to do errands, pick things up at the hardware store, get a new hair dryer for her when hers broke. Her mission was to get Annie independent, and this was the best way to do it, even though it felt cruel to her sometimes too. She even bitched at her for spilling the dog food in the pantry and leaving a mess, and told her to clean it up before they got rats or mice in the house. Annie had been in tears over it, and didn't speak to Sabrina for two days, but she was becoming more and more independent and capable of taking care of herself. Tammy had to admit the program was working, but it was definitely tough love. And more often than not, Candy sided with Annie, not understanding the motivation behind it, and called Sabrina a bitch. It was good cop, bad cop, with Tammy as the mediator a lot of the time. But Annie was becoming an independent woman again, sighted or not. And she was no longer frightened to go out into the world. The supermarket, drugstore, and hardware store no longer daunted her, blind or not. Her biggest problem was that she had no social life. She had few friends in New York, and was shy about going out. She had always been the least social of her sisters and the most introverted, spending hours alone, sketching, drawing, and painting. Losing her sight had isolated her more. The only time she went anywhere was with her sisters, and they made every effort to get her out. But it was hard. Candy led a crazy life with photographers, models, editors, and people in the fashion world, most of whom Sabrina and Tammy thought were unsuitable for her, but they were who worked in her business and it was inevitable that she hung out with them. Sabrina worked long hours and wanted to spend time with Chris, and both of them were too tired to go out much during the week. And Tammy was living crazy hours in her new job, which had as many crises as her old job in Los Angeles. So most of the time, Annie had no one to go out with, and stayed home. |
| 815 |
She still couldn't believe that Tammy had taken a job producing that show. Giving up the job she'd had had really been the ultimate sacrifice for her. She said very little about it, but they were aware of it. The show she was working on instead was at the opposite end of the spectrum, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Tammy never complained, she was a good sport about it, and she was happy to have found work. And Irving Solomon, the executive producer, was a fairly decent man to work for. Another man asked Tammy out the following week. This one was extremely attractive, married, and cheating on his wife, although he explained they had an open marriage and she understood. "She might," Tammy had said brusquely. "I don't. That's not my style, but thanks." She brushed him off, and more than flattered, she was insulted. She always felt that way when married men asked her out, as though she were a cheap slut, that they could have a good time with and then go home to their wives. If she ever wound up with anyone, which was beginning to seem unlikely, she wanted it to be her own man, not one she had stolen or borrowed from someone else. She had just turned thirty, and wasn't panicked about it. On Sabrina's thirty fifth birthday, she and Chris had gone away for the weekend, and he had given her a beautiful gold Cartier bracelet that she never took off her arm. Things were, as always, comfortable between them, although he was sleeping over less often than he had when she lived alone. She reminded him regularly that it was only for a year, until Annie got adjusted, and he rarely commented or complained. The only thing that got to him occasionally was Candy wandering around the house half naked, oblivious to the fact that there was a man in their midst. So many people saw her naked or at least topless during couture shows or on shoots that she didn't really care. But he did. And although he loved them, their flock of dogs occasionally got on his nerves. That and the lack of privacy, with Tammy now living on the same floor. |
| 816 |
He was convinced that they had married for love. And who was she to say they were wrong? Sabrina hadn't even reacted when he said they were having a baby. Compared to everything else that had happened to them in the past year, the baby their father was having wasn't the end of the world. Sabrina was just grateful it wasn't twins. Annie's graduation from school was very moving, and was attended by everyone's family and friends. Annie had done a huge amount of work toward her diploma, and was doing well with the dog, although they still needed to do some more work. She had asked her father to attend the graduation, preferably without his wife. At first he was very hurt by the request. He still wanted them to warm to Leslie, but then he realized that Annie's request only meant that what they really wanted was to be with him, not share his love with his new wife. None of them mentioned Leslie's pregnancy, or her at all in fact. They wanted to continue to pretend that the situation didn't exist for as long as they could. After November, that wasn't going to be possible at all. It wouldn't just be about Leslie then, but about their father's baby with her. Sabrina said it was a terrifying thought, and the others agreed. Their father with a new baby was a daunting prospect. He seemed so old to have more children. It was lucky that Leslie was young. They had had no contact with her since she came to drop off her pie. She certainly got a lot of mileage out of a single apple pie and a porcelain plate that had to be returned. The girls were unsure if they were right about her or not. They hoped that they were wrong, and their father right. In the meantime, they wished him well. But things were not quite back to normal. They all realized, as did their father, that it would take time. They loved their father just as they always had. But opening their hearts to his new wife so soon was still too hard. Maybe one day. But not yet. In May they chartered a sailboat out of Newport, Rhode Island, to use in July on a communal trip. |
| 817 |
The boat was well staffed with an efficient crew, and from the brochure it looked like a beautiful boat. There was a captain, two crew members, and four cabins for them. It was going to be a memorable trip. And two days before they picked the boat up in Newport, Tammy was shaken to the core by an offer she got. A rival show to the one she was going to develop wanted her to produce their show in the coming season. It would mean moving back to Los Angeles, her friends, her house, all the things she had been so anxious not to leave in September, but had anyway. And now she had an abundance of offers, both the show she was working on in New York, and the new one they had just offered her in L.A. She could be back there shortly after they gave up the house in New York. It was a tough decision, but after a night of careful thought, she decided that she liked the show she was working on in New York, and she wanted to be closer to her sisters. She turned down the L.A. offer, the day before they left for their boat trip. She told John about it after she made the decision, and he was enormously relieved. Their relationship had flourished for the past six months. Tammy was happier than she had been in years. The freaks and weirdos in her life were history. She couldn't believe she'd actually found the right man at last. He was well adjusted, sensible, intelligent, and they were crazy about each other. And they loved each other's families. The call that shook them all was the one they got the night before they took the boat. All four sisters were frantically packing. Candy was bringing five suitcases, and each of the others was packing one. The dogs had been boarded. Annie's dog was still in training, they hadn't completely bonded yet, but they were getting there. And the realtor called them about the house. Their landlord had fallen in love with Vienna, his research project was taking longer than planned, and he wondered if they wanted to keep the house until the end of the year, and extend their lease by another five months. |
| 818 |
In fact, she often stopped at Gristede's at Madison and Seventy seventh on the way home. Most of the shopping was done by their housekeeper, but in a funny old fashioned way, Mary Stuart Walker liked doing the shopping herself. She liked cooking for Bill at night when he came home, and they had never had a cook, even when the children were younger. Despite the impeccable way she looked, she liked taking care of her family, and attending to every minute detail herself. Their apartment was at Seventy eighth and Fifth, with a splendid view of Central Park. They had lived there for fifteen of the nearly twenty two years of their marriage. Mary Stuart kept an impressive home. The children teased her sometimes about how "perfect" everything always was, how everything had to look and be just right, and it was easy to believe that about her. Just looking at her, it was easy to see that she was somewhat compulsive about it. Even at six o'clock, on a hot June evening in New York, after six hours of meetings, Mary Stuart had just put on fresh lipstick, and she didn't have a hair out of place. She selected two small steaks, two baking potatoes, some fresh asparagus, some fruit, and some yogurt, remembering too easily the days when her shopping cart had been filled with treats for the children. She always pretended to disapprove, but couldn't resist buying the things they saw on TV and said they wanted. It was a small thing in life, spoiling them a little bit, indulging them bubble gum flavored cereal was so important to them, she never could see the point of refusing to buy it for them and forcing them to eat a healthy one they'd hate. Like most people in their world in New York, she and Bill expected a great deal from their children, a high standard for everything, near perfect grades, impressive athletic ability, complete integrity, high morals. And as it turned out, Alyssa and Todd were good looking, bright and shining in every way, outstanding in and out of school, and basically very decent people. |
| 819 |
What their father really meant was that they had to do their absolute best in and out of school, perform at the top of their ability, and even if they didn't always succeed they had to try hard. It was a lot to expect of anyone, but Bill Walker had always set high standards, and they met them. As rigid as their mother seemed to be sometimes, it was their father who was the real perfectionist, who expected it all from them, and from their mother. It was Bill who really put the pressure on all of them, not just his children, but his wife as well. Mary Stuart had been the perfect wife to him for nearly twenty two years, providing him with the perfect home, the perfect children, looking beautiful, doing what was expected of her, entertaining for him, and keeping a home that not only landed them on the pages of Architectural Digest, but was a happy place to come home to. There was nothing showy or ostentatious about their way of life, it was all beautifully done, meticulously handled. You couldn't see the seams in anything Mary Stuart did. She made it all look effortless, although most people realized it couldn't be as easy as she made it seem. But that was her gift to him. Making it all seem easy. For years, she had organized charity events which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for important charities, sat on museum boards, and worked ceaselessly assisting the cause of injured, diseased, or seriously underprivileged children. And now, at forty four, with the children more or less grown, in addition to the charity events she still organized, and the committees she sat on, for the past three years she'd been doing volunteer work with physically and emotionally handicapped children in a hospital in Harlem. She sat on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Lincoln Center, and helped to organize assorted fund raising events each year, because everyone wanted her to help them. She kept extraordinarily busy, particularly now, with no children to come home to, and Bill constantly working late at the office. |
| 820 |
He handled all of their most important cases relating to Germany and England. He was a trial lawyer primarily, and the things Mary Stuart did socially had always done a great deal to enhance his reputation. She entertained beautifully for him, and always had, although this year had been very quiet. He had spent much of the year traveling abroad, particularly for the past several months, preparing a massive trial in London, which had kept him away from home. And Mary Stuart had been busier than ever with her volunteer work. Alyssa was spending her junior year at the Sorbonne. So Mary Stuart had more time to herself this year. It had given her a chance to catch up on a lot of things. She took on some additional charity work, did a lot of reading, and volunteered at the hospital on weekends. Or sometimes, on Sundays, she just indulged herself, and stayed in bed with a book, or devoured all of the New York Times. She had a full and busy life, and to look at her, no one would ever have suspected there was anything lacking. She looked at least five or six years younger than she was, although she had gotten thinner than usual that year, which should have been aging, but somehow it wasn't, and it actually made her seem even more youthful. There was a gentleness about her which people loved, and children responded to, particularly the ones she worked with. There was a genuine kindness which came from the soul that transcended social distinctions, and made one unaware of the world she came from. One was simply aware of something very touching about her, something almost wistful, it seemed, as one watched her, as though she understood great sorrow and had endured great sadness, and yet there was no sign of gloom about her. Her life seemed so completely perfect. Her children had always been the smartest, the most accomplished, the most beautiful. Her husband was enormously successful, both financially and in terms of the prestige he earned in winning highly visible, landmark international cases. |
| 821 |
She thought Bill would be home, as usual, at around seven o'clock, and she would have dinner for him at seven thirty or eight, depending on how he was feeling. She planned to put the potatoes in the oven when she got home, and then she'd have time to shower and change. Despite the cool way she looked, she was tired and hot after a long day of meetings. The museum was planning an enormous fund raising drive in the fall, they were hoping to give a huge ball in September, and they wanted her to be the chairman. But so far she had managed to decline, and was hoping only to advise them. She wasn't in the mood to put together a ball, and lately she much preferred her hands on work, like what she did at the hospital with handicapped children, or more recently with abused kids in Harlem. The doorman greeted her as she came in, took the groceries from her, and handed them to the elevator man, and after thanking him, she rode upstairs to their floor through apartment in silence. The building was solid and old, and very handsome. It was one of her favorites on Fifth Avenue, and the view as she opened her front door was spectacular, particularly in winter, when Central Park was blanketed with snow, and the skyline across the park stood etched in sharp contrast. It was lovely in summer too, everything was lush and green, and from their vantage point on the fourteenth floor, everything looked so pretty and peaceful. You could hear no noise from below, see none of the dirt, sense none of the danger. It was all pretty and green, and the final late bloom of spring had exploded at last after the seemingly endless, long, bleak winter. Mary Stuart thanked the elevator man for helping her, locked the door after he left, and walked the length of the apartment to the large, clean white kitchen. She liked open, functional, simple rooms like this one to work in, and aside from three framed French prints, the kitchen was completely pristine, with white walls, white floor, and long expanses of white granite counters. |
| 822 |
A question about the museum ball, and the committee being formed for it, and a call from the head of volunteers at a shelter in Harlem. She jotted down a few notes, and remembered that she had to turn off the oven. Bill wasn't coming home. Again. He did that a lot now. He worked too hard. That was how he survived. And in her own way, so did she, with her endless merry go round of meetings and committees. She turned off the oven, and decided to make herself eggs instead, but not yet, and then walked into her bedroom. The walls were a pale buttery yellow, with a white glazed trim, the carpet an antique needlepoint she'd bought in England. There were antique prints and water colors on the walls, a handsome marble fireplace, and on the mantel silver framed photographs of her children. There were comfortable overstuffed chairs on either side of it, and she and Bill liked to sit by the fire and read at night, or on weekends. They spent most of their weekends in the city now, and had for the past year. They had sold the house in Connecticut the summer before. With the children gone, and Bill traveling constantly, they never went there. "My life seems to be on a shrink cycle these days," Mary Stuart had said jokingly to a friend, "with the kids gone, and Bill away, we seem to be paring everything down. Even our apartment is beginning to seem too big for us." But she would never have had the heart to sell it. The children had grown up there. As she walked into the bedroom, and set down her handbag, her eyes went unwittingly toward the mantel. It was still reassuring to see them there, the children when they were four and five and ten and fifteen... the dog they had had when they were small, a big friendly chocolate Lab named Mousse. As always, she found herself drawn to them, and stood staring at their pictures. It was so easy to look at them, to just stand there and remember. It was like being drawn into another time, and she so often wished she could go back to that earlier time, when all their problems had been simple. |
| 823 |
She had always been there for him, and for Alyssa. There was a photograph of all of them three Christmases before, laughing, their arms around each other, horsing around while an exasperated photographer had begged them to be serious for a moment so he could take their picture. Todd had insisted on singing outrageous songs to them, while Alyssa laughed hysterically, and even she and Bill couldn't stop laughing. It had felt good to be so silly. It always felt good to be with them. It made the sound of Alyssa's voice on the machine that night even more poignant. And then, as she always did, Mary Stuart turned away from the photographs, the little faces that both caressed and tormented her, that tore at her heart and soothed it. There was a catch in her throat as she went to her bathroom and washed her face, and then looked sternly at herself in the mirror. "Stop that!" She nodded in answer. She knew better than to let herself do that. Self indulgence was a luxury she could no longer afford. All she could do now was move forward. But she had moved to an unfamiliar land with a landscape she didn't like. It was bleak and unpopulated, and at times unbearably lonely. At times, she felt as though she had come there by herself, except that she knew Bill was there too, lost in the desert somewhere, in his own private hell. She had been searching for him there for over a year, but as yet she hadn't found him. She thought about making herself dinner then, but decided she wasn't hungry, and after taking off her suit, and changing into a pink T shirt and jeans, she went back to the den, sat down at the desk, and looked over some papers. It was still light outside at seven o'clock, and she decided to call Bill and tell him she'd gotten his message on the machine. They had very little to say to each other these days, except about his work, or her meetings, but she called him anyway. It was better than letting go completely. No matter how lost they had been for the past year, Mary Stuart was not ready to let go yet. |
| 824 |
It was like a breath of fresh air in a stifling room. She had felt that way about her the first day she met her. They had gone to college together twenty six years before, in Berkeley. Those had been crazy days, and they'd all been so young. There were four of them then. Mary Stuart, Tanya, Eleanor, and Zoe. They were suite mates in the dorm for the first two years, and then they'd rented a house on Euclid. They'd been inseparable for four years; they had been like sisters. Ellie had died in their senior year, and after that things changed. After graduation they all grew up and moved on to their lives. Tanya had married right away, two days after graduation. She married her childhood sweetheart from her hometown in East Texas. They were married in the chapel, and it had lasted all of two years. Within a year of graduation, her meteoric career had taken off and blown her life to bits, and her marriage along with it. Bobby Joe managed to hang on for another year, but it was too much for him. He was way out of his element, and he knew it. It had been frightening enough for him to have a wife who was educated and talented, but a superstar was more than he could deal with. He tried, he wanted to be fair, but what he really wanted was for her to give it all up and stay in Texas with him. He didn't want to leave home, didn't want to give up his daddy's business, they were contractors and they were doing well, and he knew what he could handle and what he couldn't. And to his credit, tabloids, agents, concerts, shrieking fans, and multimillion dollar contracts were not what he wanted, and they were Tanya's whole life. She loved Bobby Joe, but she wasn't about to give up a career that was everything she'd ever dreamed of. They got separated on their second anniversary, and were divorced by Christmas. It took him a long time to get over her, but he had since remarried and had six kids, and Tanya had seen him once or twice over the years. She said he was fat and bald and as nice as ever. |
| 825 |
He had two things on his mind, Tanya's career, and her money. And he did everything he could to push the one in order to obtain the other. Professionally, Tanya always said, he did a lot of good things for her. He made changes she could never have made on her own, set up concerts around the world for her, got her record contracts that broke all records, and pushed her from superstar to legend. After that, she could ask for just about anything she wanted. In the five years they were married, she had three platinum records, and five gold ones, and won every Grammy and musical award she could lay her hands on. And in spite of the small fortune he took from her in the end, her future was assured, her mom was living in a five million dollar house in Houston, and she had bought her sister and brother in law an estate near Armstrong. She herself had one of the prettiest houses in Bel Air, and a ten million dollar beach house in Malibu she never went to. Her husband had wanted her to buy it. She had money and fame, but no kids. And after the divorce, she thought she needed a change, and started acting. She made two movies the first year, and won an Academy Award the second. At thirty five, Tanya Thomas had anything and everything that most people thought she might have dreamed of. What she had never had was the life she would have shared with Bobby Joe, affection, love, and support, someone to be with her, and care about her, and children. And it was another six years before she married her third husband, Tony Goldman. He was a real estate developer in the Los Angeles area, and had gone out with half a dozen starlets. There was no doubt that he was impressed with Tanya's career, but even Mary Stuart, always fiercely defensive on her friend's behalf, had to admit that he was a decent guy and obviously cared deeply about her. What worried Tanya's friends, and they were numerous by then, was whether or not Tony could keep his head in the heat of Tanya's life, or would it all be too much for him, and he'd go crazy. |
| 826 |
She bragged about it to everyone, and even started trying to look and dress like Tanya, which on an eleven year old was less than appropriate, and Tanya used to take her shopping and buy her things constantly to tone it down, but still make her feel pretty. She was great with the kids, and kept talking about having a baby. But having married Tony at forty one, she was hesitant about getting pregnant. She was afraid she was too old, and Tony was not keen on having more children, so Tanya never pushed it. She had enough on her plate without negotiating with Tony about having a baby. She had two concert tours back to back in the first two years of their marriage, the tabloids were going crazy with her, and she had been battling a couple of lawsuits. It was hardly an atmosphere conducive to sanity, let alone conception. It was easier to just take on Tony's kids, and she had, wholeheartedly. He even said that she was a better mother to them than his first wife. But Mary Stuart had noticed that in spite of Tony's easy, friendly ways, Tanya always seemed to be handling everything herself, managers, lawyers, concert tours, death threats, facing all the agonies and worries alone, while Tony closed his own business deals, or went to Palm Springs to play golf with his buddies. He seemed less involved in her life than Mary Stuart had hoped he would be. She knew better than anyone how rough Tanya's life was, how lonely, how hard she worked, how brutal the demands of the fans, how painful the betrayals. Oddly enough, Tanya rarely complained, and Mary Stuart always admired her for it. But it annoyed her when she saw Tony waving to the cameras as they went to the Oscars or the Grammys. He always seemed to be around for the good times, and none of this hard stuff. Mary Stuart thought of that now, as Tanya mentioned the trainer's wife who had called threatening her, over the headlines in the tabloids. Tanya had learned better than anyone over the years that there was nothing anyone could do to fight the tabloids. |
| 827 |
Mary Stuart hated that about her life now. "We're fine, honest." "You're lying, but I'm not sure I blame you. You're entitled." That was the difference between Zoe and Tanya. Zoe would never have let her lie, let her hide. She would have felt an obligation to expose her, to shine a bright light on her pain, thinking she could heal it. At least Tanya understood that she couldn't. She had her own worries now. The tabloids weren't right about the affair, but they weren't far off the mark that she and Tony were having problems. Despite the fact that he had thought it was fun for a while, he was no longer enjoying the spotlight placed on them by the press, or the lies, the threats, the stalkers, the lawsuits, the people constantly trying to take advantage of her, and either embarrass or use her, whatever it cost them. It was utterly exhausting, and impossible to have any kind of decent private life. How could you even find the real woman amidst all the nonsense? Lately, Tony had complained about it constantly, and she sympathized with him, but other than retire, which she didn't want to do, and he didn't expect it of her, there was really nothing she could do to change it. All they could do was get away from time to time, and that helped, but a trip to Hawaii, or even Africa, or the south of France, did nothing to solve the problems. It provided a brief, pleasurable escape, but no real solution. As insane as it sounded even to him, despite her phenomenal success, her vast fame, and millions of adoring fans, in fact the very life she led made her a victim. And little by little, Tony had come to hate it. For the moment, all she could do was promise him to keep as low a profile as she could. She hadn't even gone to Texas to see her mother the week before, as planned, because she was afraid that if she left town, she'd fuel the rumors. Lately, he said constantly that it was all getting to be too hard on him, and on his kids, and just the way he said it, made Tanya feel panicked. |
| 828 |
She poured orange juice while she waited for him, and broke eggs into a frying pan as the butter began to sizzle. And as she dropped the toast into the toaster, and started the coffee for him, she opened the morning paper. Her heart sank as she read the second lead item. It was about a former employee suing her, allegedly for sexual harassment. It was the first she had heard of it, and as she read the article, she recognized the name of a bodyguard they'd had for two weeks the year before, and had fired for stealing. He had given a lengthy interview, claiming that she had tried to seduce him, and when he refused her, she fired him without reason or explanation. Tanya knew as she read the piece, with a sickening feeling, that like all the other lawsuits in which she'd been involved, in the end they'd wind up paying him off just to settle it, and unload him. There never seemed to be any way to defend herself anymore, to prove to anyone that she was innocent, that it was all lies, and that it was a form of blackmail. She knew that her husband knew that too, and he was always the first one to tell her to settle, no matter how outrageous the claim, or the attack. It was just simpler that way. But she also knew that Tony would be livid when he saw the paper. She folded it carefully and put it away, and a moment later, he walked into the kitchen wearing his golf clothes. "Aren't you going to work today?" she asked conversationally, trying to look relaxed as she sliced an avocado, and put the finishing touches on his breakfast. "Where have you been for the last three years?" He looked startled by her question. "I always play golf on Fridays." He was a good looking man with dark hair, and a powerful build, in his late forties. He played a lot of tennis and golf, and worked out in a gym he had built at the opposite end of the house, with his personal trainer, not the one who had recently appeared in the tabloids. "Where's the paper?" he asked as he sat down and looked around. |
| 829 |
It was an unusual work ethic certainly, but it was by no means unheard of. She had asked her attorney what he wanted her to do about the case, and he told her to just forget it. He would handle everything, and he was sure that after the initial public blast, the gentleman in question was going to be anxious to settle. He was sure that that had been his intent anyway, and warned her that settlements in harassment suits these days were easily up in the millions. "Great. What would you like me to do? Why don't I just give him the house in Malibu? Ask him how he feels about the sun, or maybe he'd rather have the house in Bel Air, but it's a little smaller." It was impossible not to be cynical, harder still not to be angry, or to feel abused, or betrayed, by people who were willing to hurt you or use you, although they never even knew you. In some ways, the attacks on her were so obvious and so impersonal that they had the same quality as a drive by shooting. It was nine o'clock by then, and her secretary had arrived, a high strung girl named Jean who had worked for the president of a record company previously, and had worked for Tanya for more than a year. She was efficient and trustworthy, but Tanya didn't like the fact that the girl always seemed to increase the feeling of urgency around her, rather than diminish it for her. And she did just exactly that that morning. Within the first hour she was there, there were three calls from New York, two from entertainment magazines, wanting interviews, and one from the show she was going to be on. The lawyer called her back two more times, and her agent called to press her into a decision about her next concert tour. She hadn't committed herself yet, and they had to know immediately because it would be impossible to include Japan otherwise, and the agent she used in Britain called wanting to know about a contract. They got word of another tabloid story coming out, and they called about a technical problem as well in her current record. |
| 830 |
And if he didn't know her better, he would have thought she'd been drinking. She was behaving very strangely. "What are you talking about?" he said, looking annoyed, and unaware of the fact that she seemed more relaxed than usual and actually looked very pretty. "I will go to the party," she said, looking determined. "Fine. And I will not, as long as you understand that. It'll be fun for you to meet people like that. Tanya certainly seems to have interesting friends, but that's hardly surprising." He seemed to forget about it then, and went to bed with a stack of magazines he needed to glance through for legal and business purposes. There were several articles about some of his clients. And Mary Stuart disappeared into the bathroom, and emerged ten minutes later in a white cotton nightgown. She could have worn chain mail or a hair shirt and he wouldn't have noticed, and she lay in bed quietly while he read, thinking about her conversation with Tanya, and the things she had said about Tony. She wondered if Tanya was right, and if he really would be leaving soon, or if he would stick around and work it out. It seemed so unfair of him not to stand by Tanya, but she seemed resigned to his defection, and almost to expect it. Mary Stuart couldn't help wondering if Tanya should take a less accepting role, and at least try to stop him. It was so easy to look at someone else's life and decide what they should do. She had been completely unable to do it in her own life. In the past year, she had been completely helpless to reverse the tides, or to reach Bill at any time. He was totally beyond her reach, behind a wall of ice that grew thicker and thicker by the moment. She felt as though she hadn't really seen him in months, and she had begun to lose hope of ever reaching him again. She had no idea what they would do about their future. And he was certainly not open to discussion about that either. She had the feeling that if she had even mentioned it to him, he would have acted as though she were crazy. |
| 831 |
There was no real reason why she couldn't stay in London with him. But he had long since made it clear to her that that was out of the question. He didn't want her there while he was working. It was yet another way he kept his distance from her, to punish her for her transgressions. "I'll see you when you come over with Alyssa," he said, as though reading what was in her head. But two days in three months was hardly sufficient to sustain a marriage, particularly when there was no real reason for her not to be there, except that he didn't want her, which was the only reason that would keep her away from London. After her trip with Alyssa she would spend the rest of the summer in New York alone. And for a crazy moment, she thought of flying to California for a few days to visit Tanya. She had nothing else to do, and most of her boards and charities would be on hiatus for the summer. It was a thought, at least, although she knew full well she'd probably never do it. A moment later, Bill disappeared into the bathroom and came out in his pajamas. He didn't even seem to notice her, or the dress she wore, or how pretty she looked. It was as though she had stopped being a woman for him the moment their son died. She went into the bathroom after that, and slowly took the Valentino dress off, and with it went the illusion of her being either attractive or independent. She came out in her dressing gown, and Bill had his back to her again, and she saw that he was reading some papers. And before she could stop herself, it was as though a force deep inside her made her confront him. She spoke very clearly and very quietly in the room, and even she was surprised by her own words, but not as startled as he was. "I'm not going to do this forever, Bill." She stood there for a moment after she said it, and slowly he turned and looked at her, holding his glasses in his hand with a look of amazement. "What exactly does that mean?" He was the trial attorney at his most daunting, but she refused to be intimidated by him this time. |
| 832 |
The only change in the past week was that she no longer had to cook dinner. She was getting thinner as a result, and in the past Bill would have worried about her, but as things were now, he didn't even notice. And on the day before he was scheduled to leave, Mary Stuart called him at the office, to see if he wanted her to pack for London. She assumed he would, as he had never packed for himself before, but he said he was coming home that afternoon to do it. "Are you sure?" She was surprised, it was as though she didn't know him anymore. Nothing he did, or wanted from her, was the same as it once had been. But their son had died, and as far as he was concerned, it was her fault, or at least that was her reading of the situation. And as far as she was concerned, they were no longer the same people. "I don't mind packing for you." It seemed the least she could do, and it would keep her busy. She was still trying to absorb the fact that her husband was leaving for two or three months. It had only just that day really hit her. With the exception of her trip with Alyssa, she was going to be alone for the entire summer. And in some ways, it scared her. It underlined the distance between them that he didn't want her staying with him in London. He claimed it would be too boring for her, and it would distract him. But in years past, there would never have been a moment's doubt about her going. "I don't mind packing for you," she said again on the phone, but he insisted that he needed to pick his clothes himself, as he wanted to be very careful about what he wore in court in London. "I'll be home at four," he explained, sounding pressed. Leaving his office for several months was complicated, and there were a million details to think of. He was taking one of his assistants with him, and had she been younger and more attractive than she was, Mary Stuart would have come to the obvious conclusion. As it was, she was a heavyset, intelligent, but very unattractive woman in her early sixties. |
| 833 |
And as a result, they had both gotten thinner. "I'll get something cold at William Poll or Fraser Morris," she said, and went out to do some errands. She had to buy a book she knew he wanted for the plane, and pick up all of his dry cleaning. And as she hurried east toward Lexington she was suddenly glad that she was leaving in a few weeks. Despite the chasm between them now, it was going to be incredibly lonely without him. She picked up some dinner at William Poll, got the book and some magazines, some candy and gum, and she had all of his clean shirts hanging in his dressing room for him when he got home from the office at four thirty. And he went straight to his packing, without saying a word to her. He was busy taking suitcases out of storage bins high above his closet. And she didn't see him again until seven o'clock when he appeared in the kitchen. He was still wearing his starched white shirt from work, but he had taken his tie off, and his hair was a little ruffled. It made him look young suddenly, and the painful part of it was that he looked so much like Todd now, but she tried valiantly to ignore it. "All packed? I would have been happy to do it for you," she said softly, setting out dinner on the table. It had been another hot day, and it was nice having cold meats to put out, and not having to cook dinner. "I didn't want to give you a lot of trouble," he said, sitting down on a high stool at the white granite kitchen counter. "I don't give you much happiness anymore, it doesn't seem fair to give you the work and the grief, and not much else. At least I can stay out of your hair and make things easy." It was the first time he had even acknowledged their situation, and she stared at him in amazement. When she had even tried to say something to him a few days before, she had met a wall, and he had completely ignored her. She wondered now if he had actually heard her. "I don't expect you to stay out of my hair," she said, as she sat down across from him, and her eyes looked like pools of dark chocolate. |
| 834 |
That it was more than she could take? It wasn't. She was almost used to it. In fact, Bill had abandoned her when Todd died, emotionally anyway, and now he was just taking his body with him. She had been alone for a year, in truth two more months wouldn't make much difference. "You can call me whenever you have a problem. Maybe you should stay in Europe with Alyssa for a while." She felt like an aging aunt being foisted off on relatives or sent on cruises. But she knew she would be better off at home, than languishing alone in hotels around Europe. "Alyssa is going to Italy with friends, she has her own plans." And so did he. They all did. Even Tanya had her trip to Wyoming with Tony's children. Everyone had something to do, except for her. All she had was a short trip with Alyssa, and he expected her to spend the rest of the summer waiting. It was extraordinarily presumptuous of him, but given what their life had become, it no longer surprised her. They picked at the food she'd bought without much appetite, talked about some things she needed to know, about their maintenance, an insurance premium that he was waiting for, and what mail he wanted her to send him. He was expecting her to pay the bills and take care of most of it. He would have precious little spare time while he worked on the case in London. And after they'd talked for a while, he went back to their bedroom, and packed the rest of his papers. He was in the bathroom taking a shower when she came in, and when he walked into the bedroom, he was wearing a robe and his hair was damp. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and for a moment, seeing him that way gave her a jolt. He seemed to be relaxing with her a little bit now that he was leaving. She wondered if it was because he was sorry to go and it made him feel closer to her suddenly, or if on the contrary he was so relieved it made him careless. And when they went to bed that night, he didn't move close to her, but somehow, even at a distance, he seemed less rigid. |
| 835 |
It was of little comfort to Mary Stuart to hear it. When they hung up, Mary Stuart sat looking out the window for a long time, at mothers and children hurrying toward the playground, and the children running there while the mothers sat on benches and chatted. She could remember those days now, as though they had happened only the day before. She had spent every afternoon in the park with her children. Some of her friends had gone to work, but she had always felt it was more important for her to be at home, and she was lucky that she had always been able to do it. And now they were gone, one grown and on her own and traveling around Europe with friends, the other to a distant place in eternity where she hoped she would one day see him again. Believing that was all she had left to hold on to. "Take care of them," she wanted to whisper to the mothers she could see far below. "Hold on to them while you can." It was all so short, and then it was over. Like her marriage. That was over now too. She knew it for sure, had for months, and had refused to see it. But when she thought of the way he had gone, the things he had left unsaid, and the way he had walked away from her when she told him she loved him, there was no longer any doubt in her mind. And she didn't even have the comfort of thinking it was another woman. It was no one, it was him, it was her, it was time, it was the fact that tragedy had struck them, and they hadn't survived it. It was Life. But whatever had done it, she knew that her marriage had died. All she had to do now was adjust to it. She had two months to try freedom on for size, and see how she liked it. She went out for a walk that afternoon, and thought about all of it, about Alyssa traveling with her friends, and Bill being in London for two months, and she realized something she had always known and somewhat feared, that in the end you're alone, just as she was now, without them. It was up to her to pick up the pieces, to go on, to make peace with what Todd had done, and learn to move past it. |
| 836 |
It took her hours to pack his room, and when she was through there was nothing left. She had packed all his clothes into boxes, and kept only a few special things, like his old Boy Scout uniform that she found put away on a shelf, his favorite leather jacket, a sweater she had once made him. The rest was to be given away, and the papers and books she was going to put in their storage vault in the basement. She had left all his trophies lined up on a shelf. She wanted to find a home for them, and she had taken all the photographs from his room, and spread them around the apartment. It was as though he had suddenly shared something with them, as though he had left them a gift, yet another memory. She put an especially nice photograph of all of them in her own room, and another of him in Alyssa's bedroom. It was two o'clock in the morning before she was through, and it was all done by then. It was dark outside, as she stood alone in the stark white kitchen. She could almost feel him next to her, she could still see his face, his eyes, hear his voice so clearly. Sometimes she thought she was forgetting, but she knew she never would. Todd was so much more than the sum of his things to her. None of that mattered anymore, it was all gone, and what really mattered would be with her forever. She took the dark green bedspreads off the beds, and put them in the closet to send to the cleaners, and she made a mental note to change the drapes. She had never noticed how badly they had faded. It was sad looking at his old room, it seemed so empty and so bereft, with boxes stacked everywhere all around her. It was as though he was moving somewhere. But he was already long gone. She was a year late putting away his things. She was a year late saying good bye to him, but in the important ways she had. He would never be forgotten, and things would never be the same again. It seemed only a matter of time before she would be packing the rest of the apartment. She looked around for a last time, and gently closed his door again. |
| 837 |
By the end of each day, she was drained of all energy and emotion. The only human being she could still think of offering anything to at all was her daughter. She tried to spend as much time as possible with her, she even went home for lunch sometimes, just to be with her. Early on she had brought her to work with her, and kept her in her office in a basket. But once Jade began to walk, it was all over. She was just getting ready to go home to her on the day Tanya called, when Sam Warner, her only relief doctor at the time, dropped by to see how things were going. He was a good doctor and a nice man. Zoe had known him for years professionally, and they had been good friends in medical school, when they'd gone to Stanford. They'd been inseparable for a while, and when they were young, Zoe had always suspected that Sam had a crush on her, but she'd been far too intent on her work to acknowledge it, and he'd never done anything about it. He moved to Chicago for his residency, and they had lost touch for a while, long enough for him to get married, and then divorced. And when he finally moved back to California, they eventually ran into each other again and resumed their old friendship. But it was nothing more than that now. They were buddies, and he loved doing relief work in her practice. "How's it going here? I haven't heard from you in weeks." He popped his head around her office door as she put away her papers. He had the look of a large, cuddly teddy bear. He was tall and broad and warm, with ever tousled brown hair and big brown eyes, and no matter how hard he tried, he always looked rumpled. But Zoe knew he was brilliant with her patients. He was great with people of all ages and sizes, and he was the only relief doctor she trusted. "Don't you ever take a day off?" he asked, with a look of concern. His specialty was doing locum tenens for an interesting assortment of doctors. That meant he was a full time "relief doctor," with no practice of his own. This was what he did for a living. |
| 838 |
He looked very sleek and cool when he walked in. He was wearing gray slacks and a blazer, but she saw that he was wearing an expensive tie, and as usual, he looked as though he'd just had a haircut. Dr. Franklin always looked impeccable, and as though he was expecting to give a lecture to the hospital's most important donors. He knew his specialty perfectly, and it was impossible not to admire his knowledge, if not his bedside manner. He and Zoe had always been extremely different, but fascinated somehow with each other. "And how are you tonight, Dr. Franklin?" she asked after the au pair let him in. She was crouched on the floor, still playing blocks with her daughter. "I'm impressed," he said, managing to look both very handsome and extremely lofty. There had always been something very arrogant about him, and Zoe suspected that was what appealed to her, there was an irresistible desire to tame him. But until the present, in any case, she had controlled it. "Do you do that often?" He indicated the game she was playing with Jade, where she built a large pink house of Lego blocks, and Jade destroyed it. "As often as I can," she said honestly, knowing full well that it made him uncomfortable. He had confessed to her long since that he felt uneasy around children. He had never had any of his own, and like her, he had never been married. He claimed that the opportunity had never presented itself to him at the right time, but she sensed fairly accurately that he was basically too self centered. "Would you like to play?" she teased, she couldn't imagine him on his hands and knees on the floor, playing anything. He might mess up his hair, or uncrease his trousers. She knew that most of her contemporaries thought he was a stuffed shirt, and he was in a way, but he was so incredibly smart, and at fifty five, he was extremely attractive. On the surface he was the kind of man her family would have liked her to marry years before, but her parents were long dead, and it seemed exotic enough to her just to date him. |
| 839 |
It said only what it had to, that she had tested positive, and she felt he ought to know, but she reminded him that they had never taken any risks. She also told him that she needed to be on her own for a while, and she felt that it was best now if they both moved on. She let him very gently, and very graciously, off the hook, and reading her note again, she wondered if he'd even call her after he got it. Dick Franklin was interesting and intelligent, but he had never been particularly warm. She couldn't imagine him offering her any comfort, or even calling to see how she was, let alone wanting to know if he could help her with Jade. Dick was strictly a dinner partner, a companion for the theater or the opera, or an adult weekend; he was a person for good times, and not bad. But she had no expectations of him. All she wanted from him was that he not tell everyone at UC. It seemed very little to ask of him. After she wrote the letter to him, Zoe went back to bed, and cuddled with her daughter again. And after a little while, Inge came to take Jade away and give her dinner, and she looked at her employer worriedly. She had never seen Zoe look so lifeless or so distressed, and Zoe had never felt as devastated as she did now, except perhaps when her friend died. She didn't feel ill, she felt terrified, all she wanted to do was run and hide and put the covers over her head, and cling to someone, but there was no one there to hold on to. She didn't bother to turn on the lights and it was still light outside, although it was twilight. And she could hear Jade playing in the next room with Inge, as the au pair fed her dinner. And at the comforting sounds, Zoe drifted off to sleep, and she slept until she heard someone speaking to her, and she looked up in surprise to see Sam Warner. He was standing next to her, and feeling her neck for a fever. "How do you feel?" he asked softly, and she had never been as grateful to him as she was at that moment. She could see why her patients loved him. |
| 840 |
There was a lot he would have liked to say to her, about respect and friendship, and the kind of working relationship they shared, but he never seemed to find the opportunities to tell her. He had wanted to ask her out ever since he came back to San Francisco, but she always kept her distance. And he'd seen her out once or twice with the illustrious Dick Franklin. He didn't think it was serious between them, but he also didn't think it was appropriate to ask. Despite the longevity of their friendship, she was extremely private about her life. Yet it was hard for him not to respond to her warmth and compassion. He admired her more than he could ever tell her, and he would have done anything for her. "Thanks, Sam," she said, and he waved and closed the door behind him. She lay in bed, lost in her own thoughts after that, for a long time. There was so much to think about, her practice, her daughter, her health, their future. It was all racing through her head, and as she closed her eyes again, it all seemed like a blur. And then suddenly, as she lay there, she thought of Tanya. It was exactly the kind of thing she would have recommended for one of her patients, and as she thought about it again, she decided to take her own good advice and call her. She looked in her address book and dialed the number. She knew it was a private line, somewhere in Tanya's house. For a minute, Zoe thought she wasn't there, and then she answered on the fourth ring. She sounded out of breath and there was music in the background. She was alone at that hour, and she had been outside doing exercises by the pool. "Hello?" She sounded exactly the way she had in college, it was odd how some things about them had never changed, and others had far too much. "Tanny?" Zoe's voice was soft and tired and vulnerable as she reached out to her, and for a moment she wanted to melt into her arms and dissolve in tears. But she forced herself to be strong as she spoke to her, and Tanya never suspected how distressed Zoe was, or that she had a problem. |
| 841 |
He wondered if she had loved anyone since then, and guessed that she hadn't. Surely not Dick Franklin. Sam would have liked to be closer to her. She had always been very open with him, and very friendly, but he never felt there was any interest on her part in being more than friends and business associates and collaborating physicians. And particularly lately she felt she couldn't allow herself to be close to anyone. She was very careful to put a safe distance between herself and the rest of the world, even Sam, whom she had known since med school. She didn't want to mislead him or anyone, to lead them on, or provide a come on. She wanted to make it clear to everyone that she was not available as a woman, only as a doctor. It seemed the only fair way to handle her situation. She had even thought about buying herself a cheap wedding band, and she forced herself not to think of the lonely path she was taking. But as they worked on the last of the files, Sam glanced at her again and wondered if he could ask her out to dinner. There was still plenty to talk about, and he was in no hurry to go home. "Can I talk you into something to eat while we finish up? I thought we could go out for pasta in the neighborhood or something. Any interest?" he asked, nearly holding his breath and feeling stupid for it. She made him feel like a kid sometimes, and he liked that. He liked everything about her. He always had. And over the years, he had come to admire her more, and like her better. "That sounds fine," she said with no clue at all that he found her even remotely attractive. She had wanted to take him out anyway, to thank him for giving her the opportunity to leave town and have a real vacation. She felt a little guilty leaving Jade, but he had promised he'd keep an eye on her too, and stop in and see her and the au pair when he left the office. "You're really a full service on call doctor," she teased as she slid into the booth in a little Italian restaurant in the Upper Haight. |
| 842 |
Why was she hiding? She couldn't be that obsessed with her child and her work, or was she? "You're too young to close the doors on a relationship in your life. Zoe," he said firmly, "you have to rethink this." He felt a sense of personal loss as he looked at her and realized that she meant it. She smiled at him, but she was unmoved by what he had said so far. "You sound like my father. He used to tell me that overeducated women threaten men, and I was making a big mistake when I went to Stanford. College was okay, but medical school was pushing. He said that if I'd wanted to be in medicine, I should have gone to nursing school and saved him a lot of money." She was laughing as she said it, and Sam shook his head. He knew about people like her. His whole family were doctors, including his mother. "Well, you should have gone to nursing school, if becoming a doctor was going to make you come to a dumb decision like that one. Zoe, that's just plain stupid." He wondered if she'd had a bad experience, been raped perhaps, or if Franklin had actually done something to upset her and it was still fresh, or maybe she was involved with someone secretly, maybe someone married. Or maybe she was just telling him, nicely, that she wasn't interested in him, but he hoped that wasn't the case either. Otherwise he just couldn't understand it, but she seemed very firm about it. She turned the conversation then to other things, which frustrated him even more. He found that they had even more in common than he'd previously thought, people, plans, their shared views about medicine, and passion for all it represented. Worse yet, he realized that he was even more attracted to her than he'd previously suspected. She had a great sense of humor, and a quick mind. She had traveled extensively, and there was something wonderfully honest and genuine about her. She told things the way they were, analyzed situations very astutely, and as she talked about her patients to him, it was obvious how much she loved them. |
| 843 |
She hadn't expected him to do that. "I care about you. I want to help you, but most of the time you're pretty stubborn." The way he said it made her look into his eyes. They were dark brown, and infinitely gentle. "Thank you, Sam..." Feeling a wave of emotion wash over her, she looked away from him, and then took away her hand a moment later. She knew more than ever that she couldn't let her guard down. No matter how kind and appealing he was, she couldn't let herself do it. It had been so easy with Dick, when she went out with him. They were just friends, and if they took it a little further than that once in a while, there was no harm done. She had no illusions about how he felt about her. He just wanted a comfortable companion from time to time, someone to go to the theater with him, or the symphony, or the ballet, or an expensive dinner. But he wanted nothing more from her than she wanted to give. In fact, if she'd given him more than that, it would have scared him. Dick knew exactly how far he wanted to go with her, and he was always careful to keep his distance. And although she would have liked a serious relationship with someone, there hadn't really been anyone who'd appealed to her that way in years, and it was easier to avoid the cheap imitations. And now that her whole life had changed, it was such bad luck to discover that Sam Warner might have once been important to her. She had never realized how deep he was, how kind, how compassionate, how in tune with what she was doing. She had just thought of him as a good doctor, a good friend. And now she found that there was more to him, and to what she felt for him, and she had no right to explore it further. The door to that part of her life was closed forever. What could she possibly give anyone now? A few months? A few years? Even if it were five or ten, it wouldn't be fair to them. And through it all, there was always the remote but potential risk of illness for them. She had lived through all of that with Adam. |
| 844 |
The shades were drawn, the curtains were closed, the air conditioning was off, and the apartment was slowly warming up. For the past week there had been a tremendous heat wave. She had talked to Alyssa in Holland the night before, she was having a fantastic time traveling with five friends, and Mary Stuart suspected she was having her first really serious romance. She was happy for her, and still more than a little sad to have missed their opportunity to travel around Europe together. She had spoken to Bill several times too. He was working hard, and he sounded startled when she told him she was going to Wyoming. He couldn't understand why and thought she should go to Martha's Vineyard, or the Hamptons to stay with their friends, as she had on the Fourth. He had never really approved of her friendship with Tanya Thomas. And he didn't see why she wanted to go to a dude ranch. He never thought she had any particular affinity for horses. He said all the things which, years before, would have made her reconsider, but this time did not affect her. She wanted to spend two weeks at the ranch with Tanya. She wanted to be with her friend, to talk to her, and look up at the mountains in the morning. She suddenly realized that she needed to get away and reevaluate her life, and if he didn't understand that, then that was his problem. He was in London for two months and didn't want her with him, and he had no right now to make her feel uncomfortable about what she was doing. He had given up that right when he had told her he didn't want her in London with him. He had given up a lot of things that year, intentionally and otherwise, and she wanted to do some serious thinking about it. She couldn't imagine coming back to their relationship the way it had been, the way it had become. She couldn't live in the airless, loveless, joyless atmosphere he had created. And even though the night before he left she had caught a glimpse of him again, there was no promise that she would find him again at the end of the summer. |
| 845 |
And then, with a last look, she closed the door softly behind her. The doorman put her in a cab downstairs, and she reached Kennedy Airport just under an hour later. And the flight to Los Angeles was uneventful. When Tanya left her house, it was in a flurry of activity. She had packed six bags, two boxes full of hats, and nine pairs of cowboy boots in assorted shades of alligator and lizard. Her housekeeper was putting bags of food on the bus, and she had bought a dozen new videos to keep them entertained on the trip across Nevada and Idaho. It was a long, boring ride, she'd been told, and she'd even brought half a dozen new scripts to look at. She was currently being offered parts in several new movies. It was eleven o'clock and Mary Stuart's plane was coming in at twelve thirty. But she wanted to make one last stop before they left, for a little more food at Gelsen's. The bus was already fully stocked, but she wanted to pick up just a few final goodies. The driver was waiting patiently outside as she kissed her dog good bye, thanked her housekeeper, reminded her about the security, grabbed her hat, her handbag, her address book, and ran up the steps of the bus, with her hair flying loose, looking sensational in a white T shirt and skin tight blue jeans, and her oldest pair of bright yellow cowboy boots. She had bought them in Texas on her sixteenth birthday, and they looked it. She had worn them all through college, and everyone who knew her knew how much she loved them. "Thanks, Tom," she said, waving to the driver as she got on, and he began slowly maneuvering the giant vehicle through her gates, and down her narrow driveway. The bus was huge, and it was divided into two huge rooms. A living room all done in teak and navy blue velvet, with comfortable easy chairs, two couches, and a long table that seated eight, and a series of small groups set for conversation. The back room was done in forest green, and transformed easily from another sitting room into a bedroom. |
| 846 |
And Tanya saw them both at different times. None of them had ever been back to a reunion. Berkeley was just too big to make it appealing. They drove on for the next few hours, and they both read. Mary Stuart had brought a stack of books with her, and Tanya was poring over magazines, and relieved not to find herself in them. And at nine o'clock, they finally rolled into Winnemucca. It was a brassy little town filled with restaurants and casinos along the main drag, which was actually just a piece of the highway. And Tom pulled the bus into the parking lot of the Red Lion Inn, where he had booked a room. Tanya was happier staying on the bus with Mary Stuart, but she wanted to go into the restaurant for dinner, and play some slot machines. It was really more of a coffee shop than a restaurant, but there were fifty or so slot machines, and some blackjack tables. She put on her boots and the cowboy hat, and a pair of dark glasses. She had brought along a short black wig, but it was hot, and it itched, and she really didn't want to wear it, unless she had to. And she and Mary Stuart stood in the marble bathroom, washing their faces and putting on lipstick. Mary Stuart was looking relaxed and they both laughed about how silly they felt, going gambling together in Winnemucca. "Listen, kid, this is serious. One of us could hit a jackpot. Just don't tell Tony," Tanya said and winked. She was still amazed at how quickly he could leave her life, and how totally all feelings between them had been canceled. It was as if he had hardly known her. And he was making her so angry these days, that she didn't even miss him. Now and then, she had a flash of nostalgia for him, remembering something they did, but in a minute, remembering the rest, it was over. It had been a mistake, a marriage that should have been an affair. It hurt, but not as much as she had feared when he left her, and that surprised her. She wondered if she was getting callous, or if it had never been what she pretended. |
| 847 |
It was why she liked leaving her practice in his hands, because he listened, he cared, and he did exactly what she wanted. He didn't try to change the world and turn everything upside down while he was on duty. And he was truly a great doctor, and she knew that. She had always thought he was foolish being satisfied with doing locum tenens. "I promise you I'll call if anything comes up," he reassured her again. "Promise me you'll get some rest and come back with pink cheeks and a little fatter, even if you do spend all your time chasing cowboys. Get a little sunshine too, and lots of sleep." "Yes, Doctor." She smiled at him, and she thanked him again for keeping an eye on her practice, and a moment later she walked slowly down the gangway toward the plane. And he waved for as long as he could see her. He stood watching the plane until it pulled away, and then he walked slowly out of the airport. And almost before he'd reached the door, his beeper went off, and he went to a phone to answer a call from one of her patients. He was off and running. And she was in the air by then, on her way to Wyoming. The flight to Salt Lake took just over two hours, and she had a two hour wait then for the next plane, and they had already had a time change. She thought about calling Jade, but she decided it might upset her to hear her voice so soon and not understand where she was. She decided to wait till she got to the ranch instead, and she sat in the airport and drank coffee and read the paper and sat lost in her own thoughts. She so rarely had time to do that. And she mused over the fact that she had heard from Dick Franklin the day before. Much to her surprise, he called her. He had been stunned, and very moved when he got her note. He didn't ask to see her again, but he said that if she needed anything, she should call. He appreciated her honesty, though he wasn't worried, and he assured her that her secret was safe with him. He asked her how it had happened, and she told him, and he said he wasn't surprised. |
| 848 |
And she had the feeling, when they hung up, that she wouldn't hear from him again. But in her mind, it was just as well. She had no room for him or any man in her life now. It was a luxury just sitting there on the airplane, without phones, without beepers, without patients, without anyone needing or wanting her, without having to figure out how she could help them. As much as she liked her work, she knew she would really enjoy the vacation. And she really wanted to shore up her energy and her strength. She knew she would need them. She had every intention of continuing her practice till the bitter end. She had already made that decision. She was going to give her patients everything she had to give, until there was nothing left to give them. And Jade too. But she had to figure out what to do about Jade. She had no family to leave her with, and no friends she thought were responsible enough to take good care of her, or else they were people she liked but weren't good with children. She'd been thinking of talking to Tanya, and she had no idea what she'd think of it. But it was a possibility at least. Zoe knew that eventually she had to do something. The flight to Jackson Hole left on time, and Zoe landed on schedule at exactly five thirty. She had no idea where Tanya was by then, she knew she was arriving by bus that afternoon. She had planned to reach her at the ranch, and the hotel was sending a van for her. Her bags were among the first ones off, the driver was waiting for her, and everything went smoothly. The young man who drove the van was wearing jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat, and he looked like everyone else in Wyoming. He was long, lanky, and lean, had short blond hair, he said his name was Tim, and he was from Mississippi. He was attending the University of Wyoming in Laramie, and working at the ranch for the summer. He said he loved it because of the horses. And as he drove her there, he told her about it. But Zoe found she could barely listen to him, she was mesmerized by the mountains. |
| 849 |
Tim took her to check in, and she was told at the desk that Miss Thomas hadn't arrived yet, but she was instantly given a warm welcome. The ranch house itself looked old and was very beautiful. There were antelope heads, and a buffalo on the wall, beautiful skins on the floor, and a spectacular picture window that showed a huge span of mountains. And there was an enormous fireplace that a tall man could have stood up in. It looked like a cozy place to spend a long winter's night, and there were a few guests chatting quietly in the corner. The woman at the desk explained to her that at that hour most of them were in their cabins, changing for dinner. Dinner was at seven. There was a handful of informational sheets and a brochure for her, and then Tim drove her to the cabin. It was a humble euphemism for what would have been a handsome home for a family of five in the suburbs of any city. There was a big, cozy living room, with a fireplace and a potbellied stove, a small kitchen area, and couches covered in handsome textured fabrics. The feeling in the room was Southwestern, and somewhat Navajo, but it looked like a spread in Architectural Digest, where it had recently been featured. And there were three huge bedrooms, each one with a splendid view, and there were trees all around them. It was really beautiful, and Zoe felt totally spoiled as she set down her tote bag, and Tim put down her suitcase. He asked her which bedroom she preferred, and she wanted to wait for Tanya to make the selection. There was one slightly larger than the other two, but they were all large and comfortable with huge king size beds, and rough hewn furniture, and a fireplace in each bedroom. For a minute she wanted to jump up and down on the beds and scream, like a little kid, and she was beaming when Tim left her. For a few minutes she wandered from room to room, and she helped herself to a nectarine from a large bowl of fruit on the coffee table. There was a big tin of freshly baked cookies too, and a box of chocolates. |
| 850 |
She didn't want Zoe to see it, but Zoe had sensed it, and she moved away so as not to offend her. "Have we figured out what bedrooms yet?" Tanya came back into the room and she saw that Mary Stuart had been crying, and she wondered if they'd been fighting, but neither of them looked angry, and then she suspected it was about Todd, and when she raised an eyebrow Zoe nodded. In the end, they all selected rooms. The slightly larger one had a sunken bathtub and a Jacuzzi, and Zoe and Mary Stuart both insisted that Tanya have it, although she would have given it up to either one of them. And when she agreed to use it, she told them to use the Jacuzzi anytime, but they both pointed out they'd be leaving in the morning. And Tanya almost told them she thought they were both disgustingly stubborn, but she didn't say it. She just went to her own room to change for dinner, and the others did the same a moment later. Zoe called home from her room, and everything was fine. Jade was eating dinner when she called, and Inge said everything was going smoothly and she put Jade on the phone, and she didn't even cry when she heard her mother. She thought of paging Sam, just to see how things were, but she decided not to. He would be paged by plenty of her patients, so she didn't. And shortly before seven o'clock they all met in the living room. Tanya was wearing skin tight black suede pants, and a beaded cowboy shirt, with her blond hair loosely tied in a black ribbon behind her. And she was wearing tall, black suede cowboy boots that she had bought for the occasion. Zoe was wearing jeans, a soft, pale blue sweater and hiking boots, and Mary Stuart was wearing gray slacks, a beige sweater, and Chanel loafers. They were all as they had always been, surprisingly compatible, and yet totally different. There was a kind of mesh between them that, even now, with the rift between two of them, was still more powerful than they were. And Tanya knew that if they'd been honest with each other, they would have admitted that they felt it. |
| 851 |
Tanya was simply a star, without even trying. Her thick blond hair did all the right things, as it cascaded past her shoulders. She hadn't had time to pull it back, and it looked as though she had planned it that way. She had a tight white T shirt on, and it wasn't indecent in any way, but it was so sexy no man with eyes in his head would have been able to stand it, her jeans looked exactly the way they should, not too tight or too loose, they showed off all the right things, the tight roundness of her seat, the narrow hips, the small waist, the long graceful legs. She was wearing her old yellow boots, and there was a red bandanna tied around her neck, and she had on plain gold hoop earrings. She grabbed a denim jacket she'd brought, her cowboy hat, and a pair of sunglasses, and she looked like an ad for any dude ranch. "If I didn't love you so much, I'd hate you," Mary Stuart said admiringly, and Zoe grinned. They were all pretty women, but there was no denying, Tanya had something special. "I've never figured out how you do that," Zoe said, taking it all in, and feeling the same warm glow of affection for her as Mary Stuart. There had never been so much as an ounce of jealousy between them. Even years before, the four of them had been the best of friends, more than sisters. "I always thought if I watched you get dressed, I'd figure it out," Zoe said as they left the room, "but it's like one of those magic tricks, where you can see it done four million times, and there's always that single moment when the rabbit appears, and you just never see it happen. You're the only person I know who can go into a bathroom and come out looking like a movie star three minutes later. I could spend a week in there, and I still come out looking the same, sort of okay, pretty decent, my hair is combed, my face is clean, my makeup is on straight, but it's still me. You come out looking like a fairy princess." "It's the miracle of plastic surgery." Tanya grinned, enjoying their company, but not believing a word of it. |
| 852 |
Mary Stuart had more experience, but she hadn't ridden in years, and she had only ridden English. Zoe had ridden several times, but not recently, and none of them was anxious to prove anything. They just wanted to go on easy trail rides. And the ranch had already explained that there were too many guests at the moment to send them out without other guests, but Tanya said she didn't mind that. If it got too difficult because they hounded her or took constant photographs, or she didn't like the people they chose, she could always opt to stop riding. But she was willing to try it for the moment. As it turned out, their names were among the last to be called, and there were only three other guests left beside them. The head of the corral came over and talked to Tanya personally, as a tall wrangler with dark hair led her horse out. "We wanted to let the crowd thin a little bit to give you some air," Liz Thompson explained to her. She was a tall, lanky woman with a weathered face and a powerful handshake, somewhere in her mid fifties. "I didn't think you needed to have fifty people taking photographs while you got your feet in the stirrups," she said sensibly, and Tanya thanked her. "I noticed on your card you're not a horse lover," she smiled, "I think we have a nice old guy for you here." For a minute, Tanya wondered if she meant the horse or the wrangler, but it was obvious from the man adjusting the saddle for her that it was not the cowboy. He looked about forty years old, and he had a powerful build and broad shoulders. But when he looked at her, she saw that he had an interesting, weathered face, and he was eyeing her with interest. If you looked at him for a while, he was almost good looking. His cheekbones were a little too broad, his chin too prominent, and yet it all fit together right, and he had a drawl similar to her own, and when she asked, he said he was from Texas. But they were from opposite ends of the state, and he didn't seem inclined to pursue the matter further. |
| 853 |
Their ride that afternoon was just as pleasant as the one that morning, and they rode out again in the same groups and configurations. They were assigned the same wrangler and the same horses for the duration of their stay, so Liz, the head of the corral, was anxious to know if everyone was satisfied with their mounts and their cowboys. And no one seemed to have any complaints that she knew of. Zoe chatted with the doctors again that afternoon, and Tanya tried not to listen as they had moved on to transplants, which was no better than the discussion about severed limbs earlier that morning. And trying to leave Mary Stuart alone with Hartley as they discussed a book they'd both read, she moved ahead again with the wrangler. Once again, they rode for what seemed like miles, in silence. And then finally, Tanya couldn't stand it, and she looked at him from across her horse's neck, but he never even looked at her. It was as though he had no idea who she was beside him. It was entirely up to her to keep up with him, he never once acknowledged her presence. "Is there something about me that bothers you?" she asked, with an irritated expression. He was really beginning to annoy her. She was not having fun, and she didn't even like him. "No, ma'am. Nothing at all," he said, without a change of expression. She thought he was going to lapse into silence again and she wanted to hit him with her cowboy boot. He was the most taciturn man she'd ever met, and she couldn't stand it. Usually people at least talked to her, or looked at her, or something. She had never met anyone with reactions like Gordon. But he surprised her after another half mile, while she was debating whether or not it was worth the trouble of trying again, just to see if he would answer. "You're a real good rider." At first, she couldn't believe he'd spoken, and this time he glanced at her sideways, and then looked away just as quickly. It was almost as though her light was too blinding. It was that that was troubling him, but she didn't know that. |
| 854 |
He looked a mess, and so did Mary Stuart, but Zoe was almost sure that he had escaped with a concussion and a broken arm, and a few bumps and bruises. He had actually been very lucky. And just as the ambulance arrived, his mother came lumbering down from the cabins as fast as she could. Gordon had sent someone to get her. And she burst into tears the moment she saw him, but Tanya and Hartley and the two doctors were quick to reassure her, and Zoe told her that she thought the damage was fairly minimal considering how fast the horse had been going, and how hard he had fallen, and he hadn't been wearing a helmet. "Oh, Benjie," she sat down on the ground next to him, and burst into tears as she held him. "I love you so much." She was completely undone as she looked at all of them and thanked them, and Mary Stuart looked down at him, smiling as she cried, wanting to remind him of what she had told him, that his mom would never love anyone better. She had never loved anyone more than she loved Todd. She loved her daughter passionately, and had from the moment she was born, but she had never loved her more or less than her first baby. She touched his hand as they put him in the ambulance, and then bent down and kissed his cheek, and it tore at her heart again as she remembered the sweet smell of childhood. Even with the vomit and the dirt and the horses, he smelled like a little boy to her, it was just a step beyond the smell of a baby. "I love you, little guy," she whispered to him. It was just like saying it to Todd again and it almost killed her, except that it felt good too. It was as though this child had come to her to open the floodgates of her feelings. "I'll see you soon," she said, and his mother cried and thanked her again, and then they were gone, and Mary Stuart stood there crying and she didn't know what happened but she suddenly felt a powerful pair of arms around her. She knew who it was, and she turned to him and he pulled her close to him and she couldn't stop crying as he held her. |
| 855 |
The previous afternoon, they had talked of many things while they were riding. Little Benjamin's accident had shaken all of them and turned the mood serious. Gordon had talked about his son. He was grown now and Gordon hadn't seen him in two years, but he was obviously fond of him. Tanya spoke of her failed marriage to Bobby Joe, she considered it her only real one, and still regretted that it hadn't held up to the rigors of her career, although she admitted that by now she would probably have outgrown him, but now and then she still missed him. And now that she was alone again, she wondered what it was all about. What was she going to end up with? A bunch of gold records, a pile of money, a big house? She had no husband, no kids, no one to take care of her when she got old, no one to be with, and share her victories and defeats with. It all seemed so pointless, and the place she had reached in her life seemed so empty. It was what everyone in Hollywood wanted, and the truth was it meant nothing to her. It had been serious stuff to share with him, but he had made a lot of sense, and been very comforting to her. He was smart and practical and down to earth, and so was she, and in an odd way they had a lot in common. He would have liked to talk to her some more, but they had to go back to the corral, and the wranglers were only allowed to eat with the guests on Sunday, unless they had a day off, which Gordon did. But Tanya liked talking to him. There were many things she liked about him. And she didn't mind his simplicity or his occasional roughness. He was never unkind, or thoughtless, there was nothing greedy or cruel about him, and he was very intelligent. She even liked the fact that they were fellow Texans, but she didn't feel ready to tell the others. "Are you keeping secrets from us?" Zoe teased her, and Mary Stuart laughed at her too. But Tanya just ignored them and went to finish dressing. She looked particularly spectacular that day in a pair of bleached jeans, and a peach colored T shirt. |
| 856 |
The others looked a little concerned, but no one had recognized her so far, and it was tempting to just go with him and do it. "Do you want me to go with you?" Hartley asked, he didn't want her to be in any danger, and he was more than happy to go with her to offer his protection. "I think I'll be all right," she said in an undertone to him. "I'll stay out in the open, and if you see anything strange happen, or a crowd closing in, get the security right away, call the police, just get them out there." But they might not be fast enough and she knew that. "I don't think you should do this," he said conservatively. "It's a nice thing to do though. It would mean a lot to them." And it was a gift she could give to Gordon. She wanted to do it for him and the people of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. "Don't worry," she said, patted his arm, glanced at her friends, and followed the perspiring man from the rodeo down a flight of stairs out of the bleachers and around the ring. They were right out in the open and the others could watch her. What they were proposing was that she stand on a box in the middle of the ring with a microphone and sing, or if she preferred, she could do it on horseback. It was a scenario she much preferred. She was a target either way, but she had more mobility on a horse than on foot, and she was a good enough rider to get out of any situation if she had a horse on which to do it. They were more than happy to have her do it on horseback, and they offered her a beautiful palomino which matched her hair and her outfit. It was more theatrical that way anyway. She only hoped she wasn't making herself an easy target for a crazy with a gun. It was an awful way to think, but when she did concerts, she had to. Her agent would have had a nervous breakdown, if he'd known what she was about to do, with no protection, and for free yet. But the little girl from Texas still lived in her. If she had thought when she was a child she would sing the anthem at the rodeo one day, she would never have believed it. |
| 857 |
They were doing it just for her, and she sang her heart out for the people of Jackson Hole, and the tourists, and her friends, and the people of Texas... and Gordon. She sang it mostly for him, and hoped that he knew that. She knew what the rodeo meant to him, the same thing it had meant to her as a little girl in Texas. It was the high point of his existence, at least it always had been. But at that moment, the only thing he could think of was her, and what he was hearing and seeing. He had never seen or heard anything more beautiful than Tanya singing the anthem, and he wished he had it on tape, so he could play it forever. It brought tears to his eyes, and to almost everyone who heard her. And they went absolutely insane when she finished. She gave them one last wave and galloped out of the ring, before they could leap over the barricades and mob her. She was out the gate before they could move, and had the mike in the hands of the man from the rodeo who kissed her on the cheek so hard he almost knocked her over, and then she dismounted and literally disappeared into the crowd, and headed toward the bronc pens to see if she could find Gordon. She was shaking with excitement. No one actually saw where she went, and she moved so quickly that they lost track of her in the crowd. Even Hartley couldn't see her now, and Mary Stuart and Zoe were worried about her, hut she knew exactly where she was going. She had hung around rodeos too long not to know how to find the bronc pens, and within two minutes she saw him, still looking dazed, astride pen number five. And as though he sensed her nearby, he looked down and saw her. And he clambered down the rails like a monkey until he stood beside her. He towered over her, and she was beaming. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to do that?" He looked hurt that she hadn't told him, but he was still moved by her singing. "I didn't know till I got here. They came and asked me the minute I sat down." "You were unbelievable," he said proudly. |
| 858 |
She really didn't want to admit it. She was far more smitten with him than she was ready to tell them. "Of course not." She tried to brush her off and pretended to watch the first event, which was roping, which always bored her. "I saw you," Mary Stuart said, and their eyes met. Her friend was smiling. "Be careful," she whispered into Tanya's ear, but as they were talking, half a dozen people approached them and asked Tanya to sign autographs. And since she had made a willing spectacle of herself, she didn't think she could refuse them. It was like that all night, through the team roping, the barrel racing, the bareback broncos, the bulls, and then finally, she saw him. He was riding a fierce, bucking bronco with a saddle. And the thing she hated most about saddle broncs was that the cowboys taped one hand into the horn on the saddle. They had to come off specifically on one side, and be able to get their hand out. And if they didn't, they could be dragged around on their head for ten minutes before the pickup men could catch them. She had seen some horrifying accidents while she was a child in Texas, And she found herself terrified as she watched him come out of the gate on a vicious brown horse that did everything it could to get rid of its rider. His feet were in the air just as they were meant to be, his legs straight forward, his head and torso tilted far back, and he didn't touch the saddle with his free hand. And he seemed to ride forever. He rode until the bell, he had stayed on longer than anyone, and he made a nice clean jump to the ground, while the pickup men went after the bronco and got him. He got an almost perfect score and waved his hat and his taped hand in her direction and then strode across the ring back to the pens, with his chaps and his boots, looking glorious. It had been a real victory for him. And he had done it for Tanya. They stayed until the last event, a final round of bulls, followed by fourteen year old boys on young steers, that made you wonder about the boys' parents. |
| 859 |
The three of them talked about it for a little while, and then Mary Stuart and Tanya went out for the afternoon, since Zoe seemed to be doing so much better. Hartley and Mary Stuart went for a hike that afternoon, and talked about a number of things, especially Zoe and a man who was brave enough to marry a woman he loved and knew was dying. They both thought it was an extraordinary gesture, and they loved him for it. And Tanya went out riding with Gordon. They were lucky that day. No one else in her party wanted to ride, Hartley was on the hike with Mary Stuart, and the doctors from Chicago had gone fishing that afternoon, so they were actually alone, without even planning it. Gordon took her to a waterfall in the mountains, on horseback, and they dismounted for a while, and lay in the tall grass among the wildflowers while he held her and they kissed, and it took a superhuman effort not to let it go any further, but they wanted to move as slowly as they could, despite the limited time they had. They already felt as though they were on an express train. But it was the most beautiful afternoon of her life, as she lay looking up at him, and then he lay next to her, and they looked at the mountains. They walked for a while, hand in hand, leading their horses, talking about their childhoods, and they talked about Zoe too, and Sam's remarkable love for her. They were brave people in a hard world. And in her own way, Tanya was too. She had come a long way in her life, and now suddenly, there was someone solid and warm and kind beside her. It frightened her a little bit to think of what the press would make of it, and she tried to warn him of the damage they could do, the hurt they could inflict, but he didn't seem to care, and he told Tanya to look around them. "As long as we have this, how can you care about all that? It is so unimportant. We're all that matters, and what we are to each other." "And if we don't have this anymore?" she asked, looking around her, and thinking of going back to California. |
| 860 |
The episode of the day before seemed to have left her almost ecstatic. It was an unusual reaction for someone who was potentially as sick as she was. "But how much of the work do you think you'll be willing to let him take on? You have to agree to give some of it up, Dr. Phillips," he said, and she nodded, but she couldn't stop smiling. "Actually, I think he'll be taking on quite a lot." She paused as she looked at him. "He wants to get married," she said, feeling like a kid again, and not even a sick one. She wasn't even sure if they would, but the fact that he wanted to touched her deeply. Knowing that he wanted to be there for her meant everything, with or without a wedding. The wedding was only frosting on the cake, the important thing was that he'd be there for her, in sickness and in health, for better or worse. That was all that mattered. Dr. Kroner congratulated her, and he looked pleased for her. Things certainly seemed to be working out well for her, and that was important. She said that she had told her friends about her illness too, and it had been very emotional for all of them, but she felt great support from all the people who really mattered to her. "You know how much that means," he reminded her. It was important not to make oneself vulnerable by telling the wrong people about the disease, those who couldn't handle it, and would shrink from patients in horror. But most people had a small core group who could make a difference, and now she had one. They talked about her plans for a while, and her work, and her clinic, and Sam, and Jade, and the things she wanted to do when she got home. He reminded her not to overdo it, and she promised she wouldn't, but he said he didn't believe her. "You're probably right," she laughed. She couldn't wait to get back and see her patients, but she was having fun in Wyoming too, and she thought it was doing her good. Like the others, she had felt the same pull here. There was something almost mystical about the mountains. |
| 861 |
There was so much he wanted to do with her, and he was anxious to get started. He had been alone for two years, but he knew he had to wait a little longer. She had to go to London to see her husband. But once she'd gone, if she was sure, the possibilities were limitless, and he knew that. There was nothing else left to hold them back from each other, although he was still a little bit concerned about her daughter. He had never had children of his own, and he wondered if Alyssa would resist him, if she would blame him for the divorce, and choose to hate him out of loyalty to her father. In fact, the divorce wouldn't have been because of him, but it might be hard for her to accept that. He had spoken to Mary Stuart about it that afternoon, and she admitted that she and Alyssa would have to do some very serious talking. But on the other hand, she wasn't willing to stay with her father just for her. Alyssa had to make her own life. And as Mary Stuart saw it, her own life was better than half over, this was her last chance possibly to make a life with a person she could really care about and who loved her. She wasn't going to let the chance pass her by out of loyalty to something she no longer had with a man who could no longer love her. She wanted to be with Hartley. They sat together for a long time, talking about the past, the present, and the future. And it was all agreed. She would go to London the week after they all left Wyoming. She didn't think she'd stay in London for more than a few days, possibly less if Bill didn't want to discuss it further. And she might try to meet up with Alyssa somewhere for a day. She wasn't sure if she would tell her yet, unless Bill thought they should, otherwise she thought telling Alyssa her parents were getting divorced could wait until September. But she just wanted to see her, if Mary Stuart could even find her on her trek around Europe. And then she would go home again, and get her life organized. She had no idea what Bill would want to do with the apartment. |
| 862 |
It was all blind luck. And maybe nothing would ever come of it, but she really hoped for Tanya's sake that it worked out with Gordon. And just as Mary Stuart thought of him, she saw him. He had climbed up on the railing above the bullpens, and was watching Tanya get on her horse and say something to the grand marshal. And as he sat there watching her, he couldn't believe his good fortune. This couldn't be happening to him, he told himself, it didn't work like this. People like Tanya Thomas just didn't get on a horse and ride off into the sunset with you. He kept trying to remind himself that it was probably just a game for her, a fun part of her vacation, and yet he knew from talking to her that she was genuine and sincere, and he believed everything she told him. They had kissed and talked and pawed each other outside her cabin until three o'clock that morning. And now he sat looking at her prancing around the ring on the palomino they'd loaned her, and the crowd fell instantly quiet. There were a few screams, and he could hear some of the fans shout her name, but as she looked at them, and moved around the ring, they fell silent. She had an amazing power and charisma. And then she sang for them, the anthem as she'd promised them, and then slowly she began to sing "God Bless America," until people literally cried as they heard her. She had a powerful voice that floated up to the skies and enveloped all of them, and even Gordon wiped his eyes when she was finished. She smiled broadly at them all then, and waved at them as she made the horse dance, and then she galloped out of the ring with a good Texas yell and the crowd went crazy. If they could have followed her, they would have all run out of the ring and grabbed her. But she was careful this time. She was off the horse and gone before they knew it. She kissed the grand marshal on the cheek, and thanked him for letting her sing both songs, and then she literally disappeared into the crowd as he started after her. |
| 863 |
She was going to take her bus into Moose, and he'd pick her up there in his truck, and they'd spend the day together. There were a million places he wanted to show her. She wished him luck again, and went back to her seat, where Mary Stuart and Hartley had been waiting. They hadn't spotted her in the crowd from the moment she'd left the ring, but when she came back to them, they could see why. She had taken her shirt off and pulled her hair back. "That was smart," Mary Stuart praised her and asked where she'd been, although she had a pretty good idea before Tanya told them. "At the bronc pens," she said, sounding pure Texas, and Mary Stuart laughed at her. "I remember when you sounded like that all the time. I used to love it." "I been in the big city too long," she said, pulling out her drawl, and in spite of the change of costume, people around her were starting to point and whisper. Mary Stuart gave her her new dark blue hat to put on, and Tanya hid quietly beneath it, keeping her eyes down. She watched most of the events with interest, and then Gordon came on. He was riding bareback tonight, which was even harder and more dangerous. Tanya hated all of it, and most of all the breathless feeling of watching him in midair being bounced around by a wild beast that could easily have killed him. Everything was going well until suddenly the horse literally flew into the air, and did a jackknife leap at the gate of the bullpen. He was willing to do almost anything to get rid of his rider, and did, he pounded Gordon against it, and when he eventually fell off, the horse dragged him fifty feet by one hand, but at last the pickup men got him. He was doubled over when he left the ring, and holding his arm. But at the last moment, he turned and waved, and she knew he had done it just for her, so she wouldn't worry. She wanted to run and find him and find out if he was all right, but she didn't want to draw too much attention to herself, so she waited a little while, and watched him from where she was sitting. |
| 864 |
She wasn't worried. She liked to think she was invisible, or that she wouldn't be recognized if she didn't want to be and wouldn't make eye contact with them, but he knew better. "People know you're here, Tan. Tell Hartley to get the cops to help you out. It's Saturday, and a lot of people are drunk out there." "I'll be fine," she reassured him. "I'll see you later." She touched his cheek then and disappeared, and he watched her for the rest of the rodeo, sitting in the bleachers. He didn't see her leave, because he was talking to some of the other men. They were talking about a cowboy who'd been disqualified from the saddle broncs, and offered a reride but refused it. The politics of cowboys. Mary Stuart and Hartley made their way out with Tanya between them, and they could see the security nearby, keeping an eye on them, and several of the local police. And there were the usual cluster of fans, waving pens and begging for autographs, and a number of them took pictures of her, but it was all harmless, and Tanya didn't feel threatened. And they were twenty feet from the bus, when two men shoved their way in front of her and there was a flash of cameras, and she noticed a TV videocam just behind them. They were the local newsmen and they wanted to know what had made her sing the anthem, and if she'd been paid, had she ever been to a rodeo before, and was she going to move to Jackson Hole now. She tried to be pleasant with them and still make her way in a forward direction, but they provided a roadblock and she couldn't get to the bus and she couldn't move them, and the security people were so busy pushing back fans that they were helpless to assist them. Hartley tried moving the reporters on, but they provided a wall in front of them, snapping photographs, taking videos and shooting questions at her, and suddenly it was as though they had sent up flares. All the fans in the area realized where she was and what had happened, and she couldn't get past the cameras to safety. |
| 865 |
Tom had the bus door open for her, but he was instantly shoved aside, and a dozen fans poured into the bus past him, looking for her, grabbing things, trying to see what they could, taking pictures. And the police were suddenly shoving everyone, as Tanya was pulled and her shirt was torn, someone yanked her hair, and a drunk standing next to her tried to kiss her. It was terrifying, but through it all she kept trying to shove her way past the newsmen but they wouldn't let her, and Hartley and Mary Stuart had been separated from her by a seething mass of fans who wanted to tear her limb from limb. They didn't know what they were doing. They just wanted to have her. The police had their bullhorns out by then, and they were warning the crowd to stand back, and shouting at the cameramen who had started it, and by then there were fifty people on the bus and they were tearing down the curtains. And as it was happening, Tanya realized she was really in trouble. She couldn't get away from them, and they were pushing her, grabbing her, clawing her. There was no getting away from them, and in the midst of it all she felt a powerful arm around her waist, and felt herself lifted off the ground as she saw a hand punch someone, but she didn't know who it belonged to. She was being dragged along the ground, and then lifted into the air, and half carried, half dragged toward a truck. She thought she was being successfully kidnapped, and then she saw that it was Gordon. He had lost his hat, and his shirt was torn too, but he had a look in his eyes that said he was going to kill someone if they touched her. He was the only thing standing between her and real destruction. The police were far behind them. "Come on, Tan, run!" He shouted at her, pulling her along, as the others tried to follow. He had parked his truck as close as he could to the crowd when he saw what was happening, and left the engine running, and her feet pounded as hard as they could on the rough ground, as four marshals on horseback galloped past them. |
| 866 |
He would have understood if she didn't, if she wanted to go home and go to bed. But he wanted to be with her, and even though this wasn't allowed, it was better than being seen coming out of her cabin. He would have lost his job in either case if someone saw them together, but Gordon had decided days before that he thought she was worth it, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Tanny," he said kindly. "I'll take you back up to the cabin if you like." "I'd like to come in," she said quietly. She wanted to see where he lived, what he had, what he liked, she just wanted to be with him. "I think everyone's out, but we need to be kind of quiet about it." She knew how much trouble he'd be in if someone saw them, and she worried about it. The other cabins were nearby, although his was less accessible than most. But she didn't want anyone to see them. "Is this all right for you?" she asked with worried eyes, and he smiled the smile that tore her heart out. "About as all right as it gets," he said, and then got out of the truck, and strode quickly into his cabin. She followed him in and he locked the door, pulled down the shades and turned on the lights, and she was surprised at how orderly it was, and how pleasant. She had expected it to look a lot rougher and a lot more disheveled. The cabin itself, as it had been provided to him, was nicely decorated, with a denim couch and Western decor, and all around the room he had put photographs of his son, his parents, a horse he'd loved. There were books and magazines in neat piles, some tools in a neat box, and an entire bookcase filled with music. She was surprised by how many albums of hers he had, but she also liked his other choices. There was a living room, a large kitchen with a dining area, and that was neat too, though the refrigerator was all but empty. He had what she called bachelor food. Peanut butter, an avocado, two lemons and a tomato, some soda water, a lot of beer, and a lifetime supply of Oreo cookies. |
| 867 |
There were nearly a hundred guests at the ranch at the moment. "Do you think the ranch will burn down?" Mary Stuart asked anxiously, just as Zoe walked into the room in a heavy sweater and jeans, carrying her doctor's bag. It was chilly, and there was a stiff wind out. "No, I don't think the ranch will burn down. Gordon says this happens from time to time, and they always control it. What are you doing?" she asked, as she turned to Zoe. "I'm going to offer them a hand. They've got firefighters going up there." "Are they asking for volunteers?" Tanya looked surprised. Gordon hadn't given her the impression that the guests would be helping, and at that exact moment Hartley arrived, and said they were wanted in the main building as fast as they could get there. Everyone looked slightly tousled and very concerned, in an assortment of rough clothes and peculiar outfits, as they hurried up the hill to the main hall. Mary Stuart chatted with Hartley, and seemed calmer when she got there. She was holding his hand, and he was carrying a briefcase, he'd been working on a manuscript off and on since he got there. The other guests were carrying an odd assortment of things they didn't want to lose, from briefcases, to fishing equipment, to handbags. Charlotte Collins was waiting for all of them, and she explained calmly and succinctly that she was sure there was no real danger to the ranch, but it seemed wisest to move the guests to another location, should the winds change. They didn't want to be caught in a situation that presented any danger to anyone, or where they had to move too quickly. They were all being taken to a neighboring ranch, and they would be made as comfortable as possible in the spare rooms they had, and their living rooms would be made available for their exclusive use for the duration. There weren't enough rooms for everyone of course, but they were hoping that people would be good sports about it, and they were sure that they could come back in a matter of hours. |
| 868 |
She was very bright and very cool, and very cheerful. Sandwiches were being made, she said, and thermoses of coffee being prepared, and she indicated that transportation would not be a problem. She said their biggest concern was getting the horses out, and that was being handled at this very moment. Tanya thought of Gordon as she said it. She said that everyone would be moved out in the next half hour, and they would, of course, keep them posted. And with that, the meeting ended, and there was a huge hubbub of voices as people milled around, discussing what was happening with each other and Charlotte. Tanya made her way to her and let her know that her bus would be available at any moment. And they were welcome to use it for transporting people to other locations. Charlotte said she was very kind, and they'd be grateful to use it. She explained too that there were busloads of volunteers going up to fight the fire on Shadow Mountain, at which point Zoe stepped in, and asked if she could go up with them. She had a medical kit with her, and Charlotte knew she was a physician. She hesitated for an instant, knowing she wasn't well, and then agreed to let her do it. They always needed medical assistance, and she knew Zoe was well enough to provide it. Whatever her long term medical problems were, and John Kroner had hinted to her that they were severe, she was certainly fine at this point. "We'd appreciate that, Dr. Phillips," she said as two other guests came forward, also carrying their bags. Zoe didn't know them, one was a gynecologist from the South, and the other was a heart surgeon from St. Louis, but they were certainly all capable of doing what was needed. "I've got a truck going up in a few minutes," Charlotte told the three physicians, and the three of them conferred, and showed each other their supplies. None of them was well prepared for burns, but Charlotte said she had a kit just for that purpose, and someone brought it to them. It was enormous and very helpful. |
| 869 |
They needed all the help they could get, but she didn't want the other guests to know that. It was frightening enough just to see the night sky blazing above them. It was bright red now. Tanya ran to tell Mary Stuart. She shouted onto the bus that she was staying. Mary Stuart seemed to hesitate and then nodded. Hartley was right beside her. And a moment later, Tom took off with the other vans, and Charlotte directed the handful that had stayed into trucks. There were half a dozen men, the three doctors, and Tanya, and they headed up the mountain in Jeeps, trucks, and vans, along with dozens of wranglers and ranch hands. They were a small, efficient army. And all the while, Tanya kept wondering how Gordon had fared with the horses. They traveled up the mountain for nearly half an hour and then they reached the barricades where they had to leave the trucks. They were directed to go the rest of the way on foot, and join the others on the line. They were passing buckets of water, while planes overhead were dropping chemicals on it. The fire was blazing hot, and there was a constant roaring sound, like a huge waterfall, and they had to shout to be heard above it. Tanya took her sweater off, and tied it around her waist, she was wearing one of Gordon's T shirts, and she had never been so hot in her life. She could feel her face getting blistered, and sparks were flying around them. It was terrifying as they fought the blaze, and they weren't even in the front lines. She couldn't even imagine what it must be like for the others. She was sorry she didn't have gloves as she burned her hands, and she could feel the ground hot beneath her boots, as trees fell and the wind raged on, and small animals rushed past them, heading down the mountain, but there had already been endless carnage. And she saw Zoe from time to time. They had formed a medical station with some doctors and nurses from town. People were starting to arrive in droves to help and it seemed like hours later when she saw Gordon. |
| 870 |
It was something of an adventure for them, and they both liked the fact that they were useful. And they were planning to tease Mary Stuart for not coming. They both knew she hated being anywhere near road accidents, and fires, and anything frightening or out of control or potentially dangerous. Tanya was actually glad she had evacuated with Hartley, there was no real reason to be here. It was just nice to be able to lend a hand, and Tanya was happy to be there near Gordon, even if she never saw him. And this way, she could keep an eye on Zoe. They were there till four o'clock that afternoon when the forestry service told them that the fire was officially in control. They thought they'd have it out completely before nightfall. A cheer went up all around, and half an hour later a band of filthy but happy people went back down the mountain. They went in trucks and vans and cars, they went on foot, and they talked and joked, and shared stories of what had gone on at the top, or off to the side, or on the trucks, or in the air. Everyone had a story. Tanya was walking when Zoe and the other doctors rode by. They looked tired but as though they were having a good time, and Tanya saw John Kroner among them. She waved at them and they drove on, and she walked slowly down the hills toward the valley. She was tired, but she didn't mind the walk, as she looked across the valley at the mountains. They were always there, her friends. She knew she would always love them. "Need a ride?" a voice behind her said, and she turned to see who it was. It was Gordon, with a black face and a hard hat, driving his truck. His eyes had been covered with goggles, and she could see where he had burned his arm. It was covered with a bandage. "Hi there, you okay?" she asked, and he nodded. He was exhausted. They were offering food in the dining room, and he didn't even think he'd have the strength to eat it. She hopped in with him, and instinctively she leaned over and he kissed her, and then they both looked shocked at what they'd done. |
| 871 |
They hadn't even had time to get back to the cabin yet. Zoe had been putting away supplies after the fire, and Tanya stuck around to help her after Gordon left to get the horses. But a noticeable camaraderie had sprung up among all those who'd fought the fire, and Zoe commented on how perfect for each other Gordon and Tanya seemed to her whenever she saw them together. By the time they got back to the cabin that night, the fire on the mountain was completely out. It was on the news, and word spread all over the ranch quickly. Tanya got in the shower, and then soaked in the Jacuzzi for an hour, and as she got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a large towel, she heard a tapping on her window. She pulled back the curtain and saw a filthy black face there, with his goggle marks, and she wanted to reach out and put her arms around him. Mary Stuart and Zoe were already in bed. None of them slept the night before, and both of them said they were exhausted. Tanya was tired too, but she was waiting for Gordon, and it had taken hours to soak the smell of smoke out of her skin and her hair. She was all pink and clean now and smelled of perfume. He was beckoning her to come with him. He was too tired to wait, he was dead on his feet, but she signaled to him to hold on for a second, and she ran to the door of her cabin. She had had an idea as she lay in the Jacuzzi. She turned the light out outside and in the living room, so no one would see them there, and she stood talking to him from the doorway. "Come on," he said urgently, he was anxious to get going. "I want you to come inside. No one's going to know. The others are asleep, and after last night, if anyone sees anything, you can tell them you were talking to me about the fire." It had been an unusual day and night and he hesitated only for a minute, and then slipped into the living room and closed the door behind him. All the curtains were closed, and she beckoned him straight into her bedroom. "What's up?" he asked nervously. |
| 872 |
They were talking about it on the way down, when Tanya noticed a man on foot coming out of a clearing. He looked like sort of a wild mountain man, he was wearing torn clothes and had long hair, and in spite of the rubble and the charred wood everywhere, he was barefoot. He stood watching them for a little while, and then he disappeared into the tree line. "Who was that?" Tanya asked as they rode on. He had looked strange, and he'd been carrying a rifle. "There are guys like that who live up in the mountains from time to time. They travel around the national parks. The fire probably drove him out and he's looking for a new campsite. They're harmless." Gordon looked unconcerned as they rode on, and Tanya smiled as she thought of something. She had asked him about a ride she wanted to take tomorrow. He said it was possible, but they would have to start early. They were back at the corral on time at the end of the afternoon. She left him there, and they both knew she would be at the cabin later that night. She was spending all of her evenings there, after she had dinner with the others, and she was back before they got up in the morning. It was the happiest time she'd had in years and none of them begrudged it to her. She had dinner with them all that night, and all of them were in good spirits. Hartley and Mary Stuart looked relaxed, and Zoe had spent the afternoon at the hospital visiting John Kroner, She enjoyed his company and he was grateful for her input with his patients. They were all laughing and telling jokes, and it was later than usual when she left them in the cabin. Even Hartley suspected where she went although he didn't know how long she stayed there. But Gordon was a nice guy and they seemed surprisingly well matched. It actually didn't shock him. She walked down the path, as she always did, and the sky was filled with stars. It was such a pretty night, she almost hated to go in, and she could hear the horses neighing softly when she went by them. He was waiting for her, as he always did. |
| 873 |
They wouldn't know where she'd come from. She walked slowly toward the corral, and it seemed quieter suddenly, but as she turned the corner she saw them. It was the mountain man, he was pointing a gun at Gordon, who stood very still talking to him, and then she saw that several of the horses were smeared with blood, and one was lying on the ground, and she noticed a huge hunting knife he was brandishing at Gordon. It took her a moment to realize what was happening, and then slowly she backed away and began to run, and just as she turned the corner he saw her, and as he did, a shot rang out. She had no idea where he'd shot or who, or if he was shooting at her, she just kept running. She knew she had to get help and fast, and she prayed that he wasn't shooting at Gordon. She couldn't even think of that now. There were no more shots, as Tanya's feet pounded onto the porch of the nearest wrangler's house and she hammered on the door. It was one of the men she knew, a young boy from Colorado, and he came to the door with a blanket wrapped around his middle. He thought it was probably another forest fire. Sometimes when a fire was put out, an ember smoldered for a while and then set it off again, but he saw from her face that something much worse than that had happened. He knew instantly who she was, and she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him with her. "There's a man with a knife and a gun in the corral, some of the horses are hurt and he's got Gordon. Come quickly!" He had no idea how she knew and he didn't ask her. He dropped the blanket and put on his pants, as she turned away while he finished dressing. He was still zipping up his pants as he came out on the porch, and pounded on the door of the cabin one door over. The lights went on, the man came out, the young man Tanya was with told him to call the sheriff and round up the others, and then he and Tanya headed for the corral at a dead run in time to see the man jump on one of the horses and gallop off toward the mountains. |
| 874 |
It was time for them to move on, to heal, to find each other again, and with any luck at all, start over. He had every intention of making that happen, and he was grateful to her for letting him do it. He swore the nightmare of the past year would never happen again, and after all the talking they'd done, she believed him. He said he wanted to take her out that afternoon, just for a walk, so he could be with her and talk to her, and remember how sweet it was to walk beside her. But he had to stop at his office first. He had promised his secretary when he called that he'd sign some papers. And Mary Stuart had said she would meet him in the lobby. She dressed quietly, thinking of him, and the time they had shared, and she jotted the note with shaking hands once she was dressed. She was wearing a brown linen dress, which was the only other respectable dress she had brought to London, and her hair wasn't as neat as usual. She looked younger ad just a little bit disheveled. She had already told Bill that if she stayed, she had to go shopping. But she wasn't thinking of that now, she was thinking of him, the man who had ridden through the wildflowers with her in Wyoming. She went downstairs and spoke to the concierge, and he said it was no problem to send it for her, although he reminded her that her husband had a private fax already set up in his office. But she preferred to do it with the concierge, she explained, and she gave him the fax number. She had written out two words, and her eyes filled with tears as she handed him the paper. "It will go out immediately, madam," he said, and she trembled at the pain it would cause, for both of them. But he had been wiser than she was. He had realized better than she had what might happen. The paper said "Adieu, Arielle." Nothing more. Just that. And she never mailed him her letter. There was no point now. That had been her promise to him. Just two words and no explanations. "Ready for some air?" Bill asked when he came downstairs. |
| 875 |
Claire was a shoe designer for Arthur Adams, a line of ultraconservative classic shoes. They were well made but unexciting and stymied all her creative sense. Walter Adams, whose father had founded the company, staunchly believed that high fashion shoes were a passing trend, and he discarded all her more innovative designs. As a result, Claire's workdays were a source of constant frustration. The business was hanging on but not growing, and Claire felt she could do so much more with it, if he'd let her. Walter resisted her every step of the way on every subject. She was sure that business, and their profits, would have improved if he listened to her, but Walter was seventy two years old, believed in what they were doing, and did not believe in high style shoes, no matter how fervently she begged him to try. Claire had no choice but to do what he wanted her to, if she wanted to keep her job. Her dream was to design the kind of sexy, fashionable shoes she liked to wear, but there was no chance of that at Arthur Adams, Inc. Walter hated change, much to Claire's chagrin. And as long as she stayed there, she knew she would be designing sensible, classic shoes forever. Even their flats were too conservative for her. Walter let her add a touch of whimsy to their summer sandals sometimes for their clients who went to the Hamptons, Newport, Rhode Island, or Palm Beach. His mantra was that their customer was wealthy, conservative, and older and knew what to expect from the brand. And nothing Claire could say would change that. He didn't want to appeal to younger customers. He preferred to rely on their old ones. There was no arguing with Walter about it. And year after year, there were no surprises in the merchandise they shipped. She was frustrated, but at least she had a job, and had been there for four years. Before that, she had worked for an inexpensive line whose shoes were fun but cheaply made. And the business had folded after two years. Arthur Adams was all about quality and traditional design. |
| 876 |
Both Abby and Claire were only children, and were dedicated to their studies and ambitions, determined to justify their parents' faith in them. They went to see the apartment together, and Abby fell in love with it too. They had no idea how they would furnish it other than at garage sales over time, but they figured out that it was within their budgets, and two months later, with their parents' cautious blessing and signatures on the lease, they moved in, and had been there ever since, for the past nine years. The two women had shared the apartment for four years, and after they graduated, in an effort to rely less on their parents, be more independent, and cut costs, they decided to take in two more roommates, to reduce their expenses even further. Claire had met Morgan Shelby at a party she went to on the Upper East Side, given by a group of young stockbrokers someone had introduced her to. The party was boring, the men full of themselves, and she and Morgan had started to talk. Morgan was working on Wall Street, and had a roommate she hated in an apartment she couldn't afford and said she was looking for an apartment farther downtown that would be closer to where she worked. They exchanged phone numbers, and two days later, after talking to Abby, Claire called her and invited her to come and take a look at the apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Claire's only hesitation was that she wondered if Morgan might be too old. She was twenty eight at the time, five years older than Claire, and had a serious job in finance. Morgan was pretty with well cut dark hair and long legs. Claire had been in her first job at the shoe company that later folded and was living on a tight budget, and Abby was waiting on tables at a restaurant and trying to write a novel, and they both wondered if Morgan was too "grown up," but she loved the loft the minute she saw it, and almost begged them to let her move in. The location was much more convenient for her job on Wall Street. They had dinner with her twice and liked her. |
| 877 |
When they moved in together, they brought their dreams, hopes, careers, and histories with them, and little by little, they discovered each other's fears and secrets. Claire's career path was clear. She wanted to design fabulous shoes, and be famous in the fashion world for it someday. She knew that was never going to happen designing for Arthur Adams, but she couldn't take the risk of giving up a job she needed. Her work was sacred to her. She had learned a lesson from her mother, who had left a promising job at an important New York interior design firm to follow Claire's father to San Francisco when they got married, where he started a business that floundered for five years and then folded. He had never wanted Claire's mother to work again, and she had spent years taking small decorating jobs in secret, so as not to bruise his ego, but they needed the money, and her carefully hidden savings had made it possible for Claire to attend first private school and then Parsons. Her father's second business had met the same fate as his first one, and it depressed Claire to hear her mother encourage him to try some new endeavor again after both failures, until he finally wound up selling real estate, which he hated, and he had become sullen, withdrawn, and resentful. She had watched her mother abandon her dreams for him, shelve her own career, pass up bigger opportunities, and hide her talents, in order to shore him up and protect him. It had given Claire an iron determination never to compromise her career for a man, and she had said for years that she never wanted to get married. Claire had asked her mother if she regretted walking away from the career she could have had in New York, and Sarah Kelly said she didn't. She loved her husband and made the best of the hand she'd been dealt, which Claire found particularly sad. Their whole life had been spent making do, depriving themselves of luxuries and sometimes even vacations, so Claire could go to a good school, which her mother had always paid for from her secret fund. |
| 878 |
Her parents' marriage had been a disaster. Her mother had walked away from a promising career with the Boston Ballet when she got pregnant with Morgan's brother, Oliver, and then with Morgan soon after. She had regretted giving up dancing all her life, developed a serious drinking problem, and basically drank herself to death when Morgan and her brother were in college, and their father had died in an accident soon after. Morgan had put herself through college and business school, and had only recently finished paying off her student loans. And she was convinced that sacrificing her career as a dancer, to get married and have kids, had ruined her mother's life. She had no intention of letting that happen to her. Her parents' violent fights and her mother drinking until she passed out, or being drunk when they got home from school, were all Morgan remembered of her childhood. Morgan's brother, Oliver, was two years older, and had moved to New York from Boston after college too, and worked in PR. The firm he worked for specialized in sports teams, and his partner was Greg Trudeau, the famed ice hockey goalie from Montreal who was the star of the New York Rangers. Morgan loved going to games with Oliver to cheer for Greg. She'd taken her roommates a few times, and they'd all enjoyed it, and the two men were frequent visitors to the apartment, and were beloved by all. Sasha's family situation was more complicated. Her parents had had a bitter divorce, from which their mother had never recovered, after Sasha graduated from college and Valentina was already working as a model in New York. Their father had fallen in love with a young model in one of the department stores he owned, and married her a year later, and had two daughters by his new wife, which enraged the twins' mother even more, proving that hell hath no fury like a woman whose husband leaves her and marries a twenty three year old model. But he seemed happy whenever the twins saw him, and he loved his three and five year old daughters. |
| 879 |
Talking to her was exhausting. Abby's parents were still married and got along, and their busy careers in television had kept them from being attentive to their daughter, but they were always supportive of Abby and her writing. The four women's careers had gone forward at a steady pace in the five years they'd lived together, Claire at both shoe companies she'd worked for. She dreamed of working for a high end shoe company one day, but she was making a decent salary, even if she wasn't proud of the shoes she was designing. Morgan worked for George Lewis, one of the whizzes of Wall Street. At thirty nine, George had built an empire for himself, in private investment management, and Morgan loved her work with him, consulting with clients on their investments and flying to exciting meetings in other cities on his plane. She admired her boss immensely and at thirty three, she was meeting her goals. Sasha was doing her residency in obstetrics, and wanted to pursue a double specialty of high risk pregnancies and infertility, so she had years ahead of her at the same frenetic pace. And she loved coming home to her roommates for conversation and comfort when she finally got off duty and came back to the apartment to sleep and unwind. The only one whose path had altered considerably was Abby, who had abandoned her novel halfway through it three years before, when she met and fell in love with Ivan Jones, an Off Off Broadway producer who had convinced her to write experimental plays for his theater. Her roommates, and parents, had preferred her fiction and prose to what she was writing for Ivan. He had assured her that what she was writing now was far more important, avant garde, and likely to make a name for her than the "commercial drivel" she had written before, and she believed him. He had promised to produce her plays, but hadn't done so yet after three years, and only produced his own. Her roommates suspected he was a fraud, but Abby was convinced he was talented, sincere, and a genius. |
| 880 |
She believed everything he told her. And they knew he had borrowed money from her several times, and never paid her back. She was certain that he would when things were better for him. He didn't support his children either. Their mothers were both actresses who had become successful after their affairs with him, and he said they were far better able to provide for the children than he. He was a man who shirked responsibility at every turn. He had bewitched Abby, and they all hoped she would wake up soon. She hadn't in three years. There was no sign of her awakening from the nightmare of Ivan yet. Her roommates, however, were wide awake, and hated him for the way he used and lied to her. And it wasn't the first inadequate relationship Abby had had. She was their resident collector of wounded birds. In the five years they'd all lived together, there had been an actor who was dead broke and could never get a job, even as a waiter, and had spent a month on their couch until the others complained. Abby had been in love with him, and he had been in love with a girl who was in rehab for six months. There had been writers, and other actors, and a down on his luck though brilliant British aristocrat who had constantly borrowed money from her, and a series of losers, aspiring artists, and men who had disappointed her constantly until she gave up. And unfortunately she wasn't ready to give up on Ivan yet. Claire had only had casual dates for the past several years. She worked so hard she rarely had time to date and didn't care. She worked late at night and on weekends. Her career as a designer meant more to her than any man. She was burning with the ambition her mother had never had. And nothing and no one was going to take that from her. Of that she was sure. She rarely had more than a few dates with any man. She had never had a serious love affair, except with the shoes she designed. Men were always surprised to discover how passionate she was about her work, and how unavailable she became once they got interested in her. |
| 881 |
She was either on duty, exhausted, or asleep. She was spectacular looking, but she literally had no time for a man, and spent her life in hospital scrubs, unlike her equally beautiful twin, who partied all the time. Sasha liked the idea of marriage and a family in theory, but for her it was still years away. And in reality, she often thought that staying single would be simpler. And the men she went out with occasionally got tired of the demands on her within weeks. Of the four roommates, only Morgan had a serious relationship, and fortunately they all liked him, since he frequently spent nights at the apartment. Max Murphy had an apartment of his own on the Upper West Side, but theirs was more convenient for him for work, since his restaurant was around the corner. They had all met him at the same time, one night a year after Morgan and Sasha moved in, when the four of them went to try out the brand new restaurant, which had been an old broken down neighborhood bar he had bought and transformed into a popular hangout with a lively bar and great food. He and Morgan had started dating three days later. In the four years since, the restaurant was booming and a major neighborhood success. "Max's" was keeping him busy day and night. He was there until two A.M. every night, and back at work by ten in the morning to get ready for lunch. Max was a great guy and they all loved him. He was a sports nut, a great chef himself, and a hard worker. He was an all around nice person from a large Irish family that was always fighting but basically loved each other. At thirty five, he would have loved to get married and have kids, but Morgan had told him clearly right from the beginning that marriage and children were not in her plans. Max thought she might soften on the subject, but she hadn't in four years, and he didn't push her. She was thirty three years old, he figured they had time, and he was busy with the restaurant, and hoping to open at least one more, which was expensive, so he was in no hurry either. |
| 882 |
Are you kidding? would have seemed rude, and she didn't want to sound like a prude. "Yeah, right. We'll have to do this again sometime," he said, sounding unconvincing. She could tell that he thought that if she wasn't going to sleep with him, there wasn't much point in seeing her again. He put her in a cab five minutes later and waved as it drove her away. She was feeling dazed, the evening had been noisy, boring, and unfulfilling, and she knew nothing more about him than she had when they met, except that he was being considered for a part in a movie in L.A. And she got the feeling that the object of dates like it, with men like him, was not to get to know each other, but just to get out, dress up, share a meal, network at the gallery party, and if possible get laid. Almost none of it appealed to her, and was so superficial that it made watching game shows on TV seem more intimate. She felt like she had wasted the entire evening, and her feet hurt from the ridiculously high heels she'd borrowed from Claire. None of it seemed worth it. And it felt humiliating and stupid to have participated at all. She heard sirens in the distance as the cab approached her street, and she saw half a dozen fire trucks and a chief's car, parked helter skelter, and several policemen blocking traffic from entering the street. The cabdriver stopped, looked at what was happening, and turned to tell her that he couldn't drive into her street. "It's okay," she told him as she paid him and gave him a decent tip. "I can walk in from here." Although as she got out of the cab, she felt a tingle of fear race up her spine. There were fire engines and police cars, an ambulance, and two paramedic trucks jamming the entrance to the street, and a policeman stopped her as soon as she tried to walk in. "You can't go in there, miss. Several of the buildings are on fire. It's too dangerous. You'll have to wait here." He indicated a police line she couldn't cross, and she craned her neck to see which buildings were on fire. |
| 883 |
As Sasha watched, she could see two firemen with face masks come down the ladders carrying people wrapped in blankets. One of them wasn't moving, and the other was an old woman, who looked terrified as the firefighter made his way down the ladder with her. It was obvious, watching the smoke billowing from the building, that by now there must have been very little left intact inside. And what wasn't being devoured by the fire was being drowned with the high powered blasts of water being hosed into the building. It looked like they could lose the apartment, but for some reason the fire headed west instead of toward her, and another building on the far side of them caught fire as everyone stood watching. She felt guilty that she was relieved when she saw it head away from their building, though sorry for the people who lived on their other side, in the building that exploded into flames. "This is getting really ugly," Sasha said sadly. "They just brought an old lady out, put a mask on her, and put her in an ambulance, and now they're bringing out two more." "Are you going to help?" Claire asked her, as Sasha watched them with wide eyes. "They don't need me, unless one of those old ladies is having a baby. They've got three trucks of paramedics who know what to do better than I do." Two of the ambulances had just gone screaming past her with their sirens on. She and Claire continued talking for the next hour, neither of them wanting to leave where they were standing and miss something important that might happen. And then finally, an hour later, the first sign of white smoke came through the holes in the three roofs and out the windows of the buildings. The fire was getting under control. And the ambulances had raced past her several times. Sasha had lost count how many, and she had noticed somberly two gurneys with lifeless forms on them, and blankets covering the bodies, and she had seen a firefighter carried to an ambulance when another firefighter had dragged him out of the building, injured. |
| 884 |
Trucks and engines had come from all over the city. It was two in the morning by the time the frenzy started to die down, but firemen were coming out of all three buildings carrying bodies. Sasha overheard among the police talking around her that seven people had succumbed so far, five were injured, and the fireman she'd seen carried out. She talked to Claire again then, and Morgan and Abby were with her. Morgan suggested they meet at Max's restaurant, half a block from where they were standing, at the other end of the street. Their building was no longer at risk, but they'd been told it would be another hour or two before they would be allowed back into their home. Sasha was sure it would reek of smoke when they did. But they could easily have lost it that night if the wind had changed direction, and she thought about the people who had died, as she walked around the block to meet the others on Tenth Avenue. They were quiet on their way to Max's. He had closed half an hour before, and was counting the money while the kitchen staff and bus boys were cleaning up. Max had come out to see what was happening a couple of times, and brought them more water, and then had gone back to work. It was a busy night. "That was quite a blaze," he commented as they arrived, all four of them looking tired, and Sasha still teetering on Claire's high heels. The others were all wearing T shirts, shorts, and flats and looked as though they'd dressed in haste. "Seven people died," Sasha said sadly. "I think they were mostly old people, from smoke inhalation." They didn't know any of them personally, but all of the residents of the loft recognized some of their neighbors by sight and waved at them occasionally. It was tragic to think of how their lives had ended. It was one of the risks of very old buildings. One of the firemen had told Morgan it started as an electrical fire, in a building that hadn't been renovated like theirs, and since it was rent controlled, it had some of the original tenants in it. |
| 885 |
All of the men Valentina dated were old enough to be her father, so Sasha wasn't surprised. Having distanced herself from her father, Valentina seemed desperate to replace him in other ways. While the three women chatted comfortably, Oliver and Greg showed up, looking tan and relaxed after spending the month of August in the Hamptons, sharing a house with friends. They were all happy to see each other. They ordered wine, except for Sasha. Max sent over some starters, and the restaurant was busy that night while they caught up and talked about the recent fire on their block, which had scared them all. Claire complained about her French intern again, Morgan said she had a slew of new clients, Sasha was hoping to work at the infertility clinic in the coming months and was excited about it, and they had agreed to buy a new black leather couch for the apartment from one of Claire's mother's decorating resources. And Oliver announced that he and Greg wanted to do Thanksgiving dinner at their place this year for anyone not going home. They caught up on news and made plans for the fall season together, and Morgan suggested they rent a ski house for a weekend in Vermont, which everyone thought was a good idea. Max and Morgan were avid skiers, as were Oliver and Greg, and Sasha said she'd love it too, if she wasn't on call that weekend. Claire had never skied but said she might come up anyway, just to be with them, it sounded like so much fun, although they always talked about it but could never find a date that worked for everyone. They ordered their favorite dishes for dinner, and tried a few new things Max had added to the menu and recommended, and no one was disappointed by the meal. And Sasha made them all laugh when she described her date with the underwear model. She didn't expect to hear from him again, and didn't care. And just as she finished the story, Abby came in looking slightly flustered, sorry to be late, and apologized also for Ivan, who she said was exhausted and had gone home to bed. |
| 886 |
She was too scared that everything would go wrong. She sailed out of the elevator as she thought about it, and crashed into a doctor wearing a white coat. He was headed in the direction of labor and delivery as she was, and she almost knocked him down, and herself, when she bumped into him going full speed. "Sorry!" she gasped, as he steadied her, and she looked up into the face of someone she had seen before, but didn't know. She hurried around him then, went to scrub up and change her clothes, and she was in the labor room with the twins' mother a few minutes later. She was another older mother, although the man next to her looked a lot younger than she did. They saw all kinds of combinations these days, male and female, same sex, older, younger, and infertility patients who were having multiple births with donor eggs or their own. There were a multitude of options and possibilities, and they hardly ever saw identical twins like her and Valentina, since they could only be natural, and the hormones used for infertility caused fraternal twins, not identical, which were a gift of nature. "Hi, I'm Dr. Hartman." She smiled calmly at the patient, who was having severe labor pains and hadn't had an epidural. They were talking about a C section, but hadn't made the decision yet. The twins' mother had wanted a natural birth, but was changing her mind about it rapidly, faced with the pain of contractions. She was crying while the younger man with her stroked her head and held her hand and spoke to her soothingly. "It's a lot worse than I thought it would be," she managed to choke out, as Sasha suggested an epidural. The woman agreed, and Sasha went to the nurses' station to get the anesthesiologist to her room. She was back in the room two minutes later, while the woman in labor experienced another severe contraction that made her scream. "You're going to feel a lot better in a few minutes when we get a line in," Sasha reassured her, as the anesthesiologist on duty walked into the room. |
| 887 |
She didn't like the adoring look of that girl. And why was he reading other people's plays when he still hadn't produced hers? They were both breathless when they got to the fourth floor and unlocked the door to the apartment. The others hadn't come home yet. Claire knew that Morgan was meeting a client for a drink, and Sasha wouldn't be home for several hours since she had only started work at noon. "Try not to worry about it," Claire told her soothingly, sorry for the state she was in. "He'll turn up. He always does." Unfortunately, she added silently. The best thing that could happen to Abby, she knew, would be if Ivan really did disappear, but she also knew how upsetting it would be for her. Claire went to her bedroom and changed out of her work clothes, trying not to think about her problems with her boss. And her mother called her a little while later, just to see how she was. Claire tried to talk to her at least once a week, but sometimes she got too busy, or forgot, or the time difference was wrong. Her mother told her that she had taken another small decorating job, but Claire's father didn't know. She didn't want to upset him, and it was just freshening up a living room and two bedrooms for a friend. She always belittled what she was doing, and made it sound like a favor, instead of work, which was how she portrayed it to her husband if he saw her with samples or found out. She had been treating her decorating work that way for years, although she did a beautiful job and her clients loved what she did. She usually came in under budget, and had a knack for finding good looking accessories and furniture at reasonable prices. She and Claire had decorated the loft together nine years before, and added new pieces from time to time, to keep it up to date and interesting looking. The others loved what Sarah did for them. She had a great eye for color, and had found great resources online. She was always sending Claire new Web sites to check out, or sometimes she just sent her things as a gift. |
| 888 |
If she fell for him, it might dilute her energy or alter her focus and jeopardize her work, which was what had happened to her mother. She had let a man rob her of a promising career. Claire was never going to let that happen to her. She had decided that as a young girl. And George was much too seductive. It was easy to imagine falling for him, with all his generous attention and lavish gifts. "I'm too busy to go out," she said quietly. "I'm working on our spring line." "You have to eat," he reminded her, slightly tongue in cheek, "to keep up your strength. I promise we won't stay out late. I just want to enjoy an evening with you. Something tells me this could be important for both of us." He was incredibly convincing, and infinitely charming, and the following day, when he made her laugh through an entire conversation, using a lighter touch, she succumbed, and agreed to have dinner with him the following night. She was furious with herself and terrified when she hung up. He was much better at the game than she. He was a master at it. And he always got his way. She wore a simple black dress for their date, and a gorgeous pair of high heels. Her blond hair was in a sleek bun, with a tiny pair of diamond studs on her ears that she had bought herself. She looked simple and elegant and very striking when he picked her up. "Wow" was all he could say at first, which was hard to believe, since he had been dating well known actresses and supermodels for twenty years. He was a pro at this, but Claire was so impeccably put together, and her natural beauty shone like a beacon at the restaurant. He picked her up in the black Ferrari he drove to work every day, and took her to his favorite uptown restaurant, La Grenouille, for a fabulous meal. He asked her a million questions at dinner. He wanted to know everything about her, and he was impressed by how dedicated she was to her career. She didn't tell him about her mother, and why she considered any serious relationship a threat to her goals. |
| 889 |
He said he wanted to take her on an outing on Saturday, just to get some air. He made it sound like a drive in Connecticut. "I can have you back by dinnertime if you like, if you have work to do this weekend." She was pleased that he had listened to what she had said about her work, and he was so sweet about it that she couldn't turn him down. He said he'd pick her up at nine o'clock on Saturday morning, and told her to wear casual warm clothes. The week flew by as she thought of him, and he called her several times, first thing in the morning, when she woke up, or late at night. He sent her funny text messages throughout the day to make her laugh. And he told her that all he could think about was her. He never said a word about it to Morgan in the office, nor did she. This was clearly his private life, and he never shared that with her. He never talked about who he was dating, and was always discreet. He picked Claire up on Saturday morning at nine o'clock sharp. She was wearing a sheepskin coat in a natural color, and good looking boots, with jeans and a heavy sweater, with her blond hair down her back like a young girl. She was surprised to find he was driving her to New Jersey, not to Connecticut as she had guessed, but she knew there were beautiful small villages there too, and probably some good restaurants for lunch. But half an hour later she found herself at Teterboro Airport, as he drove the Ferrari up to his plane. It was huge, and she stared at it and then at him, and for a moment she looked scared again. Where was he taking her? "I thought we'd go to Vermont for the day," he said as he leaned over and kissed her. "There are some beautiful walks, and pretty inns where we can have lunch. We'll come back this afternoon." She looked stunned as she walked up the stairway to his plane, where a stewardess and purser waited to greet them. The captain and copilot had clearance for takeoff, and said they'd be leaving in a few minutes, as they sat down in the big comfortable seats. |
| 890 |
There were a thousand things he promised to do with her, and in between he told her he wanted to spend his life in bed with her. Claire was trying not to be, but she was distracted by him. Every time she sat down at her drawing board, at home or in the office, her mind drifted off, and she could see him naked in front of her. She had even done a sketch of him, which she had hidden in a drawer at work. And all he kept saying to her was that he knew that this was it. And even though she didn't want to believe it yet, she knew it was true. This was it. She just hadn't expected him to come into her life so soon. She wondered sometimes if this was what had happened to her mother, when she had fallen head over heels in love with Claire's father, and followed him to San Francisco. But Claire also knew that this was different. George was a legendary success on Wall Street and a brilliant businessman. People said he had the Midas touch. And he would never ask her to give up her career. She was beginning to think of things she had never thought of before, like getting married and having children. He was opening new horizons and previously locked places in her heart. It was too soon to think about any of it, or making changes in her life, but she was falling madly in love with him. The following weekend, when he took her to Florida, they spent a night in Miami, and the second night in Palm Beach, and had even more fun than they had had in Vermont. They already knew each other better, and were learning more every day. He didn't like talking about his childhood, but Claire had finally told him about her depressing father, and her mother giving up her career for him. It explained how desperate she was to remain independent and do her work. She never wanted to be dependent on a man, even him. And George understood. They went water skiing in Miami off a yacht he had chartered for the day, and ate at all the best restaurants. She felt like a fairy princess living in a dream with him. |
| 891 |
In October, when Morgan was going over research for a presentation, she asked for some files from accounting, and realized within a few minutes that they'd given her the wrong ones. She called them to have them send her the right ones, and something caught her eye on the balance sheets while she waited for them to pick them up. There had been a transfer of a hundred thousand dollars, and a withdrawal of twenty thousand that didn't look right to her. The money didn't belong in that account. She could see that a week later there had been an unexplained deposit of the twenty, and the hundred thousand had been moved back again, into the right account. It didn't make sense to her. She wondered if it had been an error in accounting that they had corrected. All the numbers looked right at the end, but there had been some moving and shifting that she couldn't explain. She thought about telling George about it, but since the money had all ended up in the right place, it didn't really matter. But it seemed odd to her. A lot of money came in and out of their office for clients, and she knew George had a remarkable head for numbers and a keen radar, and he kept a close eye on their books. It was important to do that in a firm like theirs, so maybe he knew about it, and had demanded the correction. It wasn't really worrisome since no funds were missing, but she couldn't explain it to herself. Just to be sure, if the subject came up later, she xeroxed the file before they came to pick it up, and she put the xeroxed pages in a locked drawer in her desk. And then she got to work on the research she had to do for the next day. The error in accounting slipped her mind entirely after that. They had a number of new clients, and she had a lot of work to do. She had noticed what good spirits George was in since he'd started seeing Claire, and he didn't say anything to Morgan, but he looked like a man in love. She had never seen him as happy or as relaxed, and Claire was like a field of flowers in spring. |
| 892 |
She had even stopped complaining about her boss. And Sasha was happy too. She was busy, content, and at peace, and she and Alex were having fun. They laughed a lot whenever he came to the apartment, and they had dinner at Max's restaurant at least once a week. And Alex and Max were cooking dinner together now on Sunday nights at the loft. Max was still the master chef, and Alex was the sous chef, anxious to learn new tricks from him. Alex fit in perfectly to their self made family, and the others hoped that he'd stick. It was too soon to tell. The only one who clearly wasn't happy, and seemed downright miserable, was Abby. Ivan was torturing her, and there were even more excuses than before about why he wasn't around, or was out of range. He was sick, he had a migraine, he had put his back out moving scenery, he had to meet with backers or his accountant, he was reading new plays, he was exhausted from reading new plays, his cell battery had died, and he lost the phone itself once or twice a week, or there was no cell service wherever he'd been. He was like chasing quicksilver across the floor. Abby was constantly looking for him, and listening to his excuses when he turned up. And Daphne was around increasingly, while he claimed he was trying to teach her the business. And her father was supposedly eluding Ivan, and constantly traveling for business, so they hadn't met yet. And their bank account was nearly empty. Their financial situation was desperate. And at the theater, while Abby continued to paint scenery and clean up, Daphne was constantly underfoot, but Ivan didn't want her to help. He told Abby she had asthma, and it would be bad for her health, and her father would be pissed. So Abby remained the slave, doing everything for him, and Daphne was the new fairy princess. Abby was trying to be patient about it, but her nerves were frayed. And he was either too sick, too tired, or too busy to come to the apartment to be with her, or he hadn't slept in days, and didn't want her spending the night at his place. |
| 893 |
He wouldn't have gone anyway, but he didn't want to be asked and have to turn her down. It was working out perfectly for both of them. Thanksgiving was still a month away, but he was pleased to have the conversation behind them. Now they could go their separate ways for the holiday, and he promised they'd fly out to San Francisco for an ordinary weekend, so he could meet her parents. But for all other things except the holidays, he wanted to be with her constantly, and they were seeing each other almost every night. She had spent several nights with him in his penthouse at Trump Tower, and he planned fun weekends for them. He loved going to parties with her, but he put his foot down on spending a night with her and her roommates at the loft. "I'm too old to spend a night with all your roommates." He liked his privacy and his comfort, and all the luxuries he was used to. And he liked sleeping in his own bed, preferably with her. He told her that she was welcome to stay at his apartment anytime, and assigned a drawer to her for her things, and the use of a guest closet. But she hadn't left anything there yet, it seemed too soon. She took a small bag with her when she spent the night and took it all home with her afterward. She didn't want to be presumptuous and look like she was moving in. She respected his space. He had been a bachelor for a long time, and he was set in his ways. He had a houseman and a maid at his apartment, and they took good care of him. She still felt a little awkward when they served her breakfast in the morning, but they were very nice to her. It was an easy way of life to get used to. And he talked as though he expected her to be there for a long time, hopefully forever. He had never mentioned marriage to her, and she didn't expect him to, or want him to, but it was constantly implied that she was the woman of his dreams, the one he had waited for all his life. He even asked her one day, when they were walking on the weekend, how many children she wanted to have, and she was honest with him. |
| 894 |
But Alex and Sasha were in perfect harmony with each other, and they weren't upset about the delay. And just before Halloween weekend, he had an idea. "Why don't we go to some cute inn in Connecticut or Massachusetts for the weekend? We're both off. It would be nice to get away, and out of the city for two days." She loved the suggestion, and he made a reservation at a bed and breakfast one of the other residents had told him about in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. He and his wife had spent their wedding night there. They left the hospital together on Friday night at midnight, and at nine A.M. on Saturday, they were on the highway to Connecticut in his car. When they checked in to the tiny inn, which was on the water, they could smell the salt air and hear the seagulls from their room. And there were several quaint restaurants nearby. Sasha had brought a small suitcase with her, and Alex set it down in their room. An old couple ran the place, and their niece cleaned the rooms after school. It was just what they'd wanted, and they talked about going for a walk on the beach, but Alex stopped her before they left the room and kissed her hard on the mouth. They had been kissing for over a month, but now they were away together for a weekend. Their intentions were clear. He had wondered if she would be shy with him, but she smiled as she unbuttoned his shirt, and unzipped his pants, and he did the same for her. It had been a long, respectful wait, and now they were like old friends. There were no secrets or mysteries or hidden agendas, they knew everything about each other except their bodies, and Sasha wanted to discover the rest now. Suddenly she couldn't wait another minute, and neither could he. They climbed into bed rapidly and laughed when it creaked, and they instantly forgot about it in a rush of desire that surprised them both. After a month of waiting while they got to know each other, now this was all they wanted, and they were both breathless afterward as they lay in bed and he admired her body. |
| 895 |
She no longer tried to explain. Abby and Claire chatted on the way to the airport. They had hardly talked since her breakup with Ivan. She had been plunged in her writing night and day. It was as though freeing herself had fueled her, and she had a lot to talk about with her parents. They had always given her good advice in the past, and she needed to decide where to go from here. All she wanted was to finish her novel. It was going well. Ivan had called a few times to make weak excuses for his behavior, and told her he was all alone. She stopped taking his calls, and he gave up calling quickly when he realized she wasn't sympathetic to his cause and hadn't changed her mind. He wanted her to feel sorry for him, but she didn't. She was just angry at herself for the time she had wasted, and for being such a fool. It had taken her years to realize what a loser he was, while he pulled her into the swamp with him, and used her in every way he could, and she had let him. "See you on Sunday," Claire said as they hugged each other outside the terminal. Claire was going to check her bag at the curb, and Abby only had carry on. Claire always took too much with her. And Abby disappeared into the terminal a minute later. Claire glanced at her phone while she checked her bags. George hadn't called her yet, so they probably hadn't landed. She hoped the weather was decent. George had told her that the airport was dicey in Aspen, coming in over the mountain for a sharp landing, but she wasn't worried about it. His pilot had been there with him many times before. Alex and Sasha's flight to Chicago left two hours later, and she had packed even more than Claire for their four days in Chicago. She wasn't sure what to wear, so she had brought a multitude of options, mostly borrowed from Morgan and Claire, in varying degrees of dressy to casual, and conservative, which Morgan had for work. Sasha wanted to make a good impression on his parents, and every time she asked him, Alex said they wouldn't care what she wore. |
| 896 |
The airport was jammed, and it took them an hour to get their luggage, and another hour to get home. A housekeeper let them in, and threw her arms around Alex the minute she saw him, and glanced at Sasha with curiosity and a polite smile. The house on Lake Shore Drive always looked the same to him, and was his boyhood home. It was elegant and traditional, with serious antiques and warm colored fabrics. There were flowers in the living room, and a comfortable country style kitchen, where the family often gathered. And then he showed her his boyhood room, filled with sports trophies and mementos of his school years. His diplomas from Yale and Harvard were on the wall as she looked around and smiled at him. And his brother's room looked much the same right next door. The two boys shared a bathroom. Their rooms were done in navy and plaids with a view of the garden, down the hall from their parents' big sunny bedroom. And he led her to a guest room across from them, where he and Sasha would be staying. His old room had a narrow single bed, and he would have felt strange staying in that room with her anyway, even with a bigger bed. The guest room was neutral ground, and he had never stayed there with anyone. He set her suitcase down. The room was done in blue and yellow floral chintzes. And she could tell they had used a decorator, unless his mother had decorating talent, and it was very pretty. The style was somewhat English, and the walls were a pale yellow, which made the room look sunny even in Chicago winter weather. They were predicting snow for the weekend. They stopped in the kitchen and made a sandwich, and Alex suggested they go downtown and look around. He wanted to show her the city. He still had an old Toyota in the garage, which he kept there, and hadn't let his parents sell. He used it when he came home, and the housekeeper drove it for errands and to buy groceries. It started easily, and they headed from Lake Shore Drive to Michigan Avenue, on the scenic tour he had been planning for days. |
| 897 |
She picked one, and he gave her a set of long johns that he'd had when he was younger and smaller. She put on the clothes, two heavy sweaters, and the sneakers she had brought just in case, with a pair of wool socks over the long johns, and ten minutes later they were standing in the front hall, ready to go, and she was wearing a wool cap Alex had given her and her own gloves. "Oh my God, another crazy person in our midst," Helen said, looking at Sasha, who was bundled up like a four year old to go play in the snow. "Don't let them kill you out there. I'd hate to eat the turkey all by myself." She kissed them all goodbye, including Sasha, and they drove off in Tom's Range Rover, with Sasha in the back seat excited to be with them. Ben was waiting at the lake, standing near the boat, which was a beautiful old wooden classic sailboat that was their father's pride and joy. Ben had taken the tarps off while he was waiting, and they all climbed aboard. Alex showed her the cabins belowdecks if she got too cold, and told her not to be a hero if she was freezing, but she loved being on deck, as they pulled away from the dock in the crisp cold air. There was just enough wind to fill their sails, and they spent the next two hours sailing around the lake. Alex looked at her as though he'd found the prize of a lifetime, and Sasha was ecstatic, and he was sorry when they returned to the yacht club after a great sail. "Your mother will kill me if we don't go back now," Tom said regretfully. Their faces were all red, and they looked healthy and glowing from the cold. Ben went back to his apartment to change, and Tom drove Alex and Sasha home, where Helen was waiting for them with hot toddies. They were exhilarated after the sail, and Helen assured her younger son that he and Sasha deserved each other if she had enjoyed it, which she sincerely insisted she had. Ben was back an hour later, and they sat in front of the fire in the den once they were dressed, and then moved into the living room when the guests started to arrive. |
| 898 |
Her mother had had it redone the year before with strikingly modern furniture and contemporary art. It wasn't cozy, but it was beautiful. Abby wandered around the house, after she put her small tote bag in her room, and went to sit in the garden, thinking about what she would do now, and what she wanted to say to them. She knew they hoped she'd move home, now more than ever, but she wasn't ready to do that. There were writing opportunities in New York too, and she was doing her best work, writing normal fiction, since the breakup with Ivan. She'd done a few short stories and was working on her novel. She hadn't realized it for the past three years, but he had been holding her back, as she tried to meet his esoteric new wave standards, which no longer felt right for her, and never really had. She was developing her own voice again, and she felt that her writing was getting stronger than ever before. Her parents had been very patient with her for a long time, and she hoped that they would be for a while longer. She still wanted their financial and emotional support to give her the time she needed for her writing. There was a spare car in the garage that she used when she was home, an old Volvo from her high school days. It was ancient but it still worked. She drove around L.A. that afternoon, looking at familiar places, thinking about her life now without Ivan. It felt good to be home. And when she got back to the house, her parents were both there and excited to see her. She hadn't been home in almost a year, since Christmas, and she was startled to see that her parents had aged a little. She always thought of them as young and vital forever. Her father was complaining about a bad knee he had injured playing tennis, and her mother was healthy, but seemed subtly older. They had been older parents when she was born, as a surprise, and now they were in their late sixties, but still going strong with no thought of slowing down, and Abby was glad to be spending the holiday with them. |
| 899 |
She never talked about it. There was no reason to. Her parents had been happily married for more than thirty years, and they still liked surrounding themselves with unusual people. It had never occurred to them that it would rub off on their daughter, to her detriment. Her father had said as much to his wife when they first met Ivan in the beginning, but they let her make her own decisions, for better or worse, and it had worked out in the end, after a three year detour, but she seemed to be back on track again and even more dedicated to her writing, which had improved after what she'd been through. People started to arrive at six o'clock, and by seven, there were twenty six guests, in assorted casual outfits, drinking wine, and in earnest conversations in the living room and around the pool. The food was delivered at eight, and people sat wherever they found space, indoors, outdoors, on the floor, in chairs, and on couches, with their plates perched on their knees, enjoying talking to the other guests about various aspects of show business. It was a perfect Hollywood Thanksgiving, and typical of her parents, and seemed normal to Abby. She was sitting on the floor, in jeans and sandals, wearing a Guatemalan peasant blouse that her mother had brought her back from a trip when she was fifteen, when a man with a beard and jeans and a camouflage jacket sat down next to her on the floor, and introduced himself as Josh Katz. He said he had produced a TV show with her mother, and was now making a feature film on location in South Africa, about the early days of apartheid. She knew it was the kind of project her parents respected. He had warm dark brown eyes and a slight accent, and later said he was Israeli, and he had a strong interest in work about oppressed people, particularly women. For a minute, she wondered if he was a better version of Ivan, with a more convincing line, but she also knew that if he was sitting in her parents' living room, he had the right credentials and was for real. |
| 900 |
And the occupants of the house never changed either. Her parents' house was a small, slightly shabby Victorian in Pacific Heights. It needed a coat of paint, but Sarah kept it looking fresh inside, even when she had to paint a room herself, which she sometimes did. And she used her least expensive upholsterers to re cover the furniture so her husband wouldn't complain about the expense. Her father looked depressed, and was grousing about the real estate market. He hadn't sold a house in eighteen months, which Claire thought was due to his personality, not the economy. Who wanted to buy a house from someone who told you everything that was wrong with it and the world? And he hated the broker he worked for. Her mother was making chirping noises, and had the house looking bright and pretty, with flowers in Claire's bedroom. She had bought a turkey, which was slightly too big for them, as though they were expecting guests, but they no longer entertained, and rarely saw their old friends. Her father had eliminated them over the years, and her mother no longer tried to convince him to have a social life, so she met her women friends for lunch. She did a lot of reading at night. And no one ever mentioned the fact that her father drank too much, which contributed to his depression. He was never falling down drunk, but three or four scotches at night were too many, and Claire and her mother knew it, and never said it out loud. They just let him do what he wanted, and after the second scotch, he sat alone in front of the TV, which he did every night until he went to bed. Claire's mother wanted to know all about George when Claire got there, and she could see how excited she was about him. He hadn't called her yet from Aspen. When Claire didn't hear from him when she arrived, she assumed that George was already skiing, or afraid to intrude on her with her parents, and she was sure she would hear from him later that night. When she didn't, she called him from her room on her cell, and the call went straight to voicemail. |
| 901 |
Although she had respected him before, she no longer did. It was impossible to respect a man who could be so cruel to her friend. Claire was reeling from having her heart broken into a million pieces. She could barely face the thought of Christmas and wished she wasn't going home. She would rather have stayed with her friends in New York, but didn't want to disappoint her mother. Before she lost her job, Claire had bought her mother an expensive handbag she hoped she'd love, and her father a sweater, neither of which she could afford now, but it was Christmas and she hadn't told them she'd been fired. She dreaded spending the holidays with them. They had no idea that George had dumped her and she'd lost her job. She was going to tell her mother while she was there, after Christmas, and ask her to tell her father after she left. She couldn't face dealing with his concern, and depressing view of life. Failure was familiar to him. The flight was delayed by three hours due to weather in San Francisco, and there were storms all across the country, which made for a turbulent flight. She didn't care. If the plane crashed on the way out, it would be a relief. She wouldn't have to collect unemployment then, or look for a new job, or spend the rest of her life without George, hating him for what he'd done. She was planning to send her CV out again when she got back, and tell them she was available immediately now and had left her job. When they checked her references, they would know she got fired. She was sure that Walter would tell them, but there was nothing she could do to stop him. She took a cab from the airport, and her mother was waiting for her at home. They had finished dinner, and her father was already in front of the TV, watching the Discovery Channel with a drink in his hand, and her mother followed her to her room while she unpacked. "You've gotten awfully thin," her mother said, looking worried. Claire had lost ten pounds or more in the four weeks since Thanksgiving. |
| 902 |
The dog was glued to her side, and she glanced down at him with a stern expression. "If they get pissed at me and throw me out, it's all your fault. You'd better be nice when we get home." He almost seemed like he was nodding, and the attendant put everything in a shopping bag after Abby signed the papers, and paid the ten dollar adoption fee for the dog. This wasn't about money, it was about love and finding a good home. "Okay, let's go," she said to him, and he followed her down the stairs, politely. He had won. Abby took him for a walk on the way back to the apartment, as the dog loped along. He really did look like a small horse, and people gave them a wide berth, not sure if the enormous dog was friendly. But he didn't react to anything on the way home, strollers, kids, bicycles, roller bladers, other dogs. He just trotted next to Abby, and once when a small dog barked at him, he panicked, and she remembered that the attendant had said he was a coward. He ran up the stairs, and Abby was relieved when she saw that no one was home. Charlie sniffed around the apartment, and then lay down at her feet, as she grinned at him. This was going to be fun, if the others didn't kill her. The way he looked at her, she felt like he was talking to her. And when she sat down at her computer to work, Charlie went to sleep. Everything was fine until Morgan came home from the restaurant during a break to change her shoes. Her legs were killing her after standing up all through the lunch rush in heels, and she wanted to put on flats. She saw Abby working, and then she saw the enormous beast and let out a horrendous scream. Abby jumped a foot where she was sitting, and Charlie dove behind a chair, and lay there shaking, terrified by the scream. But at least he didn't attack her, Abby thought gratefully. The dog was cowering behind the chair, shaking like a leaf with eyes that begged Abby to protect him. "What is that?" Morgan asked, advancing on them both with a determined expression. |
| 903 |
They asked her if she knew anything about their bookkeeping system, and the accounting, and precisely what her duties were. They wanted to know which clients she had seen with George, and on her own. She remembered the irregularity she'd seen recently and told them about it, and they wanted to know if she had reported it to anyone, or discussed it with George, and she said she hadn't. She said they had seemed strange to her, but even though the money was in different accounts than she expected it to be, nothing was missing, so she thought maybe it had been a mistake in accounting that had been corrected. And at the end of a two hour interview, they told her that she was under investigation and could not leave the city. She asked them directly what George was being charged with, since he had been taken out in handcuffs, and they told her he was going to be indicted for running a well concealed Ponzi scheme, similar to Bernie Madoff's, but on a much smaller scale. He had been cheating his investors, taking in money he didn't actually invest and was never going to return. "That's impossible," Morgan said in defense of her employer. "He's meticulous in his dealings." And then she remembered the name on the list of directors that she had found disturbing since he had been indicted. But she still couldn't imagine George doing what they were accusing him of. It had to be some kind of mistake. She was allowed to leave the office at six o'clock, and was told not to return. The entire staff was under investigation, and had been dismissed. The office was closed, and their accounts had been seized. They returned her cell phone when she left the office, and when she exited the building, she felt like she was in a state of shock. She took a cab back to Hell's Kitchen, and stopped to see Max at the restaurant. She desperately needed to see a friendly, familiar face. She burst into tears as soon as she saw him, and told him what had happened. He couldn't believe it either. But it was all over the Internet and TV that night. |
| 904 |
George Lewis was under investigation, and more than likely would be indicted by the grand jury for stealing millions from his investors. Bail had been posted at ten million dollars in a federal arraignment, and he was expected to get out of jail that day. Claire was stunned when she heard about it too. She wondered if that had anything to do with why he had dumped her, but she suspected the two events were unrelated and that he was a criminal, or a pathological liar. The lone wolf was a crook. The next morning she and Morgan sat in the kitchen reading the papers, too shocked to know what to say. "It looks like I'm out of a job too," Morgan said to Claire. She was panicked about her future, and had said as much to Max the night before. "Nobody is ever going to hire me after this." There would always be some question if she had been part of the Ponzi scheme, but she truly had no idea about what he'd done. Federal agents came to see her at the apartment, and questioned her again. She had already told them all she knew, and said it all again. And they questioned Max at the restaurant too, wanting to know what she had said to him about her job. And he told them about her asking him what he thought of the irregularities she'd found, and he had told her that he thought they were accounting errors, and she had agreed. But neither of them had suspected something like this, the theft of millions from his investors. And he had done it cleverly and well. She didn't know what to do with herself in the days after the office closed, and to keep her from losing her mind over it, and to keep her occupied, Max asked her if she would help him at the restaurant, and oversee his books. She was grateful for the distraction, and he offered to pay her a salary for doing it, which she wouldn't accept. But she went to work with him every day. It was a terrible time for her, and she clung to him like a rock in a storm. Claire's mother arrived in the midst of the mess, and was shocked at what she read. |
| 905 |
The plane was full of Italians anxious to get home, and as she listened to the conversations around her, with people next to her, or shouting over them to friends in other rows, Claire couldn't help but remember the exquisite luxury of George's plane and the trips they'd taken together, and the wonderful time they'd had. But now look where he was and who he had turned out to be. It was still hard to believe. First his shocking abandonment of her, and then the discovery of the crimes he had committed. He was clearly a man without a heart or a conscience, a perfect sociopath. She forced him from her mind and concentrated on what they were doing and where they were going. Claire had brought her computer with her, to show her mother her latest designs. There was so much to do to get their fledgling business off the ground, and her roommates had been patient about deliveries of color swatches, leather and fabric samples, and all the tools and materials they would need to show customers eventually. And they found a lawyer who helped them set up the company. The first trade show they were going to would be in Las Vegas, which sounded like fun to both of them. But not nearly as much as a trip to Milan. Parabiago was in what was known as the shoe district of Italy, where the finest factories were. They were staying in Milan, less than an hour away, and had located a small hotel near the Via Montenapoleone, where the best shopping was, and where they planned to go after they finished their meetings. Milan was mecca to the fashion world, and Sarah had never been there before. The city was known not only for the important brands located there, like Prada and Gucci, but also for fabulous furs. Claire was aching to shop while they were there, but was trying to save her money for their business. Her mother had been generous, but Claire wanted to make a contribution too. They agreed to one day of shopping in the city before they left. Sarah loved the designs Claire showed her on her computer. |
| 906 |
They were sophisticated and sleek, in basic neutral colors that would be solid additions to any wardrobe, and then there were half a dozen more whimsical, frivolous shoes that Claire hoped no woman could resist. There were two basic, very elegant evening shoes, and three pairs of pretty flats. And eventually Claire wanted to add boots. If they produced all of the drawings they had brought with them, there would be twenty different styles in their first line. From the orders they got at the trade show, they would get a good sense of what stores wanted from them that would supplement the brands they already carried. And once they were at the factory, they would have to choose quality of leather and the colors of each style. There was a vast range of quality and possible price points, and they would have a lot to decide on their limited budget. But thanks to her mother, they had a fair amount of leeway to work with, far more than Claire had had when she was designing for Walter Adams, and she was finally getting to design shoes she loved. She was infinitely grateful to her mother for the opportunity she was giving her. They chatted all through lunch on the flight, and Sarah watched a movie, while Claire caught up on back issues of Women's Wear Daily. She had fallen behind recently, while working on the collection, and she wanted to see the fall runway shows from Fashion Week in New York, to make sure she was going in the right direction with the designs for her shoes. There was a lot to incorporate in their plans. And the inner construction of their shoes, and the materials they used, would be important as well. After reading the papers she'd brought with her, Claire fell asleep, and woke up when they were landing in Milan. Malpensa, the Milan airport, was notorious for chaos, long delays, and an inordinate amount of theft, and it took them an hour to get their bags, and finally get a cab to their hotel, which was small, spare, and clean. It was all they needed, and they went for a walk to take a look around. |
| 907 |
It wasn't a beautiful city, but it was the center of the fashion world. They had dinner at a small trattoria, and Claire noticed that the local men were admiring both her and her mother, and assumed they were two friends. Age didn't matter in Italy, her mother was still a beautiful woman, and men looked at her as often as they did at Claire, and Sarah seemed to be enjoying the attention. Even when they didn't try to pursue it, Italian men made it clear when they thought you were attractive. It did a lot for both their egos, and Claire made more of an effort the next day when they got dressed. It made a difference when you knew that someone noticed, even if it was a stranger, and you got a casual eye and a glimmer of a smile as they walked past. The next day they took a car and driver to the town of Parabiago. There were three factories that Claire had honed in on as good options for them, and one was the factory that Walter Adams used. They had appointments at all three. And by ten o'clock that morning, they had gotten down to business. The first factory they went to was the one she had been to several times with Walter, and they remembered her. She knew it was one of the most reliable and respected factories in Italy, they did solid work, and they did the manufacturing for several important brands in the States, and all over Europe. Claire thought it was a good possibility that they might use them, but she wanted to see the others too to compare them. This was one of the most important decisions they would make. By eleven o'clock they were at a smaller and more artisanal factory, and many of their shoes were handmade. They fabricated beautiful shoes, with amazing intricacy and delicate detail, but she thought they were too fussy for her designs, and probably not durable enough for their customer. Their strength was evening shoes, the tour of their workrooms was fascinating, and their prices commensurately higher, due to the many hours of craftsmanship they invested in the work. |
| 908 |
Claire loved the tour but didn't feel like it was a match for them. They needed something younger and more contemporary and more serviceable for the customer she wanted to target. The third factory was strikingly modern and had impressive showrooms to showcase their current and past work. They produced shoes for almost every popular high end brand, and several secondary lines at their price point. The factory was owned by Biagio Machiolini and his two sons, and like the others had been a family business for generations, and they were cousins of the owners of the second factory they'd seen. Everything about this one was modern, new, and exciting, and the owner's second son, Cesare, was enthusiastic about their new brand and Claire's designs. She showed him everything she'd done, and explained her vision, and the three of them talked for two hours, and then his father and brother, Roberto, joined them and invited Claire and Sarah for lunch and an even more private tour. They left the factory at four o'clock after arriving at noon. They'd been in Parabiago since ten that morning, and the prices they had quoted her, with a reduction for the first year to help them get off the ground, would be very helpful. Claire had a copy of the contract in her briefcase, written in English, so she and her mother could go over the fine print at their hotel, and e mail it to their lawyer in New York. Claire was familiar with the contracts, as she had handled them for Walter and knew what to expect. And when she read it over carefully in their hotel room, there were no surprises, it was exactly as they had said. All three factories had excellent reputations, and she knew they would be in good hands with any of them. It was a matter of choice and preference, and a certain amount of chemistry, since they would be working together closely, and the factory would have to be responsive to their needs and demands. "What do you think, Mom?" Claire asked her as she lay on the bed and put the contract down. |
| 909 |
She had gained even greater respect for her daughter as she watched her conduct their meetings all day. She knew her stuff, and then some, as well as being a very talented designer. They went over all three options again, and Claire had wanted to give her a voice in it, since she was their sole investor, but Claire preferred the third factory hands down, and Sarah said she did too. "And the father is very handsome," Sarah said with a twinkle in her eye. "So are the sons," Claire added. Cesare and Roberto were both in their early forties, and they'd all had fun at lunch. And the Machiolinis liked the idea that they were a mother and daughter team starting a business, in good European tradition, although their business had been in the family for generations. The two women had dinner at a nearby restaurant again that night, and went back to the factory the next day to go over final details. They had heard from the lawyer, who gave it his approval. And Claire and Sarah signed the contract together, and they all shook hands. Cesare agreed to deliver all twenty prototypes to them on or before April first. It was only six weeks away, but the Machiolinis had a large, efficient operation and assured them they could meet the deadline with ease, and they could make adjustments to the fit later. Claire realized she was going to need a fit model in a European size 37, which was size six and a half to seven in the States. She could use anyone with normal feet, and would need feedback about comfort, and reliability of size. The arches had to fit just right, the heels had to hold the foot properly, and the toebox had to be just high enough for comfort without looking boxy. But with their reliability in production, she didn't expect to have any problems there. The burden was on her now to design shoes that women loved, at the right price point, for the right market, and sell them through the right stores. The trade show in Las Vegas was going to be very important for them, and give them the feedback they needed. |
| 910 |
He had even called a lawyer and had looked into a court order to stop her because it was his child too, but it was her body, and the courts respected that, and wouldn't interfere. It was her right to choose. Max was beside himself over it, and he missed her. But he refused to back down. He had said clearly that if she aborted, they were through. By now, Morgan was very emotional and cried all the time. She had a few days left to decide, and Sasha went to the doctor with her to support her while she made the final decision. Knowing she would lose Max if she aborted the baby was slowing her down. But she wanted him, not the child. They did a routine sonogram while she was at the doctor, in Technicolor and 3D, and what they saw was a healthy baby. Its heart was strong, and everything was perfect. She started to cry even more after she saw it, and talked to the doctor about an abortion. She said she would call to set it up the next day, and the doctor didn't push her either way. She said she could fit her in the following afternoon for a termination if that was her decision. All she did was cry on the way home. She was convinced a baby would destroy her life. She remembered her hideous life as a child, her drunken mother and irresponsible father who cheated on her. The miserable life they had led until they died young, and they had had no pleasure from their children, and had had nothing to give her or her brother. She wanted no part of that nightmare, which was more vivid to her than the baby in 3D. She went to bed when they got back to the apartment, after she threw up again. She was sick all the time now too, but Sasha thought it was because she wasn't eating and was so upset, which made everything worse. She had been through a lot in the past three months, with the demise of her career, and now an unwanted pregnancy. Sasha left for work after checking on her, Morgan just lay there crying, and she and Alex talked about it that night. "Honestly, I don't think she should have the baby," she told Alex. |
| 911 |
The invitations had gone out, engraved by Cartier. They were very simple and elegant. They had chosen the menu, with a tasting at the apartment, and tried five different wedding cakes from three wedding bakers. And Max was giving them the wine as a wedding gift, and the champagne. Prunella had recommended a photographer and videographer, which she insisted they needed. She had chosen lace tablecloths and linen napkins for them at Sasha's request, and she had her own supply of candelabras, and the caterer was bringing the crystal, silver, and china. They had toured the penthouse on Fifth Avenue, where they were giving the reception, and they had found a small church near the penthouse that was willing to do a six o'clock wedding. The reception was due to start at eight. And Sasha had managed to decide on all of it, in her meager time off from work. They hadn't had a weekend off since they'd gone to Atlanta in March. And she had found the dress entirely by accident, in a magazine she was reading in the doctors' lounge. It was a simple white satin dress with a lace coat over it that she could take off at the reception, with a lace veil. The coat had a beautiful long train. She didn't have time to try it on, so Valentina went to the fitting for her, and Sasha fell in love with it when she saw it on a cell phone photo her sister sent her, although Valentina thought it was boring. "Why don't you get something sexy, with some cleavage and a low back?" The dress was perfect for Sasha. And the bridesmaids' dresses were a warm beige color, simple strapless gowns, which Valentina said would have looked better in red. Everything was tasteful and simple. The bridesmaids' bouquets were going to be small beige orchids, and Sasha's lily of the valley. She had thought about having her half sisters as flower girls, but it would have caused a war with her mother, which just wasn't worth it to her. The men were going to wear black tie, and Alex was wearing white tie and tails. And Helen Scott had told her she was wearing navy blue. |
| 912 |
Sasha had a nurse hook up a fetal monitor, and everything was looking good. She noticed that the baby was big, but they said it wasn't twins and it didn't feel like it, just a big baby. Sasha went back to the nurses' station then to see what was going on. "You just can't stay away from this place, can you?" the nurses teased her, and Sasha noticed that it was five o'clock, and she called Alex to tell him where she was, and promised she'd make it to the dinner on time. She still had plenty of time to dress. And then she went back to check her stepmother again. The contractions were persistent, but slowing down a little. She waited two hours and gave her another shot, and sedated her, which she thought would help. By then it was seven, and she was going to be late for the dinner. She still had to bathe and dress. The contractions stopped almost completely at eight after the second shot, and by then Charlotte was dozing, and Sasha told her father she should spend the night at the hospital. She could go back to their hotel the next day, but for now Sasha wanted the nurses to keep an eye on her and the monitor, and her father agreed. "I think I should stay with her tonight," he said in a whisper, and Sasha nodded. His two daughters were at the hotel with the nanny. He was going to miss the Scotts' rehearsal dinner, but hopefully he'd be there tomorrow to walk her down the aisle, and she said as much to him. "Of course." It was eight thirty by then, and there was no way she could go home to dress. Alex had been texting her for the last hour, and she kept promising him she'd be there and not to worry. She couldn't miss her own rehearsal dinner the night before her wedding, and she couldn't get home to change. She only had one choice, to go as she was. It was better than missing it entirely, and she knew they weren't sitting down to dinner till nine. She took a last look at Charlotte sleeping, and told her father to call if they needed her, and she told the nurses the same thing. |
| 913 |
Valentina seemed a little more normal now, and didn't seem as hell bent on shocking everyone. He toned her down a little, and she had put some jazz and glamour into Bert's life. They had been mentioned on Page Six several times. They referred to him as supermodel Valentina's drop dead gorgeous bodyguard. They were a striking pair. And then the big moment came, and Sasha's friends lifted her wedding dress over her head, with Sarah's help. Abby stood on a chair to assist, and they were careful not to mess up her hair or makeup. The hairdresser attached the long lace veil to her short hair. As soon as Sasha was dressed, Alex called to tell her how much he loved her, and they talked for a few minutes. The girls had covered the something old, something new department too. She had wrapped a lace handkerchief of her grandmother's around her bouquet, the dress was new, Valentina had given her a pale blue lace thong, and Sarah had lent her a string of pearls. It seemed sad to her for a moment that she had Claire's mother there to help dress her, and not her own, but she didn't want Muriel to spoil it, and she would have. Sasha didn't want to take the chance. Her father was meeting her at the church, and she rode uptown alone in the limousine he had rented for her. And the girls rode in a second one, right behind her. She could feel them near her, cheering her on. And Prunella was waiting for them at the church in the rectory where they gathered, while Alex's groomsmen ushered people to their seats in the church, which the florist had filled with white flowers. Prunella immediately took charge when they arrived. She lined everyone up, in the proper order, with Valentina last in line, and Sasha's roommates ahead of her in order of height, Abby, Claire, and Morgan. And the moment her mother and the Scotts sat down in their pews, the procession began. There was a brief pause after the girls took their places at the altar with Alex's groomsmen, all friends from medical school, with his brother at his side as best man. |
| 914 |
Either that, or sell the house, which Abe would have preferred. He wore a dour expression as he stood in his gray summer suit, white shirt, and black and gray tie, as a butler in a morning coat opened the front door. He recognized the accountant immediately and nodded a silent greeting. Livermore knew from experience that whenever the accountant came to visit, it put his employer in a dreadful mood. It sometimes required an entire bottle of Cristal champagne to restore him to his usual good spirits, sometimes an entire tin of caviar too. He had put both on ice the moment Liz Sullivan, Coop's secretary, had warned Livermore that the accountant would be arriving at noon. She had been waiting for Abe in the paneled library, and crossed the front hall with a smile as soon as she heard the bell. She had been there since ten that morning, going over some papers to prepare for the meeting, and she'd had a knot in her stomach since the night before. She had tried to warn Coop what the meeting was about, but he'd been too busy to listen the previous day. He was going to a black tie party, and wanted to be sure to get a haircut, a massage, and a nap before he went out. And she hadn't seen him that morning. He was out at a breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel when she arrived, with a producer who had called him about a movie with a possible part in it for him. It was hard to pin Coop down, particularly if it involved bad news or something unpleasant. He had an instinctive sense, a kind of finely tuned supersonic radar that warned him almost psychically about things he didn't want to hear. Like incoming Scud missiles, he managed to dodge them with ease. But she knew he had to listen this time, and he had promised to be back by noon. With Coop, that meant closer to two. "Hello, Abe, it's nice to see you," Liz said warmly. She was wearing khaki slacks, a white sweater, and a string of pearls, none of which flattered her figure, which had expanded considerably in the twenty two years she'd worked for Coop. |
| 915 |
He was a breathtakingly handsome man, with chiseled features and a cleft chin. He had deep blue eyes, smooth, fair skin, and a full head of immaculately trimmed and combed silver hair. Even with the top down, he didn't have a hair out of place. He never did. Cooper Winslow was the epitome of perfection in every detail. Manly, elegant, with a sense of extraordinary ease. He rarely lost his temper, and seldom looked unnerved. There was an air of aristocratic grace about him, which he had perfected to a fine art, and came naturally to him. He was from an old family in New York, with distinguished ancestors and no money, and his name was his own. In his prime, he played all the rich boy, upper class parts, a sort of modern day Cary Grant, with Gary Cooper looks. He had never played a villain or a single rough part, only playboys and dashing heroes in impeccable clothes. And women loved the fact that he had kind eyes. He didn't have a mean bone in his body, he was never petty or cruel. The women he dated adored him, even long after they left him. He somehow nearly always managed to engineer it so that they left him, when he had had enough of them. He was a genius at handling women, and most of the women he had affairs with, those he remembered at least, spoke well of him. They had fun with him. Coop made everything pleasant and elegant, for as long as the affair lasted. And nearly every major female star in Hollywood, at some point, had been seen on his arm. He had been a bachelor and a playboy all his life. At seventy, he had managed to escape what he referred to as "the net." And he looked nowhere near his age. He had taken extraordinarily good care of himself, in fact he'd made a career of it, and didn't look a day over fifty five. And when he stepped out of the magnificent car, wearing a blazer, gray slacks, and an exquisitely starched and laundered blue shirt he'd had made in Paris, it was obvious that he had broad shoulders, an impeccable physique, and seemingly endless legs. |
| 916 |
Taking care of Coop had replaced the children she'd never had and finally stopped wanting years before. He still looked shell shocked when she left the house, and before she did, she answered the phone. It was Pamela, his latest romance. She was twenty two years old, young even by his standards. She was a model, and aspiring to be an actress. He had met her at a shoot he had done for GQ. They had hired half a dozen models to stand beside him adoringly, and she had been the best looking of the lot. He'd only been dating her for about a month and she was totally infatuated with him, although he was old enough to be her grandfather, but he didn't look it fortunately. He was taking Pamela to The Ivy for dinner, and Liz reminded him to pick her up at seven thirty. He gave her a big hug before she left, and reminded her to come back to him if she hated being married. And secretly, he hoped she would. Coop felt as though he were losing his younger sister and best friend. Liz started crying again as she drove away. She loved Ted, but she couldn't imagine what life would be like without Coop. Over the years, he had become her family, her best friend, her brother, her son, her hero. She adored him. And it had taken every ounce of courage and strength she had to agree to marry Ted, and then to tell Coop. She hadn't been able to sleep for the past week, and she had felt sick about it all morning before Coop came home. She was grateful Abe had been there to distract her. And as she drove out the main gate, she nearly hit a car driving by. She was totally unnerved. Leaving Coop would be like leaving the convent or the womb. She just hoped she had made the right decision in the end. Coop was still standing in the library when she left, and poured himself another glass of champagne. He took a sip, and then, still holding the glass, he walked slowly upstairs to his bedroom. He passed a small woman in a white uniform on the way. There was a large stain on the front of her dress that looked like tomato sauce, or soup. |
| 917 |
As he stood looking around him at the bare walls and empty rooms where he and his family had lived for ten years, it was like seeing the last of his dreams disappear. He had been planning to keep the house, and live in it, but Janet had told him to sell it as soon as she had gotten to New York. He knew then, that no matter what she had said in the weeks prior to that, she was never coming back to him. She had told him that she was leaving him only two weeks before she left. And her lawyer had just called his. His entire life had unraveled in the past five weeks. Their furniture was already on its way to New York, he had given everything to her and the kids. He was staying in a hotel near his office, and he was waking up every morning, wishing he were dead. They had lived in Los Angeles for ten years, and been married for sixteen. Mark was forty two years old, tall, lean, blond, blue eyed, and until five weeks earlier had been convinced he was happily married. He and Janet had met in law school, and got married as soon as they graduated. She had gotten pregnant almost instantly. Jessica was born on their first anniversary, and was now fifteen. Jason was thirteen. Mark was a tax attorney in a major law firm, and they had transferred him from New York to Los Angeles ten years before. It had been an adjustment at first, but they came to love it eventually. He had found the house in Beverly Hills within weeks, even before Janet and the kids arrived from New York. It had been perfect for them, with a big backyard, and a small pool. The people who had just bought it wanted to close as soon as they could, they were expecting twins in six weeks. And as Mark thought about it as he took a last walk around, he couldn't help thinking that their life was just beginning, and his was over. He still couldn't believe what had happened to him. Six weeks earlier, he had been a happily married man with a beautiful wife he was crazy about, a job he loved, a nice house, and two gorgeous kids. |
| 918 |
The first time she went, after the heart attack, Janet was gone for six weeks. But she called him three or four times a day. He had never suspected a thing, and it hadn't happened immediately, Janet had explained, it had happened over time. She had fallen in love with her mother's doctor. He was a great guy, had been wonderfully supportive and sympathetic and kind to her. They had dinner one night, just casually, and it had taken off from there. She had been involved with him for a year, and she said it was tearing her apart. She kept thinking she'd get over it, that it was a passing thing. She assured Mark that she had tried to end it several times. But they were hooked on each other, it had become an obsession for both of them. Being with Adam, she told Mark, was like being addicted to a drug. He suggested therapy and couples counseling, but Janet refused. She didn't say it to him then, but she had made up her mind. She said she wanted to move back to New York, and see where things went. She needed to be out of the marriage, for the time being at least, so she could explore the affair honestly. And as soon as she got to New York, she told Mark she wanted a divorce, and asked him to sell the house. She wanted her half of the money out of it, so she could buy an apartment in New York. Mark stood staring at their bedroom wall, as he thought about the last conversation he'd had with her. He had never felt so lost and alone in his life. Everything he'd believed and counted on and thought would always be there for him no longer was. And the worst thing was that he hadn't done anything wrong, at least he didn't think he had. Maybe he worked too hard, or didn't take her out to dinner often enough, but it was all so comfortable, and she had never complained. The second worst day of his life, after the day she told him about the affair, was when they told the children they were splitting up. They had wanted to know if he and Mom were getting divorced, and he had said honestly that he wasn't sure. |
| 919 |
He liked his work, and estate planning was something he enjoyed and did well, but it wasn't something he could discuss at length with her. She had wanted to go into criminal law, or child advocacy, and tax law had always bored her to tears. She and Mark played tennis several times a week, they went to movies, hung out with the kids, went to dinner with friends. It had been a comfortable, ordinary life for all of them. And now, nothing was comfortable anymore. The emotional anguish he felt was almost a physical pain. He had had a knife in his gut for the past five weeks. He had just started going to a therapist, at the suggestion of his doctor, when Mark called and asked for sleeping pills, because he said he could no longer sleep. His life had become a living hell. He missed her, he missed his kids, he missed his life. In the blink of an eye, everything and everyone was gone, and now so was the house. "Ready, Mark?" the realtor asked gently as she stuck her head in the bedroom door. He was just standing there, staring into space, lost in his own thoughts. "Yeah, sure," he said, and walked out of the room, with one last glance back. It was like saying goodbye to a lost world, or an old friend. He followed her out of the house and she locked the door. He had given her all his keys. The money was being deposited into his account that afternoon, and he had promised to wire Janet her half. They had gotten a good price for it, which meant nothing to him now. "Are you ready to start looking for something for you?" the realtor asked hopefully. "I have some great small houses for you up in the hills, and there's a little gem in Hancock Park. There are some nice apartments around right now too." February was always a good month to look. The holiday doldrums were over, and some great listings came on the market in the spring. And with the sale of the house, and the price he'd gotten for it, she knew he had money to spend. Even his half was more than enough to buy himself a handsome new place. |
| 920 |
Just everything else. "I'm fine at the hotel," he said, slipping into his Mercedes after thanking her again. She had done a great job, and closed the sale smoothly and in record time. He almost wished she hadn't been so efficient, or had even lost the sale. He hadn't been ready to move on. It was something to talk about with his new therapist, grist for the mill. He had never been to a therapist before, and he seemed like a nice guy, but Mark wasn't sure it would help. Maybe with the sleep problem, but what could he do about the rest? No matter what they said in the counseling sessions, Janet and the kids were still gone, and without them he had no life. He didn't want a life. He wanted them. And now she belonged to someone else, and maybe the kids would like him better too. It was a devastating thought. He had never felt as hopeless in his life, or as lost. He drove back to the office, and was back at his desk by noon. He dictated a stack of letters, and went over some reports. He had a partners' meeting that afternoon. He didn't even bother eating lunch. He had lost ten pounds in the last five weeks, maybe twelve. All he could do now was keep moving, putting one foot after the other, and try not to think. He did his thinking at night, when it all came back to him, and he heard her words again and again, and thought about the kids and how much they had cried. He called them every night, he had promised to come and visit them in a few weeks. He was taking them to the Caribbean over the Easter vacation, and they were going to come out to LA in the summer, but now he had nowhere for them to stay. Just thinking about all of it made him feel sick. When he saw Abe Braunstein in a meeting about new tax laws late that afternoon, the accountant was stunned. Mark looked like he had a terminal disease. He usually looked healthy and young and athletic, he was always in good spirits, and even though he was forty two, Abe always thought of Mark as a nice kid. He looked like the boy next door. |
| 921 |
About anything and everything. He loved that about her. Brilliant, irreverent, beautiful, brave, with fiery red hair and green eyes, and freckles everywhere. She was his dream woman, and the love of his life. There wasn't a single thing he didn't like about her, except maybe the fact that she couldn't cook and didn't care. So he cooked for both of them, and was proud of the fact that he was a pretty decent cook. He was packing the kitchen, and his frying pans, when the building manager rang the bell and walked in. He shouted out a greeting so Jimmy would know he was there. He didn't like to intrude, but he had to show the place. It was a tiny apartment in Venice Beach. They had loved living there. Maggie liked to roller blade down the streets, everyone did there. And they loved the beach. Jimmy had given notice the week before, and was moving at the end of the month. He didn't know where. Just not there. Anywhere but there. The building manager was showing the apartment to a young couple who said they were getting married. They were both wearing jeans and sweatshirts and sandals, and to Jimmy they seemed innocent and young. They were in their early twenties, had just graduated from college and had come from the Midwest. They were in love with LA and they thought the apartment was great. They thought Venice was the best. The building manager introduced them to Jimmy, and he nodded and shook hands, and went back to his packing, and left them to look at the apartment on their own. It was small, and in good order. There was a small living room, and a tiny bedroom, barely bigger than the bed, a bathroom you had to stand on each other's shoulders to use together, and the kitchen where he was packing. It had worked for them, they hadn't needed more space than that, and Maggie had always insisted on paying her half of the rent and couldn't afford more. She was stubborn about things like that. They had split all their expenses in half since the day they met, even after they were married. |
| 922 |
But the story haunted them for the rest of the day. And late that afternoon, the building manager slipped a note under Jimmy's door to tell him the young couple had taken the apartment. He was off the hook in three weeks. Jimmy sat staring at the note. It was what he had wanted, and what he knew he had to do, but he had nowhere to go. He no longer cared where he lived. It didn't matter to him. He could have slept in a sleeping bag on the street. Maybe that was how people became homeless. Maybe they no longer cared where they lived, or if. He had thought of killing himself when she died, just walking into the ocean without a murmur or a sound. It would have been an enormous relief. He had sat on the beach for hours the day after she died, and thought about it. And then, as though he could hear her, he could imagine her telling him how furious she would be, and what a wimp he was. He could even hear the brogue. It was nightfall when he went back to the apartment, and sat for hours crying and wailing on the couch. Their families had come out from Boston that night, and the rosary and funeral had eaten up the next two days. He had refused to bury her in Boston. She had told him she wanted to stay in California with him, so he buried her there. And after they all went home, he was alone again. Her parents and brothers and sisters had been devastated over their loss. But no one was as distraught as he, no one knew how much he had lost, or what she meant to him. Maggie had become his whole life, and he knew with absolute certainty that he would never love another woman as he had her, or perhaps at all. He couldn't conceive of another woman in his life. What a travesty that would be. And who could possibly be like her? All that fire and passion and genius and joy and courage. She was the bravest human he had ever known. She hadn't even been afraid to die, she just accepted it as her fate. It was he who had cried and begged God to change his mind, he who had been terrified, who couldn't imagine living on without her. |
| 923 |
It was going to be a fifty thousand dollar shopping spree for sure, or more. Particularly if they stopped off at Van Cleef or Cartier, if anything caught his eye in the windows. And it would never occur to Pamela to tell him that his generosity was excessive. For a twenty two year old girl from Oklahoma, this was a dream come true, and so was Coop. "I'm amazed that Mr. Winslow is willing to have tenants on the property, particularly in a wing of the main house," the real estate agent mentioned to Liz, as she let her into the guest wing. She was fishing for some piece of gossip she could share with future tenants, which didn't please Liz. But it was also inevitable, and a necessary evil if they were going to rent. They were at the mercy of how people interpreted it. And those interpretations were never kind about major movie stars, or celebrities of any sort. It was part of the deal. "The guest wing has a separate entrance of course, so they'll never run into Coop. And you know, he travels so much, I don't think he'll know they're there. Having tenants is protection for him, if people realize that there are people living on the property full time. Otherwise, there could be break ins or all kinds of problems. This is really a security bonus for him." It was an angle the realtor hadn't thought of, but it did make sense. Although she was suspicious that there was more to it than that. Cooper Winslow hadn't had a lead in a major movie in years. She couldn't remember the last one she'd seen, although he was certainly still a big star, and caused a huge stir wherever he went. He was one of the great Hollywood legends of all time, which was going to help her rent the two facilities he was leasing, and get a stiff price for them as well. This was high, high prestige, and the estate was the only one like it in the country, if not the world. With a handsome movie star in residence, at least some of the time. Maybe if the tenants were lucky, they would catch a glimpse of him on the tennis court or at the pool. |
| 924 |
But there hadn't been time, and she wanted to move fast. But generally speaking, it looked fine. It was a beautiful wing of the house. It had the same high ceilings the rest of the house had, and elegant French windows leading out to the grounds. There was a lovely stone terrace framed with hedges, and antique marble benches and tables Coop had bought in Italy years before. The living room was full of handsome French antiques. There was a small study next to it, which could serve as an office, and up a short flight of stairs an enormous master bedroom all done in pale blue satin with mirrored Art Deco furniture he had picked up in France. There was an enormous white marble bathroom next to the master bedroom, and a dressing room with more closets than most people needed, although they wouldn't have been enough for Coop. And on the other side of the living room, there were two small, but adequate bedrooms, decorated in bright English floral chintz and antiques. And there was a wonderful country kitchen with a big dining table in it, which the realtor said reminded her of Provence. There was no dining room, but Liz pointed out that they didn't really need it, since the living room was so large, a table could be set up there, or the tenants could eat in the kitchen, which was cozy and fun and informal. There was a massive old French stove, a ceramic fireplace in the corner of the room, and beautiful antique painted tiles on the walls. All in all it made a perfect apartment for someone, on the grounds of the most beautiful estate in Bel Air, and they had full access to the tennis courts and the pool. "How much does he want for it?" The realtor's eyes were shimmering with excitement. She had never seen a better place, she could even imagine another movie star renting it, just for the prestige. Perhaps someone staying in town to make a movie, or spending a year in LA. The fact that it was furnished would make it a real bonus for someone. And beautifully furnished at that. |
| 925 |
With fresh flowers, and a little dusting, the guest wing would really come to life, and the realtor could see that too. "How much do you suggest?" Liz asked. She wasn't sure. She hadn't had any dealings with the rental market in years, and had lived in the same modest apartment herself for more than twenty years. "I was thinking at least ten thousand a month. Maybe twelve. For the right tenant, we could push it to fifteen. But surely no less than ten." It sounded good to Liz, and with the gatehouse, it would give Coop a comfortable cushion every month, if they could keep his credit cards out of his hands. She was seriously worried about what mischief he'd get up to after she was gone, with no one to monitor him, or even scold him if need be. Not that she had such perfect controls on him, but she could at least remind him from time to time not to get in any deeper than he was. As soon as Liz locked the front door to the guest wing, they drove to the north end of the property to where the gatehouse stood secluded in a seemingly secret garden. It was in fact nowhere near the front gate, and had so much greenery and land around it, that it appeared to be on an estate of its own. It was a beautiful little stone house with vines growing up one side, and it always reminded Liz of an English cottage. It had a magical feeling to it, and inside there were both elegant wood paneling and rough hewn stone walls. It was an interesting juxtaposition of two worlds, and entirely different from the elegant French decor of the guest wing. "Oh my God, this is fabulous!" the realtor said enthusiastically, as they walked past a rose garden that surrounded the house, and stepped inside. "It's like being in another world." In the gatehouse, the rooms were small and well proportioned with beam ceilings, and the furniture was heavier and English, with a long, handsome leather couch that Coop had bought from an English club. The house had a wonderful cozy feeling, and a huge fireplace in the living room. |
| 926 |
All of the staff were still somewhat in shock after being given notice by Abe the previous afternoon, but given the irregularity of their paychecks, it wasn't totally unexpected. Livermore had already announced that he was going to Monte Carlo, to work for an Arab prince. He'd been hounded by him for months, and had called that morning to accept the job that had been a standing offer to him. He didn't seem particularly upset to be leaving Coop, and if he was, as usual, he showed no sign of it. He was flying to the South of France the following weekend, which was going to be a major blow to Coop. Later that afternoon, Coop came back to the house with Pamela. They'd had a long lunch and sat at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, chatting with some of Coop's friends, all of them major Hollywood figures. Pamela couldn't believe the crowd she was suddenly traveling in, and she was so impressed she could hardly speak when they left the hotel, and came back to The Cottage. They were in bed together half an hour later, with a bucket of Cristal chilling at his bedside. The cook served them dinner in bed on trays, and at Pamela's insistence, they watched videos of two of his old films. And he drove her home afterwards, because he had an appointment with his trainer and acupuncturist early the next morning. Besides which, he preferred to sleep alone. Even sleeping with a beautiful young woman in his bed sometimes disturbed his sleep. By the next morning, the realtor had prepared two folders with all the details of both rentals. She got on the phone bright and early, and called several of her clients who were looking for unusual rentals. She set up three appointments to show the gatehouse to bachelors, and another to show the guest wing to a young couple who had just moved to LA and were remodeling a house that was going to take at least another year, if not two, to finish. And shortly after that, her phone rang. It was Jimmy. He sounded serious and quiet on the phone, and explained that he was looking for a rental. |
| 927 |
He had to run to an appointment with a family about two of their foster children. "I'll see you at five then." But she was no longer quite so certain that he'd be the right tenant. Someone who worked in Watts was not going to be able to afford Cooper Winslow's gatehouse. And when she saw him late that afternoon, she was certain of it. Jimmy arrived driving the beat up Honda Civic that Maggie had insisted they buy, although he had wanted to spring for something a lot more jazzy when they moved to California. He had tried to explain to her that living in California was all about having a great car, but in the end, as usual, she convinced him otherwise. There was no way they could do the kind of work they did, and drive an expensive car, no matter how easily he could afford it. The fact that he came from money, very old money, and quite a lot of it, had always remained a well kept secret, even among their friends. He was wearing worn jeans with frayed edges and a torn knee, a faded Harvard sweatshirt that he'd had for a dozen years, and a battered pair of workboots. But in the places where he visited families, there were often rats and he didn't want to get bitten. But in contrast to his clothes, he was clean shaven, intelligent, obviously well educated, and had a recent haircut. He was an interesting conglomeration of conflicting elements, which confused the agent completely. "What sort of work do you do, Mr. O'Connor?" she asked chattily as she unlocked the door to the gatehouse. She had already shown it three times that afternoon, but the first man she'd shown it to said it was too small, the second one thought it was too isolated, and the third one really wanted an apartment. So it was still free and clear, although she was certain now that Jimmy couldn't afford it. Not on a social worker's wages. But she had to show it to him anyway. As they came through the hedge, she heard him catch his breath. It looked like an Irish cottage, and reminded him of the trips to Ireland he'd taken with Maggie. |
| 928 |
At times, he still wanted to say he was married. He would have still been wearing his wedding band if he'd had one. Maggie had never given him one, and the one she'd worn had been buried with her. "I like it," he said quietly, walking through all the rooms again, and opening all the closets. Being on the estate seemed a little grand to him, but he wondered if he could tell people he was house sitting, or paid to work on the grounds, if he brought anyone home from work. There were a lot of stories he could tell if he had to, and had over the years. But what he liked best about it was that he knew Maggie would have loved it. It was just her kind of place, although she would never have agreed to live there, because she couldn't afford her share. It made him smile, thinking of it, and he was tempted to take it. But he decided to wait and sleep on the decision, and promised to call the realtor the next day. "I'd like to think about it," he said, as they left, and she was sure he was just saving face. From his car and his clothes and his job, she knew he couldn't afford it. But he seemed like a nice man, and she was pleasant to him. You never knew who you were dealing with. She had been in the business long enough to know that. Sometimes the people who looked the least reputable or the most poverty stricken turned out to be the heirs of enormous fortunes. She had learned that early on in the business, so she was gracious to him. As Jimmy drove home, he thought about the gatehouse. It was a beautiful little place, and it seemed like a peaceful retreat from the world. He would have loved to live there with Maggie, and wondered if that would bother him. It was hard to know what was best anymore. There was nowhere he could hide from his sorrow. And when he got home, he went back to his packing, just to distract himself. The apartment was already fairly empty. He made himself a bowl of soup, and sat staring silently out the window. He lay awake for most of the night, thinking about Maggie, about what she would advise him. |
| 929 |
It was yet another conversation that ended on an unhappy note. They had a lot of those. And Jessica always seemed to be looking for someone to blame, mostly him. She still hadn't figured out that her mother had wanted the divorce. And Mark didn't want to point the finger at her. He was waiting for Janet to step up to the plate and take responsibility for it herself, but so far she hadn't. She had just told them that she and Daddy hadn't been getting along, which was a lie. They'd been fine, until Adam came along. Mark wondered how she was going to sell him to the kids, maybe as someone she'd just met. It was probably going to be years before they figured it out, if they ever did, which depressed him too. His children were going to go on blaming him forever for causing the divorce. And one of his worst fears was that his kids were going to be as crazy about Adam as their mother was, and then they would forget him. He was three thousand miles away, in Los Angeles, and he couldn't see them as often as he liked. He could hardly wait for their vacation in Saint Bart's. He had chosen it because he thought it would be fun for them, and for him too. He promised to call them the next day, as he always did. And he gave the hotel notice that night that he was moving out on the weekend. He could hardly wait. He loved his new digs. It was the first cheerful thing that had happened to him since Janet had hit him with the news. He felt like he'd been in shock for the last five weeks. And that night, he went out and ate a hamburger before he went to bed. For the first time in weeks, he was actually hungry. He packed his clothes into two suitcases on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, he drove to the estate. He had the code to the gate and opened it, and when he let himself into the guest wing, it was immaculately clean. Everything had been vacuumed and dusted, and the furniture shone. The kitchen was spotless and there were clean sheets on his bed. And for a surprisingly long moment, it felt like coming home. |
| 930 |
He didn't even remember living in New York before. All he wanted to do was go back to California, which still felt like home to him. They talked for a while longer, and then Mark finally got off. He checked out where things were in the kitchen, and put a video on that night, and he was amused to see that Cooper Winslow had a walk on part in it. He was certainly a good looking man, and Mark wondered when and if they'd meet. He had seen someone drive in behind him in a Rolls Royce convertible that afternoon, but he was just far enough ahead that all he could see was a man with silver hair, presumably Coop, and a pretty girl next to him in the front seat. Mark realized Coop had a far more interesting life than he. After sixteen years being faithfully married, he couldn't even imagine what it would be like to start dating again, and had no desire to. He had too much on his mind, too many memories, too many regrets, and all he could think about were his kids. For the moment, there was no room for a woman in his life. Room maybe, but no heart. He was just grateful that when he went to bed that night, he slept like a baby, and woke up happy the next morning after dreaming that his children were living with him. That would in fact have made it a perfect life for him. But in the meantime, what he had was an improvement over his room at the hotel. And he'd be seeing them in two weeks. It was something to look forward to, and all he needed now. He went to cook himself breakfast, and was surprised to discover that the kitchen stove didn't work. He made a note to call the realtor about it, but he didn't really care. He was just as happy with orange juice and toast. He wasn't much of a cook, except when the kids were around, he would cook for them. And in the main part of the house, Coop was making similar discoveries. His cook had left earlier that week, after finding another job. Livermore was already gone. And both maids were off for the weekend, and leaving the following week. |
| 931 |
She went back to get them as Coop used a cautious finger to poke the eggs. They were not only hard, but cold. She'd been talking to a girlfriend on the phone while she cooked. Cooking had never been her strong suit, but what she did in bed with him was, and he was pleased. The only problem was, she couldn't talk. Except about her hair, and her makeup and her moisturizer, and the last photo shoot she'd been on. She was extremely limited, but it wasn't her conversation which fascinated him. He just liked being with her. There was something very invigorating about young girls. He had a marvelous way with women her age, he was debonair and fun and worldly wise and sophisticated, and besides which, he took her shopping nearly every day. She had never had as much fun in her life as she was having with Coop. She didn't care how old he was. She had a whole new wardrobe, and he'd bought her diamond earrings and a diamond bracelet the week before. There was no question about it. Cooper Winslow knew how to live. He flushed the eggs down the toilet when she went back downstairs to get him a glass of orange juice, and she was proud to see that he had eaten everything. And as soon as she ate hers, he brought her back to bed with him, where they spent the afternoon. And that night, he took her to Le Dome for dinner. She loved going to Spago with him too. It was a real thrill for her to see everyone stare at them as they recognized him and wanted to see who he was with. Men looked at him enviously, and women raised an eyebrow as they looked at them, and Pamela liked that too. He drove her back to her apartment that night, after dinner. He'd had a fun weekend with her, but he had a busy week ahead. He was shooting a car commercial, which was a big deal, and they were paying him handsomely for it, and it was going to be Liz's last week. Coop was actually happy to climb into his bed alone that night. Pamela was a lot of fun, but after a while, she was just a kid. And he no longer was. |
| 932 |
She never wrote a single message down, and only told him about them when she thought of it, which worried him. But she seemed to know who the players were. So far, at least. And she was becoming a more interesting character herself day by day. Paloma had met Mark the previous week, and she had offered to do some laundry for him, when he told her the washing machine in the guest wing was out of order. And the stove still was too. She had told him that he could use the kitchen in the main house if he needed to. She said Coop never came down to the kitchen himself in the morning, and she gave him a key to the connecting door between the main house and the guest wing. The espresso machine in the guest wing was broken too. Mark had made a list of all of it, and the realtor had promised him it would all be repaired, but with Liz gone, there was no one to take care of it, except Coop himself, which wasn't likely to happen, they both knew. Mark was taking his clothes out to be laundered, and Paloma was doing sheets and towels for him, and with the use of Coop's espresso machine on the weekends, he had no other needs. He was using the microwave instead of the stove, and the only time he'd need the stove would be when he had the kids. He was sure it would be fixed by then, even if he had to take care of it himself, and he told the realtor he was willing to. She said she would see what she could do. But Coop never returned any of her calls, or his. And Coop was scheduled to do another commercial that week, for a brand of chewing gum. It was a ridiculous ad, but the pay was decent enough so his agent had talked him into it. He was working more than usual these days, although no features had surfaced yet. His agent had been beating the bushes for him to no avail. His reputation was too well known in Hollywood, and given the kind of parts he wanted to play, romantic leads, leading men, he was simply too old. He wasn't ready to play fathers or grandfathers yet. And there hadn't been any demand for aging playboys in years. |
| 933 |
And he was relieved when Pamela told him when she got back from Milan that she'd gotten involved with the photographer on the shoot. Those things had a way of working themselves out, particularly in Coop's world. It was all about bodies and temporary alliances and quick affairs. It was only when he went out with famous actresses that he encouraged the rumors about engagements and wedding bells. But he wanted none of that with Charlene. She was all about having a good time, and seeing that he had fun too. He'd already been on two major shopping sprees with her, which had eaten both checks his tenants had given him, but he thought she deserved it, as he explained to Abe when the accountant called and warned him he'd have to sell the house if he didn't behave. "You'd better give up starving models and actresses, Coop. You need to find a rich wife." Coop laughed at him and said he'd give it some thought, but marriage had never appealed to Coop. All he wanted to do was play, and that's what he was going to do, or planned to anyway, until his dying day. The following weekend Mark went to New York to see his kids. He had told Paloma all about them by then. She had done a little cleaning for him, and he'd paid her handsomely. She would have done it for him anyway. She felt sorry for him when he told her his wife had left him for another man, and she started leaving fresh fruit in a bowl on his kitchen table, and some tortillas she'd made. She liked hearing about his kids. It was easy to see he was crazy about them. There were photographs of them all over the place, and others of him and his wife. But in spite of that, it was a challenging weekend. It was the first time Mark had seen the children since they'd left LA more than a month before. Janet said he should have given them more time to settle in before he came, and she seemed nervous and hostile to him. She was leading a double life, pretending to be unattached when she was with the kids, and continuing her clandestine affair. |
| 934 |
Terribly. He had felt adrift ever since she left. His house and his life were like a ship without a rudder. He still couldn't imagine what he would do without her. And when he checked his appointment book that morning, he saw her careful handwriting in it. He was expected at a dinner party at the Schwartzes' that night. They were the social stars of Hollywood, and had been for two decades. He was a major producer, and she had been an actress and great beauty in the fifties. Coop didn't want to go, but he knew they'd be upset if he didn't. He was far more interested in spending another night with Charlene, and he didn't want to take her with him. She was a little bit too racy for that circle. Charlene was the kind of girl he played with, not someone he wanted to be seen with at formal dinner parties. He had many categories of women. Charlene was an "at home" girl. The major movie stars he reserved for premieres and openings, where they would double their impact on the press by being seen together. And there were a whole flock of young actresses and models he enjoyed going out with. But he preferred going to the Schwartzes' parties alone. They always had a roomful of interesting people, and he never knew who he'd meet there. It was more effective to be alone, and they enjoyed having him as a bachelor. He was fond of both Arnold and Louise Schwartz, and he called Charlene and told her he couldn't see her that night, and she was a good sport about it. She said she needed a night off anyway, to wax her legs and do her laundry. She needed her "beauty sleep," she said, which was the one thing he knew she didn't need. She had no problem staying up all night, and looking ravishing in the morning. And he was always willing to ravish. But tonight belonged to the Schwartzes. He met with a producer at lunch, had a massage afterwards, and a manicure. He had a nap, and a glass of champagne, when he woke up, and at eight o'clock, he was wearing his dinner jacket as he stepped out the front door. |
| 935 |
He had driven Coop for years, and he drove other stars as well. He made a good living doing freelance driving. It made more sense for Coop than having a full time driver. Most of the time he preferred driving himself. When Coop got to the Schwartzes' enormous mansion on Brooklawn Drive, there were a hundred people already standing in the front hall, drinking champagne and paying homage to the Schwartzes. She looked stylish in a dark blue gown, and was wearing a fabulous collection of sapphires. And all around her, Coop saw the usual suspects, ex presidents and first ladies, politicians, art dealers, producers, directors, internationally known lawyers, and the usual smattering of movie stars, some more current than Coop, but none as famous. He was instantly surrounded by a flock of adoring admirers of both sexes. And an hour later, they went in to dinner, as Coop followed the herd. He was seated at the same table as another well known actor of a similar vintage, and there were two famous writers at their table, and an important Hollywood agent. The head of one of the major studios was also seated there, and Coop made a mental note to speak to him after dinner. He had heard they were making a feature that was perfect for him. He knew the woman on his right, she was one of the better known Hollywood matrons, whose parties tried to rival Louise Schwartz's but didn't. And on his left was a young woman he had never met before. She had a delicate, aristocratic face, big brown eyes, ivory skin, and dark hair pulled back in a bun, like a Degas ballerina. "Good evening," he said pleasantly. He noticed that she was small and lithe, and he wondered if she actually was a dancer. And as a brigade of waiters served the first course, he asked her, and she laughed. It wasn't the first time someone had asked her that, and she claimed she was flattered. She knew who he was, and had been excited to find him sitting next to her. Her place card said Alexandra Madison, which meant nothing to him. |
| 936 |
That was a closed chapter for her. She only went for major holidays and state occasions, and as seldom as she could. Coop had a fascinating evening with her. They talked about a thousand different subjects, Kenya again, and Indonesia, where she had done extensive traveling after college. And Bali, which was one of her favorite places, along with Nepal, where she'd gone trekking. She talked about the books she liked to read, most of which were surprisingly serious. And she had very eclectic taste in music. She knew a lot about antiques and architecture. And she was interested in politics, particularly as it related to medicine, and she was surprisingly knowledgeable about recent legislation on the subject. He had never known anyone like her. She had a mind like a finely tuned machine, and she was far better than any computer. He had to work hard to keep up with her, and he liked that. And when he asked, she told him she was thirty. She assumed he was somewhere in his late fifties, early sixties. She knew he'd been making movies for a long time, but she didn't know how old he'd been when he started. She would have been startled to realize that he had recently turned seventy, and he certainly didn't look it. She had a delightful evening with him, and she said so as he drove her home. It was only nine thirty, and he'd been careful not to keep her out late, or he knew she'd be reluctant to see him again, if he dragged her around till midnight and she felt like death the next morning. He knew she had to get up at six thirty. "You were a good sport to come out with me," Coop said generously. "I would have been very disappointed if you hadn't." "That's nice of you, Coop. I had a great time, and the dinner was delicious." Simple, but good, and just spicy enough, the way she liked it. And he had been extremely good company, even better than she'd expected. She had feared he would be all glitter and flash and charm, and very much a product of his business. She was surprised to find him intelligent and warm, and well informed. |
| 937 |
He poured the wine liberally, and by the time the two younger men left at ten o'clock, they had had a lot to drink, and they felt as though they had a new friend in Coop, or a very old one. The wine had been exceptional, and the dinner delicious. And he seemed no worse for wear when they left him. "He's a great guy," Mark commented to Jimmy as they walked toward the guest wing. "He's a character certainly," Jimmy agreed, realizing through the haze that surrounded him that he was going to have a hell of a headache in the morning, but at the moment it seemed worth it to him. It had been a very amusing evening. More than he could ever have dreamed it would be. Hanging out with a famous movie star seemed totally surreal. The two friends said goodnight to each other, Mark went back to the guest wing, and Jimmy to the gatehouse, as Coop sat in the library, smiling to himself, sipping a glass of port. He'd had a very pleasant evening, although different than he'd expected. He was sorry that Alex had had to leave so early, but his two tenants had been fun, and surprisingly good company. And the firemen had added a little spice to the evening. As Alex sat in her office at the hospital, sipping a cup of coffee, it was midnight before she had time to call Coop, and by then, she was sure it was too late to call. She hadn't had the evening she had expected to have either. The hydrocephalic baby had come in and was in a lot of trouble. And the first one that had coded earlier was doing a lot better. The one they had lost was a heartbreak for all of them. She wondered if she'd ever get used to that, but it was the nature of her business. And as she settled down on a cot in her office to get some sleep, she wondered what it would be like if she ever took Coop seriously, if one even could. It was hard to know who he really was behind the charm, and the wit, and the stories. She wondered if it was all a facade, or if there was someone real inside. It was hard to say, but she was tempted to find out. |
| 938 |
He had never known another woman like her. He'd been involved with career women before, and even a couple of lawyers, but never a doctor. And not a resident. His dating life with her consisted of pizzas, fast food, and Chinese takeout, and nearly every meal, movie, and evening was interrupted by calls from the hospital. She couldn't help it. It was why most residents had no personal life, and most of them dated doctors or nurses, or other med students or residents. Dating a famous movie star was a whole other experience for her. But she was clear about the demands on her time, and she did the best she could to juggle. Coop did his best to adjust to it. He was excited about her. And most of the time, he forgot about her fortune. Every now and then, it crossed his mind, and it only enhanced the package further. Like a red ribbon on a Christmas gift. But he tried not to think about it. His only concern was how her parents would feel about him. So far, he hadn't dared discuss it with her. Things were moving slowly between them, partially because of the number of hours and days she worked, and in part because she'd been badly burned, and was extremely cautious. She didn't want to make another mistake, and she had no intention of moving quickly with Coop. He had kissed her after the fifth date, but they had gone no further, and he didn't press her. He was smarter than that, and far more patient. He wasn't going to sleep with her until she begged him for it. He knew instinctively that if he pushed her, she might back off or bolt, and he didn't want that to happen. He was more than willing to wait until she was ready for him to make a move. He was exquisitely patient. And Charlene had finally disappeared off his screen. After two weeks of his not responding to her calls, she had stopped calling. Even Paloma approved of Alex. It would have been hard not to. But Paloma felt sorry for her, and wondered if she knew what she was getting into, although Coop was behaving for the time being. |
| 939 |
And he didn't mention her to them. He didn't think it was a good idea for people to know they were dating. He wanted to keep every possible breath of scandal from her. He knew how proper and decent she was, and she would have hated being dragged through the tabloids, as a member of a chorus line he was now trying to avoid. She knew of his reputation to some extent, he had been a glamorous playboy around Hollywood for decades after all, but he preferred to keep the details from her. And at the places where they dined, they were unlikely to catch the attention of the tabloids. He hadn't taken her to a decent restaurant yet, simply because she never had the time or the energy for an elegant evening. She was always working. It was a major victory when they went to a movie. And she enjoyed coming to The Cottage whenever she was off on the weekends. She swam in the pool, and she cooked dinner for him one night, and then had to leave before she could eat it with him. She was used to it, but it was a major adjustment for Coop. He had had no idea what he was getting into. But it seemed challenging, and she was so bright and intelligent, the obstacles and inconveniences seemed worth it to him. She enjoyed chatting with Mark when she ran into him at the pool. He talked a lot about his kids, and shared with her one night, the problems he was having with them and Janet, and Adam. He admitted to Alex that he didn't really want them to like the man who had destroyed his marriage, and at the same time he didn't want his kids to be unhappy. Alex felt sorry for him, and liked talking to him. She saw less of Jimmy than she did of Mark. He seemed to work almost as hard as she did. He visited foster homes on some evenings, and coached a softball team in the projects. But Mark always said what a great guy he was, and he told her what he knew about Maggie. Her heart went out to him as she listened, but Jimmy never talked about his wife when Alex saw him. He kept to himself a lot of the time, and he seemed uncomfortable around women. |
| 940 |
He hated the fact that he was single again. In his heart, he was still married. And by then, she had figured out that they were both tenants, although Coop never admitted it to her, and she never questioned him about it. She figured it was none of her business what his financial arrangements were with them. She had dated Coop for three weeks when he invited her to go away for a weekend. She said she would see if she could get the time, although she doubted it, and was amazed when she found she could arrange it. Her only condition was separate rooms at the hotel. She wasn't ready to commit her body to the relationship yet. She wanted to take her time, and move slowly, but she was immensely attracted to him. And she told Coop she would pay for her own hotel room. They were going to stay at a resort he knew in Mexico, and she was excited about it. She hadn't taken a vacation since she started her residency, and she loved to travel. Two days of sun and fun with him sounded like heaven to her. And she assumed that by going to Mexico, they would avoid any noise in the tabloids. No one would know what they were up to. It was a naive assessment on her part, and Coop didn't disabuse her of it. It suited his purposes not to. He wanted to go away with her, and didn't want to discourage her from going by frightening her about the press. He wanted to keep everything simple and pleasant. They left on a Friday night, and the hotel was even more beautiful than he had promised her it would be. They had connecting rooms, and an enormous living room and patio, their own pool, and a little private beach just beyond it. They never saw anyone, except when they wanted to. And in the late afternoon, they went into town, wandered into shops, and sat at outdoor cafes drinking margaritas. It felt like a honeymoon, and on the second night, just as he had hoped she would, she seduced him. She wasn't even drunk when she did it. She wanted to. She was falling in love with him. No man had ever been as kind to her, as thoughtful, or as gentle. |
| 941 |
All she did was sleep there. "If anyone sees this, they're going to condemn it." All he could do was laugh at the way she lived. She was so exquisite and so delicate, but all she had cared about for years was being a doctor. He had seen gas stations that were more inviting. "I think you should throw a match into this place and move in with me immediately." But he knew she wouldn't. She was far too cautious and independent to do that. Not for a while at least. But in spite of the unmade bed and the grim decor, he spent the night with her, and got up with her when she left for work at six o'clock the next morning. And when he got back to The Cottage, he truly missed her. He had never felt that way before about any woman. Paloma came in later that morning, and when she saw the look on his face, she was intrigued. She was beginning to think he really was in love with the young doctor. It almost made her like him better. Maybe he had a heart after all. He was out at a series of appointments all afternoon, and posed for the cover of GQ. It was six o'clock when he got home, and he knew Alex was still working. She was going to be at the hospital until the next morning. She had to pay her dues for the trip to Mexico. She was going to have to work for several days to pay people back for the shifts they had taken for her. He had just settled down in the library with a glass of champagne, and put some music on, when he heard a terrifying sound at the front door. It sounded like a machine gun, or a series of explosions, as though part of the house were falling down, and he got up to look out the window. At first he didn't see anything, and then he caught a glimpse of a young boy, and Coop's eyes opened wide with amazement. The little hooligan was riding a skateboard down the marble steps, and using it to do exotic jumps, and land on the marble that stretched out around it. He did it again and again, and with a few quick strides, Coop reached the front door and yanked it open with a look of fury. |
| 942 |
Jimmy was sitting in his kitchen going over a stack of papers he'd brought home from work, and trying to decide if he wanted to cook dinner. He never seemed to eat dinner anymore, except when friends from work talked him into it, or Mark came by with a steak and a six pack. He didn't care if he ate or not, if he lived or didn't. He was just getting through the days. And the nights were endless. It had been three months since Maggie died, and he was beginning to wonder if it would ever get better. There was no end in sight to the grief he was feeling. And at night, he lay in bed and cried. He never fell asleep until 3 or 4 A.M., and some nights he was awake until daylight. He knew that moving into the gatehouse had been a good thing, but what he also knew now was that he had brought Maggie with him. She went with him everywhere, in his heart, in his head, in his bones, in his body. She was part of him now, part of every thought and reaction. Part of the way he looked at things, and what he believed, and wanted. Sometimes he felt more Maggie than Jimmy. He saw everything through her eyes. She had taught him so much. He wondered sometimes if that was why she had died. Because she had taught all the lessons she was meant to. But thinking that still didn't make it any easier for him. He missed her unbearably, and the pain he felt night and day was barely tolerable. Nothing made it better. He managed to stave it off for a few hours sometimes, like when he hung out with Mark, or went to work, or coached softball to the kids he worked with. But it was always waiting there for him, like an old friend, the pain that lurked everywhere and waited to overtake him. It was a fight he couldn't seem to win. For the moment, the pain was still winning. He had just decided not to bother cooking anything, when he heard a knock on the door, and got up to answer it. He was looking tired and disheveled, and smiled when he saw it was Mark. Jimmy saw less of him now, because Mark was busy with his children. |
| 943 |
While Alex was meeting with her father, Coop was relaxing under a tree, beside the pool. He was always careful to stay out of the sun, to protect his skin. It was part of the secret of why he never seemed to age. And he loved the peace and quiet of being at the pool in the daytime during the week. There was no one else around. His tenants were at work, and Mark's miserable kids were in school. He was lying there, looking pensive in the shade of the tree, and wondering what her father was saying to her. He was almost certain it was about him, in part at least. And he was sure her father wouldn't approve. He just hoped the old man wouldn't upset Alex too much. But even Coop had to admit her father had cause to be concerned. He wasn't exactly solvent at the moment. And if her father had done an investigation, he was undoubtedly well aware of it. For the first time in his life, it actually bothered Coop what someone might think of him. For both their sakes, he had been meticulously scrupulous with her, in spite of his financial woes. She was just such a decent person, that it was hard to take advantage of her, although he'd thought of it. But so far, he had been remarkably good, and had held himself in check. Besides which, he was seriously beginning to suspect he really was in love with her, whatever that meant to him. It had meant different things over the years. Lately, it meant being comfortable and at ease, not having headaches in the relationship. Sometimes just liking her was enough. There were so many difficult women out there, and girls like Charlene. It was so much easier being with a woman like Alex. She was fair and kind and funny, and she didn't ask for much. He liked that about her too. She was wonderfully self sufficient, and if he did get desperate and the bottom fell out of his life financially, he knew he could turn to her. The money she had was like an insurance policy for him. He didn't need it yet, but he might one day. He wasn't with her because of her money, but he liked knowing it was there. |
| 944 |
She told Alex all about it whenever they got together. It was a whole new world for her, and she thought it was fun. And sooner or later she had to decide whether or not to go back to New York, or to get involved in something in LA. But she was in no hurry to make the decision. She was having too much fun, and there was no pressure on her. Alex thought she'd been a good influence on Coop. Although he'd been wonderful before, he somehow seemed more grounded, and more interested in other people's lives suddenly. He wasn't quite as focused on himself. He actually sounded as though it mattered to him when he asked Alex what she'd done at work. But when she explained it to him, he still looked a little blank. The complicated medical interventions she participated in were a little beyond him, as they would have been for most people. But if nothing else, he seemed happy and mellow these days. He was working a little, but not enough, he said. Abe was still complaining to him. And he had heard from Liz, who was stunned by the number of people living on the property. She worried about how much the Friedman kids might annoy him, and she was touched at his story about Taryn finding him. "I leave you for five minutes, Coop, and you have a whole new world of people around you." Like Alex, she thought he sounded remarkably peaceful and content. More than she'd ever heard him. And when she asked him about Alex, he was vague. He had his own questions about that, but he didn't share them with anyone. It was occurring to him increasingly that if he just allowed himself to marry her, he would never have to work again. And if he didn't, he would be hustling cameo roles forever. It was so tempting to just let himself go, but he hated to take the easy way out, even at his age. Another, more practical side of him, told him he had earned it. But she was such an honest, decent person, and she worked so hard herself, he actually hated to take advantage of her. He loved her, and the easy life was so tempting. |
| 945 |
She deserved better than an aging movie star, Valerie knew, after talking to her for hours. She needed a young man who loved her and cared about her and would be there for her, and would give her babies. Like Jimmy. But Valerie knew better than to say anything to either of them. They were friends, and for the moment, it was all either of them wanted. Alex came to see Jimmy every day, when she was working, and when she wasn't. She came down to see him on her breaks, and brought him books to keep him entertained, and told him funny stories. She even brought him a remote controlled fart machine, so he could wreak havoc with the nurses. It wasn't dignified, but he adored it. And late at night, she would come down quietly, and they spent long hours talking about things that mattered. His work, hers, his parents' marriage, his life with Maggie, the agonizing way he missed her. She told him about Carter and her sister. About her parents, and the relationship she had wanted with them as a child, and never had, because both of them were incapable of it. Little by little, they fed each other their secrets and tested uncharted waters. They were entirely unaware of it, and had anyone asked, they would have insisted it was friendship. Only Valerie knew better. She was highly suspicious of the label they put on it. The brew they were concocting was far more potent, whether or not they knew it. And she was happy for them. The only fly in the ointment, as far as she could see, was Coop. And that weekend, she got a look at the fly for herself. She hadn't met him until then. And she had to admit, he was very impressive. He was everything Jimmy had said he was, egotistical, self centered, arrogant, entertaining, and charming. But there was more to him than that. Jimmy just wasn't old enough to see it, or mature enough to understand it. What she saw in Coop was a man who was vulnerable, and scared. No matter how youthful he looked, or how many young women he surrounded himself with, he knew the game was almost over. |
| 946 |
Just as he felt youth was wasted on the young, money was wasted on the overly philanthropic. He thought money was meant to be spent and have a good time with. Alex hid hers, or ignored it. She needed lessons in how to spend it. Lessons he could easily have given her, but hesitated to for the moment. His conscience again, damnably. He was still trying to overcome it. It was new to him, and becoming an infernal nuisance. Coop saw Valerie again the next day, at the pool. She was sitting in the shade of his favorite tree. She had taken the day off from visiting Jimmy, and was going to see him that evening. She lay on a chaise longue in a perfectly simple black bikini, and did herself credit wearing it. She had a very reasonable body. Both Alex and Taryn were envious of her and hoped they looked half as good at her age. And when they'd said so, Valerie said she was just lucky, she had good genes, and did very little to maintain it. But she was grateful for the praise of the younger women. Coop invited her up to the house for a glass of champagne afterwards, and she came, just to say she had seen it, and was surprised by how beautiful it was, and how restrained. There was nothing showy about the house. It was all in perfect taste, with splendid antiques and exquisite fabrics. It was definitely the house of a grown up, as she put it, when discussing it later with Jimmy. And once again, she thought Alex was out of place there. But they seemed happy together. She was actually beginning to think that Coop was serious about Alex. He was so solicitous, so attentive, so loving. He was obviously smitten with her, but it was hard to tell with Coop how much depth there was to anything. He kept everything in his life on the surface, particularly his emotions. But she could easily see him marrying her, even if for the wrong reasons, to prove something, or worse, to slide into the Madison money. Valerie hoped, for Alex's sake, that there was more sincerity to it than that, but it was difficult to determine. |
| 947 |
But it doesn't. It's not right between us. Even with my debts paid, I'm too old for you. People would always think I was after your money. And it's not right for a girl your age to be with a man like me. You need a husband and babies, and a real life, maybe with someone from your own world, or someone who does the same kind of work you do. I think if we tried to make this work permanently, it would be a huge mistake. I'm so sorry if I hurt you, Alex. I learned a lot from you, but that's a poor excuse to have done it at your expense. Maybe it wasn't about the money. But it just doesn't feel right. Maybe we both need people closer to our own age. I don't know why, but all my instincts tell me that we both need to walk away from this before we make a real mess of it. If it's any consolation, you've taken a piece of my heart with you. Just keep it close to you, like a locket, or a lock of hair. But let's not go back and make a big mistake we'll both regret. I think we both need to go forward instead of back In light of the time they'd spent together and what she'd felt for him, she had hoped he would say something different to her, but she didn't disagree with him. She just didn't want to lose. But she had thought about it a lot in the past weeks too, and her conclusions weren't very different than his. She missed him terribly, and she'd had a wonderful time with him, but something in her gut stopped her from trying to talk him into it, or even wanting to go back herself. But she had felt compelled to ask. In truth, she wanted to explore things with Jimmy now. That felt right to her. In a funny way, more than it ever had with Coop. She and Jimmy had the same passions, the same love for kids, so much so that it spilled over into their work. Jimmy was fascinated by what she did. Coop had always been squeamish about it. And she had never really belonged in Coop's world. She had had fun being in it with him, but she had always felt like a visitor, a tourist, she couldn't really imagine living there for good. |
| 948 |
It occurred to her, as it always did, that one of these days when she met with him, it would really be for the last time. He always said it was. She had begun to expect him to live forever, despite his protests, and in spite of the realities of time. Her law firm had handled his affairs for more than half a century. She had been his estate and tax attorney for the past three years. At thirty eight, Sarah had been a partner of the firm for the past two years, and had inherited Stanley as a client when his previous attorney died. Stanley had outlived them all. He was ninety eight years old. It was hard to believe sometimes. His mind was as sharp as it had ever been, he read voraciously, and he was well aware of every nuance and change in the current tax laws. He was a challenging and entertaining client. Stanley Perlman had been a genius in business all his life. The only thing that had changed over the years was that his body had betrayed him, but never once his mind. He was bedridden now, and had been for nearly seven years. Five nurses attended to him, three regularly in eight hour shifts, two as relief. He was comfortable, most of the time, and hadn't left his house in years. Sarah had always liked and admired him, although others thought he was irascible and cantankerous. She thought he was a remarkable man. She gave the cabdriver Stanley's Scott Street address. They made their way through the downtown traffic in San Francisco's financial district, and headed west uptown, toward Pacific Heights, where he had lived in the same house for seventy six years. The sun was shining brightly as they climbed Nob Hill up California Street, and she knew it might be otherwise when they got uptown. The fog often sat heavily on the residential part of the city, even when it was warm and sunny downtown. Tourists were happily hanging off the cable car, smiling as they looked around. Sarah was bringing Stanley some papers to sign, nothing extraordinary. He was always making minor additions and adjustments to his will. |
| 949 |
Most of his early money had been made in real estate development, trading one building for another, sometimes buying land no one else wanted, and biding his time to either sell it later or build office buildings or shopping centers on it. He had had the same intuitive knack later on, for investing in oil wells. The fortune he had amassed was literally staggering by now. Stanley had been a genius in business, but had done little else in his life. He had no children, had never married, had no contact with anyone but attorneys and nurses. There was no one who cared about Stanley Perlman, except his young attorney, Sarah Anderson, and no one who would miss him when he died, except the nurses he employed. The nineteen heirs listed in the will that Sarah was once again updating for him (this time to include a series of oil wells he had just purchased in Orange County, after selling off several others, once again at the right time) were great nieces and nephews he had never met or corresponded with, and two elderly cousins who were nearly as old as he was, and whom he said he hadn't seen since the late forties but felt some vague attachment to. In truth, he was attached to no one, and made no bones about it. He had had one mission throughout his lifetime, and one only, and that had been making money. He had achieved his goal. He said he had been in love with two women in his younger days, but had never offered to marry either and had lost contact with both of them when they gave up on him and married other men, more than sixty years ago. The only thing he said he regretted was not having children. He thought of Sarah as the grandchild he had never had, but might have, if he had taken the time to get married. She was the kind of granddaughter he would have liked to have. She was smart, funny, interesting, quick, beautiful, and good at what she did. Sometimes, when she brought papers to him, he loved to sit and look at her and talk to her for hours. He even held her hand, something he never did with his nurses. |
| 950 |
They got on his nerves and annoyed him, patronized him, and fussed over him in ways he hated. Sarah never did. She sat there looking young and beautiful, while speaking to him of the things that interested him. She always knew her stuff about new tax laws. He loved the fact that she came up with new ideas about how to save him money. He had been wary of her at first, because of her youth, and then progressively came to trust her, in the course of her visits to his small musty room in the attic of the house on Scott Street. She came up the back stairs, carrying her briefcase, entered his room discreetly, sat on a chair next to his bed, and they talked until she could see he was exhausted. Each time she came to see him, she feared it would be the last time. And then he would call her with some new idea, some new plan that had occurred to him, something he wanted to buy, sell, acquire, or dispose of. And whatever he touched always increased his fortune. Even at ninety eight, Stanley Perlman had a Midas touch when it came to money. And best of all, despite the vast difference in their ages, over the years she'd worked with him, Sarah and Stanley had become friends. Sarah glanced out the window of the cab as they passed Grace Cathedral, at the top of Nob Hill, and sat back against the seat, thinking about him. She wondered if he really was sick, and if it might be the last time. He had had pneumonia twice the previous spring and each time, miraculously, survived it. Maybe now he wouldn't. His nurses were diligent in their care of him, but sooner or later, at his age, something was going to get him. It was inevitable, although Sarah dreaded it. She knew she'd miss him terribly when he was gone. Her long dark hair was pulled neatly back, her eyes were big and almost cornflower blue. He had commented on them the first time he saw her, and asked if she wore colored contact lenses. She had laughed at the question and assured him she didn't. Her usually creamy skin was tan this time, after several weekends in Lake Tahoe. |
| 951 |
The brass bed had been replaced by a hospital bed a decade before. There was an old photograph of the fire after the earthquake on the wall, and not a single photograph of a person anywhere in his room. There had been no people in his life, only investments, and attorneys. There was nothing personal anywhere in the house. The furniture had all been sold separately at auction by the original owners, also for nearly nothing. And Stanley had never bothered to furnish it when he moved in. He had told her that the house had been stripped bare before he got it. The rooms were large and once elegant, there were curtains hanging in shreds at some of the windows. Others were boarded up, so the curious couldn't look in. And although she'd never seen it, Sarah had been told there was a ballroom. She had never walked around the house, but came in straight from the service door, up the back stairs, to his attic bedroom. Her only purpose in coming here was to see Stanley. She had no reason to tour the house, except that she knew that one day, more than likely, after he was gone, she would have to sell it. All of his heirs were in Florida, New York, or the Midwest, and none of them would have an interest in owning an enormous white elephant of a house in California. No matter how beautiful it had once been, none of them would have any use for it, just as Stanley hadn't. It was hard to believe he had lived in it for seventy six years and neither furnished it nor moved from the attic. But that was Stanley. Eccentric perhaps, unassuming, unpretentious, and a devoted and respected client. Sarah Anderson was his only friend. The rest of the world had forgotten he existed. And whatever friends he had once had, he had long since outlived them. The cab stopped at the address on Scott Street that Sarah had given the driver. She paid the fare, picked up her briefcase, got out of the cab, and rang the back doorbell. As she had expected, it was noticeably colder and foggy out here, and she shivered in her light jacket. |
| 952 |
She was wearing a thin white sweater under the dark blue suit, and looked businesslike, as she always did, when the nurse opened the door and smiled when she saw her. It took them forever to come downstairs from the attic. There were four floors and a basement, Sarah knew, and the elderly nurses who tended to him moved slowly. The one who opened the door to Sarah was relatively new, but she had seen Sarah before. "Mr. Perlman is expecting you," she said politely, as she stood aside to let Sarah in, and closed the door behind her. They only used the service door, as it was more convenient to the back staircase which led up to the attic. The front door hadn't been touched for years, and was kept locked and bolted. The lights in the main part of the house were never turned on. The only lights that had shone in the house for years were those in the attic. They cooked in a small kitchen on the same floor that had once served as a pantry. The main kitchen, a piece of history now, was in the basement. It had old fashioned iceboxes and a meat locker. In the old days the iceman had come, and brought in huge chunks of ice. The stove was a relic from the twenties, and Stanley hadn't worked it since at least the forties. It was a kitchen that had been meant to be run by a flock of cooks and servants, overseen by a housekeeper and butler. It had nothing to do with Stanley's way of life. For years, he had come home with sandwiches and take out food from diners and simple restaurants. He never cooked for himself, and went out every morning for breakfast in previous years before he was bedridden. The house was a place where he slept in the spartan brass bed, showered and shaved in the morning, and then went downtown to the office he had, to make more money. He rarely came home before ten o'clock at night. Sometimes as late as midnight. He had no reason to rush home. Sarah followed the nurse up the stairs at a solemn pace, carrying her briefcase. The staircase was always dark, lit by a minimal supply of bare bulbs. |
| 953 |
She had done her share of that herself, when she had too much work to do, or brought files with her from the office. She hated leaving anything unfinished. He wasn't entirely wrong about her. In her own way, she was as compulsive about work as he was. The apartment where she lived looked scarcely better than his attic room, just bigger. She was nearly as uninterested in her surroundings as he was. She was just younger and less extreme. The demons that drove them both were very much the same, as he had surmised long since. They chatted for a few minutes, and she handed him the papers she had brought him. He looked them over, but they were already familiar to him. She had sent several drafts over by messenger, for his approval. He had no fax machine or computer. Stanley liked to see original documents, and had no patience with modern inventions. He had never owned a cell phone and didn't need one. There was a small sitting room next to him set up for his nurses. They never ventured far from him, and were either in their tiny sitting room, his room in the uncomfortable chair, watching him, or in the kitchen, preparing his simple meals. Farther down the hall, on the top floor, there were several more small maids' rooms, where the nurses could sleep, if they chose, when they went off duty, or rest, when there was another nurse around. None of them lived in, they just worked there in shifts. The only full time resident of the house was Stanley. His existence and shrunken world were a tiny microcosm on the top floor of the once grand house that was crumbling and falling into disrepair as silently and steadily as he was. "I like the changes that you made," he complimented her. "They make more sense than the draft you sent me last week. This is cleaner, it leaves less room to maneuver." He always worried about what his heirs would do with his various holdings. Since he had never met most of them, and those he had were now so ancient, it was hard to know how they would treat his estate. |
| 954 |
Stanley didn't buy it. He knew her better, and was wiser about life than she. "That's hogwash and you know it," he said sternly. "People haven't changed in two thousand years. The smart ones still settle down, get married, and have kids. Or they wind up like me." He had wound up a very, very rich man, which didn't seem like such a bad thing to her. She was sorry that he had no children, and had no relatives nearby, but living as long as he had, most people wound up alone. He had outlived everyone he had ever known. He might even have lost all his children by then, if he'd had any, and would have only had grandchildren or great grandchildren to comfort him. In the end, she told herself, no matter who we think we have, we leave this world alone. Just as Stanley would. It was just more obvious, in his case. But she knew, from the life her mother had shared with her father, that you can be just as alone, even if you have a spouse and children. She was in no hurry to saddle herself with either. The married people she knew didn't look all that happy to her, and if she ever married and it didn't work out, she didn't need an ex husband to hate and torment her. She knew too many of those, too. She was much happier like this, working, on her own, with a part time boyfriend who met her needs for the moment. The thought of marrying him never crossed her mind, or his. They had both agreed from the beginning that a simple relationship was all they wanted from each other. Simple, and easy. Especially since they were both busy with jobs they loved. Sarah could see then that Stanley was truly exhausted, and she decided to cut the visit short this time. He had signed the papers, which was all she needed. He looked like he was about ready to fall asleep. "I'll come back and see you soon, Stanley. Let me know if you need anything. I'll come over whenever you like," she said gently, patting the frail hand again after she stood up and took the papers from him. She slipped them into her briefcase as he watched her with a wistful smile. |
| 955 |
She clattered down the steel stairs again, her steps resonating on the iron staircase, as the sound reverberated in the narrow hall. The threadbare carpet did little to muffle the din. And it was a relief when she stepped out of the service door into the noon sunshine that had finally come uptown. She walked slowly down to Union Street, thinking of him, and found a cab there. She gave the driver the address of her office building, and thought of Stanley all the way downtown. She was afraid he wouldn't last much longer. He seemed to be finally sliding slowly downhill. Her visit had perked him up, but even Sarah knew it wouldn't be much longer. It was almost too much to hope that he would reach his ninety ninth birthday in October. And why? He had so little to live for, and he was so alone. His life was so confined by the tiny room he lived in, and the four walls of the cell where he was trapped for the remainder of his days. He had lived a good life, or at least a productive one, and the lives of his nineteen heirs would be forever changed when he died. It depressed Sarah to think about it. She knew she would miss Stanley when he was gone. She tried not to think about the many warnings he gave her about her own life. She had years to think about babies and marriage. For now, she had a career that meant the world to her, and a desk full of work waiting for her at the office, although she appreciated his concern. She had exactly the life she wanted. It was shortly after noon as she hurried back to her office. She had a partners' meeting at one o'clock, meetings scheduled with three clients that afternoon, and fifty pages of new tax laws to read that night, all or some of which would be pertinent to her clients. She had a stack of messages waiting on her desk, and she managed to return all but two of them before the meeting with her partners. She would return the other two, and whatever new ones she had, between client meetings later that afternoon. She had no time for lunch. |
| 956 |
Sarah continued to send books and relevant articles to Stanley, as she always did, through July and August. He had a brief bout of flu in September, which didn't require a hospital stay this time. And he was in remark ably good spirits when she visited him on his ninety ninth birthday in October. There was a sense of victory to it. It was a remarkable achievement to reach ninety nine years of age. She brought him a cheesecake and put a candle in it. She knew it was his favorite, and reminded him of his childhood in New York. For once, he didn't scold her about how hard she was working. They talked at length about a new tax law that was being proposed, which could prove advantageous to his estate. He had the same concerns about it she did, and they both enjoyed batting theories back and forth with each other, about how current tax laws might be affected. He was as clear and sharp as ever and didn't seem quite as frail as he had on her previous visit. He had a new nurse who was making a real effort to make him eat, and Sarah thought he had even gained a little weight. She kissed him on the cheek, as she always did, when she left, and told him that they'd be celebrating his hundredth birthday the following October. "Christ, I hope not," he said, laughing at her. "Whoever thought I'd make it this far," he said as they celebrated together. She left him a stack of new books, some music to listen to, and a pair of black satin pajamas that seemed to amuse him. She'd never seen him in better spirits, which made the call she got two weeks later, on the first of November, more shocking somehow. It shouldn't have been. She had always known it would come. But it caught her off guard anyway. After more than three years of doing legal work for him, and enjoying their resulting friendship, she really had begun to expect him to live forever. The nurse told her that Stanley had died peacefully in his sleep the night before, listening to the music she had given him and wearing the black satin pajamas. |
| 957 |
He had eaten a good dinner, drifted off to sleep and out of this world, without a gasp or a whimper, or a final word to anyone. The nurse had found him when she went to check on him an hour later. She said the look on his face was completely peaceful. Tears sprang to Sarah's eyes as she heard it. She'd had a hard morning at the office, after a heated debate with two of her partners over something they'd done that she didn't agree with, and she felt they'd ganged up on her. And the night before, she'd had a fight with the man she dated, which wasn't all that unusual, but upset her anyway. In the past year, they had begun to disagree more. They both had busy days, and stressful lives. They confined their time together to weekends. But sometimes she and Phil got on each other's nerves over minor irritations. Hearing about Stanley dying in the night was the topper. She felt suddenly bereft, reminded of when her father had died when she was sixteen, twenty two years before. In an odd way, Stanley was the only father figure she'd had since then, even though he was a client. He was always telling her not to work too hard, and to learn from his mistakes. No other man she knew had ever said that to her, and she knew how much she was going to miss him. But this was what they had prepared for, why she had come into his life, to plan his estate, and how it would be dispersed to his heirs. It was time for her to do her job. All the groundwork had been laid over the past three years. Sarah was organized and ready. Everything was in order. "Will you make the arrangements?" the nurse asked her. She had already notified the other nurses, and Sarah said she'd call the funeral parlor. He had long since selected the one he wanted, although he had been emphatic that there be no funeral. He wanted to be cremated and buried, without fuss or fanfare. There would be no mourners. All his friends and business associates were long dead, and his family didn't know him. There was only Sarah to make the arrangements. |
| 958 |
She made the appropriate phone calls after speaking to the nurse. She was surprised to see that her hand shook as she made the calls. He was to be cremated the next morning, and buried at Cypress Lawn, in a spot he had purchased in the mausoleum a dozen years before. They asked if there would be a service, and she said no. The funeral home picked him up within the hour, and she felt somber all day, particularly as she dictated the letter to his unsuspecting heirs. She offered a reading of the will in her offices in San Francisco, which Stanley had requested, should they wish to come out, at which time they might like to inspect the house they had inherited, and decide how they wished to dispose of it. There was always the remote possibility that one of them would want to keep it, and buy out the others' shares, although she and Stanley had always considered that unlikely. None of them lived in San Francisco, and wouldn't want a house there. There were a multitude of details to attend to. And she had been advised by the cemetery that Stanley would be interred at nine o'clock the next morning. She knew it would be several days, or longer, before she began hearing from his heirs. For those who didn't wish to come out, or couldn't, she would send them copies of the will, as soon as it had been read. And his estate had to be put into probate. It would take some time to release the assets. She set all the wheels in motion that day. By late afternoon, the head nurse had come to the office to bring all the nurses' keys to her. The cleaning woman who had come in for years, just to clean the attic rooms, was going to continue working. There was a service that came in once a month to clean the rest of the house, but nothing was changed for them. It was startling how little had to be done at this point. And Stanley had so few personal effects and so little furniture, that when they cleaned out the house for a real estate broker, Goodwill could take it all away. There was nothing the heirs would want. |
| 959 |
Phil liked to leave his at the office. She brought hers home with her, in many ways. She brought files home to work on, and worried about her clients, their tax problems and plans. Phil left his clients at the office, and their worries on his desk. Sarah carried them around with her. And her sadness over Stanley weighed heavily on her. There was no one to say anything to, no one to tell. No one to share the overwhelming feeling of emptiness with her. What she felt was impossible to explain. She felt bereft, just as she had when her father died, only this was worse. There was none of the shock she'd had then, and none of the relief. There was no real loss when her father died, except the loss of an idea. The idea of the father he'd never been. He had been the phantom father her mother had created for her. The fantasy her mother had propagated for him. At the time her father died, although they lived in the same house, Sarah hadn't really talked to him in years. She couldn't. He was always too drunk to talk or think, or go anywhere with her. He just came home from work and drank himself into a stupor, and eventually didn't even bother to go to work. He just sat in the room he and her mother shared, drinking, while her mother attempted to cover for him, and worked to support all three of them, selling real estate, and coming home during the day to check on him. He died at forty six, of liver disease, and had been a total stranger to her. Stanley had been her friend. And in some strange way this was worse. With Stanley gone, there was actually someone to miss. She sat in her office and cried, finally, as she thought about it, and then she picked up her briefcase and left. She took a cab home and let herself into her apartment in Pacific Heights, a dozen blocks from Stanley's house on Scott Street, and walked straight to her desk. She checked her messages. Her mother had left her one earlier. At sixty one, she was still working, but had shifted from real estate to interior design. |
| 960 |
Sarah said she was addicted to twelve step groups. Her mother was always busy and spinning her wheels, but she seemed happy doing it. She had called Sarah to check in, and said she was on her way out for the evening. As she listened to the message, Sarah sat down on the couch, staring straight ahead. She hadn't eaten dinner and didn't care. There was two day old pizza in the fridge, and she knew she could have made a salad if she wanted one, but she didn't. She didn't want anything tonight except the comfort of her bed. She needed time to grieve, before doing everything she had to do for Stanley. She knew the next day she'd be fine, or thought she would, but right now she needed to let go. She stretched out on the couch and hit the remote for the TV. All she needed was sound, voices, something to fill the silence and the void she felt welling up in her. Her apartment was as empty as she was tonight. The apartment itself was in as much disarray as she felt. She never noticed it and didn't now. Her mother nagged her constantly about it, and Sarah always fobbed her off, and said she liked it that way. She liked to say her apartment looked studious and intelligent. She didn't want fluffy curtains, or a bedspread with ruffles. She didn't need cute little cushions on the couch, or plates that matched. She had a battered old brown couch she had had since college, a coffee table she'd bought at Goodwill in law school. Her desk was an old door she'd found somewhere and put on two sawhorses. She had rolling file cabinets stashed underneath it. Her bookcases took up one wall, full of law books that were crammed into the shelves, with the overflow stacked up in piles on the floor. There were two very handsome brown leather chairs that had been a gift from her mother, along with a big mirror that hung over the couch. There were two dead plants, and a fake silk ficus tree her mother had found somewhere, a tired looking beanbag seat Sarah had brought back from Harvard, and a small battered dining table with four unmatched chairs. |
| 961 |
Sarah's apartment looked no different than any of hers had since she had been in college and law school. It was functional, if not beautiful, and it served her needs. She had a stereo system she liked, and Phil had bought her the TV, since she didn't have one, and he liked watching it when he was at her place, mostly for sports. And she had to admit, now and then she enjoyed it, like tonight. She liked hearing the droning of the voices on some innocuous sitcom, and then her cell phone rang. She debated answering it, and then realized it might be Phil, returning her call. She picked it up, glanced at the caller ID, and saw that it was. She saw his number with a mixture of dread and relief. She knew if he said the wrong thing, it would upset her, but she had to take the chance. She needed some form of human contact tonight, to make up for Stanley's absence from now on. She turned down the volume on the TV with the remote in one hand, flipped open her cell phone with the other, and put it to her ear. "Hi," she said, feeling her mind go blank. "What's up? I missed a call, and saw that it was you. I'm just leaving the gym." He was one of those people who insisted he needed to go to the gym every night to ward off stress, except when he saw his kids. He stayed at the gym for two or three hours after work, which made dinner with him during the week impossible, since he never left his office till at least eight. One of the things that appealed to her about him was that he had a sexy voice. It sounded good to her tonight, whatever the words. She missed him and would have loved him to come over. She wasn't sure what he'd say if she asked. Their long standing agreement, mostly unspoken, though occasionally put into words, was that they saw each other only on weekends, and alternated between her place and his, depending on whose was the bigger mess. Usually it was his. So they stayed at hers, although he complained that her bed was too soft and hurt his back. He put up with it to be with her. |
| 962 |
Sometimes he got it, and sometimes he didn't. So far, he didn't tonight. "Don't even go there, babe. This guy wasn't your father. He was a client. I had kind of a shit day myself. I was in deposition all day, and my client in this case is a total asshole. I wanted to strangle the son of a bitch halfway through the deposition. I figured opposing counsel would do it for me, but he didn't. I wish to hell he had. We'll never win the case." Phil hated losing cases, just like he hated losing at sports. It put him in a bad mood sometimes for weeks, or days at least. He played softball in the summer on Monday nights. And rugby in winter. He had played ice hockey at Dartmouth, and had lost his front teeth, which had been beautifully replaced. He was a very handsome man. At forty two, he still looked thirty, and was in fantastic shape. Sarah had been bowled over by his looks the first time they met and, much as she hated to admit it, ever since. There was some sort of powerful chemistry between them, which defied reason or words. He was the sexiest man she'd ever met. It wasn't enough to justify the four years they had spent in a weekends only relationship, but it was definitely part of it. Sometimes he drove her nuts with his inflexible opinions, and frequently disappointed her. He wasn't deeply sensitive, or overly attentive, but he definitely turned her on. "I'm sorry you had such a lousy day," she said, feeling as though his didn't even begin to compare to hers, although admittedly depositions could be a bitch, and so could bad clients, particularly in his line of work. Labor law was incredibly stressful. He handled a lot of discrimination and sexual harassment cases, mostly for men. He seemed to have better rapport with male clients, maybe because he was such a jock. And his firm had a lot of female partners, who worked better with their female clients. "Do you want to come over on your way home? I could use a hug." It was a request she almost never made of him, except when it was direly needed. |
| 963 |
It was why the relationship worked for her sometimes and at other times it didn't. She always felt that Phil should make adjustments for special circumstances, like Stanley's death for instance. Phil was rarely if ever swayed from his path, and only when it suited him, not others. He didn't like being asked for special favors, and she knew it. But they liked each other, and were familiar with each other's quirks and styles. Sometimes it was easy, sometimes it was hard. He said he never wanted to get married again, and had always been straightforward with her about it. She had told him just as honestly that marriage wasn't a priority for her, or even of interest to her, and Phil liked that about her a lot. She didn't think she wanted kids. She had told him that right in the beginning. She said she wasn't about to give anyone a childhood as lousy as hers, with an alcoholic father, although Phil wasn't an alcoholic. He liked a drink now and then, but was never excessive. And he already had kids, and didn't want more. So it had been a good fit in the beginning. In fact for the first three years, it had suited them both to perfection. The shoe had only begun to pinch slightly for the last year, when Sarah mentioned that she'd like to see more of him, like maybe one weekday evening. Phil was outraged the first time she said it, and felt her request was intrusive. He said he needed weekday evenings to himself, except those he spent with his kids. After three years Sarah felt it was time to take a small step forward into more time together. Phil was adamant about it, Sarah had gotten nowhere on the subject for the past year, and they argued about it often now. It was a sore subject for her. He didn't want to spend more time with her, and said the beauty of their relationship had always been mutual freedom, weekdays to themselves, companionship on weekends to the degree they wanted, and not having to make a serious commitment, since neither of them wanted to get married. All he wanted was what they had. |
| 964 |
Phil was smart, charming when he wanted to be, sexy, and good looking, but he was all about himself, and no one else. He had never claimed otherwise, but after four years she expected him to mellow a little and be more flexible. He wasn't. Phil took care of his own needs first. She knew that about him, and didn't always like it. At first he had told her how devoted he was to his kids, that he coached Little League and went to all their games. She had realized eventually that he was just a sports fanatic, and gave up coaching because it ate up too much of his time. And he didn't see his kids on weekends, because he wanted the time to himself. He saw them for dinner twice a week, but never let them spend the night, because they drove him insane. They were thirteen, fifteen, and eighteen. He had one in college now, the other two were still at home with their mother, but as far as he was concerned, they were his ex wife's problem. The two younger kids were girls, and he figured dealing with them was ample punishment for his ex wife having left him for someone else. More than once, Sarah had felt he was transferring his anger at his ex wife onto her, for crimes Sarah had never committed. But someone had to be punished, not only for his ex wife's sins, but worse yet, for those of his mother, who had had the audacity to die and thus abandon him when he was three. He had a lot of scores to settle, and what he couldn't accuse Sarah of, he blamed on his ex wife or kids. Phil had "issues" up the gazoo. But then there were all the rest of the things that she liked about him, well enough to stick around. She had considered it a stopgap relationship at first and it was hard to believe that it had lasted for four years. Much as she hated to admit it to herself, or to her mother, God forbid, Phil defined dead end relationship. Once in a while, Sarah hoped that eventually there would be more substance to it, not marriage, but just more time. By now, she expected him to be closer to her, but he wasn't. |
| 965 |
Sarah drove to the cemetery in Colma, past the long line of car dealerships, and reached Cypress Lawn just before nine. She let the secretary in the office know why she had come, and she was waiting in the mausoleum for the cemetery people to arrive with Stanley's ashes at nine o'clock. They placed the urn inside a small vault, and it took another half hour to seal it up with the small marble slab, while Sarah watched. It unnerved her to see that the slab was blank, and they assured her that the one with his name and dates on it would replace it in a month. Forty minutes later it was over, and she stood outside in the sunlight, looking dazed, wearing a black dress and coat. She felt momentarily disoriented, looked up at the sky, and said, "Good bye, Stanley." And then she got in her car, and drove to the office. Maybe Phil was right, and she was being unprofessional. But whatever this was, it felt awful. She had work to do for him now, the work they had completed so carefully in the three years they had worked together, meticulously preparing his estate, and discussing tax laws. She had to wait to hear from his heirs. She had no idea how long it would take, or if she would have to proactively pursue some of them. Sooner or later, she knew she'd round them up. She had a lot of good news for them, from a great uncle they didn't even know. She tried not to think of Phil, or even of Stanley, on the drive back. She went over a mental list of things she had to do today. Stanley had been buried, as simply and unpretentiously as he had wanted. She had put the wheels in motion to probate the estate. She had to call a realtor to discuss putting the house on the market, and have it appraised. Neither she nor Stanley had had a precise idea of what it was worth. It hadn't been appraised in a long time, and the real estate market had gone up drastically since the last time it was. But the house also hadn't been touched, remodeled, or even freshened up in more than sixty years. There was a huge amount of work to do. |
| 966 |
And denial. She had played that one for years herself. She was unnerved after she hung up the phone. It was hard putting her mother's pointed questions and criticisms out of her head. Her mother always wanted to strip away her defenses, and leave her standing there naked, while she looked over every pore. Her scrutiny was intolerable, and her judgments about everything in Sarah's life just made her feel worse. She was dreading Thanksgiving. She wished she could go to Tahoe with Phil. At least her grandmother would keep things lively. She always did. And more than likely, Mimi would invite one of her boyfriends. They were always very nice men. Mimi had a knack for meeting them, wherever she went. Sarah heard from her grandmother shortly thereafter, reiterating the Thanksgiving invitation Sarah had already had via her mother. In contrast, the conversation with Mimi was lively, loving, and brief. Her grandmother was a gem. After that, Sarah tied up the last loose ends on Stanley's estate, made a list of questions to ask the realtor, and made sure the letters had gone out to notify the heirs. Then she turned to her work for other clients. It turned into another thirteen hour day before she even realized it. It was nearly ten o'clock when she got home, and midnight when she heard from Phil. He sounded tired too and said he was going to bed. He said he hadn't gotten home from the gym till eleven thirty. It was strange knowing he was a few blocks away, yet acted as though he lived in another city five days a week. It was hard not to feel as close to him as she wanted, particularly when other things were rocky in her life. It was impossible to understand sometimes why seeing her once in a while during the week would have been such a travesty to him. To Sarah, after four years, it didn't seem a lot to ask. They spoke on the phone for five minutes, talked about what they would do that weekend, and ten minutes after Sarah talked to him, she fell into a troubled sleep, alone in the bed she hadn't made all week. |
| 967 |
One of Stanley's heirs had contacted her, but she had heard nothing so far from the others. She had an appointment at the house for the following Monday, with the realtor she'd called. She was curious now to see the rest of the house. It had been an enigma to her for years. She had never even glimpsed the other floors, and couldn't wait to see it all on Monday. In the call with her grandmother, just after the one from her mother earlier in the week, Mimi told her to bring whoever she wanted to Thanksgiving. Mimi had always welcomed Sarah's friends. She didn't mention Phil specifically, but Sarah knew the open invitation included him as well. Unlike Audrey, she never pried, criticized, or asked questions that might make Sarah uncomfortable. Sarah's relationship with her grandmother had always been easy, accepting, and warm. She was an incredibly nice person, and Sarah had never met anyone who didn't love her, man, woman, or child. It was hard to believe that this gentle, happy human being had spawned a child who was as abrasive as Audrey. But Audrey's life and marriage had not turned out as well as her mother's, and the mistakes she had made had cost her. Mimi's long, happy marital history had been a lot smoother, and the man she'd married and stayed with for more than fifty years had been a gem. Unlike Sarah's father, who had turned out to be a total lemon. Audrey had been sour, critical, and suspicious ever since. Sarah hated that about her, although she didn't entirely blame her. Sarah's father and his rampant alcoholism, and failure to be there for anyone, even himself, had damaged her as well. By the time Sarah got home on Friday night, she was physically exhausted and emotionally drained. Seeing Stanley's ashes sealed away in the mausoleum had been a huge emotional blow to her. It was so final, and so sad. A long life, but in many ways an empty one. He had left a fortune behind him, but very little else. And she couldn't help but remember now all his warnings about how she led her life as well. |
| 968 |
There was more to life than just work, and she was suddenly more acutely aware of it than ever before. His words over the last three years had not been lost on her. They had begun to color how she viewed everything that week, even Phil's weekday unavailability to her. She was suddenly really tired of it, and having trouble buying the excuses he had given her for four years. Even if it wasn't right for him, and didn't fit into his program, she needed and wanted more. His refusal to drop by to see her, and comfort her, the night Stanley died, had left a sour taste in her mouth. Even if they never planned to marry, four years together should have counted for something. An ability and desire to meet each other's needs and be there for each other in hard times, if nothing else. And Phil steadfastly refused to offer her that. And if that was the case, what was the point? Was it only sex? She wanted more than that. Stanley was right. There should be more to life than working sixty hours a week and ships passing in the night. Phil usually showed up at her place, by tacit agreement, every Friday around eight o'clock, after the gym. Sometimes nine. He insisted that he needed at least two hours, sometimes three, at the gym, to unwind, and get over the stress of his daily work life. It also kept his body looking fantastic, which he was well aware of and wasn't lost on her, either. Sometimes it annoyed her. He was in much better shape than she was. She stayed at her desk twelve hours a day, and exercised only on weekends. She looked great, but she wasn't as toned as he was with twenty hours spent at the gym every week. She didn't care as much about it, and she didn't have the time. He made time for himself, hours of it, every day. Something about it had always bothered her, but she had tried to be magnanimous about it. It was getting to be harder and harder, considering how little time she got to spend with him, especially during the week. She was never his first priority, which really bugged her. |
| 969 |
She wanted to be, but knew she wasn't. She had always thought she would become more important to him in time, but in recent months, hope of that had begun to wane. He was holding firm. Nothing between them ever grew or changed. He diligently maintained the status quo. They seemed to be frozen in time, and she felt like nothing more than a four year two night stand. She wasn't sure why, but just in the few days since Stanley's death, she was more acutely aware than ever before that maybe that just wasn't enough. She needed more. Not marriage perhaps, but kindness, emotional support, and love. After Stanley's death, she felt more vulnerable somehow. Not getting what she needed made her feel resentful toward Phil now. She deserved more than just two casual nights a week. But she also knew that if she wanted to continue the relationship with him, she had to accept the terms that they had agreed to in the beginning. He wasn't going to budge. And letting go of Phil had always scared her. She'd thought of it before, but was afraid to wind up alone, like her mother. The specter of Audrey's life terrified her. Sarah preferred to hang on to Phil than wind up at bridge games and book clubs, like her mother. In the past four years she hadn't met any other man who appealed to her as much. But the relationship she had with Phil was settling for a two day a week physical relationship born of habit, and not a matter of the heart, not in the real sense. Being with him, she was giving up a lot. The hope of something better, and the love of a man who might be kinder or love her more. It seemed like more of a dilemma to her now than it had in a long time. Stanley's death had shaken her up a lot. Phil turned up earlier than usual that night. He let himself in with the keys she'd given him, walked in, and sprawled out on the couch. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Sarah found him there when she got out of the shower. Phil glanced over his shoulder at her, lay his head back on the arm of the sofa, and groaned audibly. |
| 970 |
They knew each other well, and had had a great time in bed with each other for the past four years. It would have been hard to give that up. There were lots of things about him she didn't want to lose: his companionship, his intelligence, the fact that he was a lawyer too and was usually interested in what she was doing, at least to some degree, although admittedly, tax law wasn't as exciting as what he did. They had a good time together when they saw each other, liked the same movies, and enjoyed the same food. She liked his kids, though she saw little of them, maybe a few times a year. And whenever they went out with her friends or his, they seemed to like the same people, and had the same comments to make about them afterward. There was a lot that worked about the relationship, which was why it was so frustrating that he didn't want more than they had. Lately, she had thought that she might like living with him one day, but there was no chance of that. He had told her right from the beginning that he was interested neither in cohabitation nor in marriage, only dating. And this was dating. It was more than enough for him, and had been for her for four years. Lately she felt a little too old for this kind of arrangement of nearly total noncommitment. They were sexually exclusive, and had a standing weekend date. Beyond that, they shared nothing. And sometimes she felt she had been dating for too long. At thirty eight, she had dated too many people for too many years, as a teenager, a student, a law student, a young lawyer, and now a partner of the firm. She had moved up the ranks in business and life, but she still had the same kind of relationship she had had when she was a kid at Harvard. There was nothing she could do about it, given Phil's stubbornness on the subject and the firm boundaries he set. He had always been completely clear about the limits on the relationship he wanted. But doing the same old thing year after year made her feel like she was trapped in the twilight zone sometimes. |
| 971 |
Nothing ever moved backward or forward. Nothing ever changed. It just hung in space, eternally, while only she got older. It seemed weird to her. But not to him. In Phil's mind, he was still a kid, and he liked it that way. She didn't want babies and marriage, but she definitely wanted more than this, only because she liked him, and loved him in some ways, although she knew he was selfish at times, self centered, could be arrogant and even pompous, and had different priorities than she did. But no one was perfect. To Sarah, the people she cared about always came first. To Phil, he did. He always reminded her that in the safety video on the airplane, they told you to put on your own oxygen mask first and help others later. But tend to yourself first. Always. He considered that a lesson in life, and justification for the way he treated people. The way he put it made it hard to argue with him, so she didn't. They were just different. She wondered sometimes if it was the basic difference between women and men, and not anything particularly deficient about him. It was hard to say. But there was no hiding from the fact that Phil was selfish, always put himself first, and did what was best for him. It gave her no wiggle room at all to ask for more. After breakfast, he went off to do his errands, while Sarah made her bed. He had said something about staying there that night, so she changed the sheets, and put fresh towels up in the bathroom. She did the breakfast dishes, then went out to pick up her own dry cleaning. She never had time to do that either during the week. Single working people never did. Her only day to do errands was Saturday, which was why Phil was doing his. She would just have liked to do them together. He laughed at her when she said that, made light of it, and then reminded her that that was what married people did, single people didn't. And they weren't married. They were single, he always said loud and clear. They did laundry separately, errands separately, had separate lives, apartments, and beds. |
| 972 |
She understood the difference. She just didn't like it. He did. A lot. Sarah came back to the apartment to put her dry cleaning away, and after that she went to the photography exhibit at the museum, and found it beautiful and interesting. She would have liked to share it with Phil, but she knew he wasn't crazy about museums. She went for a walk on the Marina Green after that, to get some exercise and air, and she was back at her apartment at six o'clock, after stopping at Safeway to buy some groceries. She had decided to cook Phil dinner, and maybe after that they could rent a video or go to a movie. They didn't have much of a social life these days. Most of her friends were married and had children, and Phil found them incredibly boring. He liked her friends, but no longer liked their lifestyles. The people they had met together in the beginning of their relationship were now all married. And he said he found it depressing to try and have an intelligent conversation, while listening to their toddler and brand new baby screaming either for their dinner or from earaches. He said he had done all that years before. His own friends now were mostly men his age or younger who had never been married, or who had been divorced for years, liked it that way, and were bitter about their ex wives, or their kids who had supposedly been corrupted by their despicable ex wives, and the men hated the spousal support they were paying, which they always insisted was too much. They were unanimous in the belief that they had gotten screwed, and were emphatic about not letting it happen again. He found her friends too domestic these days, although he had liked them in the beginning, and she found his superficial and bitter, which limited their social life a lot. She noticed that most of the men Phil's age were now dating seriously younger women. When they went to dinner with them, she found herself trying to have conversations with young women who were barely more than half her age, and she had nothing in common with them. |
| 973 |
But this time she said nothing. She got up without a word or comment. She was tired of being the beggar in the relationship. If he didn't want to spend the day with her, she would find something to do by herself. She could always call a friend. She hadn't been hanging out with her old friends recently, because especially on weekends, they were busy with their husbands and kids. She liked her time alone with Phil on Saturdays, and on Sundays she had no desire to be a fifth wheel with other people. She spent her Sundays in museums or antique shops, walking on the beach at Fort Mason, or doing work herself. Sundays had always been hard for her. They had always seemed like the loneliest day of the week. They were worse now. They always seemed acutely bittersweet after Phil left. The silence in her apartment after his departure depressed her no end. She could already tell that today would be no different. She tried to figure out what to do with herself, as she got dressed. She tried to at least feign good spirits, as they walked out of her apartment on the way to brunch. He was wearing a brown leather bomber jacket, jeans, and an immaculate, perfectly pressed blue shirt. He kept just enough of his things at her place so that he could spend the weekend with her, and be decently dressed. It had taken him nearly three years to do that. And maybe in another three, she thought gloomily, he might even stay till Sunday night. Or maybe that would take five, she thought sarcastically as she followed him down the stairs. He was whistling, and in a great mood. In spite of herself, Sarah had a good time with him at brunch. He told her funny stories, and a couple of really outrageous jokes. He did an imitation of someone in his office, and even though it was stupid and meant nothing, he made her laugh. She was sorry that he wouldn't go with her to see Stanley's house. She didn't want to go there alone, so she decided to wait until she met with the realtor on Monday morning. Phil was in good spirits, and ate an enormous brunch. |
| 974 |
The door opened and revealed a yawning darkness. Sarah walked in first, and looked around for a switch to turn on the lights. As she stepped inside, the realtor followed. They both had an odd, eerie sense as they entered the house, part trespassers, and part curious children. The realtor opened the door wider behind them, so the sunlight could enter the house and light their path, and then they both saw the light switch. The house was eighty three years old, and neither of them had any idea if the switch would still work. There were two buttons in the marble entranceway where they stood. Sarah pushed each button in turn, and nothing happened. In the dim light, they could see that the windows in the entrance hall were boarded up. Beyond them they could see nothing. "I should have brought a flashlight," Sarah said, sounding annoyed. This was not going to be as easy as she had hoped. As she said it, Marjorie reached into her bag, and handed one to Sarah. She had brought another for herself. "Old houses are my hobby." They both turned their flashlights on, and peered around. There were heavy boards on the windows, a white marble floor beneath their feet that seemed to stretch for miles, and overhead an enormous chandelier that was electrified, but the connections to the switch must have decayed over the years, along with everything else. The hallway itself had beautiful molded panels and was very large, the ceiling high. And then on either side, they saw small receiving rooms that must have been rooms where people waited when they came to visit. There was no furniture anywhere to be seen. The floors of the two receiving rooms were beautiful old parquet, and the walls were carved antique boiseries that looked as though they had come from France. The two smaller rooms were exquisite. And in each there was a spectacular chandelier. The house had been stripped before Stanley bought it, but he had mentioned to Sarah once that the previous owners had left all the original sconces and chandeliers. |
| 975 |
Nothing on the West Coast had ever compared to this. It looked like a miniature of Versailles, which was precisely what Alexandre de Beaumont had promised his wife. The house had been a wedding gift to her. "Is this the ballroom?" Sarah asked, looking impressed beyond words. She knew there was one but had never even remotely imagined anything as beautiful as this. "I don't think so," Marjorie said, loving every minute of their tour. This was so much better than anything she had hoped. "Ballrooms were usually built on the second floor. I think this might be the main drawing room, or one of them." They found another like it, though slightly smaller, on the other side of the house, with a small rotunda adjoining the two. The rotunda had inlaid marble floors, and a fountain in the center that looked as though it had worked at one time. If one closed one's eyes, one could imagine grand balls here, and the kind of parties of a bygone era that one only read about in books. There were also several smaller rooms, which Marjorie explained were fainting rooms, where in earlier days in Europe, ladies could rest and loosen their corsets. There was also a large series of pantries and service rooms, where food had obviously been sent up from the kitchen, but not prepared. In a modern world, one could turn the pantries into kitchens, since no one today would want their kitchen in the basement. People no longer had dozens of servants to run food and trays up and down the stairs. There was a row of dumbwaiters, and when Sarah opened one of them to inspect it, one of the ropes broke in her hands. There was no sign of rodents or damage in the house. Things had not been chewed, nothing was damp or mildewed. Stanley's monthly cleaning crew had kept it clean, but there were obvious signs nonetheless of the ravages of time. They also found six bathrooms on the main floor, four of them in marble, for guests, and two simpler tiled ones, obviously for servants. The back stairs area for the huge staff of domestics they must have had was vast. |
| 976 |
Sarah knew there was an elevator in the house, but Stanley had never used it. It had long since been sealed off, as even he acknowledged that it would be far too dangerous for current use. Until his legs had finally failed him completely, he had valiantly marched up and down the back stairs. And once he could no longer walk, he never came downstairs. Marjorie and Sarah made their way cautiously toward the grand staircase that ran up the center of the house, admiring every inch and detail around them as they went, floors, marquetry, boiseries, moldings, windows, and chandeliers. The ceiling over the grand staircase was three stories high. It ran up the main body of the house. Above it was the attic where Stanley had lived, and below it the basement. But the staircase itself, in all its grandeur and elegance, took up a vast amount of space in the central part of the house. The carpeting on it was faded and threadbare but looked as though it was Persian, and the fittings holding the carpet in place were exquisite antique bronze, with small cast antique lion's heads at the end of each rod. Every detail of the house was exquisite. On the second floor, they found two more splendid living rooms, a day parlor facing the garden, a card room, a conservatory, where the grand piano had once been, and finally the ballroom they had both heard about. It was in fact an exact replica of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, and utterly beyond belief. As Sarah pulled the curtains back yet again, as she had in almost every room, she nearly cried. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. She couldn't even imagine now why Stanley had never used the house. It was much too beautiful to stand empty all these years, unloved. But grandeur on that scale, and elegance of the kind they were seeing, had clearly not been his thing. Only money was, which suddenly struck her as sad. She finally understood now what he had been saying to her. Stanley Perlman had not wasted his life, but in so many important ways, it had passed him by. |
| 977 |
Thinking about it made Sarah sad. She understood it better now. As they reached the third floor, they were faced with enormous double doors at the head of the grand staircase. Sarah thought they were locked at first. She and Marjorie pulled and tugged and nearly gave up, when they suddenly sprang open, and revealed a suite of rooms so beautiful and welcoming, they had obviously been the master suite. Here the walls were painted a faded, barely discernible pale powder pink. The bedroom was a confection worthy of Marie Antoinette. It looked down onto the garden. There was a sitting room, a series of dressing rooms, and two extraordinary marble bathrooms, each one larger than Sarah's apartment, that had obviously been built for Lilli and Alexandre. The fixtures were exquisite, the floor in hers pink marble, and in his beige marble, of a quality worthy of the Uffizi in Florence. There were once again two small sitting rooms on the same floor, flanking the entrance to the master suite, and on the opposite side of the house what must have been the nursery for their two children, obviously one for a girl and the other a boy. There were beautiful painted tiles in their dressing rooms and bathrooms, with flowers and sailboats on them. Each child had had a large bedroom, with big, sunny windows. There was an enormous playroom for both of them, and several smaller rooms that must have been for the governesses and maids who tended to their every need. And as she looked around with tender amazement, something occurred to Sarah. She turned and asked Marjorie a question. "When Lilli vanished, did she take her children with her? If she did, no wonder it broke Alexandre's heart." The poor man must have lost not only his beautiful young wife but the boy and girl who had lived here, and on top of it, his money. It would have been enough to destroy anyone, particularly a man, to lose so much and have to give all this up. "I don't think she took the children with her," Marjorie said pensively, wondering the same thing herself. |
| 978 |
He had been a great gift in her life during the three years of their friendship. She would never forget him. Marjorie followed her back down the stairs to the third floor again, and reported that there were twenty small servants' rooms on the attic floor. She said that if several of the walls between them were knocked down, a new owner could get several good size bedrooms out of them, and there were six working bathrooms, although the ceilings were much lower than on the three main floors below. "Do you mind if I walk back through the house again and make some notes and sketches?" Marjorie asked politely. They were both in awe of what they'd seen. It was totally overwhelming. Neither of them had ever before seen such beauty, and exquisite detail and workmanship except in museums. The master craftsmen who had built the house had all come from Europe. Marjorie had read that in the story. "I'll send someone in to do official plans, and photographs of course, if you let us sell it for you. But I'd like to have a few quick sketches to remind myself of the shape of the rooms, and number of windows." "Go right ahead." Sarah had set aside the entire morning to spend with her. They'd been there for two hours by then, but she didn't have any appointments in the office until three thirty. And she was impressed by how serious and respectful Marjorie was. Sarah knew she had chosen the right woman to sell Stanley's house. Marjorie took out a small sketch pad in the master suite, and worked quickly, walking off distances and making notes to herself, as Sarah looked at the bathrooms again, and wandered through the dressing rooms, opening a multitude of closets. She didn't think she'd find anything there, but it was fun to imagine the gowns that had hung in them when Lilli was in residence. She must have had a mountain of jewels, incredible furs, and even a tiara. Those had all been sold off, undoubtedly, nearly a century before. Thinking about it, and the grief that had come to them, financially and otherwise, made Sarah sad. |
| 979 |
In all her years of visiting Stanley there, she had never thought about the previous owners much before. Stanley never said anything about them, and seemed to have no interest in them himself. He had never even mentioned them to her by name. Suddenly the name de Beaumont seemed all important to her. With the little Marjorie had shared with her, her imagination was full of the people they must have been, even their children. And the name did ring a bell even for her. She must have heard about them at some point. They had been an important family in the city's history at one time. She knew she had heard the name before, although she no longer remembered where, or in what context. Maybe during some field trip she had participated in as a child at school, visiting a museum. As she opened the last closet, which had a musty smell to it but still the rich smell of cedar, she realized it had been one of the closets where Lilli kept her furs, probably ermines and sables. As Sarah glanced into the darker recesses of the closet, as though expecting to find one there, something on the floor of the closet caught her eye. She used the flashlight Marjorie had given her and saw that it was a photograph. She got down on all fours and reached for it. It was covered with dust and very brittle. It was a photograph of an exquisite young woman coming down the grand staircase in an evening gown. Looking at her, Sarah thought she was the loveliest creature she had ever seen. She was tall and statuesque, with the lithe body of a young goddess. Her hair was arranged in some sort of fashionable hairdo of the times, with a bun at the back, and waves framing her face. And just as Sarah would have expected her to, she was wearing an enormous diamond necklace and a tiara. She almost looked as though she were dancing down the stairs, pointing one foot in a silver sandal. She looked as though she were laughing, and she had the most piercing, mesmerizing, enormous eyes Sarah had ever seen. The photograph was haunting. |
| 980 |
Maybe in a book or a magazine. Or maybe she had imagined it. But it was hauntingly familiar. She had not only seen the woman in the photograph, but she knew she had seen the actual photograph somewhere. She wished she could remember but didn't. The two women made their way from floor to floor, as Marjorie made notes and sketches. An hour later they were back at the front door, with faint light streaming in from the large salon on the main floor toward the hallway. There was no longer a gloomy feeling or an aura of mystery to it. It was just an extremely beautiful house that had been long unloved and abandoned. For the right person, with enough money to bring it back to life, and a sensible use for it, it would be an extraordinary project to give this house back its life, and restore it to its rightful place as an important piece of history for the city. They stepped outside into the November sunshine. Sarah locked the door carefully. They had made a quick tour of the basement and seen the ancient kitchen there, which was a relic from another century, the enormous servants' dining room, the butler and housekeeper's apartments, and twenty more maids' rooms, as well as the boiler, the wine cellars, the meat locker, the ice room, and a room for arranging flowers, with all the florist's tools still in it. "Wow!" Marjorie said to Sarah as they stood looking at each other on the front steps. "I don't even know what to tell you about what I think of it. I've never seen anything like it, except in Europe, or Newport. Even the Vanderbilts' house isn't as beautiful as this. I hope we find the right buyer. It should be brought back to life and treated as a restoration project. I almost wish someone would turn it into a museum, but it would be even more wonderful if someone actually lived in it who loved it." She had been shocked to discover that Stanley had lived upstairs all his life, in the attic, and realized that he must have been extremely eccentric. Sarah had just said quietly that he was unpretentious and very simple. |
| 981 |
She finally decided to call them herself. One was the subject of a conservatorship and had severe Alzheimer's. Sarah was referred to the man's daughter. She explained to her about the reading of Stanley's will, and the bequest he had made to her father. Sarah explained to her that the money would presumably be held in trust, depending on the probate laws in New York, and would pass on to her and whatever siblings she had, whenever her father died. The woman cried, she was so grateful. She said they were having trouble paying for the nursing home. Her father was ninety two years old, and unlikely to last much longer. The money Stanley had left had come in the nick of time for all of them. She said she had never even heard of Stanley, or a cousin of her father's in California. Sarah promised to send her a copy of the portions of the will that applied to her, after the official reading, assuming there would be one. The man she had spoken to the previous week, who had called her from St. Louis, had assured her that he would come to San Francisco, although he too had never heard of Stanley. He sounded vaguely embarrassed about it, and given his position as a bank president, Sarah had the feeling he didn't need the money. The second heir who hadn't responded to her said he was ninety five years old, and hadn't answered her because he thought it was some sort of joke someone had played on him. He remembered Stanley well and said they had hated each other as children. And then he laughed loudly. He sounded like a character, and said he was stunned that Stanley even had any money. He said the last time he had seen or heard from him, he was a crazy kid, heading for California. He told Sarah he had assumed he had died by then. She promised to send him a copy of the will, too. She knew she would have to be contacting him again to ask how he wished to dispose of the house. By late Thursday afternoon, the reading of the will had been set for the following Monday morning, in her office. |
| 982 |
Twelve of the heirs were coming. Money had a way of making people willing to travel, even for a great uncle no one knew or remembered. He had clearly been the black sheep of his family, whose fleece had become white as snow, as a result of the fortune he had left them. She was unable to tell any of them how large an amount it was, but she assured them it was a sizable sum. They would have to wait to hear the rest on Monday morning. Her last call of the day was from Marjorie, the realtor, who asked if Sarah would mind meeting the two restoration architects with her at the house the following day. She said it was the only day and time they could make it. They were leaving for Venice that weekend, to attend a conference of restoration architects. For Sarah, the timing was perfect. It would give her more information to share with the heirs at the reading of the will on Monday. She promised to meet Marjorie and the architects on Friday afternoon at three o'clock. She was going to make it her last meeting of the day. She would go home after that, to start her weekend. It would give her time to unwind and relax, before Phil showed up several hours later, after the gym. She had hardly spoken to him all week. They had both been busy. And he had been in a rotten mood every time she spoke to him. Opposing counsel had made mincemeat of him and his client in the depositions. She hoped Phil's mood would improve dramatically by Friday night, or it was going to be a very unpleasant weekend. She knew what he was like when he was losing, at anything. It wasn't pretty. And she at least wanted to spend a decent weekend with him. For the moment, she wasn't optimistic. Marjorie and the two architects were waiting for her at the house when Sarah showed up promptly at three o'clock on Friday. Marjorie said they had been early, and not to worry about it. She introduced Sarah to both of the people with her. The man was tall, pleasant looking, and had hair as dark as Sarah's, with gray at the temples. |
| 983 |
Jeff said he hoped that the heirs didn't try to strip the house of the parquet floors and boiseries in order to sell them separately, probably at Christie's or Sotheby's. He said they would go for a fortune, but he hoped they would stay here, which was Sarah's hope as well. It would have seemed a crime to her to cannibalize the house now, after it had survived intact for so long. They sat down on the steps of the grand staircase at the end of their tour, and he gave Sarah an informal assessment. In his opinion, bringing the house up to modern code, electrically and otherwise, with copper plumbing, would cost a new owner close to a million dollars. If they cut corners but stayed within code, they might be able to do it for half as much, but it would be a major challenge. He wasn't overly worried by the dry rot on the windows and French doors, he said that was to be expected. He was surprised it wasn't far worse. He didn't know what was under the floors or behind the walls of course, but he and Marie Louise had restored houses older than this in Europe. It was a lot of work, but certainly not impossible. And he added that he loved this kind of challenge. Marie Louise didn't comment, or say a word. Jeff said that putting in a kitchen wasn't a monumental task, and he agreed with Sarah and Marjorie about the location of a new kitchen on the main floor. He thought the entire basement should be stripped and turned into storage space. The elevator could be given modern workings, while preserving its original look. And the rest he thought should remain as it was. Craftsmen should be brought in to restore the wood, treat it, and oil it. The boiseries had to be handled with great care and precision. Everything else needed paint or varnish or polishing. The chandeliers were perfect and could be made to work again. There were a lot of details that could be played with and highlighted. Hidden lighting could be installed. It all depended on how much work and money a new owner wanted to put into it. |
| 984 |
A few of them were already waiting in the hallway when she reached her office. She set down her briefcase and went out to meet them. The first one she saw was the bank president from St. Louis. He was a distinguished looking man in his early sixties. He had already told her he was widowed, and had four grown children, and she had gathered in the conversation that one of them had special needs. Perhaps, although he had money, the bequest from Stanley would be of some use to him. It was nearly ten o'clock when the last of the heirs finally drifted in. There were eight men and four women. Several of them knew each other, far better than they knew Stanley, who had only been a name to some of them. Others had never even heard of him and knew nothing of his existence. Two of the women and three of the men were siblings. They lived all over the country, from Florida to New York to Chicago to St. Louis to Texas. The man from Texas was wearing a cowboy hat and boots that looked well broken in. He was the foreman of a ranch he had worked on for thirty years, lived in a trailer, and had six kids. His wife had died the previous spring. The cousins were enjoying talking to each other, as Sarah made her way through the group. She was going to offer to show them Stanley's house that afternoon. If nothing else, she thought they should see it before they decided what to do with it, or how they wanted to dispose of it. She had explored the options for them, and had them carefully outlined on a single sheet, with the appraisal from Marjorie, which was more of a guesstimate, since nothing even remotely comparable to it had been sold for years, or existed anymore, and the condition it was in affected the price they could ask for it. There was no accurate way to assess what it would bring. Sarah wanted to attend to the reading of the will first. The bank president from St. Louis, Tom Harrison, sat next to her at the conference table. She almost felt as though he should be calling the meeting to order. |
| 985 |
He was wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt, conservative navy tie, and had impeccably cut white hair. And as Sarah looked at him, she couldn't help thinking of her mother. He was the perfect age, and a cut above anyone her mother had gone out with in years. They would make a handsome couple, Sarah thought with a smile, as she looked around the table at the heirs. All four women were seated next to each other to her right, Tom Harrison was on her left, and the rest of them fanned around the table. The cowboy, Jake Waterman, had taken the foot of the table. He was having a feast on the Danish, and was on his third cup of coffee. They all looked attentive, as Sarah called the meeting to order. She had the documents in a file in front of her, along with a sealed letter Stanley had given to one of her partners six months before, and had written himself. Sarah had no previous knowledge of it, and when she gave it to her that morning, Sarah's partner said Stanley had instructed her not to open it until the reading of the will. Stanley had told Sarah's associate that it was an additional message to his heirs, but in no way altered or jeopardized what he and Sarah had set up before. He had known to add a line ratifying and confirming his previous will, and assured Sarah's partner it was in order. Out of respect for Stanley, Sarah had left the letter sealed that morning, per his request, and planned to read it after the will. The heirs were looking at her with open expectation. She was glad that they had been respectful enough to come in person, and didn't just tell her to send the money. She had the feeling that Stanley would have enjoyed meeting all or most of them. She knew two of the women were secretaries and had never been married. The other two were divorced and had grown children. Most of them had children; some were younger than others. Only Tom looked as though he didn't need the money. The others had made an effort to leave their jobs, and pay their way to come to San Francisco. |
| 986 |
She looked around the faces of the people seated at the conference table. There was dead silence as they waited for her to speak. "I want to thank you all for coming. I know it took some real effort for some of you to be here. I know it would have meant a lot to Stanley that you came here today. I'm sad for all of you that you didn't know him. He was a remarkable man, and a wonderful person. In the years we worked together, I came to admire and respect him a great deal. I am honored to be meeting you, and to have worked on his estate." She took a sip of water then, and cleared her throat. She opened the file in front of her and took out the will. She sped through most of the boilerplate, explaining to them what it meant as she went along. Most of it related to taxes, and how they had protected his estate. He had set aside more than enough money to pay the taxes when it went through probate. The shares he had left for them, of his holdings, would be unaffected by the taxes the estate owed the federal government and the state. They looked reassured. Tom Harrison understood better than the rest of them what she was reading to them. And then she reached the list of bequests, which were in nineteen equal shares. She listed their names alphabetically, including those who were not present. She had a copy of the will for each of them, so they could study it later, or have it examined by their own attorneys. Everything was in order. Sarah had been meticulous in her work. She read off the list of assets to them, with current up to the minute assessments of their worth, wherever possible. Some assets were more nebulous, in the case of properties he had held on to for years, like shopping malls in the South and Midwest, but in those instances, she had listed comparable recent values, to give them an idea of what they were worth. Some of it they were going to be able to keep individually, and in other cases they would have to make decisions about holding on to them as a group, selling the assets, or buying each other out. |
| 987 |
Some of it still sounded like gibberish to them. There were stocks, bonds, real estate developments, shopping malls, office buildings, apartment complexes, and the oil wells that had become his greatest asset in recent years, and still the most valuable for the future, in her opinion, particularly in the current international political climate. There was a fair amount of liquidity in his estate at the time of his death. And then there was the house, which she said she would explain to them in further detail after the reading of the will, and she had several options for them to consider in relation to its disposal. They continued to stare at her silently, trying to wrap their minds around the concepts she was exposing them to, and the list of assets that reached from one end of the country to the other. It was a lot to absorb at one time, and none of them was exactly sure what it meant. It was almost a foreign language to them, except to Tom, who was staring at her intently, unable to believe what he was hearing. Although he didn't know the details, he could figure out the implication of what she was saying, and was keeping track of it in his head. "We will get you completely accurate appraisals of each asset in the days to come. But based on what we already have, and some fairly close assessments, your great uncle's estate is currently valued, after taxes, which have been handled separately, at just over four hundred million dollars. In our estimation, that will give each of you a bequest of approximately twenty million dollars, give or take. Which, after taxes for you, should come to roughly ten million dollars each. There may be some float in that, by several hundred thousand dollars, depending on current market values. But I think that it's safe to assume that your after tax inheritance will come to roughly ten million dollars each." She sat back and took a breath as they stared at her in total silence, and then suddenly there was pandemonium in the room, as they talked with animation and astonishment. |
| 988 |
This was like winning the lottery, only better in some ways, because someone they didn't even know had remembered them, and meant for them to have it. Although he had no family of his own, those he was related to meant everything to Stanley. Even if he'd never met them. In his mind, they were the children he had never had. It was his one moment, after death, to be their loving father, and benefactor. Sarah was honored to be part of it, and only wished he could have seen it. The cowboy was wiping his eyes, then blew his nose and said he was going to buy the ranch, or start his own. His kids were in state schools, and he said he was going to send them all to Harvard, except the one he said was in jail. He told the assembled group he was going to go home now, kick his son's ass, and get him a decent lawyer. He had been caught stealing horses, and had been on drugs all his life. Now maybe he had a chance. They all did. Stanley had given them that. It was his posthumous gift to all of them, even those who hadn't shown up. He cared about them all equally. Sarah was nearly in tears herself. It might have been unprofessional of her, but it was an unforgettable experience, sharing this with them. It was her brightest and most meaningful single event in the twelve years she'd been a lawyer. Thanks to Stanley. "You all have a lot to think about," Sarah explained to them, and brought them back to order. "There are assets you will own individually. Others you now hold jointly. I've listed them all separately, and I'd like to have a conversation with you today about what you want to do about them. It will be simpler for you if you sell the joint holdings, where reasonable to do so, and divide up the profits, depending on what our financial advisers recommend to you. In some cases, this may not be the right time to sell them. But if that's what you decide, we'll wait for the right time to sell, and advise you." She knew better than any of them that it was going to take months, and in some cases years, to unravel. |
| 989 |
And after taxes, even less. To them now, it was a pittance. An hour before it would have been a windfall. Now it meant nothing to them. It was amazing how life could change in a single unexpected moment. She smiled as she looked around the table. They all looked like decent people, and she had the feeling Stanley would have liked them. Those who had come looked like wholesome, nice individuals, whom he would have enjoyed being related to. And they were certainly ecstatic over having been related to him. She brought them to order once again, though with increasing difficulty. They were all anxious to leave the conference room, and contact spouses, siblings, and children. This was major news for all of them, and they wanted to share it. She assured them that the money would begin to come in within the next six months, sooner if they could get it through probate. The estate was extremely clean. "I have one last matter of business. Apparently Stanley, your great uncle, asked me to read you a letter. I just learned today that he gave it to one of my partners six months ago, and I'm told it contains a codicil to his will, which I have not yet seen. My associate gave it to me this morning. I'm told Stanley wanted it read, after the reading of the will, which we've done now. I received it sealed myself, and have no idea what it contains. I've been assured that nothing in its contents alters the will in any way. With your permission, I'll read it now. I can make copies of it for you after I do. It's been sealed, per his instructions, since my colleague received it." Sarah could only assume it was some sort of thoughtful message, or minor addition, to the heirs he knew he would never meet. It was the sweet and gruffly sentimental side of Stanley that Sarah had known and loved. She slit it open with a letter opener she had brought to the meeting for that purpose. They attempted to listen politely, although there was an almost palpable electricity and excitement in the room, from all that they had heard before. |
| 990 |
There were handshakes around the room, and hugs. Several people hugged her. Everyone looked as though they were in shock by the time they left. It had been an overwhelming morning. The receptionist called cabs for all of them, to get to the airport. Sarah's secretary handed each of them a manila envelope, with a copy of the will and whatever additional documents there were, about their investments. Their last word on the house was to sell it as it was. They instructed Sarah to put it on the market immediately, and get whatever she could for it. Tom Harrison had agreed to see it with her only to be polite, but she could tell, he wasn't interested in it, either. No one was. It was a white elephant in another city, which none of them wanted or needed. And they hardly even needed the money. The house on Scott Street meant nothing to them. It only meant something to her because it was beautiful, and because her beloved friend Stanley, now her benefactor to an incredible degree, had lived in the attic. But even she, with her newfound fortune, had no use for the house, although she had no voice in how it was disposed of. The decision to sell it had been theirs. She left Tom Harrison in the conference room, and called Marjorie from her office. She told her their decision, and asked if she would mind meeting her at the house in half an hour, to show it to one of the heirs. But she said it was purely a visit of formality. They had each signed a release, instructing her to sell the house, in the condition it was presently in, at a price Sarah and Marjorie agreed on. They had left it all up to her. "Are we going to get to doll it up a little?" Marjorie asked hopefully. "I'm afraid not. They said to get a janitorial service in, get rid of the debris, like boards on the windows and curtains, and sell it the way we found it." Sarah was still trying to wrap her mind around the bequest Stanley had given her, and recover from the loving words in his letter that had gone straight to her heart. |
| 991 |
It was a special time they shared not only with each other but with special friends. Sarah's grandmother had made a point of inviting what she called "lost souls" every year, people she liked and who had nowhere else to go. Inviting friends, even a few of them, gave the day a festive atmosphere, and made the three women feel less alone. And the people they in vited to join them were always deeply grateful to be included. In recent years, the festivities had always been enlivened even more by the inclusion of one of her grandmother's current suitors. Over the past ten years, there had been a lot of them. Mimi, as everyone called her, was an irresistible human being, small, pretty, "cute," funny, warm, and sweet. She was everyone's ideal grandmother, and nearly every man's ideal woman. At eighty two, she was lively, happy, had a great attitude about life, and never dwelled on anything unpleasant. Her outlook was always positive, and she was interested and open to new people. She exuded happiness and sunshine. As a result, people wanted to be with her. Sarah smiled to herself, thinking about her, on the way to her grand mother's house, on Thanksgiving afternoon. She had heard from Phil the night before, when he breezed through town on the way to pick up his kids. He had gotten back from New York late the night before but hadn't had time to see her. She wasn't even angry at him now, or sad, only numb. She had wished him a happy Thanksgiving when he called the night before, and got off the phone. Talking to him had depressed her. It just reminded her of everything they didn't share and never would. When Sarah got to her grandmother's house, Mimi's two women friends were already there, both women older than she, and both widowed. They looked like little old ladies, but Mimi didn't. Mimi had snow white hair, big blue eyes, and perfect skin. She hardly had any wrinkles, and still had a trim figure. She watched an exercise program on television every day, and did everything they showed her how to do. |
| 992 |
She walked at least an hour a day. She still played tennis once in a while, and loved to go dancing with her friends. She was wearing a pretty silk dress in a deep turquoise, and high heeled black suede shoes, with beautiful turquoise earrings and a matching ring. They hadn't had a huge fortune when Sarah's grandfather was alive, but they were comfortable, and she had always been well dressed and stylish. They had made a handsome couple for more than fifty years. She rarely, if ever, spoke of her childhood. She liked to say that she'd been born on her wedding day to Leland. Her life had begun then. Sarah knew that Mimi had grown up in San Francisco, but she knew little more than that. She didn't even know where her grandmother had gone to school, or what her maiden name had been. They were things Mimi simply didn't talk about. She never dwelled on the past, she lived in the present and the future, which made her so appealing to everyone who knew her. There was nothing depressing about her. She was a happy woman through and through. Her current favorite beau was in the living room when Sarah walked in. He was a few years older than her grandmother, had been a stockbroker, and played eighteen holes of golf every day. He had children he got along well with and enjoyed, and he liked to dance as much as Mimi. He was standing at the bar in her small, neatly arranged living room, and offered to make Sarah a drink. "No, thanks, George." She smiled at him. "I'd better report for duty in the kitchen." She knew her mother would be holding court there, watching over the turkey and complaining about its size, as she did every year. It was either too big or too small, too old or too young, and once it was cooked it would be too moist or too dry, and not nearly as good as the one they had last year. Mimi, on the other hand, always said it was perfect, which was the basic difference between the two women. Mimi was always satisfied with whatever life doled out to her, and enjoyed herself. |
| 993 |
Audrey stayed for a few more minutes, and then said she was meeting a friend. She didn't invite Sarah to join her, but Sarah wouldn't have anyway. She had a lot to think about, and wanted to be alone in her apartment to digest what her grandmother had shared. When she walked in, and saw the dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, the unmade bed, the laundry on her bathroom floor, she realized what her mother meant about her apartment. The place really was a shambles. It was dirty, dark, depressing. There were no curtains, the venetian blinds were broken. There were old wine stains on the carpet, and the couch she'd dragged through her life since college should have been thrown out years before. "Shit," Sarah said, as she sat down on the couch and looked around. She thought of Phil with his children in Tahoe, and felt lonely. Everything in her life suddenly seemed depressing. Her apartment was ugly, she had a weekend relationship with an inattentive boyfriend who didn't even bother to spend holidays with her after four years. All she really had in her life was work. She could hear the echo of Stanley's warnings, and could suddenly envision herself in an apartment like this one, or worse, ten or twenty years from now, with a boyfriend even worse than Phil, or none at all. She had stayed in the relationship with him because she didn't want to rock the boat, or lose the little she had. But what did she have? A solid career as a tax attorney, a partnership in a law firm, a mother who picked on her frequently, an adorable grandmother who adored her, and Phil, who used every excuse he could dream up not to spend time or holidays with her. It felt as though her personal life couldn't get much worse. In fact, she barely had one. Maybe a nicer apartment would be a start, she thought, as she sat there on her ancient couch. And then what? What would she do after that? Who would she spend her time with, particularly if she decided what she had with Phil wasn't enough, and broke it off? It was terrifying thinking of all of it. |
| 994 |
It was almost as though he were trying to prove something, except he wasn't. He was just being Phil. "Well, don't move before I get back. I've got to go check on the kids. They're downstairs in the hot tub with a bunch of college boys." And who was he in the hot tub with? She couldn't help but wonder. It didn't matter really. All that mattered was that he was not in the hot tub with her, or anywhere else for that matter. They were living in separate worlds, and she was tired of it. It was too lonely here without him, particularly over a holiday weekend. She slept fitfully that night and woke up at six o'clock the next morning, forgot that it was Saturday, and started to get ready to go to work. And then she remembered what day it was, and went back to bed. She had two more days of the weekend to get through before she could escape into her work at the office. She had finished all the files she'd brought home with her. She had checked the newspaper for condos, had seen all the movies she wanted to. She called her grandmother, who was busy all weekend, and she didn't want to see her mother. Calling her married friends would just depress her. They were busy with husbands and kids she didn't have. What had happened to her life? Had all she accomplished for the past ten years been work, lose track of friends, and find a weekend boyfriend? She had no idea what to do with herself with spare time on her hands. She needed a project. She decided to go to a museum, and drove by the house on Scott Street on her way. She hadn't done it on purpose, she had just turned, and there it was as she drove past it. It was even more meaningful to her now that she knew it had been built by her great grandfather, and her grandmother had been a child there. She couldn't help wondering who would buy it, and hoped they'd love it, as the house deserved. She found herself thinking of the two architects Marjorie had introduced her to, and wondered if they were having fun in Venice and Paris. She started to think about taking a trip. |
| 995 |
Maybe she should go to Europe herself. She hadn't been in years. She didn't like traveling by herself. She wondered if maybe for something like that, Phil would join her. She was suddenly trying to fill in the gaps in her life, to make it all make sense, and give her life some meaning and movement. Somewhere, sometime, somehow, she felt as though the engine of her life had died. She was trying to jump start it and had no idea how. She wandered around the museum aimlessly, looked at paintings she didn't care about, and then drove slowly home, still pondering a trip to Europe, and without thinking, she found herself driving past Stanley's house again. She stopped the car, got out, and stood staring up at it. The idea that had just come to her was the craziest she'd ever had. It wasn't just crazy. It was more than that. It made no sense whatsoever. Phil was right for once. Instead of buying a new couch and throwing out her plants, she was thinking of buying a condo. She could claim that was an investment at least. But this, this was a money pit. It would not only eat up the money Stanley had so unexpectedly left her, it would eat up everything else she had saved. But if what Marjorie said was true, an ordinary little Pacific Heights house would cost her just as much, and this was a piece of history, her own history. Her great grandfather had built it, her grandmother had been born there. A man she had loved and respected had lived tucked away in the attic. And if what she needed was a project, this was the project to end all projects. "No!" she said to herself out loud, as she reached into her bag, found the keys, walked up the front steps, looked at the heavy bronze and glass door, and unlocked it. It was as though something more powerful than she was forcing her to move forward and step inside. She felt suddenly as though she had been picked up by a riptide in a rushing river with no free will of her own. She walked slowly into the main hallway. As Marjorie had promised, it was immaculate. |
| 996 |
Less than an hour after he picked her up, they were at the house Sarah hoped would be hers. With any luck, it would be. She warned him that it was not yet a done deal, and he smiled at her, unconcerned. "It will be. I feel it in my bones." "Me too," she giggled, as she let them both into the house. He took his work very seriously. He had brought two cameras, an industrial tape measure, a sketch pad, and a series of tools and implements to measure things, and check others out. He explained to her that the floors and boiseries would have to be protected while there was work being done in the house. He recommended two plumbing contractors for her to choose between, and three electricians whom he told her wouldn't charge a fortune. The arrangement Jeff suggested he make with her was an hourly fee, based on work he actually did, not a percentage of costs, to run the project. He said an hourly would be cheaper for her. He was being extremely reasonable, got under things, climbed over things, rattled things, knocked on walls, and checked wood, tile, and plaster. "The house is amazingly sound, considering its age," he said, after they'd spent an hour there. There was no question that the plumbing and electrical were a disaster, although he liked the fact that there were no visible leaks anywhere in the house, which he said was unheard of. "Stanley took pretty good care of it on the outside. He didn't want to live in the main part of the house, but he didn't want it to fall apart, either. He just put on a new roof." "He was smart. Water damage screws up everything, and sometimes leaks are hard to follow." They were there till nearly six o'clock, and by the time they left, they were both using powerful flashlights. Sarah felt completely at home there. She'd had a fun afternoon going over everything with Jeff. And this was only the beginning. He had already filled one notebook with notes and sketches. "And there will be no charge for today," he said as she locked the front door and he helped her into the Jeep. |
| 997 |
It was worth it. She stayed that night till nine, and then went home to collapse in front of the TV. The holidays had been perfect this year. Or almost. They would have been nicer with Phil, or maybe not. They had been nice with Jeff, working on the house. It had been lucky for both of them that Marie Louise was out of town, too. Sarah went back to work the next morning, and Phil got back into town the day after. He called her as soon as he got to his apartment, but didn't offer to stop by and see her. And she didn't ask. She knew better. He would just tell her that he was too busy, had a mountain of work waiting on his desk, and had to go to the gym. She was tired of being disappointed. It was simpler to wait until the weekend. He said he'd see her on Friday, and no matter how many times he did this to her, it was still an odd feeling to know that he was back in town, in his apartment only a few blocks away, and she couldn't see him. It gnawed at her for days. She was trying to get to the house every night now to work on the paneling she was waxing, and on Thursday night, she did some work on the bookcase she was building. She made a mess of it a few times, and had to pull the nails out and start again. It was frustrating and she felt awkward, and finally she decided to give it up around eleven. She was driving home, when she realized she was within a block of Phil's apartment. She was seeing him the next day, but suddenly it seemed like a fun idea to drop by his place and give him a kiss on her way home, or slip into his bed, and wait for him to come home from the gym. She didn't do that sort of thing often, but once in a while she had. And she had his keys with her. He had finally given them to her the year before, a year after she had given him hers. He was always slower to reciprocate. And he knew she didn't abuse the privilege. Except for something like this, to surprise him, she would never have gone there when he wasn't there. She had a strong respect for his privacy, as he did hers. |
| 998 |
They rarely dropped in on each other and always called first. It just seemed nicer and more respectful. Their mutual respect was one of the reasons why the relationship had lasted for four years. She parked down the street from his apartment, still wearing her workboots and overalls. The overalls were covered with the wax she used on the panels, and her hair was piled on top of her head to keep it out of her way when she worked. As she walked toward the building, she could see that the lights were out in his apartment. And she suddenly loved the idea of slipping into his bed and waiting for him. She giggled to herself as she used his keys to get through the outer door, and then into his apartment on the second floor. The apartment was dark when she walked in. She didn't bother to turn on the lights, because she didn't want to tip him off that she was there, if he was just walking down the street himself, on his way home from the gym, and happened to look up at his windows. She walked straight down the hall in the dark to his bedroom, opened the door, and walked in. In the dim light, she could see that the bed was unmade and quickly started to take off her overalls and T shirt. As she took her shirt off, she suddenly heard a moaning sound and jumped about a foot. It sounded like someone was injured, and she turned in the direction of the sound in terror. Suddenly from under the comforter, two human forms sat up, and a male voice said "Shit!" He snapped on the light, and saw Sarah in her bra and underpants and workboots, and she saw him in all his hunky nakedness with an equally naked blonde woman beside him. Sarah stared at them in blind confusion just long enough to register that the girl looked about eighteen years old, and she was gorgeous. "Oh my God," she said, staring at him, holding her discarded T shirt and overalls in her trembling hands. For a moment she thought she would faint. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked with a startled look and vicious tone of voice. |
| 999 |
She had wasted four years of her life. But at least she knew now. No more manipulation and lies. No more disappointment. No more agonizing self examinations about why she put up with his bullshit. It was finally over. She told herself she was glad, but tears were pouring down her cheeks as she walked into her apartment. It had been a hell of a shock. The phone was ringing as she unlocked the door. She didn't answer. There was nothing left to say. She heard him leave a message on her answering machine. She knew the voice. The voice of conciliation. She walked over to her machine and erased it without listening to him. She didn't want to hear it. She lay in bed awake for hours that night, replaying the ugly scene in her head, that fucking unbelievable moment when he had sat up in bed and she realized there was a woman with him. It was like watching the collapse of a building imploding on itself, or a bomb going off. Their very own twin towers. The whole fantasy world she had shared with him for four years, however inadequate it was, had come falling down around them. And there was no putting it back together. She didn't want to. And even in her shaken state, she knew it was a mercy. She probably would have accepted weekends only for many more years. The phone continued to ring all night, and finally she unplugged it, and turned off her cell phone. It was gratifying to know he cared that much. He just didn't want to look bad. Or maybe the weekends had been comfortable after all, and he didn't want to lose her. She no longer cared. Cheating was one thing she wasn't going to put up with. She had put up with far too much already. But this was finally, and irreversibly, the last straw. She tried to tell herself in the morning that she felt better. In truth, she knew she didn't. But she felt certain she would eventually. He had finally given her no choice whatsoever. She dressed for work, and got to her office on time. Her mother called her ten minutes after nine and sounded worried. |
| 1000 |
He tried a few more times that night, after she plugged her phone in again, and this time she had unplugged her message machine, she didn't want to hear his voice ever again. It really was over. She shed a few tears over him that night, and tried to get the awful scene of the night before out of her head. Her keys came back to her by messenger the next morning. He sent them to the apartment. It was Saturday morning. He had included a note saying that he was there for her, anytime she wanted to call him, and he hoped she would. She threw the note away after glancing at it, and packed up the things he had left there. There weren't many, toiletries, some jeans, underwear, shirts, a pair of Nikes, flip flops, and loafers. A leather jacket he left there for weekends. She realized as she packed his things that he had been more fantasy in her life than real. He was the embodiment of hope, and the culmination of her own neurosis, her terror of being alone, and abandoned by a man, as she had been by her father. So she put up with the crumbs he gave her, and never demanded more. She asked for it, but was willing to tolerate it when he gave her less than she deserved. And on top of it, he was cheating on her. He had done her a huge favor the night he went to bed with the young blonde. She was actually surprised to discover that she didn't feel as bad as she had feared she would after the breakup. By late that afternoon, she was at the house, hammering away on the bookcase. She thought the hammering would do her good, and it did. She didn't even hear the doorbell ring at first, and when she did finally, she was afraid that it was Phil. She peered downstairs cautiously, from a second floor window, and saw that it was Jeff. She ran down the grand staircase to the front door to let him in. "Hi," he said easily. "I saw your car in the driveway and thought I'd stop in for a minute." He noticed that she looked distracted and observed her more closely. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine," she reassured him, but didn't look it. |
| 1001 |
She was busy at the office, and working at the house every weekend. Jeff was right. Phil hadn't given up easily. He had called her many times, written to her, sent her roses, and even dropped by unannounced at the house on Scott Street. She had seen him from an upstairs window, and hadn't let him in. She responded to none of his calls or messages, didn't thank him for the roses, and threw away his letters. She had meant what she said. There was nothing to discuss. She was finished. She assumed now that he had probably cheated on her for years. The way he had arranged their lives, he had had every opportunity. And now she knew she couldn't trust him. That was enough for her. She was done. It took him nearly a month to stop calling. And when he did, she knew he had moved on. He had admitted to her once that he had cheated on his wife at the end, but he had blamed it on her, and said that she had driven him to it. Maybe now, Sarah thought, he was blaming it on her. Stanley's estate was nearly settled. They had already disbursed a considerable amount of the assets to the heirs. She had received her bequest as well, from the liquid portion of his estate. She was doling it out carefully to the contractors Jeff was hiring for her. One of them had put a lien on her house, which he insisted was standard procedure, and she had forced him to remove it. So far the restoration was within her budget, and Jeff was supervising all the subcontractors for her. She was doing a huge amount of work herself, and loving every minute of it. It was incredibly gratifying doing manual work, after all her more cerebral stresses in the office. And she was surprised to find she didn't miss Phil as much as she had feared. Working at the house on weekends helped a lot. Sarah was pleased to hear from Tom Harrison the last week of January. He said he was coming to San Francisco on business the following week, and invited her to dinner. She offered to show him her progress on the house, and he said he'd be delighted. |
| 1002 |
She had belonged to each of them, and had been theirs, and in the end, she had been her own. She was like a beautiful bird that could be loved and admired but not caged. As they sat together, and Sarah mulled over Lilli's story, Pierre's grandmother's brow furrowed for a moment, and she said something more to him. He listened and nodded, and turned to Sarah with a wistful air. "My grandmother says there was one other thing about Lilli's children. She said that she often saw her writing letters. She wasn't sure, but she thought they might have been to them. The boy who went to the post office said that her letters to America were always returned. He gave them back to Madame la Marquise himself, and she would look very sad. He told my grandmother that she put them in a little box, where she kept them tied up with ribbons. My grandmother said she never saw them until the marquise died. She found the box when she was helping to put away her things, and showed the box of letters to the marquis. He told her to throw them away, so she did. She doesn't know for sure, but she thinks they were letters to her children, all of which were returned. She must have tried to contact them over the years, but someone always sent them back to her unopened. Perhaps the man she had been married to, the children's father. He must have been very angry at her. I would have been, in his place." It was hard for any of them to understand how she had left a husband and two children, out of passion for someone else. But according to Pierre's grandmother, she had loved the marquis that much. She said she had never seen two people more in love with each other, right up to their deaths. Enough to abandon her children for. Sarah couldn't help wondering if she had regretted it, and hoped she had. Her tears over the photographs and returned letters she saved said something. But in the end, hard as it was to understand, her love for the marquis had been more powerful, and had prevailed, as had his for her. |
| 1003 |
It was one of those passions apparently that defied reason and all else. She had walked away from an entire life to give herself to him, and leave everyone, even her children, behind. She had gone to her grave without ever seeing them again, which seemed a terrible fate to Sarah. And for Mimi, the grandmother she loved so much. Pierre chatted with his grandmother for a while, and then they left. Sarah thanked her profusely again before she did. It had been an amazing day for her. And as he had offered to, Pierre took her to the cemetery on the way back. The Mailliard Mausoleum was easy to find, and they found them there. Armand, Marquis de Mailliard, and Lilli, Marquise de Mailliard. He had been forty four years old when he died, and she thirty nine. They had died within eighty days of each other, not even three months. Sarah felt sad as she left the cemetery, after hearing the story. She wondered how many times Lilli had cried over the children she had left, and why they never had any children of their own. Perhaps that would have consoled her, or perhaps she couldn't bear the thought of having another child, after the two she had given up. Even with as much as Sarah knew now, Lilli would always be a mystery to all of them. What had driven her, who she had been, what she had really felt or not felt or cared about or longed for were all secrets she had taken with her. Clearly, her passion for the marquis had been a powerful force. Sarah knew that Lilli had met him at a consular party in San Francisco just before the crash. How she had decided to run away with him, or when or why, no one really knew and never would. Perhaps she had been unhappy with Alexandre, but he had obviously adored her. But it was, in the end, the marquis who had owned her heart, and only he. Sarah felt as though she had something to go back with, which would satisfy her grandmother and even her mother, although Lilli would forever be an enigma. She had been a woman of enormous passion and mystery till the end. |
| 1004 |
Long distance was too tough to really work. Sarah had tried it in college and never liked it. Geographic undesirability had been a turn off to her ever since. She took a cab from the airport to her apartment, and as she came through the door, it looked worse than ever. She felt like she no longer even lived there. She couldn't wait to get out. There were boxes everywhere that she'd packed before she left, and the rest of her belongings were in piles all over the floor. Goodwill was scheduled to come on Tuesday to take whatever she didn't move. She wasn't moving much. She was almost embarrassed to give it to Goodwill. She felt as though she had grown up in the last six months, ever since she'd bought the house. She called her mother that night to say she was back. Her mother sounded rushed, she said she was flying out the door. She was going to Carmel for the weekend. She seemed to be moving around a lot these days, and having fun. Her mother said Mimi was due back on Wednesday. Sarah wanted them all to come to the house for dinner the following weekend. And she had much to tell Mimi, after her visit to Dordogne. Sarah was surprised not to hear from Jeff that night. He knew when she was coming back, but he was probably busy. She fell asleep early that night, still on Paris time, and woke up at five in the morning, thoroughly jet lagged. She showered and dressed, made herself a cup of coffee, and headed to the house at six. It was a gorgeous sunny morning. When she let herself into the house, she felt as though she already lived there. She walked around her domain with pleasure. All the lights worked, the plumbing was fine. The paneling shone. And when she walked in, the new kitchen was gorgeous. It was even more beautiful than she'd hoped for. And she liked the replacement refrigerator even better. She was going to start painting the smaller rooms in the next week, and the professional painters were starting in two weeks to do the big ones. By June the house would be nearly complete. |
| 1005 |
She set the table in her kitchen, and invited Mimi and George, her mother, and Jeff. She was going to introduce him as the architect who was helping her with the house, which explained his being there, without telling her family yet that they were dating. It was still very new, and she wasn't ready to share that information with them yet. But it was an easy way for them to meet him. He told her on the phone the day before that he was nervous about it. She told him she thought her mother would be fine, her grandmother was adorable, and George was easy. He was only slightly reassured. This was important to him, he didn't want to blow it. They had already seen each other three times that week. He came by one night with Indian curry (hot for him, mild for her), while she started painting her dressing room. Her hair was already splattered with pink paint by the time he got there, and he laughingly showed her how to do it, and then wound up helping her. They forgot to eat till after midnight, but the dressing room looked great when Sarah woke up the next morning and rushed to check the color. Powder pink, just as she wanted, in nice, clean, smooth strokes. He came by the next day, too, and Sarah made dinner. They wound up talking about everything from foreign movies to decorating to politics, and neither of them got any work done, but they had a nice time. And on Friday he took her to dinner and a movie, to "maintain their dating status," as he put it. They had a good French meal at a small restaurant on Clement Street, and went to see a good thriller afterward that they both enjoyed. It wasn't a serious film, but they had a nice time with each other, and kissed again for a long time when he brought her home. They were still moving slowly, though seeing a lot of each other. He had spent the day with her on Saturday, painting again, and helped her set the dinner table for her first party. She made leg of lamb with mashed potatoes and a big tossed salad. He had brought a cheesecake and some French pastries. |
| 1006 |
He spent most of his nights with her at the house on Scott Street. He only went home for the night when he had work to do and needed his drafting table. She finally suggested he get one and put it in one of her spare little rooms. She had so many, she had plenty of room for him to set up a makeshift office with her. He liked the idea, and found a good secondhand one. He brought it home one Friday night and dragged it up the stairs. That way he could work while she continued to paint a myriad of small rooms. The painters were doing a great job on the big ones. Each day, the house looked more exquisite. Jeff turned out to be an excellent cook and made breakfast for them every morning before they left for work. He made pancakes, French toast, fried eggs, omelettes, scrambled, even eggs Benedict on weekends, and she warned him that he'd have to leave if he made her fat. It was a treat to have him pamper her, and she did as much for him whenever she could. They still ordered take out food most nights because they both worked late, but she cooked dinner for him all three nights on the weekend, except when he took her out to dinner. They had long since lost count of the number of dates, and agreed that there had been many. They had been together for some part of every day since Audrey's announcement of her impending marriage. And he spent just about every night of the week with her. He hadn't officially moved in, but he was there constantly. And one of the master dressing rooms was now his. Everything was working out beautifully for them. By the first of June, preparations for Audrey and Tom's wedding were in high gear. Audrey had picked out furniture to rent for the main floor, for the dining room and sitting rooms, and the main salon. She had picked topiary trees that would have gardenias in them. She had ordered flowers for the reception rooms, and a garland of white roses and gardenias for the front door. Just as she had promised, she was taking care of every possible detail, and was paying for it herself. |
| 1007 |
The wedding was going to be small, but she wanted it to be perfect. Even though it was the second wedding for each of them, she wanted it to be a day that they would remember for the rest of their lives, especially Tom. She had hired a group of four to play chamber music as people walked in. The wedding itself was going to be in the living room. She had thought of everything. The only thing missing that had her in a total panic was that she hadn't found a dress. Nor had Sarah. She had been too busy in the office to go shopping since Audrey had shared the news. Her mother finally convinced her to take an afternoon off, and they went shopping together, with great results, at Neiman Marcus. Audrey found an off white satin cocktail dress with crystal beads on the hem, cuffs, and neck. It had long sleeves and looked demure. She found perfect white satin shoes with rhinestone buckles to go with it, and a matching handbag. Tom had just given her a spectacular pair of diamond earrings as a wedding present, and the engagement ring he had given her was a ten carat cushion cut diamond that knocked Sarah's eyes out when she saw it. Audrey had already decided that she would be carrying a small bouquet of white orchids. She was going to be elegance incarnate. By five o'clock on their shopping day, Sarah still hadn't found a dress, and was beginning to panic. Her mother insisted she couldn't wear an old black cocktail dress she'd worn to her office Christmas party for the past two years. As the maid of honor, she had to buy something new, and then finally her mother spotted an exceptionally pretty Valentino dress. It was the same brilliant blue as Sarah's eyes. It was satin, strapless, and had a little jacket she could take off after the wedding. Her mother suggested she wear it with high heeled silver sandals, which looked just right. Her mother was going to have her carry a smaller bouquet of the same white orchids, and she had ordered one for Mimi as well, just so she didn't feel left out. |
| 1008 |
She didn't want any slips, if so, he'd probably want to keep it and she wouldn't. They didn't need the headache or the grief. She thought their life together was perfect just as it was. "I'm too old to have children anyway," she said, pushing it further. "I'll be forty on my next birthday," she reminded him. "That's way too old." But they both knew it wasn't. He didn't comment. It was obviously a subject that upset her, and for now anyway, it was not a pressing problem. For either of them. They both dropped the subject, went out, and had a pleasant dinner. Sarah told him about her mother's idea to rent out the house, or parts of it, for people to give weddings, which Sarah thought was not a bad way to make some extra money to pay for the furniture she wanted. She liked the idea, and Jeff thought it might be fun, although annoying to have strangers in the house who might wander around where they shouldn't. Jeff had another idea, which he thought would be funny, but it would take money to make money, and for the moment she was hanging on to what she had, for her house and all the things she wanted to buy to make it even more beautiful than it already was. Jeff's idea was that they buy houses together, in bad shape, restore and remodel them together, then sell them at a profit. He loved what she had done to her own house, and said she had a knack for it. She liked the idea, but worried about what it would cost them. It was an idea for the long haul, if there was one. So were marriage and babies. They seemed to be discussing long term plans tonight. But she liked his idea about redoing houses on spec. She knew she was going to be sad when the house on Scott Street was finally complete. She had loved every minute of doing it, and still did. He stayed with her that night, and for the weekend. He hardly went to his apartment anymore except to get books and clothes. He had only spent a few days in it since he rented it. And he told her at dinner that he had just had a serious offer for the house on Potrero Hill. |
| 1009 |
One minute they were planning the wedding, and the next, the caterers were bustling around in the kitchen, the videographer was setting up his camera at the right angle, the florist had brought the topiary trees, there were garlands on the stairs and over the front door. A photographer was following every human in the house like a heat seeking missile, then photographing the decor, the preparations, and the guests as they arrived. The musicians were playing. Tom and his children were standing in the front hall, as Jeff and Sarah chatted with them. Fred had brought his new girlfriend, which made Sarah smile. So much for that, not that she cared, she had Jeff now. And Mimi and George walked in looking like an ad for vibrant old people in a magazine. She was wearing a pale blue silk dress and jacket that harmonized well with Sarah's brighter blue one. And suddenly, they were waiting for Audrey to come down the stairs. There was no one to walk her down. She came down alone to Handel's Water Music, with tears running down her cheeks as she looked at Tom. She took everyone's breath away, she looked so pretty. Mimi looked proud, Sarah squeezed Jeff's arm, and as Tom looked at the woman he was marrying, he cried openly, standing between his two sons. Everyone was moved, as she walked to him and took his arm. The judge who performed the ceremony spoke wisely about the challenges of marriage, and the blessings it provided when it was right, the wisdom of it between two good people who had chosen well. The food was delicious. The wine was fabulous. The house looked spectacular, the furniture Audrey had rented to stage it looked like it belonged there. Sarah really liked Tom's children, and his sons got on famously with Jeff. It was the perfect day, the perfect time, and before anyone could blink, Audrey was standing at the top of the stairs again in her beautiful white satin dress, and her bouquet of white orchids came hurtling down and hit Mimi in the chest, as Sarah let out her breath, and her mother winked at her. |
| 1010 |
At the last minute, they had decided to make the wedding black tie. All three women were going to be wearing long gowns, as were Mimi's five or six friends who were attending. The men were wearing tuxedos. The groom looked very debonair with a red bow tie, and ruby studs and cufflinks that had been his grandfa ther's. Much to everyone's delight, Jeff had volunteered to give the bride away, and she accepted. She was afraid to fall, or trip on her gown, if she came down the grand staircase alone. She felt safer with a strong arm to lean on. They didn't want a mishap at the wedding. "And since you won't marry me, Mimi, which shows very poor judgment on your part, I decided to be gracious and give you away to George. Although I must say, you should be ashamed of leading me on for the last six months. I'll be right there, in case you change your mind and come to your senses at the last minute." Mimi loved the games Jeff played with her, and so did he. He was waiting outside her room when she was ready. She came out in her pale gold and champagnecolored evening gown with gold high heeled shoes. She was carrying a bouquet of lily of the valley, which she said had been her mother's favorite flower. The groom was wearing a sprig of it on his lapel as he waited for her downstairs. Audrey and Tom noticed with a smile that he was looking nervous. They chatted quietly with the minister as they waited for her to come down, as a harp and violins began playing. Sarah had lit everything by candlelight and turned the lights down. And then suddenly they saw her coming. She still had a lovely figure, even at her age, and she looked absolutely regal, as she came slowly down the stairs on Jeff's arm. He looked solemn, handsome, and distinguished. She looked up at Jeff and smiled, as he patted her hand, and then her eyes found George, and she smiled. For a moment, Sarah realized that Mimi looked a lot like Lilli, she was just older, but equally pretty. There was the same mischievous sparkle in her eye, the same passion for life. |
| 1011 |
Jeff went downstairs to their third guest room to try and get some sleep. He didn't have to be dressed till six. Sarah almost forgot to wake him, and then sent Tom to get him up. They had to wake him twice. Fatherhood was more exhausting than he had expected, but much better. He loved Sarah more than he ever had before. Sarah was still dressing when Audrey brought the baby in to nurse. It made Sarah half an hour late when she came downstairs, and by then everyone was waiting. Mimi was holding the baby, Jeff was wearing a dark blue suit and was wide awake and looked refreshed. Tom and George were standing side by side, and all heads turned as Sarah came slowly down the stairs in a long white dress. It was a size bigger than she would have liked, but she looked exquisite. The dress was a simple creamy lace with long sleeves and a high neck, and showed off her figure, which was better than ever, even if slightly fuller. She was wearing her hair in a loose bun, with lily of the valley in it, and she held a bouquet of them in her hands. Jeff's eyes filled with tears when he saw her. He had waited so long for this. She had been worth the wait. They both cried when they exchanged their vows, and their hands shook as they put each other's rings on, and just as they did, William woke up and looked around. The minister christened him at the same time. As Jeff said afterward, it was a full service wedding. They got it all done at once. Afterward they ate and danced and drank champagne, and took turns holding the baby. And finally Jeff danced slowly around the ballroom with his wife. It was the first time they had used it. They were going to give a big party there for Christmas this year. They were slowly growing into the house, each other, and their lives. Sarah had become Mrs. Jefferson Parker. She had extended her maternity leave to a year, and they had just bought a small house to remodel, to try it out as a joint project. They would see what happened after that, and how much money they made on it. |
| 1012 |
She didn't have a single bad angle. Her face was virtually perfect for the camera, with no flaws, no defects. She had the delicacy of a cameo, with finely carved features, miles of naturally blond hair that she wore long most of the time, and blue eyes the color of sky and the size of saucers. Matt knew she liked to party hard and stay out late, and amazingly it never showed in her face the next day. She was one of the lucky few who could get away with playing and never have it show afterward. She wouldn't be able to get away with it forever, but for now she still could. If anything, she only got prettier with age, although at twenty one, one could hardly expect her to be touched by the ravages of time, but some models started to show it even at her age. Candy didn't. And her natural sweetness still showed through just as it had the first day he'd met her, when she was seventeen and doing her first shoot for Vogue with him. He loved her. Everyone did. There wasn't a man or woman in the business who didn't love Candy. She stood six foot one in bare feet, weighed a hundred and sixteen pounds on a heavy day, and he knew she never ate, but whatever the reason for her light weight, it looked great on her. Although she was thin in person, she always looked fabulous in the images he took of her. Just like Vogue, which adored her and had assigned him to work with her on this shoot, Candy was his favorite model. They wrapped up the shoot at twelve thirty, and she climbed out of the fountain as though she had only been in it for ten minutes, instead of four and a half hours. They were doing a second setup at the Arc de Triomphe that afternoon, and one that night at the Eiffel Tower, with the sparklers going off behind them. Candy never complained about difficult conditions or long hours, which was one of the reasons photographers loved working with her. That, and the fact that you couldn't get a bad photograph of her. Her face was the most forgiving on the planet, and the most desirable. |
| 1013 |
He liked L'Avenue too, and it was close to where they were going to shoot that afternoon. He knew it didn't matter where they went, she wasn't likely to eat much anyway, just consume gallons of water, which was what all the models did. They flushed their systems constantly so they didn't gain an ounce. And with the two lettuce leaves Candy usually ate, she was hardly likely to put on weight. If anything, she got thinner every year. But she looked healthy, in spite of her enormous height, and ridiculously light weight. You could see all the bones in her shoulders, chest, and ribs. Just as she was more famous than most of her counterparts, she was also thinner than most. It worried Matt for her sometimes, although she just laughed when he accused her of having an eating disorder. Candy never responded to comments about her weight. Most major models flirted with or suffered from anorexia, or worse. It went with the territory. Humans didn't come in these sizes, not after the age of nine. Adult women, who ate even halfway normally, just weren't that thin. They had a car and driver who took them to the restaurant on the Avenue Montaigne, and as usual at that hour and time of year, it was mobbed. The couture collections were being shown the following week, and designers, photographers, and models had already started to fly in. In addition, it was high tourist season in Paris. Americans loved the restaurant, but so did trendy Parisians. It was always a scene. One of the owners spotted Candy immediately, and showed them to a table on the glassed in terrace, which they referred to as the "Veranda." It was where she liked to sit. She loved the fact that she could smoke in any restaurant in Paris. She wasn't a heavy smoker, but indulged occasionally, and she liked having the freedom to do it, without getting dark looks or ugly comments. Matt commented that she was one of the few women who made smoking look appealing. She did everything with grace, and could make tying her shoelaces look sexy. |
| 1014 |
It was always Jack who took the more aggressive, confrontational role, the lion in the courtroom, fighting for better conditions and bigger settlements, relentlessly backing his opponents into a corner, from which there was no relief for them until they gave him what he wanted for his client. It was Liz who was more thoughtful, gentler, ingenious about the subtleties, holding the clients' hands when needed, and fighting for the rights of their children. And at times the difference in their styles led to fights between them, as it had in Amanda's case. Despite some of the malicious games Amanda's husband had played on her, the threats, the constant verbal and occasional physical abuse, Liz thought what Jack had proposed was too tough on him. "Are you crazy?" Jack had asked her bluntly before Amanda arrived. "Look at the crap this guy has pulled on her. He has three girlfriends he's supporting now, has cheated on her for ten years, has hidden all his assets from her, doesn't give a damn about his kids, and wants to walk out of the marriage without it costing him a penny. What do you suggest we do? Set up a trust for him, and thank him for his time and trouble?" Jack had his fighting Irish up, and although with her bright red hair and flashing green eyes, Liz seemed to have fiery looks, she was in fact far more moderate than he was. Jack's eyes were dark and ominous as he glared at her, and his hair had been snow white since he was thirty. People who knew them well teased them sometimes and said that they looked like Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. But despite their occasionally heated arguments, everyone inside the courtroom and out knew they were crazy about each other. Theirs was a loving, solid marriage, and they had a family that everyone envied, five children whom they adored, four of whom had bright red hair like their mother, and the youngest boy had dark hair, as Jack's once had been. "I'm not telling you Phillip Parker doesn't deserve to get hammered," Liz explained patiently. |
| 1015 |
He had come more than two months early, and had been damaged first by the birth, and then by the oxygen they gave him. It could have blinded him, but it didn't. Instead, he was learning delayed, though not acutely, but enough to make him different, and slower than he should have been at his age. He managed well in spite of it, went to a special school, and was responsible, and alert, and loving. But he would never be like his brother and sisters. It was something they had all long since accepted. It had been a shock at first, and an acute agony, especially for her. She felt so responsible at first. She had been working too hard, she had been in three trials back to back, and was stressed over it. She'd been so lucky with the others, she'd never had any problem. But right from the first, Jamie had been different. It was a tough pregnancy, and she'd been exhausted and sick from beginning to end, and then suddenly nearly two and a half months early, with no warning, she was in labor, and they hadn't been able to do anything to stop it. He had been born ten minutes after she got to the hospital, it was an easy birth for her, but a disaster for Jamie. At first it had looked as though the disaster might be even greater, and for weeks it looked like he might not survive at all. When they brought him home finally, after six weeks in an incubator, he seemed like a miracle to all of them, and still was. He had a special gift of love, and his own brand of wisdom. He was the kindest and gentlest of all of them, and had a wonderful sense of humor, despite his limitations. They had long since learned to cherish him, and appreciate his abilities, rather than mourn all that he wasn't and would never be. He was such a handsome child that people always noticed him, and then were confused by the simplicity with which he spoke, and the directness. Sometimes, it took them a while to figure out that he was different, and when they did, they were sorry for him, which annoyed his parents and his siblings. |
| 1016 |
She knew there were friends she could call, but she couldn't think who they were now. She couldn't think of anything except Jack, lying there, and whispering to her that he loved her. She thanked the nurse for the robe and promised to send it back, and then she walked barefoot through the hospital hallway and outside to the police officers waiting for her in the squad car. The nurse at the desk told her to call them when she had made arrangements. Even the word sounded ugly to her. Liz made no sound as she got in the back of the squad car, and she didn't even know she was crying as tears rolled down her cheeks and she stared through the grille ahead of her at the backs of the two officers driving her home. They opened the car door for her, and helped her out when they got there, and offered to come in with her. But she shook her head, and began to sob as Carole walked down the driveway toward her, and Jean drove in at exactly the same moment. And suddenly both women were holding her, and all three of them were sobbing. It was beyond belief, this hadn't happened to them. It couldn't have. It was too hideous to be true. She was trapped in a nightmare. It wasn't possible that Jack was gone. Things like this just didn't happen to real people. "He killed Amanda too," Jean said through tears as they stood there holding each other. The officer who'd called her had given her the details. "The kids are all right, or alive at least. They saw him do it. But he didn't hurt them." Phillip Parker had killed Amanda and Jack, and then himself. It was a wave of destruction that had hit them all. The Parker children were orphans. But all Liz could think of now was what she was going to say to her own children, and she knew that the moment they laid eyes on her they would know that something terrible had happened. There was blood in her hair, the blood soaked nightgown had stained through the cotton bathrobe she'd gotten at the hospital, and she looked like she'd been in an accident herself. |
| 1017 |
Faces came and went. Flowers arrived. She was aware of a pain so enormous it was physical, and waves of panic washed over her with such force she was sure she would drown in them. The only reality she could relate to now was her constant worry about her children. What would happen to them? How could any of them live through this? The agony on their faces was a mirror of her own. This couldn't be happening to them, but it was, and there was nothing she could do to stop it or make it better for them. Her sense of helplessness was total and overwhelming. She was being driven by a life force so powerful it had no limits, and it felt as though she was being washed toward a brick wall, and could do nothing to stop it. But they had already hit the wall, the morning Phillip Parker shot her husband. The neighbors brought food, and Jean had called everyone she could think of, including Victoria Waterman, Liz's closest friend in San Francisco. She was an attorney too, though she had given up her practice five years before, to stay home with her three children. She had had triplets through in vitro, after years of trying, and decided she wanted to stay home with them, to enjoy it. Victoria's was the only face Liz could focus on and remember. The others all seemed vague, and she couldn't remember from one hour to the next who had been there, and who she had talked to. Victoria arrived quietly with a small overnight bag. Her husband had agreed to take care of the boys, and she was planning to stay for the duration. And the moment Liz saw her standing in the bedroom doorway, she began to sob, and Victoria sat with her for an hour as she cried, and held her. There was nothing Victoria could say, no words she could offer her that would make it all right, so she didn't even try. They just sat there, holding each other and crying together. Liz tried to explain what had happened, to sort it out for herself if nothing else, but it didn't make sense, especially to her, as she went over everything that had happened that morning. |
| 1018 |
Liz was still wearing her bloodstained nightgown and hospital robe when Victoria arrived, and after a while, Victoria helped her take them off, and gently put her in the shower. But nothing changed anything, nothing helped, whether she ate or drank or cried or talked or didn't. The outcome was still the same no matter how she turned it around in her mind, no matter how many times she went over what had happened. It was as though saying it would make it come out different this time, but it didn't. All Liz wanted to do was run in and out of her bedroom to check on her children. Carole was sitting with Jamie and the girls, Peter had gone to Jessica's for a while, and Jean was making endless phone calls. Victoria tried to get Liz to lie down, but she wouldn't, and that afternoon, Jean said grimly that Liz had to think about the "arrangements." It was a word she had come to hate, and never wanted to hear again. It held within its core all the horror of what had just happened to them. Arrangements. It meant picking a funeral home, and a casket, and a suit for him to wear, and the room where people would come to "view" him, like an object or a painting, and no longer a person. Liz had already decided that she wanted the casket closed, she didn't want anyone to remember him that way, but only the person he had been, laughing and talking, and playing with his kids, and strutting around the courtroom. She didn't want anyone to see what he had become, the lifeless form that Phillip Parker had destroyed with a single bullet. And she knew that somewhere Amanda Parker's family was dealing with the same horror they were, and her children would be devastated. They were still young, and she had already been told that Amanda's sister would take them. But Liz couldn't think about them now, only her own. She asked Jean to send flowers to the funeral home for them the next day, and she was going to call Amanda's mother in a few days. But for the moment she was too distraught herself to do more than cry for them from the distance. |
| 1019 |
If not, she might prove her mother right and lose her house and her practice. "You don't look it," her mother said grimly. "Tomorrow, you should wash your hair and put on makeup." Tomorrow, I should die so I don't have to live through this, Liz wanted to say to her, but couldn't. There was no point fighting with her on top of everything else. They had enough to worry about now, without adding family feuds into the bargain. Jack hadn't been close to his brother either, but at least he was there, and it was nice for the children to see him, Jack's parents, and her mother and brother. She and Victoria lay in bed late that night, talking about him, and what had happened. It was a nightmare none of them would ever forget, and probably never recover from. Liz had already spoken to several people on the phone that day who had told her she'd never get over it, particularly a traumatic death like this, and two others had told her that the best thing she could do was get out in the world again as soon as possible, she might even be married again in six months, who knew, she might get lucky. Lucky? How did they figure that, and where did they get the courage to tell her what to do? Sell the house, move away, move into town, take a new associate in with her, give it up, what to tell the kids, what not to tell the kids, buy a dog, have him cremated, throw the ashes off the bridge, don't let the kids attend his funeral, make sure they see him before the casket was closed, make sure they don't so they don't remember him that way. Everyone had free advice to give, and an endless stream of opinions. She was already exhausted from listening to them. But all it boiled down to in the end was that Jack was gone, and she was on her own now. She didn't fall asleep until five o'clock that morning, and Victoria lay awake and let her talk all night. And at six o'clock Jamie came in, and climbed into bed with them. "Where's Daddy?" he asked, as he lay next to her, and Liz could feel her whole body shudder as he asked her. |
| 1020 |
In the end, it was even worse than Victoria, or Liz, had expected. The entire family went to the funeral home, and they broke into sobs the moment they saw the casket. There were flowers standing next to it, and a spray of flowers on top of it, Liz had asked for white roses for him, and the smell of them was heavy in the room when they entered. And for a long time, there was only the sound of sobs, and finally Victoria and James took the children away, and led Liz's mother away with them, and Liz was left alone with the mahogany casket she had chosen for him, and the man she had loved for nearly twenty years resting inside it. "How could this happen?" she whispered as she knelt next to him. "What am I going to do without you?" The tears streamed down her cheeks as she knelt on the worn carpet and rested a hand on the smooth wood. It was all so inconceivable, so unbearable, so much more than she had ever thought she could bear, except that now she had to. She had no choice. This was the hand that life had dealt her, and she had to live through it, if only for her children. Victoria came to get her after a while, they went out to get something to eat, but Liz couldn't eat anything. The children were talking by then, and Peter teased the girls to cheer them up, and kept an eye on his mother as he sat next to Jamie and told him to eat his hamburger. They had all suddenly grown up overnight. It was as though Peter could no longer allow himself the luxury of being a teenager, but had become a man. Even the girls seemed more grown up suddenly, and Jamie less of a baby. They were all doing their best to be strong and be there for their mother and each other. Carole drove the children home after they ate, and the others went back to the funeral home with Liz. And all afternoon people came to pay their respects, and cry, and comfort Liz, and chat with each other outside the funeral home. It was like an endless cocktail party, with tears, and no food, and Jack in the casket at the end of the room. |
| 1021 |
But it had, and it seemed to go on forever. They went through a second day at the funeral home, and by then Liz was alternately numb and feeling hysterical, but outwardly she was extraordinarily composed, so much so that some people wondered if she was sedated. But she wasn't, she was just on autopilot, and doing what she had to. Monday dawned with dazzling sunshine, and she went back to the funeral home before the funeral, to be alone with him. She had decided not to see him, and was agonized over it. She felt as though it was something she ought to do, but she knew she just couldn't. She didn't want to remember him that way. She had last seen him in the ambulance, and on their office floor, moments before he died, and that was agony enough to remember without adding further torture to it. More than anything, she was afraid that if she saw him, she couldn't stand it, and would lose her grip completely. She left quietly and drove home, and found the children waiting for her in the living room, with their uncles and their grandparents. Her mother was wearing a black suit, and the girls were wearing navy blue dresses their grandmother had bought them. Peter was wearing his first dark blue suit, that Jack had just gotten him a month before, and Jamie was wearing a blazer and gray flannels. Liz was wearing an old black dress Jack had liked and a black coat that Jean had borrowed for her on Sunday. They looked somber and respectable, and as they filed into the pew at St. Hilary's Church, Liz could hear people cry and blow their noses. The service was beautiful and brief, the church was full, there were flowers everywhere, and afterwards it was all a blur to her. Jean and Carole had arranged for food at the house, and more than a hundred people came to eat and drink and tell her how sorry they were. And all Liz could think of was leaving him at the cemetery. She had left a single red rose on his casket for him, and then kissed the box, and walked away, holding Jamie's hand with Peter's arm around her. |
| 1022 |
She had a heart after all. It was just the connection to her mouth that was so often foolish and faulty, but Liz suddenly understood something more about her. She meant well, she just didn't know how to say it. "I'll manage." "Do you want me to stay?" Liz shook her head. She'd just have to take care of her mother if she stayed, and she needed all her energy now for her children. "I'll call if I need you. I promise." The two women held hands across the kitchen table, and then went up to bed. Victoria called her late that night to see how she was, and she said she was fine, but neither of them believed it, and Liz lay in bed, wide awake, and crying most of the night, until six o'clock the next morning. Her mother left on schedule, and then she and the children were alone, roaming aimlessly around the house. Carole took everyone bowling that afternoon, and even Peter went, for once without his girlfriend. Liz stayed home to go through some of Jack's papers, and everything was meticulously organized. She found his will easily, the insurance policy, everything was in order in his desk. There was no chaos to comb through, no bad surprises, nothing to worry her, except for the fact that he was gone and she was alone for the rest of her life. And as she thought of it, she felt the now familiar wave of panic wash over her, and she missed him more than she thought humanly possible. She cried all afternoon, and by the time the kids came home, she looked exhausted. Carole cooked dinner for them that night, hamburgers and french fries. They had thrown the turkey out, untouched, on Christmas night. No one wanted to look at it, let alone eat it. And by nine o'clock, the children were in their rooms, the girls watched a video, and later that night, Jamie woke up and climbed into bed with her, and it was comforting to have him there, warm and cozy beside her. Life stretched ahead of her like an endless empty strip of road now, with nothing but responsibilities and burdens, and things she would have to do alone. |
| 1023 |
Jean had cancelled all the court appearances she could, save two which couldn't be postponed, but they weren't until later that week. Liz needed the time to go through all their files, and figure out what she was going to do about their clients. She dictated a letter to Jean that afternoon, explaining the circumstances of Jack's death to all their active clients, although it was hard to believe anyone didn't know. It had been all over the news during the Christmas weekend. But some might have been away, or missed it somehow. She explained that she'd be working as a sole practitioner now, and understood if people wanted to hire other attorneys to replace them. If not, she would be continuing with their work, and doing the best possible job for them. And to those who had sent her letters and flowers, she thanked them for their expressions of sympathy. The letter was direct and to the point, and both she and Jean suspected that most of their clients would stick with her. But that vote of confidence in itself was going to be an enormous burden to her. Despite what she had said to her mother the week before, she was beginning to wonder if she could do it. It was going to be hell doing it all alone. Overnight, it had more than doubled her workload. Not only did she have to handle his work as well as her own, but she had lost the moral support and the spark and the energy that he brought to her. "Think I can do it?" she asked Jean at the end of the afternoon, looking depressed and anxious. Everything seemed to take ten times as much effort, and she felt exhausted. "Of course you can." Jean knew that Liz was every bit as good an attorney as Jack was. He had been the bluster and the balls and the bully in the partnership, if he had to be. But they had done a skillful dance together. But at that moment, without him, Liz felt like less than half the team. She felt as though he had taken her confidence and her courage with him, and said so to Jean. "You'll be fine," Jean said again. |
| 1024 |
Liz had talked to the girls' school psychologist, who had given her the mixed blessing of telling her that somewhere around six to eight weeks, the kids would turn the corner, and start to be happier again. They would adjust, but by then, Liz would feel worse for a while, as the full reality of it hit her. And as she walked into the office on Valentine's Day, Liz finally believed her. Jack had always made a big deal out of holidays. He bought roses for her on Valentine's Day, and he always got her a present. But everything about this year was different. She had to appear in court for clients twice that day, and she was finding it harder and harder to do that. Her clients' animosity toward the spouses they were divorcing seemed unnecessarily venomous to her, and the cruel tricks they pulled on each other and wanted her to pull on their behalf seemed so pointless. She was beginning to hate their law practice, and wondered why she had let Jack talk her into family law in the first place. She had said as much to Victoria when she last talked to her. Her boys kept her busy as they were still in nursery school, and she and Liz had had trouble getting together, but they still had time for long conversations on the phone late at night. "What other kind of law would you rather do?" Victoria had asked sensibly. "You always told me you hated personal injury when I was doing it, and I can't see you doing criminal." "There are other specialties. I don't know, maybe something to do with kids. All my clients are so busy trying to screw each other over, they forget about their children." Children's advocacy had always appealed to her, but Jack had always been quick to remind her there was no money in it. He wasn't greedy, but he was practical, and they had five kids to support. They made a good living in family law, and it was difficult to ignore that. But she was reminded again of how much she hated it on the afternoon of Valentine's Day when she walked out of court having won some minor point for one of her clients. |
| 1025 |
The rest of it was all there, and she liked it. And one day, when she didn't like it anymore, she would do something about it. But hopefully, not for a long time. She wasn't ready, and she knew it. "Are you okay?" Jean had walked into the room and saw her staring out the window with a look of sorrow. But Liz stirred quickly when she heard her, and looked at her with a wistful smile. "My mother. She always has some piece of advice to give me." "Mothers are like that. You have court this afternoon, I assume you remember." "I do. Though I can't say I'm looking forward to it." She had maintained their practice exactly as it had been. She was still taking all the same cases that Jack would have approved of, and wanted to fight. She was still using the same criteria for accepting them, and referring the same ones that Jack wouldn't have wanted. She was doing it for him, and still respecting the guidelines he had set for them, but there were times when she questioned what she was doing. There was so much about family law that she didn't like, so many of the battles that seemed unimportant to her. And dealing with people who hated each other, were so willing to hit below the belt and hurt each other, and constantly cause each other trouble and pain, was beginning to depress her, and Jean knew that. Liz's heart wasn't in it the way it had been when Jack was alive. They had been great as a team, but on her own, she just didn't have the fire she'd once had anymore. She wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but the constant irritations of dealing with divorce had begun to bore her. But no one would have guessed that when she walked into court that afternoon. As usual, she was well prepared, totally organized, and fought valiantly for her client, and easily won the motion. It was a trivial point, but she handled it to perfection, and the judge thanked her for her rapid disposal of a relatively small matter that the opposing counsel was frivolously trying to turn into a major issue. |
| 1026 |
He had had to do it very quickly, to help her and his siblings. There was no choice now. Even the girls had grown up a lot in the last six months, and despite her awkward age, Megan was always offering to help her. Liz knew she was going to miss her while she was at camp, but they deserved to get away and have a good time. They all did. Peter went to his own room then, and in her room, Liz sat down on her bed and spread out her papers. She was still working long after Peter had gone to bed. She always worked late now. She hated to go to bed, or to try and sleep. It was always a battle to fight the memories out of her head. The nights were a lot harder than the days, and had been from the beginning. But by two she was finally asleep, and by seven, she was up and running. She dropped Jamie off at camp again, went to work, sifted through her caseload, dictated letters to Jean, made a dozen phone calls, and at five thirty she was back in the backyard, timing Jamie's dashes. In its own way, it was a pleasant treadmill. Kids, work, kids, work, sleep, and then the same routine all over again. For the moment, it was all she had, and all she wanted. By the time camp was over for the girls, Jamie had picked up a lot of speed on his dashes, and improved his distance on the running long jump. They had even practiced the sack race, with a burlap bag she had gotten at the feed store. He was gaining in confidence as well as speed. And he made up in effort and goodwill what he lacked in coordination. But Jamie was even more excited about seeing his sisters when they came home than he was about the Special Olympics. And they were thrilled to see him. Jamie was special to all of them. And the day before camp ended for the girls, Liz took Jamie and a friend to Marine World. He loved getting splashed by the dolphins and the whales. He was absolutely soaked by the time they left and got in the car to drive home. Liz had to wrap him in towels so he didn't catch cold, and he was ecstatic about the day. |
| 1027 |
But it was like everything else they had to face now, unbearably hard the first time, but once they got through the pain, there was a sense of victory to have survived it. "Why don't you try one event," Liz reasoned with him, as she kept her arms around him and stroked his hair, "and if you hate it, we'll just watch from the stands, or go home if you want. Just do this one." He hesitated for a long time, and said nothing, as they called the participants in the dash to the starting line, and then he looked up at her and nodded. She walked to the starting line with him, and he turned and looked at her for a long time, and then he lined up with the others. She blew him a kiss before he turned around, something Jack would never have done. Jack always treated him like a man, and he always said she treated Jamie like a baby. But he was her baby, and no matter how grown up he eventually got, or how capable, he always would be. She stood watching him with tears in her eyes as he ran, and shouting encouragement with the other parents. But she wanted him to win this time, for himself, for Jack, and to prove that things were still all right, that he could live on without his father. Jamie needed this even more than the others, and maybe in some small way, she did also. She watched, holding her breath as he approached the finish line. He looked as though he might come in third or fourth, and then with a sudden burst, he pulled ahead of the others. He didn't look to either side, or glance around, as some of the others did, he just pushed himself as hard as he could and kept going, and then with a look of astonishment, as tears streamed down her face, she realized that he had come in first. The ribbon had snapped across his chest, and he was panting at the other end, and looking around wildly for her as the official "hugger" gave Jamie a big hug and congratulated him. There were scores of volunteers who did just that. Liz ran to him as fast as she could, and he threw his arms around her when he saw her. |
| 1028 |
His wife didn't like Tahoe, his kids were grown, and they seldom used it. And it was perfect for Liz and the children. It had a wide, sheltered porch, and you could see the lake from most of the bedrooms. It was surrounded by five acres of land. There were big, beautiful trees, and everyone was in a great mood when they got there. Peter and the girls helped Liz get everything out of the car, and Jamie took the groceries into the house and helped her unpack them. Carole had gone to Santa Barbara for a week to stay with her sister. "What about a swim?" Peter suggested almost as soon as they arrived. And half an hour later, they were all jumping off the nearby dock, shivering in the cold water. But that was part of the fun of it, and Liz had arranged for them to go water skiing the next morning. She cooked dinner for them that night, and Peter helped with the barbecue. His father had taught him how to do it. And they sat in front of the fireplace afterwards, telling stories and roasting marshmallows. And after awhile, Annie told a funny story about their father. Liz smiled as she listened, and it reminded her of another time, and another story. She told it, and they all laughed, and then Rachel reminded them of when Dad had accidentally locked himself into a cabin they'd rented and had to climb out the window. And after a while it was a contest of who could remember the silliest stories. It was a way of bringing him back to them, in a way they could all tolerate now. The months that had passed had taken the edge off the pain for them, and left them with not just the tears, but the laughter. And when they all finally went upstairs to go to bed, Liz felt better than she had in months. She still missed him, but she wasn't quite as sad, and they were all happy to be there. It was a vacation they all needed, and she was glad that Peter had managed to get the time off to come with them. He was doing such a good job at the pet hospital that they had given him the week off and told him to enjoy it. |
| 1029 |
It was two thirty in the afternoon by then, and at four, nothing had changed, and the doctor came back and talked to her again. They were going to give Peter another hour to regain consciousness on his own, and reassess the situation then. She nodded as she listened. He hadn't stirred since he came in, but she and the doctor both agreed that his color was a little better. The doctor noticed at the same time however that hers wasn't, but he didn't say anything about it. She looked awful. And he mellowed a little bit this time as he spoke to her, but not much. He only asked if she had called the boy's father, and she shook her head, and didn't offer to explain it to him. "You probably should," he said cautiously, there was something in her eyes that made him hesitate, maybe a bad divorce, or some awkward situation. "He's not out of the woods yet." "His father died eight months ago," she said finally. "There's no one else to call." She had already called home and told everyone he was still alive but she wouldn't call again until she had more news about his condition. She sounded calmer than she felt. All she could do was pray now that Peter would not join his father. She was praying that the doctor could prevent that. "I'm sorry," he said, and disappeared again, as she looked intently at her son, and although she would have died before she told anyone, she was beginning to feel the room spin slowly around her. It was all too much for her, too terrible, too terrifying. She couldn't lose him. Couldn't. She wouldn't let him leave them. She put her head down as far as she could, and felt better, and then went back to talking quietly to Peter. And as though he had heard her prayers, he moved ever so slowly, and tried to turn his head, but they had put a neck brace on him and he couldn't. His eyes still didn't open. She started talking to him in a stronger voice then, urging him to open his eyes and talk to her, or blink if he could hear her, squeeze her hand, move his toe, anything. |
| 1030 |
It sounded good to both of them, and when it came, it was delicious. They dove into it, and had eaten roughly half when they decided they'd had enough, and the waitress served them coffee. They had talked about a lot of things, medicine, the law, the years he had spent in New York during his residency, and how much he liked it, and she talked about going to Europe with Jack and loving it, particularly Venice. They touched on a wide variety of subjects, but she was still intrigued by what he'd said about marriage and children. He obviously had very strong opinions on the subject. And she felt sorry for him. He had deprived himself of a way of life she cherished. She wouldn't have given up the years of her marriage for anything, and certainly not her children. Without them, she knew her life would be empty, as she suspected his was. All he really cared about was his work, and the people he took care of and worked with. It was a lot, but not enough for a whole life, in her opinion. But they didn't bring up the subject again. Instead, their conversation turned to films. He had very eclectic tastes, he liked foreign films, and arty movies, as well as some big commercial ones. She admitted that she enjoyed the kind of movies she saw with her children, they were all very commercial films, and in Peter's case, action movies. And she used to love going with them. It reminded her of how little she had done with her children, out in the world, since Jack died. She was always there for them at home, but she seldom went out with them anymore, and she promised herself silently that she would in future. Bill had gotten her rolling again, and after the film they saw that night, she promised herself she was going to take the kids soon. It was a long time since they had done something like that together, and it was time now. She invited him in for a drink when they got home, but he said he had to get up early the next day. He had to be at the hospital at six, and she was touched that he had stayed out so late with her. |
| 1031 |
She was breathless when they stopped and a little worried. "What are we doing?" she asked, as they stood beneath the stars of a September night, and he smiled at her. "I think we're kissing," he said simply. But it was much more than that, it wasn't just idle curiosity, or the hunger of two lonely bodies, it was the clear attraction that happened sometimes between a man and a woman, a meeting of minds as well as lips. There were a great many things they liked about each other, although they had already agreed that they were very different. He liked fleeting relationships of all kinds, and everything in her life was based on permanence, marriage, children, career, even her two employees had worked for her for years. There was nothing temporary in her life, and he knew that about her. It was almost a challenge to him to be different. But he wasn't sure now if he wanted to be temporary in her life either. This was a new experience for him, but she wasn't the kind of woman he usually was attracted to. "Let's take this slow," he said to her, "and not think about it too much. Let's just see what happens." She nodded, not sure what to say to him, or if anything more should happen. But by the time she was in the house again, and he was gone, she was consumed by guilt over what she'd done. She felt as though she had betrayed her husband. But he's gone, she told herself, and he was never coming back. But then why did it feel so strange to be kissing Bill, and so wrong, and at the same time so exciting? It unnerved her as she thought about it, and she lay awake for a long time that night, thinking about him, and Jack, and wondering what she was doing. And the next morning, when she woke up, tired from a long, sleepless night, she told herself that they would have to go back to their easy friendship, without adding complications to it. She felt better when she decided that, until he called her at ten o'clock that morning. "I was thinking about you, and I thought I'd call and see how you were," he said gently. |
| 1032 |
But that was not what he had been hinting. He kissed her again that night, after all the kids went to bed, and it made her nervous to kiss him in her house. This was getting very cozy, and a little too familiar. And he had been very nice to her children. It had all the makings of a full scale romance. Jack had been gone for nine months by then, and she was beginning to feel as though she were walking through a mine field, which might explode at any moment. Megan was poised for attack, the other girls were unsure, and more than anything, Liz had her own emotions to deal with, her concerns about Bill, and his propensity for temporary attachments, by his own admission, and her sense of loyalty to Jack, which was being severely challenged by her feelings for Bill Webster. She felt that way all through September and into October, and it was a relief when she left for the weekend on the college tour with Peter. But in spite of that, Bill was calling every day, and even called her at the hotel in Los Angeles where they were staying. It was a surprise to hear from him, but she was smiling when she hung up, and this time Peter didn't comment. He didn't want to say anything to upset the delicate balance of their romance, mostly because he liked him, and wanted it to work out between them. And he knew from little things she said how ambivalent his mother was feeling. When they got back, she waited a few days before she saw Bill, and then only for a quick hamburger in the cafeteria on a night he was on duty at the hospital, but Bill had been anxious to see her. The nurses all recognized her, and some came over to say hello, as did the chief resident, and everyone said to say hello to Peter. "Everybody loves you, Liz." She had made a big impression on everyone with her devotion to Peter. Not all parents were as attentive as she was, in fact few were. And she was attentive to Bill too, always asking him questions about his work, and concerned about him, and the challenges and stresses he faced daily. |
| 1033 |
It was the last remnant of him that he had left behind, other than his trophies, and his photographs, and a few mementos, and of course their children. Peter helped her take it all out to the car, and as though sensing that a turning point had come, one by one the children came and watched her. There was a look of loss evident in their eyes, and at the very last, Megan came out of her room and looked at her mother. It was obvious that it wasn't easy for Liz either, and then, as a silent move of support for her, each of the children picked something up, a box, a bag, a coat, and carried it to the car. It was a last gesture of good bye to their father. And at the very end, Megan came, carrying the last armload. "I'm sorry, Mom," she whispered through her tears, and Liz turned and clung to her, grateful for the bond between them. "I love you, Meg." Mother and daughter cried as they held each other, and the others were crying too by the time the car was full. "I love you too, Mom," Megan said softly, and the others came to hug her. She was taking the clothes to a local charity drop, and Peter offered to drive her. "I'm okay. I can do it alone," she reassured him. He was wearing a smaller neck brace by then, and had just begun to drive again, and he insisted on driving her. She was too upset to drive the car and she knew it. And together, they drove slowly out of the driveway, with the car piled high with his father's things, as the others watched. They were back half an hour later, and Liz looked ravaged, and when she walked back into her closet that afternoon and saw the empty space, her heart gave a little tug, remembering what had been there, but she felt freer. It had taken her a long time, but she knew she had been right to wait until she was ready, despite the endless advice she'd been given about when to put away Jack's clothes. She sat in her room for a long time, staring out the window, and thinking of him, and when Bill called late that afternoon, he could hear in her voice that something had happened. |
| 1034 |
By Halloween, they both knew it was serious. Neither of them had come to terms with it, or figured out what it meant for their future, but Bill was obviously in love with her, and although she didn't admit it to him yet, she knew that she loved him. It was a dilemma for her, because she didn't know what to do about it, or what to tell her children. She had talked to Victoria about it more than once, and her only advice had been to go slow and let things "unfold," which sounded sensible to Liz, and it was what she thought too. She knew that in time, they'd both know how they felt, and what to do. Bill came to the house and they took Rachel and Jamie trick or treating. Annie and Megan said they were "too old" to go trick or treating, and stayed home to hand out candy at the door with Carole. Peter was at his new girlfriend's house, handing out trick or treat candy there. And late that night, when the children were in bed, Bill looked at her quietly, and asked her if she would go away with him for the weekend. She hesitated for a long time, and he was suddenly terrified that he had ruined everything, but they had been dating for two months, and their passion had become harder and harder to restrain. He knew that he hadn't misinterpreted what she felt for him, and his own feelings were clear, at least to him. And he felt like a kid again when she quietly said she'd go to the Napa Valley with him the following weekend. They agreed not to tell the kids, and he said he'd make reservations for them. He wanted to take her to the Auberge du Soleil, because it was the most romantic place he could think of for their first weekend together. Bill picked her up late Friday afternoon, he had been working since the night before, but he was so happy and excited that he wasn't tired. And Liz had made lots of plans for the children that weekend to keep them busy. She had told them she was going to stay with a friend from law school, and she had arranged a time with Bill to pick her up when she knew everyone would be out. |
| 1035 |
Only Carole knew where she was really going. And Bill was faintly amused by her modesty and discretion, but he also knew that it was easier for them both that way. There was no need to upset her kids. Although Peter and Jamie might have been pleased to know they were going away together, the girls most certainly wouldn't. There was still plenty of resistance among them being generated by Megan. She was civil to him by then, but barely more than that, and there was no reason to antagonize her further. The scenery was beautiful along the way, the leaves had turned a variety of coppery colors, and the grass was still green, as it always was in winter. It was an odd combination of East and West, the fall colors of New England, combined with the evergreen of California. And they chatted all the way to Saint Helena. Liz was quiet from time to time, and he didn't want to ask her what she was thinking. He knew that being with him was still an adjustment for her, and she had told him more than once that there were times when she felt as though she were betraying Jack. He knew that in some ways, this weekend wouldn't be easy for her. And as they drove along, Liz glanced at the wedding ring she was still wearing. They checked into the room close to dinnertime, and Liz was touched when she saw how elegant it was. He had gone all out to spoil her and make her happy. And the view of the valley stretching endlessly before her at dusk took her breath away. She went into the bathroom to change after Bill poured them both some wine, and came out in a new black dress for dinner. They ate in the hotel's dining room, and afterwards went to sit in front of the fireplace at the bar, while a woman sang at the piano. And they were both comfortable and relaxed as they wandered slowly back to their room. They held hands, and as soon as they walked in, Bill kissed her. It was a kiss that told her everything she meant to him, and within minutes, they were both swept away by their passion for each other. |
| 1036 |
Her clients would have been stunned by what she was saying. She was always so full of energy, bright ideas and creative suggestions. But lately, she felt like a windup doll whose batteries had run down. She didn't enjoy it anymore, and she wasn't happy. But she felt she owed it to Jack to keep going, for him. She asked Bill what he was doing for Thanksgiving. They had talked about it once before, and he wasn't sure if he'd be working. He had just found out that he had the day off, and he wouldn't even be on call. He was free to do whatever he wanted, but he hadn't made any plans since he had expected to be working over the holiday. "Why don't you spend it with us?" Liz said easily. The children were getting used to him, and it might be a nice way to break everyone in, she thought, over the holidays. They all loved Thanksgiving, or at least they had, when their father was alive. Liz knew it would be different this year, for all of them and her too. And trying to keep the tension level down, she had discouraged her mother from coming out. But she wasn't prepared for the children's reaction when she told them that Bill would be joining them. Megan had a fit, predictably, Rachel and Annie said that he wasn't part of the family and didn't belong there, and even Jamie looked a little startled. She talked to Peter about asking Bill not to come, but he thought that would be mean, and he thought it might be nice to have him. And in the end, she didn't say anything to Bill about their reaction. She just hoped they'd settle down, and be good sports when the day came, but she realized on Thanksgiving Day that her optimism had been unfounded. When the doorbell rang and he arrived, all three girls were still very angry with her. Bill walked in wearing a tweed jacket, gray slacks, and a red tie, and Liz was wearing a brown velvet pantsuit. The children were all neatly dressed, and Peter was wearing the same suit he'd worn at his father's funeral, Jamie his gray flannels and blazer. |
| 1037 |
They only had three more weeks of school before Christmas vacation. But there was no holiday spirit in the house, and it broke Liz's heart when she brought out the decorations. She decided not to put lights on the outside of the house this year, or in the trees the way Jack always did. They just put up decorations inside the house, and two weeks before Christmas she took them to buy a Christmas tree, but no one's heart was in it. She hadn't heard from Bill in two weeks by then, and she suspected she never would again. He had made his decision, and intended to stick by it. And she had finally admitted it to Victoria, who was devastated for her, and offered to take her to lunch, but Liz didn't even want to see her. And as Christmas approached, the entire house seemed to be weighed down, they were all sinking slowly into the mire of depression. It was nearly a year since Jack had died, and it suddenly felt as though it were yesterday. The children talked about him constantly. And Liz felt as though she were ricocheting between her agony over losing Bill and her memories of her late husband. She stayed in her room most of the time, and they didn't entertain friends. She turned down all the invitations to Christmas parties. She even decided not to have her mother come out, and told her she wanted to be alone with her children, and although her mother had sounded hurt, she said she understood it. And she invited another widowed friend to come and stay with her. The only things Liz and the children did to acknowledge the holiday were hang ornaments on the tree, and bake Christmas cookies, and all she did was pray that the holiday would soon be over. She thought about taking them to ski between Christmas and New Year's, but they weren't in the mood for that, and they decided to stay home, as they all sank slowly into the quicksand of painful memories that engulfed them. She was sitting at her desk in the office the week before Christmas when a client called, sounding breathless, and asked if she could come in to see her. |
| 1038 |
W hen Jamie got home from the hospital, he told everyone he'd seen Bill, and told Peter he'd said hi to him, and then he showed them his cast and where Bill had signed it. He had everyone sign it then, including Carole and his mother. Liz watched him, feeling as though she'd been trapped in a whirlpool all afternoon, with her own emotions whirling all around her. It had been hard seeing Bill, but it was nice too. It was so tantalizing, she had wanted to just reach out and touch him. Or worse yet, tell him she loved him. But she knew that that would have been crazy. He was as far out of her life now as Jack was. She went to the cemetery to leave flowers for her husband the next day. And she stood there for a long time, thinking of the years they had shared, and the good times they'd had. It all seemed so wasted now, so lost, all because of one terrible moment. It still seemed so unfair. She stood at his grave for a long time, and cried for what they had lost and what he was missing. He would never see his children grow up, or his grandchildren, he wouldn't grow old with her. Everything had stopped, and now they had to go on without him. It was all so very hard. But the worst agony of all was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Although she had expected it to be difficult, she had been in no way prepared for how hard it would hit her. It was like a wrecking ball to the chest that hit her in all ways. She missed the joys they had shared, the Christmases when the children were small, the laughter, the promise, the traditions. And then, as she reeled from the blow of her memories, she remembered the horror of their last Christmas morning, watching him lie dying on their office floor with no way to stop the nightmare that befell them. She walked around in a fog all day, crying all the time, and unable to stop, and the children were no better. It was one of the worst days in her life since he had died. And her mother was worried about her when she called. And even more so when she told her she was closing the office. |
| 1039 |
She surprised Liz by saying she had decided to go back into practice part time, and she made Liz promise that in spite of that, they were going to see more of each other and Liz promised that they would. Victoria was worried about her and the children. She knew it was a brutal Christmas for them, and she was sorry she wasn't there to come over and visit. But for the rest of the day, the phone was silent. And at the end of the day, Liz took them all to a movie. They were as sad as she was, and they needed some distraction. They went to see a comedy, and the kids laughed, but Liz didn't. She felt as though there were nothing left in her life to laugh at. It was all tragedy and loss, and people who had died or walked away. She soaked in a hot bath after they got home, and just lay there for a long time, thinking of how fast the year had gone and how much had been in it, and in spite of herself, she couldn't help wondering where Bill was. He was probably working. He had always said he hated holidays, that they were for people with families, and he had opted not to have one, after his taste of it at Thanksgiving, although she wasn't entirely sure she blamed him. But she thought he could at least have given it another chance. If he'd been brave enough, which he wasn't. She knew she had to face the fact now that he just didn't want it. He liked the life he had, and he was good at it. She lay in the tub thinking of how kind he'd been to Jamie. He was a terrific doctor, and a decent man. She went to bed alone that night, just after midnight. Jamie was sleeping in his own room. He had slept in hers once since he got the cast, turned over in the middle of the night, and accidentally hit her with it, and she still had a bruise on her shoulder to show for it. After that, they'd agreed that it would be better if he slept in his own bed till he got the cast off. "You okay, Mom?" Peter stuck his head in her room when he came upstairs right after she went to bed, and she told him she was, and thanked him for checking. |
| 1040 |
The house was familiar and old and beautiful, with tall ceilings and splendid boiseries, lovely moldings, and parquet floors the color of brandy. Everything around her shone and was impeccably tended. Isabelle ran the house with artistry and precision, and a firm but gentle hand. The garden was exquisitely manicured, and the white roses she'd had planted years before were often called the most beautiful in Paris. The house was filled with the antiques she and Gordon had collected over the years, locally and on their travels. And a number of them had been her parents'. Everything in the house shone, the wood was perfectly oiled, the silver polished, the crystal sconces on the walls sparkled in the bright June sun that filtered through the curtains into her bedroom. Isabelle turned from the view of her rose garden with a small sigh. She was torn about leaving Paris that afternoon. She so seldom went anywhere anymore, the opportunities were so rare. And now that she had a chance to go, she felt guilty about it, because of Teddy. Isabelle's daughter, Sophie, had left for Portugal with friends the day before. She was eighteen years old and going to university in the fall. It was Isabelle's son, Theodore, who kept her at home, and had for fourteen years now. Born three months premature, he had been badly damaged at birth, and as a result, his lungs had not developed properly, which in turn had weakened his heart. He was tutored at home, and had never been to school. At fourteen, he had been bedridden for most of his life, and moved around the house in a wheelchair whenever he was too weak to do so under his own steam. When the weather was warm, Isabelle wheeled him into the garden, and depending on how he felt, he would walk a little bit, or just sit. His spirit was indomitable, and his eyes shone the moment his mother came into the room. He always had something funny to say, or something to tell her. Theirs was a bond that defied words and time and years, and the private terrors they had faced together. |
| 1041 |
She willed life and strength into him, talked to him for hours, read to him, held him in her arms when he was too weak and breathless to speak, and made him laugh whenever she could. He saw life as she did. He always reminded her of a tiny fragile bird with broken wings. She and Gordon had spoken to his doctors of a heart lung transplant, performed in the States, but their conclusion was that he was too weak to survive the surgery or perhaps even the trip. So there was no question of risking either. Theodore's world consisted of his mother and sister and was limited by the elegant confines of the house on the rue de Grenelle. His father had always been uncomfortable in the face of his illness, and Teddy had had nurses all his life, but it was his mother who tended to him most of the time. She had long since abandoned her friends, her own pursuits, and any semblance of a life of her own. Her only forays into the world in recent years were in the evening, with Gordon, and only rarely. Her entire mission in life was keeping Teddy alive, and happy. It had taken time and attention away from his sister, Sophie, over the years, but she seemed to understand it, and Isabelle was always loving to her. It was just that Teddy had to be the priority. His life depended on it. In the past four months, ever since the early spring, Theodore had been better, which was allowing his mother this rare and much anticipated trip to London. It had been Bill Robinson's suggestion, a seemingly impossible one at first glance. Isabelle and Bill had met four years before at a reception given by the American ambassador to France, who was an old classmate of Gordon's from Princeton. Bill was in politics, and was known to be one of the most powerful men in Washington, and probably the wealthiest. Gordon had told her that William Robinson had been responsible for putting the last president in the Oval Office. He had inherited a vast, almost immeasurable fortune, and had been drawn to politics and the power it afforded him since his youth. |
| 1042 |
He was a power broker and a king maker, but what had impressed Isabelle was how quiet and unpretentious he was, when they met. When Gordon explained Bill's circumstances to her, it seemed hard to believe that he was either as wealthy or as powerful as he was. Bill was enormously unassuming and discreet, and she had instantly liked that about him. He was easygoing, and looked surprisingly young, and he had a quick sense of humor. She had sat next to him at dinner and enjoyed his company immensely. She was pleased and surprised when he wrote to her the following week, and then later sent her an out of print art book they had discussed, which she had told him she had been hunting for for ages. With far more pressing pursuits at hand, she had been amazed that he remembered, and touched that he had gone to the trouble of finding it and sending it to her. Art and rare books were his passion. They had talked endlessly about a series of paintings that had been found at the time, lost since the Nazis absconded with them during the war, which had turned up in a cave somewhere in Holland. It had led them to speak of forgeries, and art thefts, and eventually restoration, which was what she had been doing when she met Gordon. She had been an apprentice at the Louvre, and by the time she retired when Sophie was born, she had been thought to be both skillful and gifted. Bill had been fascinated by her stories, just as she was by his, and over the next months, an odd but comfortable friendship had formed between them, via telephone and letters. She had found some rare art books to send to him, and the next time he came to Paris, he called her and asked if he could take her to lunch. She hesitated and then couldn't resist, it was one of the rare times when she left Theodore at lunchtime. Their friendship had begun nearly four years before, and Teddy was ten then. And over time, their friendship had flourished. He called from time to time, at odd hours for him, when he was working late, and it was early morning for her. |
| 1043 |
She had told him that she got up at five to tend to Teddy every morning. And it was another six months before he asked her if Gordon objected to his calling her. In fact, she had never told him. Bill's friendship had become her secret treasure, which she diligently kept to herself. "Why should he?" she asked, sounding surprised. She didn't want to discourage his calls. She enjoyed talking to him so much, and there were so many interests they shared. In an odd way, he had become her only real contact with the outside world. Her own friends had stopped calling years before. She had become increasingly inaccessible as she spent her days and nights caring for Teddy. But she had had her own concerns about Gordon objecting to Bill's calls. She had mentioned the first art books he sent when they arrived, and Gordon looked startled but said nothing. He evidenced no particular interest in Bill's sending them to her, and she said nothing to him about the phone calls. They would have been harder to explain, and they were so innocent. The things they said to each other were never personal, never inappropriate, neither of them volunteered anything about their personal lives, and they rarely spoke of their spouses in the beginning. His was simply a friendly voice that arrived suddenly in the dark hours of the early morning. And as the phone didn't ring in their bedrooms at night, Gordon never heard them. In truth, she suspected Gordon would object, if he knew, which was why she had never told him. She didn't want to lose the gift of Bill's calls or friendship. Bill called every few weeks at first, and then slowly the calls began to come more often. They had lunch again a year after they had met. And once, when Gordon was away, Bill took her to dinner. They dined at a quiet bistro near the house, and she was stunned to realize, when she got home, that it was after midnight. She felt like a wilted flower soaking up the sun and the rain. The things they talked about fed her soul, and his calls and rare visits sustained her. |
| 1044 |
Gordon was the head of the largest American investment bank in Paris, and had been for years. At fifty eight, he was seventeen years older than Isabelle. They had drifted apart over the years, she was aware of it, and thought it was because of Teddy. Gordon could not tolerate the aura of constant illness that hung over the child like a sword waiting to fall. He had never allowed himself to be close to him, and they all knew it. His aversion to Teddy's illness was so extreme, it was almost phobic. Teddy himself was acutely aware of it, and had thought his father hated him when he was younger. But as he grew older, he saw it differently. By the time he was ten, he understood that his father was frightened by his illness, panicked almost, and the only way he could escape it was to ignore him entirely, and pretend the child didn't exist. Teddy never held it against him, and he would speak of it openly with Isabelle, with a wistful look, as though talking about a country he wished he could visit, and knew he never could. The child and his father were strangers to each other, almost as though they had never met. Gordon blocked him out, and put all his energies into his work, as he had for years, and removed himself as much as possible from life at home, particularly his wife. The only member of his family he seemed even slightly drawn to was Sophie. Her character was far more similar to his than to her mother's. Sophie and Gordon shared many of the same points of view, and a certain coolness of outlook and style. In Gordon's case, it was born of years of erecting walls between himself and the more emotional side of life, which he perceived as weakness in all instances, and had no appeal to him. In Sophie's case, she simply seemed to have inherited the trait her father had created in himself. Even as a baby, she had been far less affectionate than her brother had been, and rather than turning to anyone for help, particularly Isabelle, she preferred to do everything for herself. |
| 1045 |
In order not to feel shortchanged by what was not available to her, she had convinced herself and her own little world that she needed nothing from them. She shared almost no confidences with Isabelle, and never spoke of her feelings if she could avoid it, which most of the time she could and did. And if she confided in anyone, Isabelle knew, it was not her mother but her friends. Isabelle had always cherished the hope that once Sophie grew up, they would find some common ground and become friends. But thus far, the relationship with her only daughter had not been an easy one for her. Gordon's coldness toward his wife, on the other hand, was far more extreme. Sophie's seeming distance from her mother could be interpreted as an attempt to stand on her own two feet, in contrast to her brother's constant neediness, and to be different from him. In her case, it seemed almost an attempt to prove that she did not need the time and energy her mother did not have to give, due to Teddy's being constantly ill. In Gordon's case, it seemed to be rooted in something far deeper, which at times seemed, or felt to Isabelle at least, like a deep resentment of her, and the cruel turn of fate that had cast a handicapped son on them, for which he appeared to blame her. Gordon had a dispassionate view of life, and generally observed life from a safe distance, as though he were willing to watch the game but not play it, unlike Teddy and Isabelle, who were passionate about everything they felt, and expressed it. The flame that she and the child shared was what had kept Teddy alive through a lifetime of illness. And her devotion to her son had long since distanced Gordon from her. Emotionally, Gordon had been removed from her for years, since shortly after Teddy's birth. Years before she met Bill, Gordon had moved out of their bedroom. At the time, he had explained it by saying that she went to bed too late and rose too early, and it disturbed him. But she had sensed accurately that there was more to it than that. |
| 1046 |
And there had been much about Isabelle that Gordon had liked, and which had reassured him that she would make a perfect wife. Her ancestry certainly, her aristocratic heritage and name, her important connections, which had served him well at the bank. Her family's fortune had evaporated years before, but their importance in social and political circles had not. Marrying her had increased his stature socially, which was an important factor for him. She was the perfect accessory to enhance both his standing and his career. And in addition to the appeal of her pedigree, there had been a childlike innocence about her that had briefly opened the door to his heart. In spite of whatever social ulterior motives he may have had, there was a basic sweetness to Isabelle as a young girl that would have been hard for any man to resist. She was compassionate, kind, without guile. And the loftiness of Gordon's style, his considerable attentions toward her, and his exquisite manners when he courted her, had elicited a kind of hero worship from her. She was fascinated by his intelligence, impressed by his power and success in the world, and Gordon had been smooth enough with the advantage of being seventeen years older than Isabelle, to say all the right things to her. Even her family had been thrilled when he proposed. It had been obvious to them that Gordon would be a perfect husband and take extraordinarily good care of her, or so they thought. And in spite of his reputation for being tough in his dealings at the bank, he seemed extremely kind to her, which ultimately proved not to be the case. By the time Isabelle met Bill Robinson, she was a lonely woman standing vigil over a desperately ill child, with a husband who seldom even spoke to her, and leading an unusually isolated life. Bill's voice was sometimes the only contact she had with another adult all day, other than Teddy's doctor, or his nurse. And he appeared to be the only person in her world who was genuinely concerned about her. |
| 1047 |
At best, if pressed, he told her that he would be out for dinner that night, or that he was leaving in the morning on a trip. He no longer shared with her what he did in the course of his days. And their brief conversations only reinforced her feeling of being shut out of his life. The hours she spent talking to Bill opened the windows to a broader, richer world. They were like a breath of fresh air to Isabelle, and a lifeline she clung to on dark nights. It was Bill who had become her best friend in the course of their conversations over the years, and Gordon who was now the stranger in her life. She had tried to explain it to Bill once in one of their early morning phone calls, in the second year of their friendship. Teddy had been sick for weeks, she was feeling run down and exhausted and vulnerable, and she was depressed over how cold Gordon had been to her the night before. He had told her that she was wasting her time nursing the boy, that it was obvious to everyone that he was going to die before long, and she had best make her peace with it. He had said that when the boy died finally, it would be a mercy for all of them. She had had tears in her voice and her eyes, when she spoke of it to Bill that morning, and he had been horrified by the callousness of the child's father, and his cruelty to Isabelle. "I think Gordon resents me terribly for all the years I've spent taking care of Teddy. I haven't had as much time to spend with him as I should have." She entertained for him, but not as frequently as she knew he felt she should. Gordon had long since convinced her that she had failed him as a wife. And it irked Bill to hear how ready she was to accept what Gordon said. "It seems reasonable, under the circumstances, that Teddy should be your first priority, Isabelle," Bill said gently. He had been quietly researching doctors for her for months, in the hope of finding a miracle cure for Teddy, but he hadn't been encouraged by what he'd been told by the physicians he'd consulted. |
| 1048 |
According to Isabelle, the child had a degenerative disease that was attacking his heart, his lungs were inadequate, and his entire system was slowly deteriorating. The consensus of opinion was that it would be a miracle if he survived into his twenties. And it tore at Bill's heart knowing what Isabelle went through, and would have to face someday. Over the next few years, their friendship had deepened. They spoke on the phone frequently, and Isabelle wrote him long philosophical letters, particularly on the nights she spent awake, sitting at Teddy's bedside. Teddy had long since become the hub of her life, and not only had it alienated her from Gordon, but there were times when it also kept her from Sophie, who berated her mother for it on more than one occasion. She had accused her mother of only caring about her brother. And the only one Isabelle could talk to about it was Bill, in their lengthy conversations in the heart of the night. The moments they shared transcended their daily realities, the pressures of the political arena seemed to vanish into thin air when he talked to her. And for Isabelle, she was transported to a time and a place when Teddy wasn't ill, Gordon hadn't rejected her, and Sophie was never angry. It was like being lifted out of the life she led into the places and topics that she had once cared about so deeply. Bill brought her a new view of the world, and they chatted easily and laughed with each other. He spoke to her of his own life at times, the people he knew, the friends he cared about, and once in a while, in spite of himself, he spoke of his wife and two daughters, both of whom were away in college. He had been married since he was twenty two years old, and thirty years later, what he had left was only the shell of a marriage. Cindy, his wife, had come to hate the political world, the people they met, the things Bill had to do, the events they had to go to, and the amount of time he had to travel. She had total contempt for politicians. |
| 1049 |
Her warmth and her light and her almost elfin quality had struck him from the moment they met. For the first time in his life, Gordon believed that he was in love. And the potential social opportunities offered by their alliance were irresistibly appealing to him. Gordon came from a respectable family, but not nearly as illustrious as Isabelle's. Her mother came from an important British banking family, and was distantly related to the queen, and her father was a distinguished French statesman. It was, finally, a match that Gordon thought worthy of him. Her lineage was beyond reproach, and her shy, genteel, unassuming ways suited him to perfection. Her mother had died before Isabelle and Gordon met, and her father was impressed by him, and approved of the match. He thought Gordon the perfect husband for Isabelle. Isabelle and Gordon were engaged and married within a year. And he was in total command. He made it very clear to her right from the first that he would make all their decisions. And Isabelle came to expect that of him. He had correctly sensed that, because of her youth, she would pose no objections to him. He told her who they would see, where they would live, and how, he had even chosen the house on the rue de Grenelle, and bought it before Isabelle ever saw it. He was already head of the bank then, and had a distinguished position. His status was greatly enhanced by his marriage to Isabelle. And he in turn provided a safe, protected life for her. It was only as time went by that she began to notice the restrictions he placed on her. Gordon told her who among her friends he didn't like, who she could see, and who didn't meet with his approval. He expected her to entertain lavishly for the bank, and she learned how to very quickly. She was adept and capable, remarkably organized, and entirely willing to follow his directions. It was only later that she began to feel that he was unfair at times, after he had eliminated a number of people she liked from their social circle. |
| 1050 |
Isabelle was far more open to new people and new opportunities, and the varied schemes and choices that life offered. She had been an art student, but took a job as an apprentice art restorer at the Louvre when she married Gordon, despite his protests. It was her only area of independence. She loved the work and the people she met there. Gordon found it a bohemian pursuit, and insisted that she give up her job the moment she got pregnant with Sophie. And after the baby was born, in spite of the joys of motherhood, Isabelle found that she missed the museum and the challenges and rewards it offered. But Gordon wouldn't hear of her returning to work after the baby was born, and she got pregnant again very quickly, and this time lost the baby. Her recovery was long, and it wasn't as easy afterward to get pregnant again. And when she did, she'd had a difficult pregnancy with Teddy, which resulted in his premature birth, and all the subsequent worries about him. It was then that she and Gordon began drifting apart. He had been incredibly busy at the bank then. And he was annoyed that, with a sick child under their roof, she was no longer able to entertain as frequently, or pay as close attention as he liked to her domestic and social duties to him. In truth, in those early years of Teddy's life, she had had almost no time for Gordon or Sophie, and she felt at times that they banded together against her, which seemed terribly unfair to her. Her whole life seemed to revolve around her sick child. She could never bring herself to leave him, in spite of the nurses they hired, and unfortunately by then, her father had died, her mother years before. She had no one to support her through Teddy's early years, and she was always at his side. Gordon didn't want to hear about Teddy's problems, or their medical defeats and victories. He detested hearing about it, and as though to punish her, he removed himself almost instantly from any intimacy in their marriage. It had been easy to believe eventually that he no longer loved her. |
| 1051 |
Gordon had no desire for them, and Isabelle had no time. She gave everything she had to her son. And Gordon continued to convey to her, with and without words, that she had failed him. It was as though she had committed the ultimate crime, and Teddy's illness were her fault. There was nothing about the boy Gordon was proud of, not the child's artistic abilities, nor his sensitivity, nor his fine mind, nor his sense of humor despite the burdens he bore. And Teddy's similarity to Isabelle only seemed to annoy Gordon more. He seemed to have nothing but contempt for her, and a deep, silent rage that he never expressed in words. What Isabelle didn't know, until a cousin of Gordon's told her years later, was that Gordon had had a younger brother who suffered from a crippling illness as a child and had died at the age of nine. He had never even mentioned his brother to Isabelle, nor had anyone else. The subject was taboo to him. And although his mother had doted on Gordon when he was younger, the latter part of his childhood was spent watching his mother nurse his brother, until he died. The cousin wasn't entirely sure what the illness had been, or what had exactly happened, but she knew that Gordon's mother had fallen ill after the boy died. She had lingered then, with a long illness, and died a slow, painful death. And what seemed to have stayed with Gordon was a sense of betrayal by both of them, for stealing attention from him, and tenderness and time, and eventually dying and abandoning him. The cousin said that her mother had been convinced that Gordon's father had died of a broken heart, although several years later, but he had never recovered from the double loss. In effect, Gordon felt he had lost his entire family as a result of one sick child. And then he lost Isabelle's time and attention to Teddy's illness. It had explained things to her when the cousin explained it to Isabelle, but when she had tried to speak of it to Gordon, he had brushed her off, and said it was all nonsense. |
| 1052 |
But when Isabelle spoke to him of it, despite his protests, she had seen the look of panic in his eyes. They had been the eyes of a wounded child, not just an angry man. She wondered then if it was why he had married so late, and remained so distant from everyone, and it explained, finally, his resistance to Teddy in every possible way. But whatever she had come to understand did not help her with Gordon. The gates to Heaven never opened between them again, and Gordon saw to it that they remained firmly closed, and stayed that way. She tried to explain it to Bill, but he found it impossible to understand, and inhuman of Gordon to desert her emotionally. Isabelle was one of the most interesting women he'd ever met, and her gentleness and kindness only made her more appealing to him. But whatever he thought of her, Bill had never suggested any hint of romance to her, he didn't even allow himself to think it. Isabelle had conveyed to him clearly right from the first that that was not an option. If they were going to be friends, they had to respect each other's respective marriages. She was extremely proper, and loyal to Gordon, no matter how unkind he'd been to her, or distant in recent years. He was still her husband, and much to Bill's dismay, she respected him, and had a profound regard for her marriage. The idea of divorce or even infidelity was unthinkable to her. All she wanted from Bill was friendship. And no matter how lonely she was with Gordon at times, she accepted that now as an integral part of her marriage. She wasn't searching for anything more than that, and would have resisted it in fact, but she was grateful for the comfort that Bill offered. He gave her advice on many things, had the same perspective on most things as she did, and for a little while at least, while they talked, she could forget all her worries and problems. In her eyes, Bill's friendship was an extraordinary gift that he gave her, and one that she treasured. But it was no more than that. |
| 1053 |
Once the decision had been made, she was excited about it. She could hardly wait to see the exhibit, and do a little shopping in London. She was planning to stay at Claridge's, and perhaps even see an old school friend who had moved to London from Paris. It was only days later that Bill discovered he needed to meet with the American ambassador to England. He had been a major donor to the last presidential campaign, and Bill needed his support for another candidate, and he wanted to get him on board early, to establish a floor for their contributions. With his support, Bill's dark horse candidate was suddenly going to become a great deal more attractive. And it was a pleasant coincidence that Isabelle would be there at the same time. She teased him about it when he told her he would be in London when she was. "Did you do that on purpose?" she asked with her slightly British tinged English. And along with it, she had the faintest of French accents, which he found charming. At forty one, she was still beautiful, and didn't look her age. She had dark brown hair with a reddish tinge, creamy porcelain skin, and big green eyes flecked with amber. At his request, she had sent him a photograph two years before, of herself and the children. He often looked at it and smiled while they were talking during their late night or early morning phone calls. "Of course not," he denied it, but her question wasn't entirely inappropriate. He had been well aware of her travel plans, when he made the appointment with the ambassador in London. He had told himself that it was convenient for his schedule to be there then, but in his heart of hearts he knew there was more to it than that. He loved seeing her, and looked forward for months to the few times a year he saw her in Paris. He either found an excuse to go, when he hadn't seen her in a while, or stopped to see her on his way to somewhere else. He usually saw her three or four times a year, and when he was in Paris, they saw each other for lunch. |
| 1054 |
She never told Gordon about it when they met, but insisted nonetheless to Bill, and herself, that there was nothing wrong or clandestine about their seeing each other. The labels she and Bill put on things were polite, concise, appropriate. It was as though they met each other carrying banners that said "friends," and they were of course. Yet he had been aware for a long time that he felt far more for her than he ever could have said to her, or anyone else. He was looking forward to being in London. His meeting at the embassy would only occupy him for a few hours, and beyond that, he planned to spend as much time as possible with her. Bill had assured her that he was dying to see the exhibit at the Tate as well, and she was thrilled at the prospect of sharing that with him. It was after all, she told herself, her principal reason for going to London. And seeing Bill was going to be an unexpected bonus. She had it all sorted out in her head. They were the perfect friends, nothing more, and the fact that no one knew about their friendship was only because it was simpler that way. They had nothing to hide, she told herself. She wore a cloak of respectability in his regard that seemed to be desperately important to her. It was a boundary she had long since established for them, and one that Bill respected, for her sake. He would never have done anything to upset her or frighten her away. He didn't want to jeopardize anything, or anyone, that had become so infinitely precious to him. As she stood in her bedroom in the house on the rue de Grenelle, she looked at her watch, and sighed. It was time to leave, but at the last moment, she hated the thought of leaving Teddy. She had left a thousand instructions for the nurses who would be caring for him while she was away. They were the same nurses he always had, but they were going to be sleeping in the same room with him while she was away. And as she thought of Teddy, she tiptoed softly next door, to the bedroom next to her own. |
| 1055 |
Bill Robinson went through customs at Heathrow with a purposeful air, looking as though he were in a hurry. And he was. It took him only a few minutes to collect his bag, and with his briefcase in his other hand, he strode toward the driver from Claridge's, standing discreetly to one side with a small sign bearing his name. He stayed at Claridge's whenever he was in London, and had convinced Isabelle to stay there as well. It was full of ancient traditions, was always cited as the best hotel in town, and he had been staying there for thirty years. In great part, the hotel appealed to him because they knew him. As the driver put Bill's suitcase and briefcase in the trunk of the limousine, he glanced at the tall gray haired American, and was instantly aware of a noticeable aura of power and success about him that was impossible to ignore. Bill had bright blue eyes, that shone with a kind expression, and once sandy blond, now graying hair. He had sharply etched masculine features, and a noticeably square chin. He was wearing gray slacks, a blazer, blue shirt, and a dark blue Hermes tie, and his black leather loafers had been perfectly shined before he left New York. There was a subtle elegance about him, he was well dressed without wearing anything remarkable or showy. And as he opened a newspaper to read in the back of the car, a woman would have noticed that he had beautiful hands, and he was wearing a Patek Philippe watch Cindy had given him years before. Everything about him, and that he wore, had a subtlety and quiet elegance to it that drew the right kind of attention to him. But for the most part, Bill Robinson preferred to be a behind the scenes man. In spite of his obvious connections in politics, and the opportunities that could have afforded him, he had never had the need to be a front man. In fact, he much preferred things as they were. He was fueled by power and political excitement, he loved the ins and outs of the ever changing political scene, and had no desire to be publicly known. |
| 1056 |
She was what he had always thought women should be, but couldn't have defined if he'd had to put it into words. Gentle, loving, patient, understanding, interested in all his doings, compassionate, funny, kind. She was like an unexpected gift in his life, as he was in hers. He was the life preserver she hung on to when everything else around had vanished over the years. There was nothing she could count on anymore, Teddy's health was a constant worry to her, and she knew that she could lose him at any moment, and Gordon was simply the man she shared a house with, and who had given her his name, but she often felt that he was no longer a part of her life. Except for occasional public appearances, he no longer had any need for her in his. And, as was appropriate at her age, Sophie had flown the nest. More than ever these days, Isabelle felt alone. Except when she was with Bill, in person, or on the phone. He was her mainstay, her joy, her laughter, her comfort, and her best friend. "I'm happy to see you too," he said gently. "I'll pick you up in ten minutes. We can figure out our plans then." He knew they were going to the Tate the next day, and there were some private galleries she had mentioned she wanted to visit. He was planning to take her to dinner both nights. He would have liked to take her to the theater as well because he knew how much she loved it, but he hated to waste hours of precious time that he could spend talking to her. It was Tuesday afternoon, and they had until Thursday night. She had said she might be able to stay until Friday morning, but it depended on how Teddy was. And she felt she should be back in Paris for the weekend. It was like a race against time, and an extraordinary gift to have these few days. They had never been able to do anything like this. And he had no ulterior motives, no intentions or plans. He was just looking forward to the opportunity to be with her. There was something wonderfully pure and innocent about what they shared. |
| 1057 |
Bill washed his face and hands, shaved quickly, as he thought about seeing her, and ten minutes later was walking down the hall looking for her room number. It was around two corners and as confusing as possible, but he found her at last. He knocked on the door, and the wait seemed interminable, and then she opened it and stood there looking at him for a moment with a shy smile. "How are you?" she asked, her creamy skin faintly flushed, her long dark hair brushed and gleaming as it hung past her shoulders, and her eyes looked straight into his. "You look wonderful," she said as she stepped out of the room and he gave her a hug. He had never kissed more than her cheek, as he did now. He had a faint tan from a weekend he'd spent at home in Greenwich several weeks before, in sharp contrast to her creamy white skin. Her summers of tanning in the South of France had ended years before. Gordon still went occasionally, to see friends, or with Sophie, while Isabelle stayed home with their son. "So do you," Bill said admiringly. Each time he saw her, he was struck by how beautiful she was. He forgot about it sometimes, when he got caught up in her words and her thoughts and their exchange of ideas. More than her looks, he was captivated by her soul. But she was strikingly beautiful, and she stepped next to him and slipped a hand into his arm with the grace of a young doe. She still moved like a girl, rather than the woman that she was. And he noticed instantly the chic black suit, the Hermes bag, and the elegant high heeled shoes. She wore only her wedding ring, and on her ears a pair of small diamond studs. And looking at her, it was hard to believe she had a care in the world. She had a warm, welcoming smile, and just seeing him, there was joy and excitement in her eyes. "My God, Isabelle, you look great." She never changed, hadn't in the last four years, she was a little thinner than she'd been six months before, but with her classic beauty, she seemed to stand still in time. |
| 1058 |
They looked so totally familiar and at ease, that at the very least it would have been easy to believe they were having an affair. But they seemed oblivious to all that as they talked on the way to the third floor and he walked her to her door. "I had a wonderful afternoon," she said, and then stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "You're very good to me, Mr. Robinson. Thank you, Bill," she said solemnly, and he smiled. "I don't know why I should be good to you. You're such a dreadful person, and such a bore. But I have to do a little charity work now and then. You know, political wives, the halt and the lame... and time with you. Brownie points." She laughed, and he gently touched her arm as she opened her door. "Have a little rest before we go out tonight, Isabelle. It'll do you good." He knew how stressful her life was, how on duty she felt all the time, caring for her son, and he wanted her to relax and have a real vacation here. He knew from what she said that no one took care of her normally, and he wanted to do that for her now, for the short time he could. She promised him she'd take a nap, and then lay there thinking about him once she was alone in her room, lying on the bed. It was remarkable to think about how he had come into her life, by sheer happenstance years before, and how lucky she was. She wondered why he stayed with his wife sometimes. It was easy to figure out that there was no real communication between them, and he deserved so much more. But she also knew that he didn't like talking about it. The state of his marriage to Cynthia was something he accepted, and a balance he chose not to disturb. She suspected it would have been awkward for him to challenge that anyway, he wanted no breath of scandal near him, to draw attention to him. Part of his strength was keeping well out of sight, so he could wield his power without any focus on him. A divorce would have brought too much attention to him, particularly if it was acrimonious, and he often said that Cindy liked things just the way they were. |
| 1059 |
He was almost afraid to think about it, he knew it was very likely that this one extraordinary opportunity would never come their way again. Bill walked into the bar at Claridge's just behind Isabelle, and a number of heads turned as they entered. They made a handsome couple as they sat down at a corner table, and Bill ordered a scotch and soda for himself, and a glass of white wine for her. As usual, she barely sipped it as they chatted about art, politics, the theater, his family's summer home in Vermont, and the places they had both loved to go as a child. She talked about visiting her grandparents in Hampshire, when they were alive, and the rare but impressive times she had met the queen. He was fascinated by her stories, and she was equally intrigued by his. As always, there was a striking similarity of reactions and philosophies, the things that had mattered to each of them, the people, the places, the importance of family ties. It was Isabelle who commented later in the limousine, on the way to dinner, that it was strange how for people to whom family meant so much, their marriages had become distant and remote, and they had chosen people who were anything but warm. "Cindy was a lot warmer when we were in college, but she grew up to be somewhat cynical. I'm not sure if that's my fault or not," Bill said pensively. "Mostly, we're just very different, and I don't think I've met her needs in a lot of years, and I think for a long time she was angry at me, or disappointed at least, about that. She wanted me to play the social game with her, in Connecticut and New York. She was never really interested in the political scene in the early days, when it fascinated me and I was up to my ears in it. And now that I'm in a more rarefied atmosphere, I think she's just fed up with it and it turns her off. And privately, we've just grown apart." But Isabelle thought there was more to it than that. He had already intimated to Isabelle for several years that he thought his wife had been unfaithful to him. |
| 1060 |
Bill hadn't liked Gordon on the two occasions they'd met. He had found him pompous and overbearing and arrogant, and the sarcastic way he spoke to Isabelle had made Bill's skin crawl. He treated her like a child, and publicly dismissed her with sharp words, open criticism, and a wave of the hand. But he had gone out of his way to be nice to Bill, because he was impressed by him, while all the while seeming to ignore his wife. Gordon was charming when he chose to be, with people he thought were important or could be useful to him, but it was almost as though he needed to punish Isabelle for who she was. All her kindness and compassion and decency only seemed to inspire his contempt. Bill suspected that underneath it all Gordon was impressed by her family, and felt inadequate somehow, perhaps because of her ties to the royal family, and he needed to put her down to reassure himself. It wasn't a style, or a point of view, that warmed Bill's heart. But for Isabelle's sake at least, he feigned a moderate amount of respect when she spoke of him. He didn't want to put her in the position of defending the man. Her loyalty was evident, and he was her husband after all. But she no longer pretended to Bill that she was happy with Gordon, she simply accepted their marriage as her lot in life, and refused to complain about the way things were. She was just grateful to have Bill to talk to, and listen to her, and she loved the fact that he always made her laugh. There was a big crowd at Harry's Bar that night, they could hardly get in the door, there were women in evening suits and cocktail dresses standing elbow to elbow at the bar, with men in dark suits, white shirts, and dark ties. The crowd looked sophisticated and fashionable, and Isabelle fit in perfectly in her black lace dress. Bill looked distinguished and elegant in a double breasted dark blue suit he had just bought before the trip. Their table was waiting for them, and the head waiter acknowledged him instantly, and greeted Isabelle with a smile. |
| 1061 |
It only took them a few minutes to get to Annabel's, and when they arrived, once again everyone seemed to know Bill. He had been to Annabel's six months before with the ambassador, and he dined there occasionally with friends whenever he was in London. Isabelle was smiling as they were led to their table. She suddenly felt young and silly being there, but very flattered that Bill would take her. There was a good crowd at Annabel's that night, and a number of them were couples like the ones Isabelle had described to Bill, older men with very young women, but there were a lot of couples Bill's and Isabelle's age as well. There were people at tables all along the walls having dinner, and a number of people chatting and drinking in the cozy bar. And as Bill and Isabelle sat down at a table near the dance floor, she was startled by something she saw in Bill's eyes. It was a look she had never seen there before. She put it down to the wine they'd been drinking, and the closeness they'd always shared, but there was something tender and warm in the way he looked at her, and he led her onto the dance floor a moment later without saying a word. They were playing an old song she had always liked, and she was surprised to find that Bill was not only a wonderful dancer, but he seemed to be in perfect harmony with her. He held her close to him, with a strong arm around her, and she glided around the floor with him feeling happier and more at peace than she had in years. They moved from one song to another without leaving the dance floor, and it seemed hours later when they finally went back to their table, and he ordered more champagne. She only sipped at hers, and their eyes met again over their glasses, and after a moment, she looked away. She was afraid of what she was beginning to feel for him. He saw her look instantly and was concerned. "Are you all right?" He was worried that he had done something to upset her, but on the contrary, what she felt ran so deep and moved her so much, she couldn't find the right words. |
| 1062 |
She couldn't make a habit of flying off to London, and if Teddy took a turn for the worse again, it might be years before she could get away. And she didn't feel as free about seeing him in Paris as she did here. Gordon would never understand, and there was no way she could explain it to him. "Let's not think about later, Isabelle. Let's just enjoy this now, while we can." She nodded, and smiled at him, but when she did, there were tears in her eyes. It was as though she knew that only moments after she had said hello to him, she would soon have to say good bye, and all they would be would be voices on the phone again. And he hated to see her go back to her lonely life. She was young and vital and beautiful, and she deserved to have someone beside her who appreciated all she had to give. "Shall we have another dance?" he asked finally, and she nodded. He held her hand this time as they walked back onto the floor. And this time, when he held her, she seemed to move infinitesimally closer to him. He said nothing to her, and closed his eyes as he held her in his arms. It was, at that exact instant, the most perfect moment in time, like a single sparkling diamond hanging suspended in a night sky. They were both quiet when they left Annabel's, and they were halfway back to the hotel before either of them spoke again. "I had such a good time tonight," Isabelle whispered softly, acutely aware not only of how handsome he was, but of how kind he was to her. "So did I," he said, with an arm around her shoulders, enjoying her warmth as she nestled next to him. There was no artifice between them, no awkwardness, nothing uncomfortable or strange. But what she felt when she was with him, as much as happiness, was an extraordinary sense of peace. And neither of them moved for a minute when they got to the hotel, and the driver waited politely outside without opening the door. "Shall we?" Bill said regretfully as he moved slowly away from her, and seeing the movement inside the car, the driver opened the door. |
| 1063 |
She could barely imagine his childhood, in some ways, and yet hers hadn't been much different. There had been hugging and kissing, but mainly the form of it, and beneath the form, there had been very little love. "My mother was very English. I think she wanted to love me, and she did probably, but she didn't know how. She was very proper and very cold, she had lost her own mother when she was a baby, and her father had been very cold to her. He sent her to boarding school when she was nine, and left her there until she married my father. She met him at her presentation at court, and I think my grandfather arranged the marriage to get her out of the house. And once she was gone, he remarried, a woman he'd been involved with for years, even before his wife died. The British side of the family was full of skeletons and secrets, and people we weren't allowed to mention or talk about. All we had to do was dress properly, be polite, and pretend that everything was fine. I never had any idea how my mother felt about anything, and my father was so involved in politics, I don't think he knew we were alive. My mother died when I was in my teens, and my father never had time to talk to me, or be with me, although I think he was a nice man. Their marriage was a little like mine and Gordon's, which may be why it doesn't shock me more than it does to have a husband who has shut me out. I've never given it much thought, but it's the only model I know." "I guess me too," he said philosophically. There was nothing he couldn't say to Isabelle. "I suppose if Cindy had been warmer than my parents, I wouldn't have known how to deal with it in those days. I was twenty two when we got married, and I think part of me has been frozen for years." It was only when he had begun talking to her four years before that so much had become clear to him, and so many of his views had changed. He had been drawn to Isabelle's warmth and light like a moth to flame, and in some ways, she had kept him alive ever since. |
| 1064 |
But not anymore. She knew him too well now, and the icy coldness of his heart. "You're either crazy or blind," Bill said, and then laughed, looking slightly uncomfortable, and then they got up and went upstairs. It was seven thirty by then, and he said he was going to have a massage in his room while she dressed, and called home. "I'll pick you up at a quarter to nine. Does that give you enough time?" "It's fine." All she wanted to do was check on Teddy again, have a bath, do her hair, and dress, and she didn't take long. "See you in a little while," he said as he put an arm around her and kissed her cheek. And as he did, he was tempted to ask if she wanted to stay another night, if Teddy was doing well. But he thought he'd wait and see what she said after she called home, and spoke to the nurses and the boy. And when she did, she was pleased with what she heard. Teddy had had another good day, and he was laughing when he talked to her. He and the nurse had been reading a book of jokes she'd bought for him before she left. He read her a couple of them, and she laughed with him, and she was smiling when she got in the bath. She had promised him she'd be home the following night. She was booked on a six o'clock flight, and it would be around nine o'clock Paris time when she got home. She had thought about staying another night, but it didn't seem fair to him. She wore a simple white silk cocktail dress that night, with a white cashmere stole, her pearls again, and white silk Chanel shoes with black toes. She carried a white evening bag with nothing more than a lipstick and her room key in it. She didn't need more than that. And this time, she decided to wear her hair down. And Bill looked even more impressed than the previous night when she opened the door. He was obviously taken with her, and it pleased her no end. There was such a softness to her, such a gentleness, and so much femininity. She defined everything he had always wanted in a woman, and all Bill could do was regret he hadn't found her years before. |
| 1065 |
They were crossing barriers they had both respected before, and traveling into regions that had been heretofore unknown. And they both knew that if they ventured too far, it could be a dangerous thing. They had drinks in the comfortable, elegantly shabby atmosphere of the bar at Mark's. The shabbiness was intentional, as they sat chatting with each other in oversized battered leather chairs, and then they were escorted to their table in the dining room. In some ways, Isabelle preferred Harry's Bar, but the atmosphere was cozy and romantic here. They talked for hours, and Isabelle had a sense that she wanted to stop time and turn back the clock. The moments were ticking by too fast, and she didn't want the evening to end. And neither did Bill. "What about Annabel's again?" he asked when they finally left, and their eyes met and held for a long time. She wasn't sure if they would get into deep water if they went dancing again, but neither of them could resist. It was very probably going to be their last night, and the last chance they would have for a long, long time. It could be years. They knew they had to seize the moment now. "I'd like that very much," she said quietly. There were suddenly unspoken words hanging thick in the air between them, as they sat in the car and held hands. And they were both quiet as they walked into Annabel's and went to sit in the bar. Bill ordered champagne, and he toasted her, and after her first sip, he set down his glass, held out a hand to her, and invited her to dance. She was only too happy to follow him onto the floor, beneath the ceiling of tiny sparkling stars. It was the most romantic place she'd ever been, and this time, as she danced with him, their bodies felt like one. They moved slowly to the music, and the songs they played were familiar to them. Neither of them spoke, they just held each other close as they danced, and Isabelle closed her eyes. It was a long time before they left the floor, and they both seemed subdued. |
| 1066 |
It was a moment they had both waited a lifetime for, and it brought them closer than they had ever been. He kissed her as she put her arms around him, and time seemed to melt into space. All she knew was that she had never been as happy in her life, and she never wanted this moment to end. Her eyes were closed and he was holding her, and for the first time in her entire life, she felt totally safe. He was kissing her as they entered the intersection, and the driver was watching them in the rearview mirror, so mesmerized by what he saw there, and so fascinated, that he never saw the red double decker bus bearing down on them at full speed. It was only yards from Is abelle's side of the car as he pulled into the intersection, and there was no way it could stop. Bill was still kissing her as the bus sheared off the entire front of the car, and the driver literally vanished into thin air. They never caught their breath, never looked up, never knew what had happened to them. They were still kissing as the bus seemed to devour the entire limousine, and within seconds, the car and the bus were a tangle of mangled steel, and there was broken glass everywhere. The bus dragged the car halfway down the street, and in the end it was crushed under it, and it lay on its side with spinning wheels. Isabelle was still lying peacefully in Bill's arms, she was lying on top of him. The roof of the car had caved in, they were both unconscious, and her entire dress was no longer white but red with blood. There were two long gashes on the side of Bill's face, and Isabelle looked as though she were sleeping peacefully. Her face was untouched, but her entire body appeared to have been crushed. There were sounds in the distance then, the honking of horns, and the horn on the bus was stuck. The driver had flown through the windshield, and was lying dead on the street where he fell. And two people came running with a flashlight and shone it into the mangled car. All they could see was the blood on Bill's face and the bright red dress. |
| 1067 |
They had to work carefully to keep Isabelle and Bill from being even more crushed. They had gotten IVs into both of them by then, and they had managed to get a tourniquet on a gash on Isabelle's artery in her left arm. The men who had been working on both of them were smeared with blood, and no one could believe that they were still alive. There was no way of telling that Isabelle's dress had ever been white. The entire dress had been saturated with her blood. They still had no idea who either of them were, and by the time they got them both into an ambulance, the victims from the bus had all been removed. One of the paramedics had Bill's wallet in his hand by then, and they'd been able to identify him, but they still had no idea who Isabelle was. "She's wearing a wedding band," one of the paramedics offered as the ambulance careened toward St. Thomas' Hospital, "must be his wife." He radioed back to the police officers on the scene to keep an eye out for a handbag in the car, just in case. Neither of them had regained consciousness during the entire process of being lifted out of the car, and they were both in deep comas when they were carried into the trauma unit, and were immediately attended to by separate teams. It was rapidly determined that both were in need of surgery, he for a spinal cord injury and a fractured neck, and she for a head injury, extensive internal injuries, and the severed artery to which they'd applied the tourniquet. They had to operate immediately or risk losing the arm. "Jesus, that's an ugly one, isn't it?" one of the nurses whispered about the accident as they were wheeled into separate surgeries. "I haven't seen damage like that in a long time." "I can't believe they're still alive," the other nurse commented as she scrubbed up. She had been assigned to Isabelle, who had just been assessed as the least likely to survive. They were worried about her head injury, but the greatest damage she had sustained had been to her liver, lungs, and heart, all of which had virtually been crushed. |
| 1068 |
It was dark around them by then, but she had a sense that he knew where he was going. All she wanted was to sleep, and lie down by the side of the road. But Bill wouldn't let go of her hand, and he wouldn't let her slow down, and she didn't know how they got there or when, but after a time she had a sense that they were home. They were in a room she didn't recognize, and she felt safe next to him. There were children everywhere, and she could see Teddy and Sophie laughing with some friends, and Bill's girls were talking to him. And while he was hugging them, Isabelle finally lay down. She knew it was safe to by then, and all she wanted to do was sleep next to him. She looked over at him and smiled, and he smiled back to her. And as she drifted off to sleep, she knew he would always be there with her. "Jesus, I never thought we'd make this one," the surgical nurse said to the anesthesiologist as they left the operating room. They had been battling for four hours to keep Isabelle's blood pressure high enough to keep her alive while they were operating on her. Her crushed organs had been repaired, and her arm, and for the first half hour everyone in the operating room had been absolutely certain she would die. She had lost an enormous amount of blood. They had no idea why she'd turned around in the end, if it was the medications they'd administered, the transfusions, the surgery, or just sheer luck. But whatever it was, everyone agreed, it was a miracle she was alive. "I've never seen a surgery like that. She's damn lucky to be alive," one of the attending surgeons agreed. "She's not out of the woods yet, but I think she actually might make it. Cases like this restore my faith in God." He smiled as he left the operating room, dripping with sweat. It had been a long night, and an exhausting uphill fight. Two of the other nurses were coming out of the surgery next door where they'd operated on Bill, and they looked as tired as everyone else. "How was yours?" one asked the other. |
| 1069 |
As little as they shared, and as distant as they had become, she was still his wife. He wondered what he should tell Teddy, or if he should call Sophie in Portugal, and as he thought about it, he decided he'd say nothing to either of them. All it would do was frighten them. And there was no point calling Sophie and worrying her, until he knew more. Gordon thought it was best not to say anything to anyone until he saw the situation himself, unless of course she died first. The clerk at the hospital had made it very clear to him that that was a real possibility, and as he hung up, he sat at his desk for a long moment, staring into space. He had had no feelings for her for a long time, but she was the mother of his children, and they had been married for twenty years. He hoped she hadn't suffered when the car had been hit, and for an instant he was grateful she hadn't died. But he was startled by how little he felt. The only emotions he was aware of were of sympathy and regret. He called the airlines and asked about flights, and then he made a decision. No one knew about the accident, she was unconscious, and he needed time to absorb what had happened himself. He had important appointments in the office that afternoon. He didn't want to rush off in a panic. There was nothing he could do there anyway, and he hated hospitals. After only an instant's hesitation, he made a reservation on the five o'clock flight. It would get him into Heathrow at five thirty local time, and he could be at the hospital by seven that night. If she died before he got there, it was meant to be, he told himself. And if she was still alive by then, it would be a hopeful sign. But he felt that lying there in a coma, it would make no difference to her if he was there or not. His time would be better spent elsewhere, he thought. Or at least that was what he told himself. He left for the office shortly afterward, and said nothing to his secretary except that he was leaving the office at three o'clock. |
| 1070 |
But as she threw slacks and T shirts and sweaters into a suitcase, all she could think of were the implications for Bill. She was absolutely certain that if he was going to be severely impaired, he would prefer not to live. She wasn't sure what she wished for him now, it all depended on how badly damaged he was. But she didn't want to say any of that to the girls. As she packed underwear and shoes into her bag, she realized that she wasn't even sure what she felt herself. She had been married to him for more than half her life, and she wasn't in love with him anymore, but if nothing else they were friends. He was the father of her children, and had been her husband for thirty years. There had been other men in her life, and their marriage had run out of gas a long time ago, she had even thought about divorcing him once or twice, when she was involved with other men. But it had never once in all these years occurred to her that he might die. Just thinking of that now changed everything. All Cynthia could think of suddenly was what he had been like when they were kids, how desperately in love with him she had been, how happy they were when they were first married. It was like seeing thirty years of history race before her eyes as she walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. And as she stood beneath the spray of hot water, and thought of him never walking again, all she could do was cry. They left for the airport shortly after nine, Cynthia drove, and the girls were quiet in the backseat. Cynthia never said a word, and both girls stared out the window and were lost in thought. They were all wearing jeans and T shirts and Nikes, and had brought very little with them. Cynthia figured they probably wouldn't leave the hospital much, and none of them cared how they looked. The girls had barely taken the time to comb their hair. And when Jane made them breakfast before they left, no one ate. All they could think of was Bill in a hospital in London, fighting for his life. |
| 1071 |
The doctors were fairly sure there would be no permanent brain damage, if she survived. It would have been hard to determine which of her many injuries was causing her temperature to rise, and she was still in a deep coma, as much from the trauma as from the anesthetic and the drugs. Looking at her clinically, it was hard to believe she was going to live. And Bill was faring only slightly better than she. His neck was set in a torturous looking apparatus with steel bolts and pins, he had an iron brace on his back, and he was on a board that allowed them to move him, although he was unaware of it. He was still in a coma too. "His family is arriving from the States around midnight," one of the nurses said at six o'clock that night when they changed shifts. "His wife called from the plane. They're on their way." The other nurse nodded and adjusted a beeping sound on one of the monitors. At least his vital signs were good, better than Isabelle's, who seemed to be fluttering between life and death constantly. Her survival seemed even more unsure than his. And one of the nurses asked if anyone was coming to see Isabelle too. "I don't know. I think they called Paris this morning, and spoke to her husband, but he didn't say when he'd come. Katherine said he sounded very cool. I guess he was in shock." "Poor man. This is one of those calls you have nightmares about," one of Bill's nurses said sympathetically. "I wonder if she has kids." They knew almost nothing about either of them, no medical history, no personal details, just their nationalities and the names of their next of kin, and what had happened in the accident. No one even knew the relationship between the two of them, if they were business associates, related in any way, or just friends. And there was no point guessing at any of it. Right now all they were were two patients in the intensive care ward, fighting for their lives. They were talking about operating on Isabelle again, to relieve the pressure on her brain. |
| 1072 |
The surgeon was due back at any moment to make a decision about it. And when he came shortly after six, he checked the monitors and, with a grim look, decided to wait. He didn't think she'd survive another surgery, and might not anyway. It seemed unreasonable to him to challenge her more at this point. It was after seven, and the doctor had just left, when Gordon arrived. He walked into the intensive care ward quietly, spoke to a male clerk at the desk, and told him who he was. The clerk looked up at him, nodded, and asked a passing nurse to take him to Isabelle's room. And without a word, Gordon followed her with a somber expression. He had had all day to prepare himself for this, and as he stepped into her room, he had expected to find her looking very ill. But nothing he had imagined had prepared him for this. To him, she seemed like an almost unrecognizable hunk of flesh, there were bandages and wires and tubes and monitors everywhere, even her head was swathed with gauze, and the arm with the severed artery was heavily bandaged as well. The only thing familiar about her was her deathly pale face peeking out of the gauze. It was the only part of her that seemed untouched. There were three people standing next to her when he walked in. One of them was changing an IV, another was checking the monitors, and a third was checking her pupils as they did constantly, but just looking at her, Gordon felt ill. He didn't feel anything for her except horror at what he saw. It was as though she were no longer there, and the shell of what was left meant nothing to him. She was a broken body, nothing more. He said nothing, and did not approach, as one of the nurses spoke softly to him. "Mr. Forrester?" He nodded his head and cleared his throat, but he didn't know what to say. And it embarrassed him to have to see her with an audience focused on him. He wasn't sure what they expected of him. To throw himself on the foot of her bed perhaps, kiss her fingers, touch her lips. But he couldn't bring himself to come any closer. |
| 1073 |
She had been beautiful and intelligent and talented, and whatever their differences, she had been a good wife to him, and a good mother to their children. To save her in order to lie in a bed like a living corpse was abhorrent to him, and he was prepared to fight to see that that didn't happen to either of them. He didn't want their children to remember her that way. Or to live with it himself. "It's impossible to tell at this point what the prognosis is, Mr. Forrester. But the brain scans have been encouraging. It's too soon for anyone to know." It was impossible to believe that she would survive hours, let alone months, in the condition she was in. "Is there a physician here that I can talk to?" Gordon asked one of the nurses, without any visible sign of emotion. The nurse thought he looked like a distant friend, or a remote member of her family who had come to the hospital dutifully. He kept his emotions to himself. "I'll let the surgeon on duty know that you're here," the nurse said as she slipped past him into the hall, leaving the remaining two nurses with Isabelle. Gordon Forrester made her acutely uncomfortable. Looking at Isabelle tore at her heart. She was so beautiful and so young. But the man who had flown from Paris to see his wife seemed to feel nothing at all. She had never met anyone as cold. Gordon stepped out of the room, and walked slowly down the hall, waiting for someone to come and talk to him. It was another ten minutes before a young surgeon appeared. He confirmed to Gordon what he already knew, more or less, and acknowledged the grave danger she was in. He said they were debating performing another surgery on her, but were hoping to avoid it if they could. All they could do was wait and see how her own body responded to the trauma it had endured. And in his estimation, it was going to be a long wait before they had good news. But he felt that the fact that she had come this far was a hopeful sign, the only one they had. Hope for Isabelle was still slim. |
| 1074 |
He thought he knew Isabelle well, he was sure he did. She was not the kind of woman to be having an affair, or even having clandestine assignations with a man. And yet they had been together, in a limousine, at two A.M., and whatever the reason was, there was no way to discover it now. "Would you like to spend the night here at the hospital with your wife?" the young doctor asked him, but Gordon was quick to shake his head. He had a horror of sickrooms and hospitals and sick people. They reminded him of his mother in a sinister way. "As she's not conscious, I don't see what purpose I'd serve here. I'd just get in the way of your staff. I'll stay at the hotel. I'll be at Claridge's, and you can call me if anything changes here. That seems more sensible. I appreciate your time, and your efforts on my wife's behalf," Gordon said formally, and looking uncomfortable, he stood up again. It was obvious that he was extremely ill at ease in the hospital, and had no desire to go back to his wife's room. "I'll just stop in and see her again for a moment before I leave." He thanked the doctor again, and walked back down the hall, and when he reached her door, there were five members on the team working on her, and there was still no sign of life. He made no attempt to enter the room, watching them for only the briefest moment, and then turned and left, without saying another word. He had never touched her, never kissed her, never approached Isabelle's bed, and he took an enormous breath of fresh air as soon as he reached the street. Gordon detested hospitals and sick people and infirmities. It was why Teddy had always been hard for him. It was something he simply couldn't tolerate, and as he hailed a cab, with his overnight bag in his hand, and gave them Claridge's address, he felt slightly ill. He was enormously relieved to have escaped the intensive care ward, and in spite of the fact that he felt sorry for her, he hadn't been able to bring himself to walk into the room and touch even so much as her hand. |
| 1075 |
That was a fate that he didn't wish for her. But in spite of how sorry he felt for her, he couldn't seem to feel anything about it for himself. He had no sense of loss, no despair, no terror of losing her. She seemed like a stranger to him now, lying so broken and still in her hospital bed. She looked like a lifeless doll, and it was hard to understand that the woman he had just seen had been the young girl he once married, let alone his wife of twenty years. Her spirit already seemed to have fled, and all he wondered as the cab pulled up in front of Claridge's was what she had been doing in a limousine with Bill Robinson. But there was no one except Isabelle whom he could ask. She alone knew the answer to the mystery, and Bill of course, but he was just as unable to answer Gordon's questions as his wife. The doorman took Gordon's overnight case from him. He had only brought a few shirts and some underwear. He wasn't intending to stay long. He had come to assess the situation, and he was planning to return to Paris in a day or two. And come back to London again if need be. She might be dead by then, or she may have remained the same. The young surgeon had told him that night that she could stay in the coma, without change, for weeks or even months. And there was no way he could stay in London with her. He had to go back to tend to his own affairs, to monitor Teddy now, and see what was happening at the bank. If he had to, he would go back and forth between London and Paris every few days. But he realized that if this was going to take a while, it was going to be best if he called Sophie in Portugal and asked her to come home. If nothing else, she could take over watching Teddy for him. He dreaded calling her, but after what he'd seen tonight, he was beginning to think that he should. He needed to prepare her in case Isabelle died. Gordon stopped at the desk, and asked for Isabelle's key, and an assistant manager came out from an office instantly, and told Gordon how sorry he was. |
| 1076 |
He was still thinking about what the manager had said about their having tea in the lobby the previous afternoon. He wondered if they had met through art circles somehow, or if he had just picked her up. She was such an innocent that she might just be naive enough to befriend someone like that, and tea in the lobby was certainly a relatively harmless pursuit, but in Gordon's mind being out at two in the morning in a limousine with a man was not. He still couldn't imagine what Bill Robinson had been doing with her. He didn't like the sound of it, and if it were anyone other than Isabelle, he would have jumped to the obvious, but in Isabelle's case, there may well have been some foolish, benign reason why she had been in the car with him. Gordon was still puzzling over it when he stepped into her room. There was an eerie feeling to it suddenly, as though she had just gone out, and as he looked around, it made him feel almost as though she had already died. Her makeup was spread out on the table next to the sink. Her nightgown was hanging on a hook behind the bathroom door. Her clothes were neatly hung in the closet, and there was a collection of pamphlets and brochures from museums and art galleries sitting on the desk. And then he saw that next to them, there was a book of matches from Harry's Bar, and as Isabelle didn't smoke, he thought that was somewhat odd. And what on earth would she be doing at a place like Harry's Bar? Or Mark's Club? And then he saw that next to the matches from Harry's Bar was another matchbook from Annabel's. And when he saw it, he felt a finger of anger run down his spine. Perhaps the evening with Bill Robinson hadn't been as innocent as he hoped. He wondered if she had been to those places with him. He looked around the room for further evidence, but there was no sign of a man's clothes, no letters, no notes, no flowers with cards from him. There was nothing but two matchbooks from two fashionable watering holes that he somehow knew she had kept as souvenirs. |
| 1077 |
Maybe Robinson had just picked her up, and she had been vulnerable to it. In all likelihood it was innocent, and whatever had happened between them that night, or before, they had certainly paid a high price for it. But he couldn't help wondering what their bond to each other was, or if there was one at all. He slipped the two match books into his pocket, sat down, and looked around the room, and then rang for the waiter and ordered himself a stiff drink. When Cynthia Robinson and the girls got off the plane, it was eleven thirty P.M. in London. Both of the girls had slept on the plane, for a while at least. But Cynthia had spent most of the flight lost in thought, and staring out the window. The full impact of what had happened to Bill was beginning to hit her. And she was anxious to see him. Maybe, with any luck at all, he would be out of the coma by the time they got to the hospital, and maybe, just maybe, the blow to his neck and spine wouldn't have any long term effects. It was all she could hope for, for his sake. It took them half an hour to get through customs, and Claridge's had a car waiting for them. They went straight to the hospital, and were there at one o'clock in the morning. The intensive care ward was still bustling at that hour, and four new trauma patients had come in just before Cynthia and her daughters arrived. But Cynthia had no problem making herself known to the nurses, or finding a doctor to talk to her about Bill. Cindy was good at things like that. She managed to stop a doctor on his way to Bill's room. The same young surgeon who had spoken to Gordon earlier sat down with her in the hall, and spelled it all out for her, as Jane and Olivia listened. Bill was still in a coma, and there was no sign of any improvement so far. He had begun having a considerable amount of swelling in the spinal area, which was pressing on damaged nerves, and the fractures in his neck were severe. By the time the doctor had finished explaining it all to her, the outlook for Bill seemed very grim. |
| 1078 |
He was trapped in a hideous looking contraption on his neck, a full body brace, and he was covered with stitches and cuts and small lacerations and bruises. The nurses were watching him, the monitors beeped endlessly, and he was so deathly pale that both girls started crying when they saw his face. All Cindy could do was stare at him, and suddenly all the emotions she'd resisted since she'd heard the news overwhelmed her all at once. Tears welled up in her eyes, and he was no longer a conglomeration of symptoms and broken parts anymore, he was the boy she had fallen in love with in college, and she could see how desperately injured he was. It took all the strength she had to get control of herself again, and be of some support to her girls. Jane and Olivia just stood in a corner of the room, hugging each other and crying silently, as one of the nurses adjusted the respirator, and Cindy slowly approached his bed. She touched his hand, and it didn't even feel like him, and she was crying too hard to bend down and kiss him. There was a terrible smell of disinfectant in the room. His chest was bare, and there were monitors taped to him everywhere. "Hi, baby," she whispered as she stood next to him. "It's me, Cindy." She felt like a girl again, as she watched him, and a thousand images raced through her head, of the day she had met him, and the day she'd married him, the day she told him she was pregnant. So many memories and moments, and now he was lying here, and their lives were forever changed. She couldn't imagine how they would ever achieve normalcy again. And suddenly, she knew she didn't want him to die if he was impaired, she didn't care how damaged he was, she didn't want to lose him. And for the first time in years, she realized that she still loved him. "I love you," she said again and again, "I want you to open your eyes now. The girls are here. They want to talk to you, sweetheart." "He can't hear you, Mrs. Robinson," one of the nurses said gently. "You don't know that," Cindy said firmly. |
| 1079 |
Their driver was waiting downstairs for them, and by then, it was nearly four o'clock in the morning. And Cynthia and the girls were exhausted when they left. She had reserved a room at Claridge's for Olivia and Jane, and she was planning to stay in Bill's room. And as she opened the door with the key they'd given her, she had the same eerie feeling Gordon had had when he walked into Isabelle's room. She felt as though she were intruding. His briefcase was there, there were papers on several tables around the room, and a bunch of brochures from art galleries and museums, which seemed odd to her. When did he have time to visit museums? There were half a dozen American Express receipts too, and she saw that there was one from Harry's Bar, and another from Annabel's. But she also knew that he went there with friends and business acquaintances whenever he was in London. She didn't find that unusual, and it made her cry again when she put on his pajamas. She was suddenly terrified of losing him, and when she called the girls to see if they were all right, they were both crying. It had been an emotional day for all of them, and seeing their father had frightened them even more than it had their mother. It was hard to hold on to hope after seeing him. He looked so severely broken, and nearly dead. Cynthia couldn't get the sound of the girls crying out of her head, so she put on a bathrobe over Bill's pajamas and walked down the hall to see them. She just wanted to give them a hug, and reassure them. And in the end, she sat down and spent a half hour with them. It was nearly five A.M. when she finally left them and went back to Bill's room. She lay there and cried into the pillow that still smelled of him, and she didn't fall asleep until six o'clock Friday morning. When Cynthia awoke later that morning, she called the hospital to check on Bill, and they told her nothing had changed during the night. His vital signs were a little more stable than they had been, but he was still deeply unconscious. |
| 1080 |
It was eleven in the morning by then, and Cindy felt as though she had been beaten with lead pipes all night. She checked on the girls, letting herself quietly into their room, and she found that they were still asleep. She went back to her own room, bathed and dressed, and shortly before noon, she was ready to go back to the hospital. She hated to wake the girls, and left them a note instead. She left it in their room, and told them she'd call from the hospital to let them know how their father was doing. She went downstairs to the car they had waiting for her, and gave the driver the address. And he talked about the accident on the way. The driver who had been killed had been one of his best friends. He told Cynthia how sorry he was about her husband, and she thanked him. She found things much the same once she got to the hospital, and settled into the waiting room after talking to him for a while. She was waiting to see one of Bill's doctors. And as she sat there, she saw a man walk by. He was tall and distinguished looking, wearing a well cut suit, and he had an aristocratic air of command that instantly caught her eye. He stopped to speak to the nurses at the desk, and she saw them shake their heads and look at him with a discouraged expression. His mouth set in a grim line, and he disappeared down the hall then, in the direction of Bill's room. Cynthia couldn't help wondering what had brought him here. And later, she saw him come out of a room across the hall from Bill's, and come back to speak to one of the doctors in the hall. And then he left again, but Cynthia had the impression that he was locked in the same agonizing waiting game she was trapped in, waiting to see what would happen to someone severely ill. And she didn't know why, but she thought there was something odd about him. He seemed extremely uncomfortable in the intensive care ward, and she sensed both resistance and anger in him, as though he was deeply resentful that he had to be there at all. |
| 1081 |
In fact, hardly different than his own, but he would never have admitted to anyone that his marriage to Isabelle was a sham, and had been for years. In fact, it wouldn't have been so remarkable if Isabelle was having an affair, she was young and loving and human. Gordon knew better than anyone how very lonely she was, thanks to him. Which was why he wanted to know what she'd been up to, if she had betrayed him, or was simply very foolish and had had dinner with a strange man. But it was late to be out under any circumstances. He couldn't even begin to imagine where they'd been at that hour, or what they'd been doing. At any other hour of the day, he'd have been willing to believe they were at an art show, but not at two o'clock in the morning. Cynthia went back in to see Bill then, and the girls stared at Gordon in silence after she left. And after a few minutes he went back to the desk to tell them he was going back to Claridge's, and they could call him there if there was any change. He had had enough of the hospital waiting room, and he didn't like Cynthia Robinson, or her liberal attitude about her husband. He probably cheated on her regularly, and she seemed perfectly willing to accept it. And he had no doubt that she cheated on him too. But in fact, as Cynthia stood at Bill's bedside, watching him, knowing what she did now from Gordon Forrester, she felt her heart sink as she looked at Bill. Maybe Gordon could tell himself that they had been together at that hour in all innocence, but with her entire heart and soul, Cynthia didn't believe it. And as she stood looking at Bill with tears running slowly down her face, she wondered if she had finally lost him after all these years. She had been so indifferent to him for so long, and so unkind at times, she knew how cold and distant she had been, how critical of the life he led. She hadn't wanted to be part of his life in years, and now that she had possibly lost him forever, all she wanted was to tell him that she still loved him. |
| 1082 |
He had nothing else to do. He could have called friends in London, but he wasn't ready to tell people what had happened. He wanted to see what happened to Isabelle first. And he was distracted as he read the book. He called the hospital late in the evening, before he went to bed, but there was no change. It had been forty eight hours since the accident, and she was hanging on, but that was about it. There had been no improvement yet, she just wasn't any worse. It occurred to him that he could have gone back to the hospital, but he couldn't bear the thought of seeing her in that condition again. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but the sight of her frightened him. He detested hospitals, the patients, the doctors, the nurses, the sounds, and the smells. When Gordon called, Cynthia was still sitting with Bill. The girls had gone back to Claridge's at dinnertime, but Cynthia had decided to stay. She went to the nurses' station to help herself to a cup of tea from time to time, and they were pleasant to her. But Cynthia had a lot to think about, and she was happy keeping to herself. She was wondering, as she watched her husband fight for his survival, if she would ever get the chance now to tell him the things she wanted to say. She had a lot of explanations and apologies to make for a lot of years. She knew that, although he had never said as much to her, he was probably well aware of all her affairs. Some of them had been fairly obvious, although others had been more discreet. After a while, once she gave up on their marriage, she just didn't care. And she wasn't even sure now why she had turned away from him with such determination. Jealousy maybe, she thought, for the interesting life he led, and the people he met. She had never liked being dependent on him, and she wondered now if she had wanted to prove to him that she didn't need him. It had always annoyed her that, as a wife on the political scene, she had to behave like an appendage to him, and emotionally at least, she had walked away from him. |
| 1083 |
Isabelle had a husband. And he had two daughters and a wife. It was their turn now. He knew that, no matter how much he loved Isabelle, he had a responsibility to them. But he had been dreaming of Isabelle for days. The nurses came back into the room then, they had things to do to him, and Cynthia went back outside to join the girls. She had to digest what had just happened with Bill. There was no question in her mind. Isabelle Forrester was important to him, she was no stranger, as her husband had hoped, or even a casual friend. Asking about her had been Bill's first words. And his eyes were full of anguish and concern for her. He had even thought he was seeing Isabelle when he woke up, and not his wife. And as she sat in the waiting room, waiting for the nurses to finish their tasks with him, Cynthia picked up a copy of the Herald Tribune, and saw that there was an article about the bus accident in it, and she was startled to see a photograph of Bill and a woman, next to the photograph of the badly mangled bus. The article said that eleven people had died, and well known political power broker William Robinson had been in the limousine that had been hit by the bus. The caption under the photograph said that the picture had been taken just moments before. It said that he and an unidentified woman had been at Annabel's, their car was hit only blocks away, and their driver had been killed. But it didn't mention Isabelle's name, or whether or not she'd been injured in the crash. But Cynthia knew as she looked at her face that it had to be her. She looked attractive and young, with long dark hair, and she'd obviously been startled by the photographer as she stared at him with wide eyes. And in the photograph, Bill was smiling with an arm around her shoulders. It made Cynthia catch her breath as she saw them together that way. They looked happy and relaxed, and Bill looked as though he were about to laugh. It brought the potential seriousness of the situation home to her again. |
| 1084 |
Whatever it was that his wife and her husband had shared, it was unlikely, as far as she was concerned, that it was inconsequential to either of them. Particularly now. The girls exchanged a glance as they saw her reading the article. They didn't say anything, but they had seen it too. But they couldn't even be angry at their father now, for whatever he had done with her. What had happened was so much more serious that they could forgive him almost anything. And Cynthia felt the same way. What worried her was not what he had done, but the possibility that he really cared about Isabelle. The look in his eyes when he asked about her had told Cynthia that this was no casual affair. She found it hard to believe that they were just good friends. She and Gordon would have been even more stunned to know that they had been confidants for more than four years. One of the nurses came back to get them then, and Cynthia followed her daughters into Bill's room. She noticed just before the door closed that Gordon Forrester was leaving Isabelle's room. She didn't dare, but she would have liked to ask him if he'd seen the Herald Tribune. But he looked as if he had bigger things on his mind. Isabelle was showing no sign of recovering, and although the doctor said she could remain in a coma for a long time, Gordon was increasingly worried that she would be brain damaged if she survived. In addition, they had just told him that her heart was beating irregularly, and she was developing fluid in her lungs. There was a growing risk of pneumonia, and Gordon knew that if that happened, Isabelle would die. The situation seemed to be worsening. He had been there for an hour, talking to the doctors about further surgery, and he was on his way back to the hotel when Cynthia saw him leave Isabelle's room. It was only after Cynthia and the girls left late that afternoon that Bill asked about Isabelle again. His speech had come back to him through the day. The girls hadn't stopped talking to him, and he had been forced to respond. |
| 1085 |
He was trapped in his bed in a neck brace and a full body brace, and he was unable to move. He couldn't even lift his head, and his arms were extremely weak. He had no sensation or mobility from the waist down. And no one had any idea for the moment if it would return. He was as helpless as a baby lying in his bed, but he had a calm but forceful way of convincing the doctor that it was a good idea. "I can see I'm not going to be able to talk you out of it," the doctor said finally with a smile. It was after midnight by then, and there were no visitors left in the halls. He disappeared then to find Bill's nurse and send her in with some medication, and when she came back into Bill's room, she was followed by two men. Bill looked anxious for a moment, worried about what they were going to do to him, but without saying a word they took their places at the head and foot of his bed and the nurse stood aside as they began rolling his bed slowly toward the door. "Where are we going?" he asked, looking concerned, and then as the nurse smiled, he understood. The doctor had granted his wish, he was waiting for them in the hall, and he spoke to Bill as he rolled by. "If you breathe a word of this, I'll put you back in a coma myself," he said softly, and Bill laughed. "This is highly irregular." But he thought it would do Bill good, and it wasn't likely to do Isabelle any harm. She would never even know he was there. It took a little maneuvering, but they got his bed next to hers. He moved his eyes sharply to see her, and he could just see her head swathed in bandages out of the corner of his eye. But if he moved his left arm as far as he could, he could touch her fingers with his hand. The two nurses assigned to her were watching what was happening, and the doctor had instructed them to turn a blind eye. It was obvious to all of them why Bill was there. He held her fingers in his hand for a few minutes, and then he spoke to her, totally impervious to whoever heard him in the room. |
| 1086 |
It was Sunday, four days after the accident, and he still looked utterly worn out. But they were both grateful that he was awake, and alive. "How's it going, babe?" Cynthia asked, looking cheerful and fresh. It was warm outside, she was wearing a T shirt and shorts, and a pair of sandals she had borrowed from one of the girls. Olivia and Jane were going to spend some time walking around London, and they wanted to go to a flea market. The hours Cynthia spent at the hospital were too long for them, and they were planning to come by later that afternoon. "How do you feel?" Cynthia inquired as she approached his bed. Because of the angle of the brace on his neck, it was hard for him to see very far. And as she came into his field of vision, he smiled. "I thought I'd play a couple of sets of tennis today," he said. He sounded hoarse, but he was able to speak clearly now. They had just shaved him for the first time, and he felt a little more human again, but he still had a long way to go. He had told the doctor that his vision was blurred, which came as no surprise. The impact to his head had been considerable, and he was going to be feeling the effects of the coma for a while. A specialist was due in to examine his legs and his spine again, and the attending physician had told him they might want to operate, depending on what the specialist found. It was obvious to everyone by then that Bill's recovery was going to take a very long time. And the extent of that recovery hadn't been determined yet. Whether or not he would ever walk again still remained a question in everyone's mind. Bill was aware of it, but it was a subject he and Cynthia had avoided so far, although they both knew that given the damage to his spinal cord, there was a real possibility that he'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Cynthia was in no rush to discuss it with him, he had enough on his mind. But for the past four days, she had thought again and again about what it would be like to be married to him now. |
| 1087 |
It was still too fresh. He didn't want to tell anyone till they told the girls, out of respect for them. The ambassador looked at his watch then, and at Bill, and decided he had stayed long enough. Grace was right. He looked terrible, and within five minutes he left. And to Bill suddenly, the older man who had seemed like his father only days before, now seemed vital and young and full of life, and all because he could walk out of the room under his own steam. The hours seemed to drag by after that. Bill slept for a while, and the specialist came in late that afternoon. Bill hadn't heard from Cynthia, but he suspected she was at Claridge's, licking her wounds. He was still certain that, however painful this was, she'd be better off in the end. The specialist didn't have anything very encouraging to say. He spelled all the possibilities out for Bill, from worst case to best. From the X rays he'd seen, and the documentation of the surgery, he thought it unlikely Bill would ever walk again. He might regain some sensation eventually, but enough damage had been caused to his spine that he would most probably never regain full control of his legs. Even if he could feel them eventually, he would not be able to stand. They could fit him for braces, and with training, he might be able to use crutches and drag his legs, but he thought Bill would have more mobility and greater ease if he used a wheelchair. That was the good news. The bad news was that if the nerves degenerated further, combined with the damage to his neck, he might not regain any sensation at all below his waist. Arthritis could set in, and cause further deterioration to the bones, and coupled with what he already had, he could endure a lifetime of pain as well. But at fifty two, he thought Bill had a good chance of recapturing at least some use of his legs, even if he never walked again. The doctor estimated that Bill's neck would take four to six months to heal, and the rehabilitation work on his legs would take a year or more. |
| 1088 |
There were one or two additional surgeries they could do, but he felt that the benefits would be minimal, and the risks far too great. If they tried to improve on what he was left with now, he could end up fully paralyzed from the neck down, and he strongly urged Bill not to take that risk. He warned Bill that some surgeons might want to experiment with him, and promise him improvements they couldn't guarantee, but he was very outspoken in saying that any surgeon who took it on would be a fool to take the risk, and listening to him, Bill agreed. The picture he painted was a livable but not an easy one, and it took immense courage to face. He told Bill honestly that he would have to work like a dog for the next year to achieve some degree of use of his legs, and he would have to strengthen his upper body to compensate, not to mention the work he had to do on his neck. But with time, and hard work, he felt certain that Bill could lead a good life, if he was willing to make the psychological adjustment to the limitations that had befallen him in the accident. He said bluntly that it was a damn shame, but it was not the end of the world. And then, reading Bill's mind easily, he answered the question that Bill was still too afraid to ask. It was clear that he would never walk again, and he would be wheelchair bound. But he had no idea whatsoever of what was in store for him in terms of a sexual life, if he would have any at all, and he was silently panicked over it. The doctor explained practically and openly that there was a good possibility that Bill would regain sensation sexually and be able to lead a relatively normal life, although it was still a little too early to tell. He told Bill that it was difficult to predict. But he was hopeful and encouraging, and anxious to relieve Bill's mind, as best he could. Eventually, Bill would have to try it out, but he hadn't progressed far enough in his recovery yet. It was bad enough to never walk again, but the doctor didn't want Bill to lose hope entirely about the rest. |
| 1089 |
But in spite of the mercies he knew he should be grateful for, the possible loss of his manhood seemed to outweigh them all, and he lay in bed, worried and depressed. And as he thought about it, his mind wandered to Isabelle again. He lay there and closed his eyes, thinking of the time they had spent together earlier that week. It was hard to believe it was only four days before. Four days ago, he had been dancing with her at Annabel's, feeling her close to him, and now he would never dance again, and she was hovering near death. It was impossible to believe that he might never talk to her again, might never hear her voice, or see her lovely face. Thinking about it, and everything that had happened to him, brought tears to his eyes. He was thinking about her, with tears running down his cheeks, when the nurse walked in. She knew the specialist had been with him for a long time, and that the news hadn't been good, and she thought he was disheartened over that, and gently tried to cheer him up. He was a handsome, vital man, and she could only imagine what it must mean to him to know that he would never walk again. The nurses had guessed it would turn out that way almost from the first day. His injuries had just been too severe. "Would you like some pain medication, Mr. Robinson?" she asked, as he looked at her. "No, I'm fine. How is Mrs. Forrester? Is there any change?" He asked every time he saw one of them, and none of them could figure out if he felt responsible for the accident in some way, because she'd been out with him, or if he was in love with her. It was hard to tell. The only one who knew was the one nurse who'd been there when he visited her the night before, and she had sworn to the doctor she wouldn't say a word about whatever she heard. "She's about the same. Her husband was here for a little while, and he just left. I think he's going back to Paris for a few days. There's nothing he can do here." Except be with her, and talk to her, and beg her to come back. |
| 1090 |
He was so icy cold, and so rotten to her. And then it occurred to him, if Gordon had left the hospital, then he could visit her again, and he mentioned it to the nurse. She knew he'd been in to see her the night before, and their mutual physician had allowed him to, but she had no idea what he'd think about Bill doing it again. But when she saw the look in his eyes, she could see what a hard day he'd had, and how affected he was by it, and her heart went out to him. "I'll see what I can do," she said, and disappeared. She was back five minutes later with two orderlies, who unlocked the brakes on his bed, and rolled him slowly toward the door. She had to unhook some of his monitors, but he was well enough now to be without them for a little while, and she knew how determined he was to go across the hall and see Isabelle. Her nurse held the door open for them, and the orderlies rolled his bed gently across the hall into the room, and placed it next to hers. The shades in her room were drawn, and the respirator was making its familiar whooshing sound, as the nurses backed away into a corner of the room to leave them alone. Bill turned toward her as best he could, which was extremely limited, and took her fingers in his hand again, just as he had the night before. "It's me, Isabelle... you have to wake up, my love. You have to come back. Teddy needs you, and so do I. I need to talk to you, I miss you so much." Tears rolled freely down his cheeks as he talked to her, and after a while, he just lay silently holding her hand. The nurses were about to suggest that he go back, as he lay quietly in his own bed next to her, and he looked strangely at peace. He almost seemed about to drift off to sleep, when the door opened, and Gordon Forrester stood looking around the room. Both nurses gave a start, and the orderlies were right outside, as Gordon spoke sharply to his wife's nurse. "Please take Mr. Robinson back to his room immediately." It was all he said, and Bill said not a word as they wheeled him from the room. |
| 1091 |
There was no point leaving her anything at the hospital, he decided. In the state she was in, she didn't need it. And as he flew over the English Channel, he knew nothing more than he had when he'd come. The doctors still had no idea if she'd live, or recover. Her internal organs seemed to be mending slowly, but there was considerable concern over her heart and lungs, and her liver would take a long time to heal. And the blow to her head, although less severe than the rest of the damage, was keeping her in a deep coma. They were sedating her to allow all her injuries to heal. But whether or not she would wake up, or die, or remain in a coma interminably, was a story yet to be told. There were still too many questions, to which no one had any answers. It was a hopeful sign that she was still alive five days after the accident, and certainly each day counted. But she was still in extremely critical condition. And Gordon knew, as he landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy, that he could not put off telling the children any longer. He had waited from one day to the next, hoping for some improvement, but there had been none. And it seemed dangerous to him to wait any longer. Sophie was old enough to know the truth, that she might lose her mother, and whether he was ill or not, Teddy simply had to face it. Gordon was sure that Sophie would be of some comfort to him. He was going to wait until she returned from Portugal to tell Teddy, so that she could deal with her brother. It was not a scene Gordon was looking forward to, or the kind of situation he was good at. And particularly in this case, he had almost no relationship with his son. As he put his bag and Isabelle's into a cab at Roissy, he thought of Bill Robinson again and their unpleasant encounter. He was still infuriated by the audacity and arrogance of Bill's question, about why he hated Isabelle. It was an outrageous suggestion, and he couldn't help wondering if that was what Isabelle had said. He didn't hate his wife. |
| 1092 |
She showered and dressed, and she was ready to leave for the airport by the time he woke up. "Are you going now?" he asked sleepily. "I want to come." But he was too tired and weak to move. The night before had taken a toll on him, and he looked less well than he had in a long time. "I'll be back soon," Sophie whispered, and then left his room. She went to say good bye to her father, but he had already left for the bank. A ticket had been arranged for her the night before, and she had a reservation at Claridge's. She knew the name of the hospital where her mother was. St. Thomas' Hospital. And she still had money left over from her trip. Her father's driver was waiting for her outside, and half an hour later she was at Roissy There had been no traffic at all. And Sophie looked far calmer and more mature than she felt. Her flight landed at noon local time, and a car from Claridge's drove her straight to the hospital. She felt very grown up going there, in a simple navy dress and a pair of shoes her mother had bought for her. Her hair was pulled back, and she was well dressed, but to anyone who saw her, even at eighteen she looked like a child, with huge frightened eyes filled with sorrow. The nurses smiled at her when she spoke to them at the desk. She explained who she was, and one of them took her straight to her mother's room. The door across the hall was open, and she saw a man watching her. He had no other choice, they had turned him on his side, and he was looking toward the door, unable to move. Cautiously, she stepped into her mother's room and was instantly shocked by what she saw there. Her mother looked deathly pale, with a huge bandage on her head. A respirator was breathing for her, and there were monitors and tubes coming from every part of her. Sophie's eyes filled with tears as she approached the bed, and she stood there for a long time just looking at her and touching her hand, and then finally a nurse pulled a chair up to the bed for her, and Sophie sat down. |
| 1093 |
Things moved along at the hospital in London. Physical therapists came to assess Bill and plan a rehabilitation program for him. They were turning him frequently in his bed to keep his circulation moving, and prevent pneumonia, but the days were boring for him. And once or twice a day he had his bed wheeled into Isabelle's room. The nurses had paid no attention to Gordon's instructions, and several of them hoped it would do her good to be visited by Bill. It did no harm in any case, and it raised Bill's spirits noticeably. He always felt better when he visited her. He missed their late night talks terribly. And he lay in his hospital bed for hours, thinking about her just across the hall. He looked forward all day to the few minutes he could spend at her side. His own injuries were starting to heal a little bit. His neck and spine still caused him a lot of pain, but he was able to move more than he could before, and he had some vague phantom sensations in his legs. But in spite of that, the prognosis for him had not changed. He was trying to keep his spirits up, and think about what he was going to do when he got back to the States, but the changes he was facing now were unspeakably hard. He had become a favorite with the nursing staff, and there were whispered exchanges as people tried to guess what his relationship with Isabelle was, but there was no easy explanation for what they saw. Most of them guessed that he'd been having an affair with her, and one of the nurses had overheard him telling his wife that he wanted a divorce, but whatever his situation was, or had been, with Isabelle, they knew that they liked him, and thought him a very nice man. "I'll take him!" one of the nurses said while talking to a group of her co workers in the cafeteria. "He's a good looking guy." But he hadn't made advances toward any of them, he was never fresh, rude, ungentle manly, and everyone who talked to him genuinely admired him. They also noted that the American ambassador had come to see him several times. |
| 1094 |
It was so like Bill to do what he thought was the right thing, no matter how difficult it was. She had come out of their marriage with a deep respect for him, and she knew there would never be another man like him in her life. She just wished now that she'd figured that out before. She knew that most of the responsibility for the divorce was hers, no matter how much of the blame he was willing to take himself. They left for the States the next day, so early that they didn't have time to stop and see him at the hospital before they left. Cynthia and the girls called him from the airport to say good bye, and both girls were crying when they hung up. And he didn't say it to anyone, but after they were gone, he was sad. It was lonely for him, and he was beginning to understand the long hard road he had ahead of him. He was facing at least a year of excruciating rehabilitation work, maybe more. But he had no choice. He made some business calls from time to time, and a few people had heard about the accident and called him. But for the most part, he felt as though he were living in a cocoon, surrounded by nurses and doctors, and Isabelle still in a coma across the hall. It was not an easy time for him. By two weeks after the accident, Bill was making a reasonable recovery, and Gordon Forrester still hadn't been back to see his wife. Bill had developed his own little routine of being rolled in to see her morning and night. He would lie there in his bed and talk to her for a while, in the hope that she could hear him in her deep sleep, and then he would go back to his own room. The nurses had told him that Forrester couldn't come because their son was ill, and Bill worried about Teddy all the time on her behalf. He hoped the situation wasn't too bad. And he thought about Sophie frequently too, and hoped she was all right. He had almost given up any hope of Isabelle coming out of her coma by the third week after the accident, and he wondered if Gordon was just going to leave her there, forgotten and unloved. |
| 1095 |
The doctor had told her that morning that he expected her to be there for roughly another four weeks. It was about as long as they planned to keep Bill. "And after that?" she asked him as the nurse fed her the soup. Her hands weren't strong enough to do it yet. She was amazingly weak, which surprised no one but Isabelle. "We'll figure it out." He hadn't told her yet that his legs were permanently compromised, and he wasn't sure he would ever walk again. He wanted to think about it. He wasn't sure she needed to know. Unless things had changed radically while she was comatose, he knew that she would go back to Gordon, to take care of her sick child. He could of course still call her, and see her from time to time, but he didn't want her pity, if he was in a wheelchair. All he wanted was her love. He was thinking now that if he could truly never walk again, perhaps he wouldn't see her after they left the hospital, and they would continue their relationship on the phone. He wasn't sure yet what he would do, or how often he could see her after she left. For the moment, she thought his situation was temporary, and he was inclined to keep it that way. She wouldn't worry about him, she couldn't pity him, and he also hadn't told her about his divorce. He didn't want her to think he was putting pressure on her. He fully understood that she had to go home to her family eventually. All he wanted was to enjoy the time they had. She was in her room that afternoon, and so was Bill, when Gordon called. He told her that he was very relieved to know that she was getting well. He made it sound as though she were recovering from a sprained ankle, or a bad fall. In fact, he felt as though she had returned from the dead. By the time she woke up, he hadn't expected her to live, or to come out of the coma. He had begun to think of himself as a widower, and he had to mentally turn the clock back again, to resume his marriage to her. He sounded very strange, and she correctly guessed that he was angry about Bill, and punishing her for it. |
| 1096 |
And the girls would be busy all summer. "I told them I'd see them when I get back." He had also told the doctor not to tell Isabelle how extensive the damage was to his spine, and that he wouldn't be able to walk. It was the one thing, other than the divorce, that he didn't want her to know. He wanted time to see how much better he could get. She thought it would take him a long time to heal, like six months or a year, so she wasn't surprised that he couldn't walk. If she had been willing to leave Gordon, it could have been different for him. He might have told her the truth then about his legs. But since she was determined to go back to Gordon, Bill didn't want her worrying about him. She had enough on her plate with her sick child. And now that he'd seen Gordon at close range, he knew what she was up against, and it made him sick to think of her with him. Gordon seemed to have no regard for her, no love, no kindness, no respect, no warmth. As far as Gordon Forrester was concerned, his entire world revolved around himself, and all Isabelle was was a convenience and a pawn, and a caretaker for their sick son. He had no appreciation whatsoever, as far as Bill was concerned, of the gem he had. And he was worried that she was going to have a hard life with him, perhaps even harder than before. Gordon was suspicious of her now, and angry about Bill, and Bill was worried that Gordon would punish her for the sins he thought she had committed behind his back. She was going to have to be careful of him now, and stand up for herself, or he would turn her life into a nightmare of torment and disrespect. He couldn't even be bothered to stay with her in London, when she appeared to be comatose and dying, for more than a few days, and he hadn't returned since. And now that she was awake, and she and Bill were together again, that was just as well. When the doctor spoke to Gordon on the phone later that afternoon, he insisted again that Isabelle could not be moved for at least another four weeks. |
| 1097 |
Her husband was not pleased. He thought they were being unreasonable and overly cautious about it, but in the end the doctor frightened him with hideous complications he claimed she could develop, and even suggested she might slip into a coma again. "I should lose my license over this," he laughed as he told Isabelle and Bill later on. But he thought they deserved some small chance for happiness at least, and a reward for the agony they'd survived. And Bill's torments weren't over by any means. The doctor knew only too well how long and hard his rehabilitation was going to be. He had already set it up for him to go to a hospital in New York, where they would help him regain as much use of his legs as he could. Neither Isabelle nor Bill had any real idea of what was in store for Bill there. For now, they had four weeks, to sit together, and laugh and talk and revel in the love and comfort they derived from each other. The hospital was a safe haven for both of them, after the trauma they'd been through, and before they both went back to their own lives. Reality was going to hit them both soon enough. They slept together cautiously in her room again that night, and they tried his after that. They were both free of monitors, and they spent long hours throughout the afternoon talking about their lives and hopes and dreams. The time they were sharing was a rare gift, and for both of them, it had been hard won. They played cards, they read books, he taught her to play liar's dice. They sat and talked for hours, they took their meals in the same room. Her liver was getting better, and healing slowly on its own. Her heartbeat was still irregular, though less so than it had been. And she had ferocious headaches sometimes. She tired easily, and slept a great deal, most of the time lying in bed next to him. His neck was still locked in the terrible brace he had to wear, and as his spine healed, he had pains in his back sometimes, and she would gently rub his shoulders and his arms. |
| 1098 |
Little by little, they were advancing in their recoveries, and they were increasingly aware that their days together would soon end. The accident had been a high price to pay to spend nearly two months together, but as time went on, they were almost beginning to feel married. They sat in each other's rooms all day, he accompanied her for her tests, they read the newspaper and had breakfast together in the morning, and at night they slept in two hospital beds that had been placed side by side. The only thing missing from their conjugal life was sex, still a sore subject for him. Although even without a physical side to their relationship, Isabelle had never been happier in her life. "I feel like I'm running a beach resort here," one of the nurses teased amiably as they came back from sitting in the sun. Isabelle had had a headache that day, and they had done a brain scan on her before lunch, but the doctor said it looked fine. They were following her progress carefully, and she had done remarkably well. Gordon was pressing her about when she was coming home. She knew, as Bill did, that her return to Paris was only weeks away. She wasn't hoping for complications for either of them, but she dreaded leaving Bill, not knowing when she would see him again. She talked to her children every day, and she thought Sophie sounded incredibly stressed, which worried her. The full responsibility for Teddy was on her shoulders, and although Isabelle talked to him constantly, the boy was not doing as well as he had been before his mother left. Isabelle felt guilty for staying away from them for so long, but at the moment, she had no other choice, other than to be in a hospital in Paris. But she knew that as happy as she would be to see her children again, it was going to be excruciatingly painful to leave Bill. They talked about it sometimes, and she said that perhaps in the future they could continue to meet somewhere, as they had in June. She didn't know how she'd get away, but she thought she could. |
| 1099 |
She wasn't as free to call him as he was to call her. She was also aware of how duplicitous it was to continue their relationship by phone, but she couldn't bear the thought of being out of touch with him. They had been living together for two months. They had gotten spoiled during their time in the hospital, and the thought of their being apart now frightened her. She had no idea when she'd see him again. The doctors had told him to expect to be in the rehabilitation center in New York for six months to a year. It sounded like a life sentence to both of them. "You have to hurry up and get well," she told him as she kissed his chest, leaning over onto his bed. "I want you to come to Paris as soon as you can." There was no way she could come to New York. Sophie had had the burden of Teddy's responsibility for long enough, and she was about to go back to school. Isabelle knew it would be a long time before she could leave Paris again. She was desperate to see Teddy for herself. He had been sounding weaker and weaker on the phone. But Bill said nothing when she mentioned his coming to France, and she didn't notice it. He had promised himself that he would phase himself slowly out of her life if he couldn't walk, or worse, be a man with her. It was a deal he had made with himself, and he had said nothing about it to her. He had never told her how grim his own prognosis was, and how much he feared that he would never walk again. He wanted to see what they said when he got back to the States. He still didn't quite believe that he would be confined to a wheelchair. But if he was, she had one invalid in her life, and he wasn't going to allow her to have two. Bill couldn't tolerate the idea of her pitying him, or taking care of him as she had her son. She had spent fourteen years with a mortally ill child. And he didn't want her to have to take care of him, or even think about him that way. But even if he never saw her again, he couldn't imagine not talking to her on the phone. |
| 1100 |
He was the only source of comfort and love she had. Gordon had sent her some clothes from Paris: a plain black Chanel suit that hung on her now, and a pair of flat black leather shoes that felt too big. She had lost a lot of weight, and her body seemed to have changed. She was rail thin, but she looked more beautiful than ever to Bill. She was wearing her long dark hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, and no makeup, just lipstick. And seeing her that way reminded him of when they'd arrived in June, their first day when they'd gone out for lunch, and Harry's Bar that night. So much had happened, so many bridges had been crossed. It was incredible to think that they'd nearly died, and then found each other again. And now their dreams were about to end. They both had to go back into the real world, a world in which they could not be together, and in fact would be lifetimes apart. "Take good care of yourself," she said as she hugged him close. "Come back to me soon," she whispered as he smiled through damp eyes. "And don't forget how much I love you." "Be strong, Isabelle... I love you too," he said, and feeling as though she were tearing herself away from him, she walked resolutely to the door, stopped, took a last look at him, and smiling through her tears, she left. She thanked the nurses, said good bye to both doctors who had come to say good bye to her, and the nurse they had hired for the trip stood close to her in case she fell, and accompanied her to the elevator. And all the while, all she wanted was to run back into his room, to turn back the clock, all the way to the coma if necessary, anything to stay with him. She got into the elevator with her head bowed, and they could all see she was crying as they waved and the doors closed. No one walked into Bill's room after she left, out of respect for him. No one saw him cry, or turn his eyes toward the ceiling with a look of anguish as he thought of her. If anyone had listened outside his door, they would have heard him sob for a time. |
| 1101 |
She knew that some of it was emotional, but it was also an enormous change for her to be out in the world again. The nurse escorted her through the airport in a wheelchair, as Isabelle sat quietly thinking of Bill. She'd tried to call him before they got in the car, but the nurses in London said he was asleep. She didn't want to wake him up, and she had nothing to tell him anyway, except that she loved him and she hated being away from him. She was already lonely for him, and she wasn't even home yet. But she knew that once she arrived, she would be happy to see her children again. The nurse said very little to her on the ride into Paris. They had hired her at the hospital, and she worked privately. She was booked on a flight to go back to London at six o'clock that night. She was just a baby sitter for the ride, as Bill had said, and he thought it was a good idea since Gordon wasn't accompanying her. If Isabelle got dizzy, if she fell, if she got frightened or confused, it was better for her not to be alone. She had been very ill for a very long time and had sustained an enormous shock. The woman had asked her a few pertinent questions about the accident, she had read the chart anyway, and after a while she lapsed into silence, and on the plane she'd read a book. Isabelle felt oddly depressed as they drove into town. It did not give her a thrill to see Paris again, and when she saw the Tour Eiffel, it meant nothing to her. She wanted to be on the other side of the English Channel, in the hospital with Bill. She forced herself to think of Teddy and Sophie as they reached Paris, and crossed onto the Left Bank. And it gave her a strange feeling of excitement suddenly when they turned onto the rue de Grenelle. All she could think of now were her children, she could hardly wait to see them again, and at the same time, she was aware of an overwhelming feeling of longing and sadness as she thought of Bill. The huge bronze doors to the courtyard were standing open, waiting for her. |
| 1102 |
But the children's rooms faced the garden, just as hers did, and she didn't expect Gordon to be home at that hour. He had told her he'd be home at six o'clock, as he always was, he had a busy day scheduled at the office, and she had said she understood. There was more power for him in not being there than in picking her up or meeting her. It was his way of showing her that she did not control him and never would. And there was no one to welcome her as she stepped out of the car. The guardian bowed and touched his cap without saying a word, she nodded at him, and the driver turned the car around, as the nurse followed her up the short flight of stairs into the house. Isabelle rang the bell, and for a moment no one came, and then Josephine, the housekeeper, appeared. She took one look at Isabelle, burst into tears, and threw her arms around her. "Oh, madame..." She had thought Isabelle would die, and she was genuinely happy to see her. She'd been with her all the years of Isabelle's married life. And she dabbed at her eyes as Isabelle hugged her and smiled. "It's so good to see you," Isabelle said, and walked into the familiar hall, and looked around. It looked different than she remembered it. Bigger, darker, sadder somehow. It was strange how the mind played tricks, but the house no longer felt comfortable, it felt strange, like being in the wrong house. She wondered if her accident and head injury made her feel that way, or if it was real. She had been gone for a long time. It had been more than two months since she left to spend two days in London in June. So much had happened, and it felt so odd now that she was back. She felt as though she no longer belonged, nor wanted to be, in the house on the rue de Grenelle. And the only thing that kept her there was her kids. She thanked the nurse for bringing her home, left her with Josephine, and walked slowly up the stairs to see her children. She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment to catch her breath, and she could hear voices in the distance. |
| 1103 |
She'd had no one to talk to or share her worries with, except her friends when they called. They came to visit her now and then, but after a few weeks they got tired of how tied down she was. And for most of the summer, her friends had been away. It had been a long, lonely, hard two months for her. And her father had been no help at all. It was as though he didn't want to know anything about Teddy. He had a sick wife, a sick child, and a life of his own. He had scarcely talked to Sophie while her mother was gone, and she had felt more like an overworked employee than his daughter. Isabelle got up, washed her face, and combed her hair, and she thought about calling Bill, but she didn't think she had time before Gordon came home. As it turned out, he only came home at seven. Isabelle was in Teddy's room, reading a book to him, when she saw a tall, dark figure walk by. He must have recognized her voice, but he simply walked on without stopping to look into the room or greet her. Isabelle finished the page, and put the book down. Teddy had eaten dinner on a tray an hour before, and after the emotion of seeing his mother again, he was tired. Sophie had gone out with friends for the evening, for the first time in two months. And after kissing Teddy gently on the cheek, and promising to come back, Isabelle walked quietly down the hall to see her husband. When she found him, Gordon was in his dressing room, making a phone call. He looked surprised to see her standing there, as though he had forgotten she was coming home. She knew that wasn't possible, but it was his style not to make a fuss about arrivals and departures. He rarely said good bye when he went on a trip, never did when he left for the office in the morning, and when he returned, he usually went to his own rooms to relax for a while before seeing Isabelle or his children. And tonight was no different. He had assumed correctly that she was with Teddy, and knew that he would see her, in good time. He was clearly in no hurry. |
| 1104 |
He had established early on in their marriage that he made the rules, and he was free to do what he wanted. He expected her to toe the line, and it was silently agreed between them that she was not to ask questions, or challenge his authority or his independence. The punishment for it would have been extreme if she'd dared. That much had always been understood between them. There had never been any pretense of equality in their marriage. He had never offered it or promised it, and he didn't intend to start now. She understood that too. The only thing that surprised her now was that she had always been willing to accept his authoritarian rule. She saw now that it was a dictatorship, not a marriage. "You're a married woman," he reminded her, "and I expect you to behave that way. I hope you learned a lesson." And what was that, she wondered. That she'd be hit by a bus if she dined with another man? She wondered what he'd do to her if he knew she was sharing a room with Bill in the hospital in London, or if someone had told him. He was making himself very clear to her. He was not going to tolerate anything other than exemplary behavior from her. Anything less than that would be punished, by silence, by threats, by rejection, by insults if necessary, or perhaps by banishment, maybe even without her children. And if he divorced her, she had no way of taking care of Teddy, which was the only thing that mattered to her. "You're lucky I'm willing to forgive you. But if I discover that you're misbehaving, or that he's visiting you here, things are going to go very badly between us. And I suggest you tell him to stop calling." But she knew she would never do that. Their calls were all she had now. There was certainly going to be no warmth or support from Gordon. He got up from the table then, picked up his briefcase, and walked out of the room. He had delivered his message, and she heard him leave for the office a moment later. She sat in the dining room for a while, collecting her thoughts, and feeling shaken. |
| 1105 |
She felt so tender toward her mother now. "He was very protective when we got married. Very strong, very determined, I thought it meant he loved me. I was very young. And he was wonderful when you were born. He was so happy." She didn't tell Sophie that Gordon had wanted a boy. She'd had a miscarriage after that, and then finally four years after Sophie, Teddy was born. And everything had gone sour after that. He reproached her for Teddy's early birth, insisting that she must have done something to provoke it, and it was all her fault. Gordon had disengaged himself from the ailing baby right from the first. And within months, he had detached himself from Isabelle as well. She had wanted his support and his love, it had been a hard time for her. They had almost lost Teddy several times during the first two years of his life, and it terrified her. He was so tiny and so frail and so much at risk, but Gordon had let her know again and again that he thought it was all her fault. He told her constantly how inadequate she was, how incapable, how wrong. He had completely undermined her self confidence, and any belief she'd had in herself, as a mother, as a woman, as his wife. And within two years of Teddy's birth, he had completely shut her out. She had never really understood why, but she had somehow come to believe that it was her fault. And she still felt that way now at times. She always had the feeling that if she'd done things better, he would still love her, and all would have been well with them. Just as he had this morning about her behavior and the accident in London, he invariably blamed her, and she was willing to accept both the blame and the guilt. Except finally, thanks to Bill, less so this time. She knew she had been wrong to meet him in London, in a clandestine way, but at that point at least, she had done nothing wrong. She intended it to be an innocent encounter, and she had told him that she honored her marriage. It was only in the hospital, after the accident, that everything had changed. |
| 1106 |
Through her parents, she had friends who were useful to him. But once he knew them himself, he pushed her away. It became impossible for him to show affection or love for her. He had been so charming at first, and so cruel so quickly after, and totally self involved, as though she didn't exist, except to serve him. Five years later, he was no longer interested in wasting his charm on her. And he certainly wasn't now. By the time her father died, the marriage had become a nightmare, but she would never have admitted it to anyone. She was too ashamed, and Gordon had convinced her by then that it was her fault. Ever since then, she had poured all her love into Sophie and Teddy. At least, she thought, she had done that right. And in sharp contrast to her experience with Gordon, Bill seemed to think she did everything right. It was still hard to believe that two men could view her so entirely differently. But it was Bill she trusted now, and whose opinions she respected. But she had made a decision to stay with Gordon in spite of it, for her children's sake, and she had to make the best of it. Sophie left the house a little while later, and Gordon and Isabelle had dinner in the dining room. But after the tone of their exchange that morning, very little was said by either of them. Isabelle didn't want to anger him further, and his entire aura warned her not to talk to him. It was never said, but understood, as though even conversation with him were an imposition, and wouldn't be of any interest to him. All she ever talked about were the children anyway, which bored him. Isabelle said not a word all through dinner, and after coffee, she went back upstairs to Teddy's room. Gordon barricaded himself behind his doors as usual. As he left her, he said only that he had work to do. And as she lay in her bed later, she was thinking about everything Sophie had said. She was a bright, healthy, perceptive girl, and her father's behavior and attitudes appalled her, but her mother's bothered her more. |
| 1107 |
The days there without her had depressed him immeasurably. He was so lonely without her, but he knew he had to get used to it. And in his own life, he had Mount Everest to climb now. The therapists had mapped out what he would have to do in the coming year, but even as they described it to him, they warned him not to set his sights too high. The likelihood of his regaining the use of his legs would have to be a miracle, they felt, and although they admired his determination, they didn't want him to be crushed if all he did was manage to stand on braces and on crutches, or have to resign himself to permanently being in a wheelchair. They were almost certain he would remain confined to the wheelchair. They thought it extraordinary that he had any sensation at all, given the extent of the damage to his spine. But there was a big difference, they explained, between having some feeling in his legs and being able to walk on them. The nurses all hugged him and cried when he left. They had all fallen in love with him, and had been touched by his deep attachment to Isabelle. They thought that the fact that they had lived through their accident was one of life's great gifts. And it had given them all new faith and hope. Everyone in the intensive care ward had been amazed that they had both survived. He promised to send them all postcards from New York, and ordered gifts from Harrods for each of them. He bought them all beautiful gold bracelets, and his doctor a Patek Philippe watch. He was generous and kind and thoughtful and appreciative, and he would be sorely missed. A nurse and an orderly took him to the airport and settled him on his plane, representatives of the rehab center were picking him up at Kennedy in New York. Bill had called his daughters to tell them he was coming in, and both of them had promised to visit him the next day at the rehab center. He didn't call Cynthia, intentionally, he was trying to keep some distance between them. He thought it was better that way, given the divorce. |
| 1108 |
She had been stunned by the speed with which he'd moved, and his generosity, and she still believed it was because he was hoping to marry Isabelle, but Bill had told her clearly and honestly that he was not. And if Cynthia hadn't seen how in love Bill was with Isabelle, she would have believed him. He was able to sit in his seat on the plane comfortably for the first few hours, but after a while his neck and back began to hurt. He was wearing braces on both, and he stretched out, grateful to be traveling on his own plane. It made an enormous difference for him. His doctor had suggested that he refrain from eating or drinking on the flight, which he did. They had also suggested he take a nurse on the flight, but he had resisted the idea, and regretted it once they took off. But he had wanted to prove to himself how independent he was. He was absolutely exhausted and in considerable pain by the time they landed in New York. There were two male nurses and a driver waiting for him at the airport. He was whisked through customs without having anything checked, and there was a van outside fitted with a gurney The nurses had taken him to the bathroom first, and he thought about stopping to call Isabelle, but he decided to wait until they reached the rehab center. He was in too much pain, and he was anxious to lie down in the van. "How's that? Better?" one of the nurses asked as they settled him in the van, and Bill smiled. "That was a hell of a long flight." Even lying down for part of the trip, it had been hard for him. He had reclined his seat into a bed, but even doing that, it had been at a slight angle, which had caused him excruciating pain. It reminded him again, very unpleasantly, that he still had a long way to go in his recovery, but he was still certain he would get there eventually. But it was upsetting to him to realize how far he had to go. They had brought him a Thermos of coffee, some cold drinks, and a sandwich. And he felt a lot better by the time they pulled out. |
| 1109 |
It took them half an hour to get to the rehab hospital, it was a large sprawling place with manicured grounds on the outskirts of New York. It looked more like a country club than a hospital, but Bill was too tired to look around when they arrived. All he wanted was to get to bed. He signed in and noticed men and women in wheelchairs and on crutches all around. There were two teams playing basketball from wheelchairs, and people on gurneys watching as they cheered the teams on. The atmosphere seemed friendly and active, and people seemed to be full of energy for the most part. But it depressed Bill anyway. This was going to be his home for the next year, or at best nine months. He felt like a kid who had been sent away to school, and he was homesick for Isabelle and St. Thomas', and all the friendly familiar faces he had come to know there. He didn't even let himself think about his home in Connecticut. That was part of the distant past now. And when he was wheeled into his room, there were tears in his eyes. He had never in his entire life ever felt as vulnerable or as lonely. "Is everything all right, Mr. Robinson?" All he could do was nod. It looked like a standard room in a clean, respectable hotel. Despite the price, which was exorbitant, it wasn't luxurious, there were no frills, and few comforts. There was decent modern furniture, clean carpeting, a single hospital bed, like the one he'd slept in next to Isabelle, and a single poster of the South of France on the wall. It was a reproduction of a water color that looked familiar to him, and he thought he recognized Saint Tropez. He had his own bathroom, and the light in the room was good. There was a fax in the room, a hook up for a computer, and his own phone. They told him he couldn't have a microwave in the room, not that he cared. They didn't say it, but they didn't want clients isolating and eating by themselves. They wanted him to eat in the cafeteria with everyone else, join the sports teams, use the social rooms, and make friends. |
| 1110 |
And in many ways, his was much tougher than hers. "What if I'm here for two years?" he asked, sounding like a kid again. "That won't happen. I'll bet you're finished in no time. What kinds of people are at the center?" They had both been afraid it would be full of elderly people recovering from strokes, and he'd have little in common with them. But from the little he'd seen, most of the patients he'd observed on the way in looked young, even younger than he. Many of them were there as a result of skiing accidents, or disastrous dives into pools, car accidents, gymnastic tragedies. The people who were motivated to be there were, for the most part, young, with long, potentially productive lives ahead of them. "They look okay, I guess." He sighed, and looked out the window at the Olympic size outdoor pool, and he could see a number of people swimming and wheelchairs parked all around. "I just don't want to be here. I want to go back to Washington and work, or be in Paris with you. I feel as though life is passing me by." But neither of the places he wanted to be were possibilities for him. And what he feared most was that they never would be again. He would have to be able to sit for extended periods, to hold up for long hours, travel freely on his own, take care of himself, and have endurance, mobility, and clarity of mind, if he was to return to his career. And he was also afraid that there would be some psychological resistance to him now. People's perceptions could be very strange, and maybe they would feel that if he was in a wheelchair and impaired in any way, he might not be able to run a successful campaign. It was hard to predict what strange turns people's prejudices would take. It was of quintessential importance to him, for an abundance of reasons, to get back on his feet and walk again. In Isabelle's mind, as far as she was concerned, she didn't care if he never did, but she wanted that very much for him. But her love for him was going to be in no way affected by whether or not he walked again. |
| 1111 |
Many of them were not only in physical therapy, but getting psychiatric help as well, like Joe and the woman who'd been shot in the spine. When they left the hospital, the idea was that they would be able to lead full, productive, astonishingly normal lives. There were two hundred residents, and another three hundred or more came to the facility on an outpatient basis every day. But the ones who lived there formed a core of people for the most part who cared about each other and became like family during their extended stays. The noise in the cafeteria reminded Bill not so much of college, but of a cocktail party in full swing. Everyone was laughing, talking, making plans, and either bragging about their victories of the day, or complaining that they were being worked too hard. But Bill realized he hadn't seen that many smiling faces in a long time. It wasn't at all what he'd expected when he arrived. "There's a tennis tournament next week, if you play." Joe filled him in as he talked to about six people at once, at least four of them girls. But he wasn't unusual there, there were a lot of good looking young guys in wheelchairs, Bill guessed that about half of the people he saw were in their twenties and male. The other half covered a wide range of ages, and less than half of them were women or girls. Three quarters of the population were male. They seemed to get into more trouble, or had worse luck, drove their cars too fast, took greater risks, or played dangerous sports. But there were also a number of men and women Bill's age. And at their table there was a beautiful girl whose face was exquisite and whose speech was slurred. She was a model and had fallen down a flight of marble stairs at a shoot and gotten a tremendous head injury. She'd been in a coma for eight months, and as Bill talked to her, he realized how fortunate he and Isabelle had been. The girl's name was Helena, and her best friend in the rehab center was a young ballerina who'd been in a car accident, and was determined to dance again. |
| 1112 |
There was nothing more irresistible than love, and one thing was for sure, Joe and Jane loved each other. Bill just hoped that life treated them well. Joe at least had paid his dues. Spring had come to Paris by then, and nothing had changed for Isabelle in the past two months. She had never confronted Gordon about her discovery. She was biding her time. But everything had changed for her since she'd found out about Louise. She no longer felt guilty about what she felt for Bill, and she stayed away from Gordon most of the time. She made no apologies, expected nothing from him. He was simply a man she no longer knew who lived at the same address. Bill was only worried that Gordon would sense something too different in her. But so far, he seemed to have no clue. Bill was still calling her every day, but he knew he had to make some decisions soon. He had been at the rehab facility for seven months, and although he was stronger and healthier, nothing significant had changed. His body had healed, and he had originally planned to stay for a year, but his therapists were telling him that he'd be ready to leave soon. He was tentatively thinking of leaving in May. They had told him finally that there was nothing more they could do. He was bound to his wheelchair for life. There was no miracle, no surgery they could offer him. He had to make his peace with his life as it now was, and would remain. It was the cruelest blow imaginable for him. The only one worse would have been if Isabelle had died when they were hit by the bus. His not being able to walk, to him, meant never seeing her again. He would rather have died than burden her with his infirmities. And he felt as though he had died when they told him there was nothing more they could do. He hadn't told her it was over yet, but knew he had to soon, so he wouldn't change his mind. He had vowed to bow out quietly sometime soon. His friends were still calling from Washington, and an important senatorial candidate was asking him to take his campaign on in June. |
| 1113 |
He had his eye on the presidency in four years, and he knew Bill was the man to make it happen for him. Bill had all but promised him he would. He had talked about it with Isabelle, and she had come to believe it would do him good to go back to work. She could tell that he was discouraged at times that he hadn't made more progress in the rehab center, but they had taken him as far as they could. And she sensed correctly that he was stalling about moving on. Leaving the rehab center was a little bit like leaving the womb. Her own wounds had healed by then. Her tests were normal, she seldom had headaches anymore. She had made a remarkable recovery, and there was no remaining sign of the accident, except for a long thin scar along her left arm where the severed artery had been sutured. There was no other remnant of it, except for the relationship that had been born in the hospital between them. She still missed him terribly, and she had asked him to come to see her when he got out of the rehab facility. But whenever she asked him about it, he was vague. She knew it was too soon for him to make travel plans, but she hoped he would soon. She hadn't seen him in seven months, which seemed an eternity to her. And it did to Bill too. He tormented himself over it constantly as time went on, and had been for a while. He wanted to see her, but it didn't seem right to him. Once he truly understood and accepted the fact that he would never walk again, it changed everything for him. And their calls didn't seem as innocent to him anymore. He felt as though he were misleading her, given the decision he'd made. In his eyes, he had nothing to offer her now, except his emotional support, and whatever stolen moments they could eventually share, a few times a year. He had too little to give her, he could offer no future as long as she was married, no safety from Gordon, or for her sick child. He had nothing to give her except words. The one thing he didn't want was her pity. He couldn't have borne it. |
| 1114 |
With a pounding heart, he called to tell her that he had fantastic news, and tried to make himself sound convincing. She knew him so well, he was afraid she'd know it wasn't true. But by some miracle she believed him when he told her he had walked that day, and that he had finally made the connection between his brain and his legs. She sounded astounded to hear what he said, and burst into tears, she was so happy for him, which made him feel even worse. But in his mind, there was nothing else he could do. He knew now that he had to let her go, for her sake, and to convince her that he was whole. She had Teddy to take care of, she didn't need the burden of Bill too. As he was, he felt he had nothing to offer her, no matter what eventually happened with Gordon. Bill would not do this to her. He refused to destroy her life and turn her into his nursemaid one day. Unlike Joe and Jane, Bill knew better. He could not let her pity him, rescue him, take care of him. If he wasn't able to walk, he refused to stay in Isabelle's life. And what he had just told her, about having walked that day, was the first step toward setting her free. In his mind, it was all he had left to give. It was like freeing a beautiful bird. They talked for a long time, and she asked him how he had felt when he took his first steps, if it had been terrifying or wonderful, and he elaborated endlessly on the theme. And every day after that, he solidified his story. He felt sick when he called her now, hated lying to her. He felt he had no choice, but it tainted all their phone calls, because he was lying to her. She was warm and wonderful and vulnerable and trusting, and he loved her so much. Enough not to stay in her life as he was. He saw himself now as a half person, or less, who had nothing to offer a woman anymore. Even if parts of him worked, there were others that did not, and never would. In effect, in his eyes, the prognosis the therapists had given him had destroyed what was left of his life, and what he shared with Isabelle. |
| 1115 |
He said almost nothing and hung up. And Isabelle thought of calling Bill, but she knew there was no point, he was no longer there for her, and he had never met the boy. She knew she had to let Bill go. She felt she no longer had a right to call him and intrude on his life. She and Sophie went to the funeral home that afternoon and made arrangements for him. They picked a simple white casket, and Isabelle ordered flowers, lilies of the valley and white roses, and she knew no one would come to his funeral but them, and his nurses. He had never gone to school, had no friends, and Isabelle had led a secluded life for years. They were the only ones who had known and loved him. Isabelle couldn't imagine what she would do without him. He had been not only her life and her heart, but her job for years Isabelle was crying softly, and Sophie was inconsolable when they went home. And Gordon arrived from Rome late that night, looking somber and subdued. He went to the funeral home with Isabelle and Sophie the next day. Isabelle had asked that the casket be closed. She couldn't bear to see him that way, although he had been as beautiful in death as he had been in life. Gordon had said he didn't want to see him, which Isabelle understood. He had never been able to tolerate Teddy's frailty or illness, and although he was his father, he barely knew him. He had resisted knowing him all his life, and it was too late now. The three of them had dinner in the dining room that night. Isabelle said nothing as Sophie and Gordon talked. No one spoke of Teddy, it was just too painful. Isabelle went to her room afterward and lay down on the bed, and all she could think of was the child she had borne whose life had always been so fragile. He was like a butterfly who had finally escaped them, and flown away. She was grateful to have loved him and known him at all. The funeral the next day was in the chapel of their church, and the eulogy was written by a priest who never knew him, and mispronounced his name. |
| 1116 |
Once he had taken advantage of her background and connections, and had established himself, he had no further use for her. And she knew he would do the same thing to Louise. Once the world knew he had married a countess, and that she was a very rich and successful woman, and he had used her to his satisfaction, he could throw her away too. Isabelle could no longer imagine Gordon caring about anyone, not her, not his children, not even his mistress probably. He was narcissistic in the extreme. "I think you've been brain damaged ever since your accident," he said coolly, and she suddenly saw the picture he was going to paint, that she had never been quite right after her coma, that she had always been a little odd, and had finally become severely disturbed after her son's death. It was the perfect excuse for disposing of her. It was like suddenly catching a glimpse of a deep dark cave, and seeing the monster who lived there. In the old days, it would have terrified her, but it no longer did. She wanted nothing to do with the monster anymore. "I expect you to move out quickly," he said coldly. He had dispensed with her, and all he wanted was for her to disappear. It was so perfectly convenient. She served no purpose and had become a problem. And he wanted her removed. She had exposed him, and he couldn't tolerate that. She had shined a far too bright light on him, and refused to be fooled. She had been duped by him for far too long, but no more. "I'll move out when I find an apartment, Gordon," she said, sounding tired. She'd been up all the night before, packing Teddy's things. "You do realize, don't you, that if you throw me out in the street right after Teddy's death, that people are going to say ugly things about you." "I will tell them that you were crazed over his death, and ran away for reasons that are unclear to me, aggravated of course by your brain injury." It was brilliant actually, and he'd worked it all out. She couldn't help wondering if he'd had help from Louise. |
| 1117 |
The house itself had been elegant once, although like so many of the beautiful eighteenth century houses on the Left Bank, the people who had owned it for generations had run out of money to maintain it long since. There was a tiny elevator that looked like a bird cage, high ceilings, beautiful but battered floors, and the landlords were an aristocratic family she had once met. It was a good neighborhood and a good address, and she knew she would feel safe there. And she knew she had just enough furniture from her parents to decorate it decently. She called Gordon's attorney once she signed the lease for the apartment, and told him she was going to move in two weeks. And then she called Sophie. For Sophie, it seemed like a mixed blessing. She was happy her mother had found it, but it was going to be strange living somewhere else. She would stay at the rue de Grenelle when she visited her father, but with her mother and Teddy gone, it depressed her just thinking about it. Isabelle had had the settlement papers from Gordon by then. He was offering her a small settlement, which in no way reflected the life they had shared for twenty one years. And his attorney suggested she get a job, which she intended to do anyway, rather than ask Gordon for support. Everything in the offer they made was slanted toward him, and it was, in effect, an enormous slap in the face. In truth, she wanted nothing from him, and it confirmed everything she'd thought when she'd been afraid to leave him because of Teddy. He would have starved them to death if she left. She wanted very little from him now, just enough to cover her, in case something untoward happened to her or she got sick. Her own lawyer was outraged by what he'd offered, and wanted her to fight for her fair share, and even try to win the house on the rue de Grenelle. But Isabelle knew it would be a hollow victory. As best she could, she wanted to walk away with a bare minimum to meet her needs, and nothing more. She wanted almost nothing from him. |
| 1118 |
In some ways, far more than the rue de Grenelle. It was hers. Most of all, Isabelle was surprised by how easily she had adjusted to her new life. She didn't miss Gordon, the only one she missed incredibly was Teddy, her heart ached for him constantly. The new apartment had given her some distraction, but there was no hiding from the fact that he was gone. In some ways, it was easier being in a new place, she couldn't wander the halls that he had once walked, or sit in the room where she had sat with him for hours. And in spite of her new location, she had not only taken her grief for Teddy with her, her endless longing for Bill had followed her there as well. It was inconceivable to her that she would never see him again, and that, after five years of talking to her, advising her, comforting her, being her mentor and best friend, and finally lover, he had simply shut her out and left. It was the last thing she had ever expected of him, the only cruel thing he had ever done. In its own way, it was the cruelest of all. She knew it would take her a lifetime to forget him, if she ever did. And she couldn't imagine ever loving or trusting anyone again. In the end, it was not so much Gordon who had broken her heart and destroyed her faith, because she expected nothing of him anymore, and hadn't in years, but Bill had hurt her more, because she had truly loved and trusted him. But she knew it was something she had to live with, at whatever cost. Two weeks after she had moved into the apartment, even before Sophie came home for the Toussaint, she saw a photograph of him in the Herald Tribune. The article talked about the upcoming elections in the States, and his part in an important senatorial race. It was very flattering to him, and she sat and stared at the photograph for a long time, and thought he looked well. She couldn't tell precisely, but it looked as though he were standing in a group of men, and the candidate whose cause he was championing was standing next to him. |
| 1119 |
What they were saying sounded extremely technical and boring to her, but she was mesmerized the moment she saw his face. She'd been having a very bad day over Teddy, and finally gave up trying to cheer herself up. She'd gone to bed and turned on the TV to distract herself. She couldn't take her eyes off him as he talked and moved, made an impassioned speech, and then turned right toward the camera, as though he were speaking to her. "You bastard," she whispered softly. She wanted to wish him well with his renewed vows to Cynthia, but she couldn't. She was still too hurt by what he had done to her. She could still remember every word he had said to her when he had told her it was over between them. She hadn't deserved that, she had loved him so much, and they'd been so happy. She was agonizing, remembering all of it, when the camera pulled back at the end of the speech, and she saw someone wheel him away. Her mouth fell open as she watched it. He had told her the use of his legs had fully returned, and it was obvious from what she was seeing that he was still confined to a wheelchair. But why? Why would he tell her he could walk if he couldn't? What purpose could it possibly serve? And then as she watched him disappear off the screen with a wave to several people in the crowd, she remembered what he had said from the first. Already in London, he had hinted darkly that if he couldn't walk again, he wouldn't stay with her, so as not to be a burden on her. He had never spelled it out to her, but she had understood what he meant, and thought he was just depressed. She hadn't really believed him then, and thought he was dramatizing, but she suddenly wondered if he'd meant what he said. It was as though she could hear his words now, as clear as could be. She had never even thought about it, because he had been so clear that he was walking again. And suddenly she wondered if he had lied about everything else. She sat in her bed for a long time, wondering what to do next, how to find out what had happened. |
| 1120 |
And he would be leaving at ten o'clock for his next event. She could either confront him on the way in, or the way out, or she could make a scene at dinner, hide under his table, or pull a gun on him... the possibilities were endless, and most of them sounded absolutely hopeless to her now that she was here. She had no idea how to do this, but she knew she had to try. In the end, she decided to meet him outside, after the dinner, on his way out. That would mean ten o'clock. It was six hours away. The longest six hours of her life. She called the concierge and hired a limousine for that night. And after that she sat in her room worrying about what she was going to say to him, or if he'd even give her a chance to speak. It was a distinct possibility that he would just brush her off and tell her there was nothing to say. It was Bill who had said that he never wanted to see her again, but he had lied to her. He had told her he could walk and that he and Cindy had renewed their vows. She hadn't been able to understand for five months how he could just sever all ties with her like that. But now she understood perfectly. It was all about not being a burden on her. That was why he hadn't wanted to see her in Paris, she realized, because he didn't want her to know that he still couldn't walk, and never would. She had figured it all out. What she hadn't figured out was how to convince him to change his mind. And she knew she'd only have minutes with him, with the senator standing by, before he got in a car and drove away. She had no idea what she was going to say. I love you was a start, but he knew that anyway, and had when he ended their affair, and it hadn't stopped him then. Why would it now? There was so much he didn't know, about Teddy, that she had left Gordon and moved out. He didn't know that he'd broken her heart when he left. And most of all, he didn't know that she didn't care that he was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. All she wanted was to be with him, and love him for as long as he lived. |
| 1121 |
Maybe she should try and see him in the office, or call him on the phone. She knew he must be crazed, with the election only three days away. She could wait until afterward, she told herself, but he might leave town, or disappear. She didn't want to wait. They had waited long enough. She couldn't eat that night, she tried to take a nap and was wide awake. In the end, she took a bath and dressed, and at nine thirty she was in the limousine, speeding toward the Kennedy Center, and then panicked when they reached the side entrance. What if he had already left? She was numb with worry by the time she got out of the car, and went to stand off to the side, where she could watch the entrance, and see him when he came out. It was freezing cold, but she didn't care, and then like some kind of terrifying omen, it started to snow. Big lacy flakes began drifting down from the sky. They were the kind that stick to your clothes and your lashes and your hair. They came with no warning, and there was a brisk wind that seemed to blow them everywhere. By ten fifteen there was no sign of him, and she was sure he had left by some other door. Maybe there had been a change of plan. Isabelle was wearing a big heavy black coat and a sable hat, warm black suede boots, and gloves. She was still freezing cold anyway, and covered with snow. By ten thirty, she had lost hope. She knew she would have to find some other way and try again. She'd have to attempt some other ploy the next day. She told herself she'd stay until eleven o'clock, just so she could tell herself she had, but she was sure that Bill and the senator would be long gone by then, to their next event. But at ten to eleven, there was a flurry of activity near the door. Two off duty policemen came out, looking fairly obvious, a uniformed security man with a wire in his ear, and then a good looking man with his head down against the wind who strode out of the building and headed toward a waiting car that had appeared from nowhere. Isabelle hadn't seen it before. |
| 1122 |
He looked at her long and hard. "Take good care of yourself." He wanted to tell her again he was sorry about Teddy, but he didn't. There was nothing more he could say. He just wheeled himself the rest of the way down the ramp, without looking back at her, and got into the car. He apologized to the senator for the delay, and said he had run into an old friend. He didn't say another word all the way to their next stop, and the senator sensed the somberness of his mood. He seemed a million miles away. It was after midnight when Bill got home, and he didn't call her. It was too late, and he had told himself again that he never would. He believed in what he'd done for her and knew it was the loving thing to do. If he had loved her any less, he would have inflicted himself on her, but he loved her far too much to do that, and knew he always would. He was heartbroken for her about her boy, he knew how much Teddy had meant to her, and he could only imagine how devastating his death had been to her. He was relieved at least to know that Gordon was out of her life. He felt certain she'd find someone else soon. He had never seen her look as beautiful, or as sad, as she had standing there in the snow. It was all he could think of as he lay in his bed that night. The snow was still falling as Isabelle sat in her hotel room and thought of him. And she knew now that he would never call her again. Everything she had seen in his face had spoken of his resolve not to get involved with her again. Only his eyes told her he still cared. She had to accept it now. Even if he had lied to her, this was what he wanted in the end. She had been right months before, there were no happy endings. There were only lessons and losses, and she had had a lot of those. She was awake most of the night, and when she fell asleep at last, she was dreaming of him. She was in a deep sleep when the phone rang at her bedside at four A.M. It was Bill. Even wrapped in the mists of sleep, she would have known his voice anywhere. |
| 1123 |
He was convinced he had nothing to give that would be fair or reasonable for her. He vaguely remembered everything Helena had once told him, but she was young and idealistic too. Maybe love was only for the young. In any case, he had come to the hotel that night to see her, and explain things, and say good bye to her decently. He at least owed her that, he had told himself before coming to the Four Seasons. He knew that the way he had left her before had been inordinately cruel. And she didn't deserve that either, particularly now after losing Teddy too. "I just wanted to say good bye to you, and tell you I'm sorry. I never should have encouraged you to go to London. I feel like it was all my fault right from the beginning." "You gave me the only real love I've ever had from a man," she said gently. "That's not something you owe me an apology for, Bill." "I'm sorry I can't be more than I am..." There were tears in his eyes as he looked at her and held her hand. "I'm sorry about all this," he said sadly, and with that, she leaned forward and kissed him as he sat in his chair, and he gently pulled her toward him, and she sat on his lap as he kissed her. Their kisses were filled with tenderness and passion, and the memory of all they had hoped for, barely tasted, and lost too soon. And as he held her, for an instant he forgot his lost manhood, and felt desire race through him like a tide that could not be turned back, and neither of them had any inclination to. The force of what they felt for each other was irresistible and overwhelmed them both. And suddenly, for one single shining instant, he was no longer afraid. They kissed for a long time, and they were both breathless when he pulled away from her, and without explaining it, or saying anything to each other, she helped him onto the couch, and gently took off his clothes, as he slipped the satin nightgown off her shoulders and it fell to the floor. For the merest moment he hesitated, but he couldn't stop himself this time. |
| 1124 |
I had forgotten how slippery they were, since as a rule I never sat there. There were several small tears in the ancient flannel I was wearing, nothing too revealing of course, and since I get cold at night, I was wearing a frayed T shirt underneath. It was a look that had worked well for me, for thirteen years of marriage with him. Lucky thirteen, or at least it had been till then. And as I sat looking at him, Roger looked as familiar to me as my nightgown. It felt as though I had been married to him forever, and I had, and of course I knew I always would be. I had grown up with him, had known him when we were both kids, and he had been my best friend for years, the only human being I truly trusted in the world. I knew that whatever other failings he had, and there were a few, he would never hurt me. He got cranky now and then, as most men do, he had trouble hanging on to a job, but he had never seriously hurt me, and he was never mean. Roger had never been a raging success in his career. He had played at advertising when we were first married, had a number of jobs in marketing after that, and invested in a series of less than stellar deals. But I never really cared. He was a nice man, and he was good to me. I wanted to be married to him. And thanks to the grandfather who had set up a trust fund for me before he died, we always had enough money not just to get by, but to live pretty comfortably. Umpa's trust fund had not only provided well for me, but for Roger and the kids, and allowed me to be understanding about the financial mistakes Roger made. Let's face it, and I had years before, when it came to making money, or keeping a job for more than a year or two, Roger did not have whatever it took. But he had other things. He was great with the kids, we liked to watch the same shows on TV, we both loved spending our summers on the Cape, we had an apartment in New York we both loved, he let me pick the movies we went to once a week, no matter how sappy they were, and he had great legs. |
| 1125 |
I was going to walk back to the hotel by some indirect route, to breathe in the sounds and smells of Paris and forget him. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second as I walked past, knowing I'd never see him again, and forcing myself not to care. I had been obsessing about him all through dinner, and even I knew, or especially I after the last two years, no man is worth it, no matter how sexy. I had already convinced myself I'd forgotten him as I looked in shop windows all the way back to the hotel, and then turned the final corner, only to realize that the hero in the blue shirt and khaki pants was just behind me, and closing on me quickly. My heart skipped a beat, and I paused, not sure what to say when he reached me. I was still standing there, trying to think of something clever to say, when he walked right past me. Without a smile, a look, a glance in my direction. He marched right by me into my hotel, and I wondered how he knew I was staying there, or why he cared. He was probably waiting for me in the lobby. Clearly, after two years of readjusting to everything in life from sleepwear to dating, I had lost my perspective. He was collecting his key from the porno star at the desk when I walked into the lobby. And this time, he turned and smiled at me, and something very primal deep in my soul spoke to me. I was so undone just looking at him, I couldn't even hear what he was saying. If nothing else, he was great to look at. Instinctively, I looked for a wedding ring, but didn't see one. He was probably one of those guys who cheated regularly, and slipped the ring off and left it in his pocket. I could only assume the worst about him. In my opinion, he was much too good looking to be decent. "Nice night, isn't it?" he asked pleasantly, as we stood together, waiting for the elevator that looked like a birdcage. I had been walking the two short flights until then, but looking at him, I couldn't this time. My stomach had melted into my shoes somewhere and I could hear myself mumble. |
| 1126 |
I had gotten strangely used to him in the short time we'd been together. It had all the elements of a fabulous romance, and yet there was a comfort level, and an ease with each other that was almost like being married. J loved being with him. There had never been anyone like him in my life. Not even Roger. This was very different. It was more grown up, more respectful, more comfortable in many ways. We had a great time, laughed a lot, talked constantly, and enjoyed being together. And there were none of the dead spots, or disappointments there had been with Roger. Peter was terrific. He had won Sam over weeks before, but Charlotte was continuing to glower. She still attributed the worst motives possible to him, and cast aspersions on him at every opportunity, probably because he liked me, and made me happy. He was aware of her hostility, but didn't seem bothered by it, which made him seem like even more of a hero to me. No matter how much abuse she heaped on him, subtly or otherwise, he was good natured about it. Nothing seemed to bother him. He was the consummate good sport, and really did seem to like my children. Later that day Charlotte was in the process of telling me how glad she was that he was gone and that she hoped his plane crashed, as she described the flames that would devour him after it did, when the doorbell rang. I was cooking dinner, and didn't like what she was saying, since I knew he was still en route to California, or at least I thought so. That is, until I answered the door, wearing an apron, and carrying a ladle. It was the first week of school, and Sam was in his room, doing homework. Charlotte disappeared to hers at the sound of the doorbell, as though she knew what was coming. I was surprised the doorman hadn't announced who was coming up, and figured whoever it was had slipped past him, or maybe it was someone from the building, with a package for me. But I was in no way prepared for what I saw, when I opened the door, and almost dropped the ladle I was holding. |
| 1127 |
But that was a moment in time neither of us could bear to think of. We lived each day to the max, and tried to convince ourselves it would last forever. We never talked about Peter. Paul had lunch often at Peter's club, when we didn't spend the day in bed, and I had to do errands or keep appointments. It was hard having an affair with him, and keeping the rest of my life in order. And out of a sense of sheer obligation, every few days, he went to Peter's office to make sure everything was all right there. He loved it. I didn't question why he went, although I suspected it made him feel important. People bowed and scraped and catered to him, just as they did to Peter when he was there. It was heady stuff for a simple Klone. And he loved running his meetings, and making corporate decisions at random. It was hard work for him, he mentioned more than once, but he felt he owed it to Peter to put in an appearance for him. After all, initially that was why Peter had built him, although Paul admitted to me sheepishly his business systems weren't complete yet. But he said coming home to me after a hard day at the office made him feel nearly human. He loved being with me, and I with him. Amazingly, the kids adjusted to him remarkably, and seemed suddenly to have no problem with the idea that he was sleeping in our guest room. After Charlotte's earlier vigilance about our "doing it," she no longer seemed to care now and asked no questions, perhaps because she knew what the answer could be and didn't want to hear it. I continued assuring them that we were sleeping separately, though I'm not sure even Sam believed that anymore, but neither of them objected. And I forced Paul to go back to the guest room every night after our long sieges of passion. It was usually four or five in the morning before he got there, and a mere two or three hours until I had to cook breakfast. I didn't get a lot of sleep while he was there, but it was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make, considering what the rewards were. |
| 1128 |
Instead he had offered tools, however absurd, to fight it. And it might just work, I knew, if Sam believed him, and he appeared to. "It works, you'll see," Paul reassured him, and then dove into his waffles, explaining why waffles were better for you than pancakes, because the little squares were filled with vitamins, even though you couldn't see them, and all the vitamins fell out of pancakes when you flipped them. Listening to him, I almost believed him, and even tired as I was, I loved the sound of Sam's laughter. Paul was great with the kids, he was one of them, and his patience with them was endless. He took them out on the weekend, and played with them tirelessly, took them to the movies, and went bowling with Sam. He even went shopping with Charlotte, which was pretty scary and resulted in the purchase of a patent leather miniskirt I vowed to burn when he left us. They were absolutely crazy about him. But at the end of the second week, knowing it would all be over soon, he started getting depressed, and very quiet. I know Paul was thinking about leaving. He was going through cases of Cristalle, Yquem, and bourbon. But he held it remarkably well, and because of his delicate mechanisms, he never got hangovers and was immune to headaches. The only sign of drinking excessively he ever showed, was when he got in a little accident on Third Avenue in Peter's Jaguar. He managed to hit a cab, and careened away from it, narrowly missing a truck parked outside Bloomingdale's, and hit six parked cars and a traffic light. No one got hurt, but he totaled the front of the car, and managed not to injure the trunk, where he was carrying three more cases of Chateau d'Yquem. He felt just awful about it, and didn't want me to tell Peter when he called, so I didn't, out of loyalty to him. He said the car needed a new paint job anyway, the silver was so mundane. In spite of his fondness for silver lame shirts and underwear, he thought it was a poor choice of color for a car, and had it repainted canary yellow. |
| 1129 |
He was slim and tall, with a new haircut and a serious air, and that incredibly powerful way of walking. He was wearing a double breasted blazer and gray slacks, a blue shirt of course, and a Hermes tie with a navy background and tiny yellow dots. And just watching him move toward me took my breath away. This was no imitation, no Klone, this was the real thing, a real man, and I felt my heart pound as I watched him approach me. I could tell in an instant that nothing had changed between us. Much to my own surprise, I loved him more than ever. It was hard to explain, especially after the fun I'd had with the Klone. But Peter was real, and Paul wasn't. We talked endlessly on the way home, about life, and the kids, his work, and everything he'd done in California in the past two weeks. He never asked about Paul once, or how it had all worked out, or when he'd left. The only thing he wanted to know was why I had come to the airport in a limousine, instead of his Jaguar. And I had to explain that Paul had had a little mishap with it. I assured him that they had put out the fire in the engine immediately, and other than the totaled front end, there had been very little other damage. The trunk still opened easily, all the tires were being replaced, and he was going to love it canary yellow with red wheels. I saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, but to his credit, he said nothing about it. He was a gentleman, and a good sport, as he always had been. He seemed happier to see me when we got home. He left his bags in the car, but came up for a while, for a cup of tea. And then he kissed me. And when he did, I knew nothing had changed between us. Peter kissing me was more powerful than the double or triple or quadruple flip with Paul. Just seeing him again turned my knees to mush. I was crazy about him. He went back to his own place then, to shower and change, and when he came back that night to see me and the kids, they both looked disappointed when they saw him come through the door. |
| 1130 |
His freedom was important to him. He was actually very different from Paul. In contrast, Paul seemed to have very little need for freedom. But Peter was another story. He had been single for a long time, and in some ways, I suspected that commitment wasn't easy for him anymore. But in spite of that, the relationship seemed solid. It meant a great deal to me, and it was obvious that it did to Peter as well. It was a more meaningful relationship than I'd ever had with anyone, including, and perhaps even especially, Roger. This was real, as real as it could be, with ups and downs, and laughter, and occasionally tears, and the shared confidences that we trusted each other with, and there were many of them. And although I'd had doubts about him when he sent the Klone to me, I decided finally that although he was perhaps unusual, Peter was, in fact, normal and very sane. The Klone was simply an added facet to him. And of course, like all men, he needed to remind me from time to time that there were parts of him I didn't know yet, and still other parts that I might never know. It added a veil of mystery he seemed to feel was important, but the truth was that I saw who he was, and he had fewer secrets from me than he wanted to believe. I was willing to accept that there were some small, dark, hidden parts he had kept to himself, but they didn't frighten me. What I saw and what I felt and what I knew was a kind, generous, sensitive, intelligent, loving man. And he proved it to me in a thousand ways. He was always patient and loving with my children, and had a special kind of empathy and tenderness in handling Sam. He was tolerant and understanding of Charlotte's moods and quirks as well, and the fact that some days she liked him, and at other times she wouldn't even say hello. I scolded her if she was rude to him, but he then chided me in turn for my lack of compassion, and was always quick to explain to me why this wasn't easy for her, and I had to back off, and give her a chance to get to know him in her own time. |
| 1131 |
By the end of Paul's second week with me, I was more confused than ever, but in spite of that, we always seemed to have a good time together. We went to all the Christmas parties I was supposed to go to, and in spite of a few minor faux pas, he actually did very well. I tried to get him to let me pick his outfits, but of course that was too much to ask. He had bought a silver suit with Christmas balls hanging all over the jacket, and the trousers were covered with tiny colored lights. He thought it incredibly festive, and the hostess at the first party we went to thought it was an enchanting joke. Little did she know he meant it, and felt he had made the fashion statement of the season. He devoured all the hors d'oeuvres, gobbled up all the caviar, and when they ran out, he put their tropical fish in his drink and swallowed them too. I don't think anyone noticed, but I did, and we left before he could get seriously out of hand or upset the hostess more than he already had. The second party we went to was given by old friends of mine who had met Peter. They sang Christmas carols, had a fabulous buffet, and insisted on playing charades after dinner in the living room. I did Gone With the Wind, and no one guessed it, which must have sparked something for Paul. Because he chose a single word, a "short one," he gestured, and it only took me a few seconds to realize that the word he was acting out was fart. You can imagine what he did to get the point across. We left the party a little early that night, but in spite of my apologies, the host and hostess assured me that Paul had been a huge hit, particularly with their kids. They said he seemed a lot more "outgoing" than the first time they'd met him, and was a true free spirit, and keeping a close eye on him, I agreed with them all the way out. But I was furious with him for his outrageous behavior, and I said so in no uncertain terms after we'd left their apartment. "That was a bit much, didn't you think?" I scolded him in the cab on the way home. |
| 1132 |
She had married someone else within a year, and her twin moved in with them, which told Charlie he'd done the right thing. Charlie's last engagement had come to a disastrous end five years before. She loved Charlie, but even after couples counseling with him, said she didn't want children. No matter how much she said she loved him, she wouldn't budge an inch. He thought at first he could convince her otherwise, but he never did, so they parted friends. He always did. Without exception. Charlie had managed to stay friends with every woman he had ever gone out with. At Christmastime, he was deluged with cards from women he had once cared about, decided not to marry, and who had since married other men. At a glance, if one looked at the photographs of them and their families, they all looked the same. Beautiful, blond, well bred women from aristocratic families, who had gone to the right schools, and married the right people. They smiled at him from their Christmas cards, with their prosperous looking husbands at their side, and their towheaded children gathered around them. He was still in touch with many of them, they all loved Charlie, and remembered him fondly. His friends Adam and Gray kept telling him to give up on debutantes and socialites and go out with a "real" woman, the definition of which varied according to their respective descriptions. But Charlie knew exactly what he wanted. A well born, well heeled, well educated, intelligent woman who would share the same values, same ideals, and had a similarly aristocratic background to his. That was important to him. His own family could be traced back to the fifteenth century, in England, his fortune was many generations old, and like his father and grandfather, he had gone to Princeton. His mother had gone to Miss Porter's, and finishing school in Europe, as had his sister, and he wanted to marry a woman just like them. It was an archaic point of view, and seemed snobbish in some ways, but Charlie knew what he wanted and needed, and what suited him. |
| 1133 |
He himself was old fashioned in some ways, and had traditional values. He was politically conservative, eminently respectable, and if he had a fling here and there, it was always done politely, with the utmost discretion. Charlie was a gentleman and a man of elegance and distinction to his very soul. He was attentive, kind, generous, and charming. His manners were impeccable, and women loved him. He had long since become a challenge to the women in New York, and the many places where he traveled and had friends. Everybody loved Charlie, it was hard not to. Marrying Charles Harrington would have been a major coup for anyone. But like the handsome prince in the fairy tale, he had searched the world, looking for the right woman, the perfect one for him. And instead he met lovely women everywhere, who seemed delightful and appealing at first, and always had a fatal flaw that stopped him in his tracks just before he got to the altar. As much as it was for them, it was disheartening for him. His plans to marry and have children had been thwarted every time. At forty six, he was still a bachelor, through no fault of his own, he said. Wherever the right woman was hiding these days, he was still determined to find her, and Charlie felt sure he would, one day. He just didn't know when. And for all the impostors masquerading as the right women, he was able to detect their fatal flaws every time. The one thing he consoled himself with was that he hadn't married the wrong one. He was determined not to let that happen. And he was grateful that so far he hadn't. He was ever vigilant and relentless about those fatal flaws. He knew the right woman was out there somewhere, he just hadn't found her yet. But one day he knew he would. Charlie sat with his eyes closed and his face to the sun, as two stewardesses served him breakfast, and poured him a second cup of coffee. He had drunk a number of martinis, preceded by champagne the night before, but after a swim before he sat down to breakfast he felt better. |
| 1134 |
He had blue eyes and, after the last month on the boat, a deep tan. He was a stunning looking man, and his preference in women ran to tall, thin aristocratic blondes. He never thought about it particularly, but his mother and sister had both been tall blondes. His mother had been spectacularly beautiful, and his sister had been a tennis star in college when she dropped out to take care of him. His parents had both been killed in a head on collision while on vacation in Italy when he was sixteen. His sister had been twenty one, and had left Vassar in her junior year, to come home and take on the responsibilities of running the family, in the absence of their parents. It still brought tears to Charlie's eyes when he thought about his sister. Ellen had said she would go back to finish college when he went to college two years later. It was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make for him. She had been an extraordinary woman, and Charlie adored her. But by the time he left for college, although he didn't know it, and she said nothing to him, Ellen was ill. She had managed to keep the seriousness of her illness from him for nearly three years. She said she was too busy working at the foundation to go back to college, and he had believed her. In fact, she had a brain tumor, and fought a valiant battle. They had determined early on that the tumor was inoperable because of its location. Ellen died at twenty six, just months before Charlie graduated from Princeton. Charlie had no one to see him graduate. With his sister and parents gone, he was virtually alone in the world, with a vast fortune, and a great sense of responsibility for all they left him. He bought his first sailboat shortly after he graduated and for two years he sailed around the world. There was barely a day that went by that he didn't think about his sister and all she had done for him. She had even given up college for him, and had been there for him in every way until she died, just as his parents had been before. |
| 1135 |
His mother had finally stopped complaining about his being single, or almost, and she had finally stopped trying to introduce him to a "nice girl." Adam had exactly what he wanted, a rotating smorgasbord of playmates to entertain him. If he wanted someone to talk to, he called his friends. As far as he was concerned, women were for sex, fun, and to keep at a distance. He had no intention of getting close enough to get hurt again. Unlike Charlie, he wasn't looking for the perfect woman. All he wanted was the perfect bedmate for as long as it lasted, hopefully no longer than two weeks, and he kept it that way. Adam wanted no serious involvements. The only things he was serious about were his children, his work, and his friends. And as far as he was concerned, the women in his life were not his friends. Rachel was his sworn enemy, his mother was his cross to bear, his sister was a nuisance, and the women he went out with were barely more than strangers. Most of the time he was a lot happier, felt safer, and was more comfortable with men. Particularly Charlie and Gray. "I think I had fun last night," Adam said with a sheepish grin. "The last thing I remember was dancing with a bunch of Brazilian women who didn't speak English, but man, could they move. I sambaed myself into a frenzy, and must have had about six hundred drinks. They were amazing." "So were you." Charlie laughed out loud, as both men turned their faces to the sunshine. It felt good, even with Adam's headache. Adam played as hard as he worked. He was the top lawyer in his field these days, eternally stressed and anxious, he carried three cell phones and a pager, and spent his life either in meetings or flying somewhere to see clients in his plane. He represented a roster of major celebrities, all of whom seemed to get themselves into trouble with alarming regularity, but Adam loved what he did, and had more patience with his clients than he did with anyone else, except his kids, who meant everything to him. |
| 1136 |
He loved being with his two friends. Despite their initial indulgences, they usually settled down to a dull roar after the first few days. It wasn't as bad as they both made it sound, although they had all drunk a lot the night before, and had a lot of fun, dancing with strangers, watching people, and generally enjoying each other's company. Charlie was looking forward to spending the month with them. It was the high point of his year, and theirs. They lived on the anticipation of it for months every year, and reveled in the warmth of it for months after. They had a decade of memories of trips like this, and laughed at the tales of their antics whenever they met. "I think we're early this year with a night like last night. My liver's already shot. I can feel it," Gray commented, looking worried, as he finished the eggs, and ate a piece of toast to settle his stomach. His head was still pounding, but the Unterberg had helped. Adam couldn't have faced the breakfast Gray had just eaten. The bitters he took religiously every day while on board obviously worked and fortunately, none of them got seasick. "I'm older than you two. If we don't slow down, it's going to kill me. Or maybe just the dancing will. Shit, I'm out of shape." Gray had just turned fifty but looked noticeably older than either of his friends. Charlie had a youthful boyish look, even in his mid forties, that knocked five or ten years off his appearance, and Adam was only forty one, and was in amazing shape. Wherever he was in the world, and no matter how busy, he went to the gym every day. He said it was the only way he could cope with the stress. Gray had never taken care of himself, slept little, ate less, and lived for his work, as Adam did. He spent long hours standing in front of his easel, and did nothing but think, dream, and breathe art. He wasn't much older than the other two, but he looked his age, mainly because of his shock of unruly white hair. The women he met thought him beautiful and gentle, for a while at least, until they moved on. |
| 1137 |
He wound up cooking for them, housing them, taking care of them, finding doctors and therapists for them, putting them in rehab, or drying them out himself. He gave them money, leaving himself even more destitute than he had been before they met. He offered them a safe haven, kindness, and comfort. He did just about anything he had to, and that they needed, as long as they didn't have kids. Kids were the one thing that Gray couldn't deal with. They terrified him, and always had. They reminded him of his own peculiar childhood, which had never been a pleasant memory for him. Being around children and families always reinforced the painful realization of how dysfunctional his own family had been. The women Gray got involved with didn't appear to be mean at first, and they claimed they didn't want to hurt him. They were disorganized, dysfunctional, more often than not hysterical, and their lives were a total mess. The affairs he had with them lasted anywhere from a month to a year. He got jobs for them, cleaned them up, introduced them to people who were helpful to them, and without fail, if they didn't wind up hospitalized or institutionalized somewhere, they left him for someone else. He had never had a desire to marry any of them, but he got used to them, and it disappointed him for a while when they moved on. He expected it. He was the ultimate caretaker, and like all devoted parents, he expected his chicks to fly the nest. Much to his amazement each time, their departures were almost always awkward and traumatic. They rarely left Gray's life with grace. They stole things from him, got into screaming fights that caused the neighbors to call the police, would have slashed his tires if he'd had a car, tossed his belongings out the window, or caused some kind of ruckus that turned out to be embarrassing or painful to him. They rarely if ever thanked him for the time, effort, money, and affection he had lavished on them. And in the end, it made it a blissful relief when they left. |
| 1138 |
His sister had become a Buddhist nun, and had gone back to India, to work with the starving masses in Calcutta. Gray had gotten off the boat, literally and otherwise, and went to New York at eighteen to paint. His family still had money then, but he had chosen to try and make it on his own, and had spent his early twenties studying in Paris, before he went back to New York. His parents had moved to Santa Fe by then, and when Gray was twenty five, they had adopted a Navajo baby and called him Boy. It had been a complicated process, but the tribe agreed to let him go. He seemed like a nice child to Gray, but the age difference between them was so great that he scarcely saw him while Boy was growing up. His adoptive parents had died when Boy was eighteen, and he had gone back to live with his tribe. It had happened seven years earlier, and although Gray knew where he was, they had never contacted each other. He had a letter from Sparrow from India once every few years. They had never liked each other much, their early life had been spent surviving the vagaries and eccentricities of their adoptive parents. He knew Sparrow had spent years trying to find her birth parents, maybe to bring some kind of normalcy into her life. She had found them in Kentucky somewhere, had nothing in common with them, and had never seen them again. Gray had never had any desire to find his, some curiosity perhaps, but he had enough on his plate with the parents he'd had, he felt no need to add more dysfunctional people to the mix. The lunatics he was already related to were more than enough for him. The women he went out with were just more of the same. The disruptions he shared with them, and tried to solve for them, were more of what he'd seen growing up, and were familiar and comfortable for him. And the one thing he knew without wavering was that he never wanted to have children and do the same to them. Having children was something he left to other people, like Adam, who could bring them up properly. |
| 1139 |
It was a curse he accepted, an irresistible pull for him, after the childhood he'd had. He felt that the only way to break the spell, or the curse that had been put on him by his dysfunctional adopted family, was to refuse to pass that angst making lifestyle on to a child of his own. His gift to the world, he often said, was promising himself never to have kids. It was a promise he had never broken, and knew he never would. He said he was allergic to children, and they were equally so to him. Unlike Charlie, Gray wasn't looking for the perfect woman, he would have just liked to find one, one day, who was sane. In the meantime, the ones he did find provided excitement and comic relief, for him and his friends. "So, what are we doing today?" Charlie asked, as the three men stretched out on deck chairs after breakfast. The sun was high, it was nearly noon, and the weather had never been better. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Adam said he wanted to go shopping for his kids in St. Tropez. Amanda always loved the things he brought home for her, and Jacob was easy. They were both crazy about their dad, although they loved their mother and stepfather too. Rachel and the pediatrician had had two more children, whom Adam pretended didn't exist, although he knew that Amanda and Jacob were fond of them, and loved them like a full brother and sister. Adam didn't want to know about them. He had never forgiven Rachel for her betrayal, and never would. He had concluded years before that, given the opportunity, all women were bitches. His mother had nagged his father constantly, and was disrespectful to him. His father had dealt with the constant barrage of verbal abuse with silence. His sister was subtler than their mother, and got everything she wanted by whining. On the rare occasions when she didn't, she got out her claws and fangs and got vicious. The only way to handle a woman, as far as Adam was concerned, was to find a dumb one, keep her at arm's length, and move on quickly. |
| 1140 |
He had a point. "Because women never believe what you tell them. The minute you tell them you'll never get married, you become a challenge, and they start shopping for a wedding dress. But at least I'm honest. If they don't believe me, that's their problem. I say the words. If they don't want to hear them, that's up to them. But God knows I say them." That was also one of the advantages of dating very young women. Twenty two year olds generally weren't looking for marriage, just a good time. It was only when they started creeping up on thirty that they looked around and got panicked about where things were going. The younger ones wanted to go to clubs and bars, buy a few dresses and charge them to him, and go to concerts and expensive restaurants. If he took them to Las Vegas for a weekend, when he had to see one of his clients, they thought they'd died and gone to Heaven. His family, however, had a different attitude. His mother always accused him of dating hookers, especially when she saw him in the tabloids. He always corrected her and said they were actresses and models, which she assured him was the same thing. His sister just looked embarrassed when the subject came up at family dinners. His brother thought it was funny, but for the past few years had told him it was time for him to settle down. Adam could not have cared less what they thought. He thought their lives were painfully boring. His wasn't. And he assured himself regularly that they were just jealous, because he was having fun and they weren't. His parents weren't jealous, they just disapproved of him on principle. And predictably, given her disapproval of Adam, or maybe just to annoy him, he thought sometimes, his mother had stayed close to Rachel. She liked her and her new husband, and always reminded Adam that she saw Rachel and stayed close to her because she was her grandchildren's mother. Whatever the issue or argument, Adam's mother always chose to be on the opposite side from him. She couldn't help herself. |
| 1141 |
They left the dock right after lunch, an excellent seafood buffet. It was nearly three when they departed, after stopping for a swim on the way, and then all three men dozed on the deck as they motored on toward Monaco. They were sound asleep in deck chairs when they arrived, and the captain and crew docked the Blue Moon expertly at the quay, using fenders to keep them from being bumped by other boats. As always, the port at Monte Carlo was filled with yachts as large as they were, or even larger. Charlie woke up at six o'clock, saw where they were, and that his two friends were still sleeping. He went to his cabin to shower and change, and Gray and Adam woke up at seven. Adam was understandably exhausted after his revels of the previous night, and Gray wasn't used to the late hours they were keeping. It always took him a few days to adjust to their nightlife when they traveled together. But all three of them felt rested when they went to dinner. The purser had arranged a car for them, and had made reservations at Louis XV, where they had a sumptuous dinner, in surroundings far more formal than the restaurant the night before in St. Tropez. All three of them had worn coats and ties. Charlie was wearing a cream colored linen suit with a matching shirt, and Adam was wearing white jeans and a blazer, with alligator loafers and no socks. Gray was wearing a blue shirt, khaki slacks, and an ancient blazer. With his white hair, he looked like the senior member of the group, but there was something wild and dashing about him. He had worn a red tie, and no matter what he wore, he always looked like an artist. He gesticulated animatedly as he told them stories about his youth during dinner. He was describing a tribe of natives they had lived with briefly on the Amazon. It made for good storytelling now, but was still a nightmarish childhood to have lived through, while other kids his age were going to junior high school, riding bikes, having paper routes, and going to school dances. |
| 1142 |
Charlie seldom spoke of his childhood. It had been predictable, respectable, and traditional, until his parents died, and then it had been heart wrenching until it became even more so when his sister died five years later. He was willing to talk about it with his therapist, but rarely socially. He knew that funny things must have happened before tragedy struck, but he could no longer remember them, only the sad parts. It was easier to keep his mind on the present, except when his therapist insisted that he remember. And even then it was a struggle to conjure up the memories and not feel devastated by them. All the worldly possessions and comforts he had did not make up for the people he had lost, or the family life that had vanished with them. And try as he might, he could not seem to recreate it. The stability and security of family, and someone to form that bond with him, always seemed to elude him. The two men he was traveling with were the closest thing he had to family in his life now, or had had in the past twenty five years since his sister died. There had never been a lonelier time in his life than that, with the agony of knowing that he was alone in the world, with no one to care about him or love him. Now, at least, he had Adam and Gray. And he knew that, whatever happened, one or both of them would be there for him, as he would be for them. It gave all three of them great comfort. They shared a bond of unseverable trust, love, and friendship, which was priceless. They lingered for a long time over coffee, smoking cigars, and talking about their lives, and in Adam and Gray's cases, their childhoods. It was interesting to Charlie to note how differently they processed things. Gray had long since accepted the fact that his adoptive parents had been eccentric and selfish, and as a result inadequate parents. He had never had a sense of safety in his youth, or of a real home. They had drifted from one continent to another, always seeking, searching, and never finding. |
| 1143 |
He had seen him on his infrequent visits home, but had resisted getting attached to him. Gray wanted nothing in his life that would tie him to his parents. The last time he had seen Boy was at his parents' funeral, and intentionally lost track of him after that. He felt guilty about it sometimes, but didn't allow himself to dwell on it. He had finally shed the last vestiges of a family that had been nothing but painful for him. To him, the word "family" evoked nothing more than pain. He wondered now and then what had become of Boy since their parents' death. Whatever had happened to him, it could only be better than the life he shared with their irresponsible adoptive parents. Gray had thus far resisted any urge to feel responsible or attached to him. He thought he might try to contact him one day, but that time had not yet come. He doubted it ever would. Boy was better left as a piece of memory from the distant past, a part of his life he had no desire to revisit or touch again, although he remembered Boy as a sweet natured child. Adam, on the other hand, was bitter and angry about his parents. The short version, in his mind, was that his mother was a nagging bitch, and his father was a wuss. He was angry at both for their contributions to his life, or lack of them, and their depressing home life, as he viewed it. He said all he remembered of his childhood was his mother bitching at everyone, and always picking on him, since he was the youngest, and being treated as an intruder, since he had arrived so late in their lives. His vivid recollection was of his father never coming home from work. Who could blame him? As soon as Adam left for Harvard at eighteen, he had never gone home to live again. Spending holidays with them was bad enough. He said that the unpleasant atmosphere in their home had created an irreparable rift between all three children. All they had learned from their parents was how to criticize, look down at each other, nitpick, and be condescending about each other's lives. |
| 1144 |
He was probably too afraid they'd die or leave or abandon him. He knew it himself. He had discussed it a thousand times with his therapist. It didn't change anything. No matter how many years he spent in therapy, his parents had still died when he was sixteen, and his last living relative, his sister, had died a horrible death when he was twenty one. It was hard to trust anything and anyone after that. What if you loved someone and that person died or abandoned you? It was easier to find their fatal flaws and abandon them, before they could do it to you. Even with a perfect family as a child, by dying when he was so young, his parents and sister had condemned him to a life of terror forever after. If he dared to love anyone again, for sure they would die or leave him. And even if they didn't, or seemed reliable, there was always that risk. A risk he still found terrifying, and he was not willing to put his heart on the line again, until he knew he was a thousand percent safe. He wanted every guarantee he could get. And so far, no woman had come with a guarantee, just red flags, which scared the hell out of him. So, however politely, he abandoned them. He hadn't found one yet worth risking his all for, but he felt certain that one day he would. Adam and Gray were no longer so sure. It looked to both of them as though Charlie was on his own for good. The three of them were a perfect fit, because all of them were equally sure of the same thing for themselves. The risk of coupling, for any of them, more than temporarily, was just too great. It was a curse put on them by their families, and one that none of them could erase, exorcise, or lift. The distrust and fear they lived with now was their families' final gift. Charlie played baccarat, while Gray watched Adam play vingt et un, and then all three of them played roulette. Charlie put up some money for Gray, and he made three hundred dollars with a bet on the black. He gave the original hundred back to Charlie, who insisted he keep it all. |
| 1145 |
She had him on his toes, or on the ropes, as he ruefully admitted later. He was no match for her, despite her age. Sylvia and Gray spent the afternoon discussing art, interminably, much to their delight. They went from one period of history to another, drawing parallels between politics and art. Charlie watched them all with fatherly pleasure, making sure that his crew was making them feel at home on the boat, and that his guests had everything they wanted. The day was so beautiful that they decided to stay and have dinner on the boat, at Charlie's invitation. It was nearly midnight before they motored slowly closer to the port, after stopping for a moonlight swim on the way back. For once, Gray and Sylvia stopped talking about art, and just enjoyed the water. She was a powerful swimmer, and seemed capable in all things she did, whether athletics or art. Gray had never met a woman like her. They swam back to the boat, as he found himself wishing he was in better shape than he was. It wasn't something he thought about often. But she was extremely fit, and scarcely out of breath as they got back on board. For a woman her age, or even a younger one, she looked great in a bikini, but she seemed unaware of herself around him, unlike her niece, who had been flirting relentlessly with Adam. Her aunt made no comment, she was well aware of the fact that her niece was a grown woman, and was free to do whatever she wanted. Sylvia wasn't in the habit of running anyone else's life. Her niece could run her own. Before they left, Sylvia asked Gray if he'd like to go to San Giorgio with her the following morning. She had been there often before, but loved seeing it again and again. She said she saw something new each time she went there. He accepted readily, and agreed to meet her in the port at ten. There was nothing coy about her invitation to him, it was simply a bond between two art lovers. She said they were leaving the day after, and Gray was happy for a chance to see her again. |
| 1146 |
It was obvious that she had given the subject considerable thought. "I've been beginning to get that myself," he said ruefully. It was embarrassing to admit how dysfunctional the women in his life had been, and that after all he'd done for them, almost without exception they had left him for other people. In a slightly less extreme way, Sylvia's experience wasn't so different from his. But she sounded healthier than he felt. "Are you in therapy?" she asked openly, as she would have asked him if he'd been to Italy before. He shook his head. "No. I read a lot of self help books, and I'm very spiritual. I've paid for about a million hours of therapy for the women I've been involved with. It never occurred to me to go myself. I thought I was fine, and they were nuts. Maybe it was the other way around. You have to ask yourself at some point why you get involved with people like that. You can't get anything decent out of it. They're just too fucked up." He smiled and she laughed. She had come to the same conclusion herself, which was why she hadn't had a serious relationship since the sculptor committed suicide. She had taken about two years to sort it out, working on it intensely in therapy. She had even gone on a few dates in the past six months, once with a younger artist who was a giant spoiled brat, and twice with men who were twenty years older than she was. But after the dates she realized she was past that now, and a twenty year age difference was just too much. Men her age wanted women younger than she was. Then she had had a number of very unfortunate blind dates. For the moment, she had decided that she was better off by herself. She didn't like it, and she missed sleeping with someone, and having someone to curl up to at night. With her children gone, the weekends were agonizingly lonely, and she felt too young to just give up. But she and her therapist were exploring the possibility that maybe no one else would come along, and she wanted to be all right with it. |
| 1147 |
He was looking forward to calling Sylvia as soon as he got home. He had thought of calling her from the boat, but didn't want to make expensive calls on Charlie's bill, which seemed rude to him. He knew she'd gotten back the previous week, after her trip to Sicily with her kids. Charlie was staying in France, on the boat, for another three weeks, in splendid solitude. But it was always lonely for him when the other two were gone. He hated to see them go. The morning they left, Gray and Adam drove to the airport together in a limo the purser had rented for them. Charlie stood on the aft deck and waved, and was sad when they were gone. They were his closest friends, and both good men. For all their vagaries and hang ups, Adam's comments about women, and weakness for very young ones, Charlie knew they were decent people and cared a great deal about him, as he did about them. He would have done anything for them, and he knew they would for him too. They were the Three Musketeers, through thick and thin. Adam called Charlie from London, to thank him for a fantastic trip, and the next day Gray sent him an e mail saying the same thing. The best ever, they all agreed. It was hard to imagine, but their trips got better every year. They met terrific people, went to wonderful places, and enjoyed each other more with each passing year. It made Charlie feel sometimes that life wouldn't be so bad if he never met the right woman. If that happened, at least he had two remarkable men as friends. Life could be worse. He spent his last two weeks on the boat doing business by computer, setting up meetings for his return, and making a list of things he wanted the captain to attend to to maintain the boat. In November, they'd be making the crossing to the Caribbean, and Charlie would have loved to be on it. He found it relaxing and peaceful to do so, but he had too much going on this year. The foundation had given nearly a million dollars to a new children's shelter, and he wanted to be around to see how it was being spent. |
| 1148 |
He had been in Las Vegas for an entire week, after his travels in Europe with his kids. He'd had an e mail from Adam himself too, asking Charlie if he wanted to go to a concert with him the following week. It was one of those megaevents that Charlie loved and Gray said he hated, and it sounded like fun to him, so he had e mailed back that he would join him. Adam wrote back that he was pleased. News from Gray had been scarce in the past few weeks. Charlie assumed he was working, and was lost in his own world at the studio, after not painting for a month while he was on the trip. Sometimes Gray disappeared for weeks, and emerged victorious when a particularly tough spell with a painting had been beaten into submission. Charlie suspected he was in one of those. He was planning to call him sometime that week. And Gray would be surprised to hear from him, as always. He totally lost track of time whenever he was at work. Sometimes he had no idea what time of year it was, and he didn't leave the studio for days or weeks. It was just the way he worked. The weather in New York was hot and muggy, and it was late afternoon when Charlie arrived. He went through customs quickly, with nothing to declare. His office had a car waiting for him, and as they approached the city, the bleakness of Queens depressed him. Everything looked dirty, people looked hot and tired, and when he opened the window in the car, the air was like a blast of bad breath in his face, tainted with exhaust fumes. Welcome back. When he got to his apartment, things were even worse. His cleaning staff had aired out the apartment, but it still smelled musty and looked sad. There were no flowers, no sign of life anywhere. Three months was a long time. All his mail was waiting for him at the office, whatever hadn't been sent to him in France. There was food in the refrigerator, but no one to prepare it, and he wasn't hungry. There were no messages on the machine. No one knew he was coming back, and worse yet, no one cared. |
| 1149 |
They sat at her kitchen table, and ate the pizza as they chatted comfortably. She shared the wine with him, turned down the lights, lit candles, and served the pizza on good looking Italian plates. Everything she did or touched or owned had a sense of elegance and style. Just as she did, in her simple ponytail, bare feet, and jeans. She was wearing the same stack of turquoise bracelets he had noticed her wearing in Italy. They sat there for a long time, talking about nothing in particular. They just enjoyed being together, and she was glad he had come over to help her with the leak. It was ten o'clock when he finally admitted that the jet lag was getting to him. That with the wine was putting him to sleep. He got up from the table regretfully, helped her put the dishes in the dishwasher, although she insisted she could do it herself after he left. He liked helping her, and he could see it wasn't familiar to her. She was used to doing things herself, just as he had been all his life. But it was nicer doing things together, and he was sorry to leave. He liked being with her, and when he turned to her before he left, she was looking up at him. "Thanks for coming by, and helping me, Gray. I appreciate it. I'd be swimming around my kitchen by now if you hadn't turned the water off for me." "You'd have figured it out. It was a great excuse to see you," he said honestly. "Thanks for the pizza, and the good company." He reached out and hugged her then, and kissed her on both cheeks, and then he stopped and looked at her, and held her there, wondering if it was too soon. There was a question in his eyes, and she answered it for him. She reached up to him and pulled him closer to her, and as she did, their lips met, and it was hard to tell if he had kissed her, or she had kissed him. It no longer mattered, they were holding tightly to each other, with all the longing they had felt for each other in the past few weeks, and the emptiness they had lived with for months and years before that. |
| 1150 |
And then he took her in his arms, kissed her, and held her. He could feel her trembling, and then he looked down at her. "I want you to be happy," he said gently. "I want this to be a good thing for both of us." In time, he wanted to make it up to her for the pain and disappointments she'd suffered. He wanted to make up for the absurdity and affronts in his own life. This was their chance to do it right, and make a difference to each other. She went to put the roses in a vase, and set them down in the living room on a table. "Are you hungry?" she called out to him, as she walked back into the kitchen. He followed her and stood in the doorway, smiling at her. She was beautiful. She was wearing a white shirt and jeans, and without saying a word, he walked over to her and began unbuttoning her shirt. She just stood there, motionless, and watched him. He slipped the shirt gently off her shoulders, and dropped it on a chair, and then admired her like a work of art, or something he had just painted. She was perfect. Her skin showed no signs of age, and her body was young and tight and athletic. No one had seen it in a long time. There had been no man to mirror who she was or what she felt, and care about what she needed or wanted. She felt as though she'd been alone for a thousand years, and now finally he had come to join her. It was like sharing a journey with him. Their destination was unknown, but they were fellow travelers setting out together. He took her by the hand then, and led her quietly to her bedroom. They lay down on the bed together, and gently took each other's clothes off. She lay naked next to him, and he kissed her, as her hands began discovering him, and then her lips, and he slowly began exploring her. What he did was tantalizing, and the long, slow unraveling of his hunger for her would have been excruciating, if it hadn't been so exactly what she wanted. It was as though he had always known her. He knew exactly where to be and what to do and how to get there, and she did the same for him. |
| 1151 |
He had appeared to be a pillar of stability to the women he went out with, but compared to Sylvia, he seemed haphazard and disorganized. She ran an extremely successful gallery, had had two long relationships in her life, raised two normal, healthy children to adulthood, and everything about her life and apartment was impeccable, orderly, and neat as a pin. When he opened the door to his apartment, they could hardly get through the door. One of his suitcases was blocking it, there were packages the super had just shoved in, and a stack of mail had fallen and was spread all over the floor. The bills he'd paid the day before lay open and in disarray on a table. There were clothes on the couch, his plants had died, and everything in the apartment looked tired and worn. It had a comfortable, masculine feeling to it. The furniture was decent looking, although the upholstery was worn. He had bought everything in the place secondhand. There was a round dining table in the corner of the room, where he entertained friends for dinner sometimes, and beyond it was what had once been the dining room, and had always been his studio. It was why she had come. She walked straight toward it, as he tried in vain to make order in the place, but it was beyond hopeless, he realized. Instead, he followed her into the next room, and stood watching her reaction to his work. He had three paintings on easels in various states of development. One was nearly finished, another he'd just begun before his trip, and the third he was pondering and planned to change because he didn't think it worked. And there were at least another dozen or so paintings leaning against the walls. She was stunned by the power and beauty of his work. They were representational and meticulous, dark in most cases, with extraordinary lights in them. There was one of a woman's face, in a peasant dress from the Middle Ages, that was reminiscent of an Old Master. His paintings were truly beautiful, and she turned to him with a look of admiration and respect. |
| 1152 |
But she also wanted to help him. Why not? He deserved it. She knew that artists were typically terrible businessmen and incapable of selling their own work. That was why they had dealers. Gray needed one too. She was determined to help him. And hopefully, to have a relationship with him. That still remained to be seen. But whether she did or not over time, there was no reason not to give him a hand with the right connections for his art. She knew damn near everyone in New York in the art world. She had proven herself to be so honorable and decent that doors opened for her with ease, and always had. And once she opened the right door for him, the rest would be up to him. All she wanted to be was the conduit, which was a perfectly respectable goal between them, even if all they turned out to be were friends who'd had a brief romance. Sylvia glanced at her watch then. It was nearly noon and she had to get to her office. He promised to call her later, as she kissed him good bye, and a moment later she was scampering down the stairs as he called out to her. "Thank you!" he shouted down the stairwell, and she looked up with a broad smile. She waved then, and was gone. There was the usual chaos once she got to her office. Two artists had called in frantic about their next show. A client was upset because a painting hadn't arrived yet. Someone else called to check on a commission they'd ordered. The installer had had a motorcycle accident, broken both arms, and couldn't put up their next show. She had an appointment with their graphic designer that afternoon, about the brochure for the next show. She had to meet a deadline for their next ad in Artforum, and the photographer hadn't delivered the four by fives yet of the piece of sculpture in the ad. She didn't have time to breathe until four o'clock that afternoon. But as soon as she did, she made some calls for Gray. It was easier than she had expected. The dealers she called trusted her reputation, her taste, and her judgment. |
| 1153 |
This wasn't business for her after all, it was romance. She had to remind herself of that for a minute. "I want good things to happen for you." "They already did, in Portofino. The rest is gravy." "Well, let me take care of the gravy," she said, sounding confident, and he smiled. "Be my guest." He was loving the attention, it was completely unfamiliar to him. He didn't want to take advantage of her, but he was fascinated watching her work, and seeing how she lived her life. She was not a woman to be daunted by obstacles, nor to accept defeat or failure. She just rolled up her sleeves and got to work, whatever the task at hand. The messenger appeared at Gray's door at exactly four thirty, brought the slides to Sylvia, and shortly after five she had them and a cover letter in the hands of the dealers she'd called about Gray's work. She left her gallery at six, and as soon as she got home, Gray called her, and suggested dinner together. He wanted to take her to a small Italian restaurant in his neighborhood. She was thrilled. It was funny and cozy and the food was delicious, and she was relieved to see on the menu that it was cheap. She didn't want him spending money on her, but she didn't want to humiliate him by offering to pay either. She suspected they would be doing a lot of cooking for each other in the future. And after dinner that night, he took her home, and stayed at her place. They were falling into a delicious routine. They made breakfast together the next morning, and the next day he served her breakfast in bed. He said it was her turn. She had never had a turn before, but this time they were partners, spoiling and pampering each other, listening to each other, consulting each other on what they thought. For the moment, everything about it was perfect. It frightened her to look into the future, or have too much hope that this meant more than it did. But whatever it was, and however long it lasted, it suited them both for now, and was all they had ever wanted. |
| 1154 |
He knew she didn't approve of Adam, and he didn't want to push it. At least not quite so soon. But he liked the idea of including her with his two friends. They were an important part of his life, and so was she. Both of them knew that including friends in their private world was going to be important to the health of the relationship in the long run. They couldn't sit there alone forever, holding hands, watching movies on TV, and spending their weekends in bed, although they both loved it, and it was certainly fun. But they needed more people in their life than that. Adding friends to the mix was yet another step toward achieving some kind of stability between them. Sylvia always felt as though there was some kind of rule book somewhere about relationships, and others knew its contents better than she. First you slept together, then he spent the night, eventually with increasing frequency. At some point, he needed to have a closet and some drawer space, they hadn't gotten there yet, and his clothes were hung all over her laundry room. She knew she was going to have to do something about that one of these days. After that he'd get a key, once you were sure that you didn't want to date anyone else, in order to avoid awkward moments, if he arrived at the wrong time. She had already given him one, there was no one else in her life, and sometimes he came home from the studio before she got back from the gallery. There was no point having him sit on the front stoop, waiting for her. She wasn't sure what came after that. Buying groceries, he had done that. Dividing up the bills. Answering the phone. She was definitely not there yet, in case she got calls from her kids, who knew nothing about Gray. Asking him to live with her, changing his address, putting his name on the mailbox and bell. Friends were a part of all that. It was going to be important that they like at least some of the same people. And in time, her kids. She wanted Gray to meet them too. She knew he was uneasy about that. |
| 1155 |
There were ten full time staff working there, six part time employees, who mostly worked nights and were, for the most part, graduate students, two psychiatrists who worked closely with them, and a flock of volunteers, many of whom were inner city teenagers who had themselves been abused. It was a new concept to use survivors of child abuse to help younger kids who were enduring the same thing. Charlie liked everything he'd read about it. Parker had started it herself three years before, when she got her master's degree. She was planning to become a psychologist, specializing in urban problems, and inner city kids. She was running the place on a shoestring. She herself had raised over a million dollars to buy the house and start it, and his foundation had matched the funds she'd been able to raise on her own. From what he'd read of her, she was an impressive young woman, and the only other thing he knew about her was that she was thirty four years old. He had no idea what she looked like, and had only spoken to her on the phone. She had been professional and businesslike, but had sounded kind and warm. She had invited him to come and see the place, and had promised to give him a tour herself. Everything on paper had checked out so far, including the director herself. She was young, but allegedly capable. The references she'd supplied to the foundation board had been extremely impressive. Some of them were from the most important people in New York. No matter how well trained and capable she was, she also had some powerful connections. The mayor himself had written a reference for her. She had met a lot of important people, and impressed them favorably, while putting the center together. The young man led Charlie to a small, battered waiting room, and offered him a cup of coffee as soon as he sat down, which Charlie declined. He'd had enough to drink with Gray over lunch, and most of what had happened there was still sticking in his throat, but as he waited for her, he forced it from his mind. |
| 1156 |
He wasn't sure what their impact on the community had been so far, but at least they were doing what they said. As he watched the kids throw basketballs through the hoop, a door opened, and a tall blond woman stood looking down at him. She was wearing jeans, running shoes, and one of their T shirts herself. He realized as he stood up to shake hands with her that she was nearly as tall as he was. She was statuesque, six feet tall, with a patrician face. She looked as though she should have been a model not a social worker. She smiled when she greeted him, but her manner was official and somewhat cool. They needed the funds the foundation had given them, but it went against the grain with her to grovel or kiss his feet, although she knew it would help. She still had trouble doing that on command, and she wasn't sure what he expected of her. She seemed slightly suspicious and on the defensive as she invited him into her office. There were posters on the walls everywhere, and schedules, memos, announcements, federal warnings to staff. Suicide hotlines, poison control, a diagram showing how to do the Heimlich. There was a bookcase full of reference books, at least half of which had spilled onto the floor. Her desk was buried, her in box was full, and she had framed photographs of children on her desk, all of whom had come through the center at some point. It was definitely a working office. Charlie knew that she ran all the community and children's groups herself. The only one she didn't run was the one for abused mothers. There was a woman from the community who had been trained and came to do that. Carole Parker did just about everything else herself, except scrub the floors and cook. Her bio had said that in a pinch she was willing to do that too, and had. She was one of those women who were interesting to read about, but were sometimes daunting to meet. Charlie hadn't decided yet if she was. She was certainly striking, but when she sat down at her desk, she smiled at him and her eyes got warm. |
| 1157 |
Instead, she'd asked him to match what she had raised herself over the past three years. She had been stunned when she was notified by the foundation that their grant request had been approved. She had applied to at least a dozen other foundations at the same time, and all of the others had turned her down. They said they wanted to follow the center's progress for the next year, before they committed funds to her project. So she was grateful to him, but she always felt like a dancing monkey when money people came to look around. She was in the business of saving lives and repairing damaged kids. That was all that interested her. Raising money to do it was a necessary evil, but not one she enjoyed. She hated having to charm people in order to get money out of them. The acute need of the people she served had always been convincing enough for her. She hated having to convince others, who led golden lives. What did they know about a five year old who had had bleach poured in her eyes and would be blind for the rest of her life, or a boy who had had his mother's hot iron put on the side of his face, or the twelve year old who had been raped by her father all her life and had cigarettes stubbed out on her chest? Just how much did it take to convince people that these kids needed help? Charlie didn't know what she was going to say to him, but he could see her passion in her eyes, and a certain degree of disapproval, as she glanced at his well tailored suit, expensive tie, and gold watch. Whatever he had spent on them, she knew she could have put to better use. He instantly read her thoughts, and felt foolish for coming there looking like that. "I'm sorry not to be dressed more appropriately. I had a business lunch downtown." It wasn't true, but he couldn't have gone to the Yacht Club dressed as she was, in T shirt, Nikes, and jeans. As he said it to her, he took his suit jacket off, unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves, took off his tie, and stuffed it in his pocket. |
| 1158 |
He remembered reading about the program in her brochure, and also that she had won a national award for the results they had achieved so far. Every one of their clients was literate by the time they left the outpatient services of the center after a year. And the kids' parents were welcome to join the adult reading program too. They also offered counseling and therapy for kids and adults alike. She took him from top to bottom, introduced him to everyone, and finally to her assistant, Tygue, the young man who had opened the door for him. Carole told Charlie that he was on loan from a doctoral program from Yale. She had pulled in some incredible people to work with her, many of whom she had known before, and some of whom she had found along the way. She explained that she and Tygue had gotten their master of social work degrees together. She had started the center after that, and he had gone to Yale to continue his studies. He was originally from Jamaica, and Charlie loved listening to him speak. After they had chatted with him for a few minutes, she walked Charlie back into her office. He looked drained. "I don't know what to say to you," he said, sounding humble as he looked at her. "This is quite a place. You've done an amazing job. How did you put this together?" He was in awe of what she'd done, and however ornery she'd been with him at first, and contemptuous about his eating club, it was obvious to him that she was quite an extraordinary human being. A lot more so than he, he felt. At thirty four, she had created a place that literally turned people's lives around, and made a difference for a number of human beings, old and young. He had been so busy listening to every word she said, once they started the tour, that he had completely forgotten to charm her. Instead, she had knocked him right off his feet, not with her charm, or her striking good looks, but with her tireless work and achievement. The center she had created, however dilapidated it still looked, was an amazing place. |
| 1159 |
And then she calmed down when they found her wigs and someone else's hairdresser, but he didn't bother to try and explain it to this girl. He wasn't sure she would have understood. He assumed her IQ was questionable, but he thought her tits were great. IQ was never a huge issue for him. He preferred tits to brains, ever since Rachel. "Look, I hate to bother you, and I'd love to sit here and talk to you, but she's going to start in about five minutes, after they do her hair. You'd better go back to your seat." The girl in the denim miniskirt and black patent leather boots looked like she was going to burst into tears. Adam looked exasperated, but there was nothing he could do for her. There were no empty seats, and then he had an idea. He had no clue as to why he was helping her, and he figured he'd probably regret it, but he grabbed her arm, pulled her out of the seat, and beckoned her to come with him. "If you promise to behave yourself, I can get you a seat on the stage." They always saved a few in case someone unexpected turned up. "Are you serious?" She was awestruck, as he led her quickly toward the stage, and showed his pass to one of the guards keeping the riffraff out. They instantly let him through. The girl knew he was completely serious by then. She hadn't had a stroke of luck like that in years. Her friend had told her she was crazy to head for the front row, but it had paid off big time for her that night, as Adam helped her up the steps in her short skirt and high heeled boots. He got a fabulous view of her bottom while she did, and had no qualms about checking it out. He figured that if she wore a skirt like that, she probably expected him to. "What's your name, by the way?" he asked for no particular reason, as he led her to a row of folding chairs tucked in at the back of the stage. They had to step over wires, and sound equipment, but she was going to get a fabulous view of the show, and she looked up at him as though she'd had a religious vision, and he was it. |
| 1160 |
There were enough women in his life to keep him happy at all times. But she looked as though she'd go home with him, he didn't think there would be a problem. He had picked up plenty of girls like her, and they were so excited to be taken along, particularly on a night like this, that they almost always wound up in his bed. It was a rarity when they didn't. He was sure Maggie would. So was Charlie. Charlie said goodnight to her politely when they dropped him off. He said he hoped he'd see her again sometime, which he knew was unlikely. But what else could he say? Have a nice night in bed with Adam? For an odd moment, he hoped she wouldn't. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and he wanted her to be better than that, or at least have a fair chance. She was much too impressed with where Adam was taking her, and the seat he'd gotten her on the stage. Charlie wanted to tell her to have more self respect than that. But there were some things one couldn't change. And it was Adam's life, and hers. It was up to them what happened after he left, not up to him. He almost wanted to protect her from Adam, and herself, but there was no way he could do that. He rode up in the elevator, looking thoughtful, and when he let himself into his apartment, he stood looking out at the park in the dark. It had been a fun night, and he'd had a good time. He was tired, and a few minutes later he went to bed. Adam took Maggie to a bar, as he had promised, and she had a glass of wine. He had a margarita, followed by a mojito, and let her take a sip. She liked it, but said she didn't drink hard liquor, which surprised him. He was even more surprised when she said she was twenty six. He had figured her for younger than that. She said she modeled at trade shows sometimes, and had done some catalog work, but mostly she just worked at Pier 92, and said she made a fortune on tips. It was easy to see why. She had a body that just wouldn't quit. They got to the party by one o'clock, and it was just starting. |
| 1161 |
It would have been a lot more fun than standing in the stench of her neighborhood and freezing on the street while he watched her go in. She waved then and was gone. He wondered if she felt like Cinderella as she walked into the building where she lived. The ball was over, and the limousine and driver were going to turn into a pumpkin and six mice by the time she got upstairs. He got into the car again, and could smell her perfume. It was cheap, but it suited her and had a nice scent. He had noticed it when he danced with her, and he was startled to realize, as he drove back to his apartment in the East Seventies, that he was depressed. It was depressing to see people live like that, and know they had no way out. Maggie O'Malley would live in buildings like that forever, unless she got lucky, married some slob with a beer belly, and moved back to Queens again, where she could reminisce about the tenement she'd lived in in Manhattan, or the terrible job she'd had where drunken idiots reached up her skirt every night. And he was just as bad. He would have gone to bed with her, if she'd been willing to. And the next day he would have forgotten her. For the first time in years, he felt like a total cad as he rode home. It made him question his own morality. Charlie was right. What if some guy treated Amanda like that one day? It could happen to anyone. But in this case it was happening to a girl called Maggie, whom he didn't know and never would. He drank a shot of tequila when he got home, thinking about her. He walked out on the terrace of his penthouse, and wondered what it would have been like if she'd been there. Exciting probably. For a minute or two, an hour, or a night. That's all she was to him, and would have been. A bit of fluff and some fun. He took his clothes off then, and dropped them on the floor next to his bed. He slipped into bed in his jockey shorts, as he always did, and forgot about her. For him, Maggie was gone. She had to go back to her own life, whatever it was. |
| 1162 |
Carole forgot about him as soon as he walked out. When he got to Sylvia's apartment, Gray was in the kitchen, and she opened the door for him. She was wearing a pretty embroidered black peasant skirt, and a soft white blouse. She had set the table beautifully for him, with tall white candles and a big basket of tulips in the center. She had wanted everything to be just right for him, because she knew how much he meant to Gray, and she had liked him when they first met. She wanted Gray's friendship with him to remain solid. She didn't want to disrupt Charlie's life. She felt she had no right to. And she didn't want him disrupting theirs. There was room for both of them in Gray's life, and she wanted to prove that to Charlie, by welcoming him into their lives. As she looked at him, her eyes were warm. She knew how suspicious he had been of her, once Gray told him that he was involved with her. And she suspected correctly that it wasn't personal. He had liked her when they met in Portofino, he was just worried about what their relationship would mean to him, and how it would impact him. Like a child facing a new nanny, or a man his mother was going out with. What did it mean for him? Charlie and Gray were like brothers, and any weight added to the balance could change everything for them. She wanted to reassure both of them now that although her weight had been added to the scale, they were still safe in their private world. She felt like Wendy in Peter Pan sitting down to dinner with the Lost Boys, as they all sat down at the table, and Gray opened a bottle of wine. Charlie had looked around the apartment before he sat down, and was impressed by how elegant it was, how many interesting treasures she had, and how well she'd put it all together. She had a great eye, and a light touch in conversation. She wisely stayed mostly in the background that night, and they were well into their second bottle of wine when Charlie mentioned Carole, and described his visit to the center in Harlem. |
| 1163 |
She didn't pull any punches. He realized now that other organizations had dressed it up for them. But Carole went straight to the bone of what she was dealing with and why she needed his money. She made no apology for wanting a lot from him, and had alluded to wanting more. Her dream for the center was a big one. For the moment she had no choice but to keep the center small, but one day she wanted to open an even bigger place deep in the heart of Harlem. There were few places that needed her more, and she had been quick to point out to him that child abuse was not just a disease of the inner city. It existed in homes on Park Avenue, right in the lap of luxury. In fact in middle class homes, it was a lot harder to uncover. She assured him that people were committing hideous acts against children in every town, in every state, in every country, and at every socioeconomic level. Where she was, in some ways, it was easier to deal with. She had sworn a war against poverty, child abuse, neglect, hypocrisy, indifference. She had taken a big bite into the woes of the world, and she had no time or patience for the kind of world he lived in, where people turned a blind eye, ignored what was going on around them, and got dressed up and went to parties. She had no time herself to waste on things like that, and no desire to pursue them. What she wanted was to help her fellow man, and save their children. Charlie's eyes lit up like a bonfire as he spoke of her, and Sylvia and Gray watched him. She had set his mind and heart ablaze with what she'd showed him. "So when are you taking her out to dinner?" Gray teased, as he sat with an arm around Sylvia's shoulder. Charlie had enjoyed his evening with them, the food had been edible for once, and the conversation lively. He was surprised to find he liked Sylvia even better than he had in Portofino. She seemed softer now, and gentler, and he had to admit that she was wonderful to his friend. She had even been kind and welcoming to him. |
| 1164 |
They had made a deal for a hundred hours of community service, and the DA had agreed to keep it out of the papers. The quarterback he represented said he owed him his life forever. And at six thirty Adam was on his way. It took him an hour to get to his parents' house on Long Island. He had missed the services at the synagogue entirely, but at least he had made it in time for dinner. He knew his mother would be furious, and he was disappointed himself. It was the one day of the year he actually liked to go to synagogue to atone for his sins of the past year and remember the dead. The rest of the time, his religion meant little to him. But he loved the tradition of high holidays, and was grateful that Rachel observed all the traditions with his kids. Jacob had been bar mitzvahed the previous summer, and the service where his son had read from the Torah in Hebrew had reduced him to tears. He had never been so proud in his life. He could remember his own father crying at his. But tonight he knew there would be no such tender moments. His mother would be livid that he hadn't made it in time to go to synagogue with them. It was always something with her. His taking care of his clients in a crisis meant nothing to her. She had been furious with her younger son ever since his divorce. She was closer to Rachel, even now, than she had ever been to him, and Adam always felt his mother liked her better than her own son. They were all sitting in the living room, just back from synagogue, when Adam walked in. He was wearing a tie and a beautifully cut dark blue Brioni suit, a custom made white shirt, and perfectly polished shoes. Any other mother would have melted when she saw him. He was well built and good looking, in an exotic, ethnic way. On rare good days, when he was younger, she had said he looked like a young Israeli freedom fighter, and had occasionally been willing to let on that she was proud of him. These days all she ever said was that he had sold his soul to live in Sodom and Gomorrah, and his life was a disgrace. |
| 1165 |
In his family, if you didn't make the cut, everyone pretended you had no name. Ben was a doctor, and Gideon only sold insurance. The fact that Adam had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School was canceled out by the fact that he was divorced because his wife had left him, a fact for which, in his mother's opinion, he was almost certainly to blame. If he were a decent guy, why would a girl like Rachel leave him? And look what he'd been dating ever since. The mantras were endless, and he knew them all by then. It was a game you could never win. He still tried, but never knew why he did. Mae finally came to call them in to dinner, and as they sat down at their usual places, Adam saw his mother stare down the length of the table at him. It was a look that would have wilted concrete. His father was at the opposite end, with both couples lined up on either side. Their children were still being fed in the kitchen, and Adam hadn't seen them yet. They'd been shooting basketball hoops and secretly smoking cigarettes outside. His own children never came. His mother saw them alone with Rachel, on her own time. Adam's place was between his father and sister, like someone they had made room for at the last minute. He always got the table leg between his knees. He didn't really mind it, but it always seemed like a sign from God to him that there wasn't room for him in this family, even more so in recent years. Ever since his divorce from Rachel, and his partnership in his law firm shortly before that, he had been treated like a pariah, and a source of grief and shame to his mother in particular. His accomplishments, which were considerable in the real world, meant absolutely nothing here. He was treated like a creature from outer space, and sat there sometimes feeling like ET, growing paler by the minute, and desperate to go home. The worst part of it for him was that this was home, hard as that was for him to believe. They all felt like strangers and enemies to him, and treated him that way. |
| 1166 |
He had been convinced as a boy that his father had been replaced by a robot left there by creatures from outer space. The robot they had left had a piece of defective machinery that made it difficult for it to speak. It was capable of it, but you had to kick the robot into action first, and then you realized the battery was dead. His father's standard answer to the question eventually was "pretty good," as he stared into his plate, never looked at you, and continued to eat. Removing himself mentally entirely, and refusing to enter into the conversation, had been the only way his father had survived fifty seven years of marriage to his mother. Adam's brother Ben was turning fifty five that winter, Sharon had just turned fifty, and Adam had been an accident nine years later, apparently one that was neither worth discussing, nor addressing, except when he did something wrong. He couldn't remember his mother ever telling him she loved him, or wasting a kind word on him since he was born. He was, and had been even as a child, an embarrassment and an annoyance. The kindest thing they had ever done for him was ignore him. The worst was scold him, shun him, berate him, and spank him, all of which had been his mother's job when he was growing up, and she was still doing it now that he was in his forties. All she had eliminated over the years was the spankings. "So who are you dating now, Adam?" his mother asked as Mae brought in the salad. He assumed that because he hadn't gone to synagogue, and had to be punished for it, she had brought the big guns out early this time. As a rule, she waited to level that one at him till after dessert, with coffee. He had learned long since that there was no correct answer. Telling her the truth, on that or any subject, would have brought the house down. "No one. I've been busy," he said vaguely. "Apparently," his mother said, as she walked swift and erect to the sideboard. She was slim and spare and in remarkably good shape although she was seventy nine years old. |
| 1167 |
He called seven women. All he got were their answering machines, and then he thought of Maggie. He figured she was probably working, but just for the hell of it, he decided to call her. It was after midnight by then, and maybe she was home. He fished into the leather jacket he'd worn that night, at Vana's concert, looking for the little scrap of paper where he'd written her number. He went through all the pockets, and then he found it. Maggie O'Malley. He dialed the number. He knew it was ridiculous to reach out to her, but he had to talk to someone. His mother drove him crazy. He hated his sister. He didn't even hate her. He disliked her, nearly as much as she disliked him. She had never done anything with her life except get married and have two children. He would have been happy talking to Gray or Charlie. But he knew Gray was with Sylvia, and it was too late to call. And he remembered that Charlie was gone for the weekend. So he called Maggie. He felt a rising wave of panic, as he always did when he went home, and now he really was getting a migraine. Somehow, just being with them, brought back the worst memories of his childhood. He let the phone ring a dozen times, and no one answered. A message machine finally came on with several girls' names on it, and he left his name and number for Maggie, wondering why he'd bothered. Like everyone else he knew, Maggie was out that night, and as soon as he set the receiver down, he knew it was stupid to have called her. She was a total stranger. He couldn't explain to her what seeing his family did to him, or how much pain his mother always caused him. Maggie was some silly girl he had dragged around with him that night, for lack of someone better. She was just a waitress. Seeing her in the clipping his mother had used to torture him had reminded him of her, and he was relieved now that she hadn't answered. He hadn't even slept with her, and the only reason he had kept her number was because he had forgotten to take it out of his jacket and toss it. |
| 1168 |
She spent the night with him several times. She had just been moved to the day shift at Pier 92, so her schedule worked well for him. And she loved sleeping with him at night. Everything seemed perfect with them, and they both stuck to their deal. She asked him no questions about the future, she had no reason to, and on the nights she spent at home, neither of them asked the other who'd they'd seen or what they'd been doing when they saw each other again. In fact, Adam was so taken with her that on the nights he didn't see her, he called her anyway, usually late before he went to bed. On two occasions he was surprised and slightly upset to discover that she was out. But he didn't tell her he'd called, and left no message on the machine. She never said anything about having been out when he saw her again. But he admitted to himself privately that not finding her at home, waiting for his call, had bothered him. But he never said a word about it to her. They both continued to claim and reap the benefits of their freedom. Adam wasn't sleeping with anyone else during the early weeks of their relationship, he didn't want to, he was becoming increasingly addicted to her. And she told him openly that there was no one else for her. But as the weeks went by, there were nights when he called, that no one was home. He found as time went by, he hated that more and more. It made him think that he should start seeing other women one of these days, just so as not to get too attached to her. But as Halloween approached, he hadn't done anything about it. He was still being totally exclusive to her, after a month. It was the first time he had done that in years. Adam was mildly bothered that he and Charlie hadn't seen much of each other since Charlie had gotten back a month before. But every time he called and invited him somewhere, Charlie was busy these days. Adam knew he had a heavy social schedule, and a lot of work to do for the foundation, but it irked him that they hadn't had time to get together. |
| 1169 |
The good news was that it gave him more time to spend with Maggie. He was getting increasingly antsy about her, and worried about what she did when he wasn't around. As time went on, there were still a number of nights they didn't spend together, when she just wasn't home. And she never told him where she'd gone. She just reappeared bright and cheerful the next day, fell back into bed with him, happy as can be, with her utterly irresistible body. He was crazier about her every day. Without even knowing it, she was beating him at his own game. All the options he had so grandly told her he wanted in the beginning meant less to him every day. Judging by the number of times she was out when he called her late at night, she seemed to be taking advantage of her freedom more than he. And Adam had seen even less of Gray. He had talked to him several times, but Gray was enjoying his blissful domestic scene with Sylvia and didn't want to go anywhere. Adam finally sent e mails to both of them, and got Gray and Charlie to agree to a boys' night out, two days before Halloween. It had been over a month since any of them had seen each other. It was the first time in years it had been that long, and all three complained that the others had disappeared. They met at a steak restaurant downtown, which was one of their favorite haunts, and Adam got there first. The other two walked in just behind him, and he could see that Gray had put on weight. Not a lot, but just enough to look fuller in the face. He said that he and Sylvia were cooking together a lot, and he looked happier than ever. They had been dating for two months, and known each other for three. As far as he was concerned, he said there were no red flags yet. His two cohorts were happy for him, but thought it was still early days. Gray said they never argued, and were happy with each other. He no longer stayed at his studio, but spent every night with her. But he still insisted that he wasn't living with her officially. Just "staying" with her. |
| 1170 |
He even knew her eating club. It was all over her CV that she had gone to Princeton. But when he called them five minutes later, they told him the same thing. They were in fact extremely disagreeable about it, and said they didn't make mistakes like that. Carole Anne Parker had never graduated from Princeton. In fact, according to their records, when they checked further, no one by that name had ever attended the school. As he hung up the phone, a cold chill ran down his spine. And five minutes later, feeling like a monster, he called Columbia's School of Social Work. They told him the same thing. She had never attended Columbia either. When he hung up the phone, he knew he had found the fatal flaw. The woman he was falling in love with was a fraud. Whoever she was, and however well intentioned her work for the center had been, she had none of the degrees she claimed she did, and had even conned a million dollars out of his foundation, based on falsified credentials and a phony reputation. It was nearly criminal, except for the fact that she hadn't wanted the money for herself, but to help others. He had no idea what to do with the information. He needed time to think about it and digest it. When she called him that afternoon, for the first time since he'd met her six weeks before, he didn't take her call. He couldn't just disappear out of her life, and he wanted an explanation. But first he needed time to absorb it, and two days later, he was taking her to the ballet. He made a decision that afternoon to say nothing until then, and deal with it after that. He called her late that afternoon, and said the board of trustees was having a crisis and he couldn't see her until Friday. She said she understood perfectly, and those things happened to her too. But when she hung up at her end, Carole wondered why he had sounded so chilly. In fact, he'd nearly been crying. He felt completely ripped off and disillusioned. The woman he had admired so totally since the day they met was a liar. |
| 1171 |
She was beautifully dressed, and had even worn a pair of very proper pearl earrings that she said had been her mother's. He believed not a single word she said now. She had tainted everything between them with her lies about Columbia and Princeton. He no longer trusted her, and she thought he looked stiff and unhappy. She asked him if everything was all right, as the curtain went up, and he nodded. He had barely spoken to her in the cab, nor when they got to Lincoln Center. Carole thought he looked awful. She could only assume that since she'd last seen him, something terrible had happened at the foundation. At intermission, they went to the bar to have a drink, and before they went back to their seats, she excused herself to go to the ladies' room, and just as she was about to leave him, a couple swooped down on her before Carole could avoid them. She turned her head away, as though she were trying to hide from them, which Charlie noticed instantly and cringed inside. All she said to him was that they were friends of her parents and she couldn't stand them, and then she vanished. Charlie then realized who they were, as the woman in question bore down on him, and her husband quickly followed. He knew them too, and had to admit he didn't like them either. They were unbearable social climbers. The woman prattled on endlessly about the performance, and said she had liked the previous season's production of it better. She went on ad nauseam about the strengths and weaknesses of the dancers, and then fixed her gaze on Charlie with beady eyes, and made a cryptic comment that meant nothing to him when she first said it. "Well, you've made quite a coup, haven't you," she said, sounding both knowing and nasty. Charlie had no idea what she was talking about as he stared at her, wishing Carole would come back. As angry as he was at her, standing awkwardly next to her was a lot more pleasant than being trapped by this dreadful woman and her mealymouthed husband, both of whom were glued to him because of who he was. |
| 1172 |
She had been living her life in hiding for nearly four years. She felt safer on the streets of Harlem than she did in her own world. It was a sad statement about her life, and all that had happened to her, some of which he knew she hadn't told him yet. It was just too hard for her. "I'll think about it," he said, and then they all breathed a sigh of relief as the subject of conversation moved on to other things. It had been heavy for all of them talking about his feelings about Carole. They all had issues of their own, scars and pain and fears. Life was about how you managed to get around the shoals and reefs of life without running aground and sinking the ship. Charlie stayed with them until ten o'clock that night, talking and chatting about what they were all doing. They told funny stories about themselves and each other, about living together. He talked about the foundation, and the subject of Carole never came up again. He felt nostalgic and hugged them both when he left. It touched his heart to see them so happy together, but increased the sharp focus on his own loneliness too. He couldn't even imagine what it felt like to be like that, two people slowly weaving their lives together after so many years on their own. He would have liked to try it, he thought, but at the same time so much about it frightened him. What if they got tired of each other, or betrayed each other? What if one of them died, or got sick? What if they simply disappointed each other and the erosion of time and the ordinary agonies of life just wore them down? What if tragedy struck one or both of them? It all seemed so high risk. And then as he lay in bed and thought about them later that night, as though possessed by a force stronger than he was, he leaned over and picked up the phone. His fingers dialed her number before he could stop himself, and the next thing he knew he heard Carole's voice on the phone. It was almost as though someone else had called her, and he had no choice after that but to say hello. |
| 1173 |
It was a fashionable restaurant on Madison Avenue, with a good menu and a lively crowd. He felt less compelled to take her to simple down to earth restaurants, now that he knew who she was, and it was fun for both of them to go someplace nice. They had a delicious lunch, and then wandered up Madison Avenue, looking into the shops. For the first time, she opened up with him about her early life. Gray had been right. Blue blood and fancy houses didn't necessarily make for a happy childhood. She talked about how cold and distant her parents had been, how chilly with each other, and emotionally and physically unavailable to her. She had been brought up by a nanny, never saw her parents, and she said her mother was a human block of ice. She had had no siblings to comfort her, she was an only child. She said she had gone weeks sometimes without seeing her parents, and they were deeply upset about the path she had chosen for her life. She had come to hate everything her world represented, the hypocrisy, the obsession with material possessions, the indifference to people's feelings, and lack of respect for anyone who hadn't been born into that life. It was obvious, listening to her, that she had been a lonely child. She had eventually gone from their icy indifference to her to the lavish abuses of the man she had married, who, as Gray had suspected, had married her because of who she was. When he left her finally, she had wanted to divorce herself not only from him, but from everything that had drawn him to her in the first place, and a set of values she had hated all her life. "You can't do that, Carole," Charlie said gently. There had been times when he wanted to do that himself, although not to the degree she had, but she had paid a higher price. "You have to accept who you are. You're doing wonderful things for the children you work with. You don't have to strip yourself of everything you are to do that. You can actually enjoy both worlds." "I never enjoyed my childhood," she said honestly. |
| 1174 |
She wanted to look beautiful for Charlie, and her mother's gowns would look too matronly on her. "It's not for a few weeks. I'll look it up when I go to the office." She nodded. Going to the deb ball with him was a big step for her, backward into her old life. But she also knew it was just a one night oddity for her now, not a way of life. As a tourist, she could handle it, though she didn't want more of it than that. It was a compromise and gesture she was willing to make for him. They fell silent as they continued to walk uptown toward her house, and then turned east on Ninety first. They were both ice cold by then. It felt like it might snow. When they got to her front door, she turned to him and smiled. She could invite him in since he now knew it was her house, and no longer believed she was renting a small studio in the back. "Would you like to come in?" she asked him shyly as she looked for her key and finally found it, at the bottom of her bag, where it always was. "Is that all right with you?" he asked cautiously, and she nodded. She wanted him to. It was getting dark by then. They had been together since lunchtime, and had had a long lunch. They had a lot of time to make up for now, and had admitted over lunch how much they had missed each other. He had missed talking to her, knowing what she did, and sharing the excitement and complications and daily details of his own life with her. He had gotten used to her sage advice and wise counsel in the month they'd been seeing each other, and had felt her absence sorely once she was gone, as she had his. They walked into a small distinguished looking vestibule as they walked into the house. It had an elegant black and white marble floor. There were two small sitting rooms on the ground floor, one of which led into a handsome garden, and one flight up the stairs was a beautiful living room with large comfortable upholstered chairs and couches, a fireplace, and English antiques that she had taken from one of her parents' houses with their permission. |
| 1175 |
Upstairs, she had a large sunny bedroom and a guest room. She used the top floor as a small at home office. She gave him a tour of the office, and he was greatly impressed as they walked back downstairs to the kitchen. "I never invite anyone over, for obvious reasons," she said sadly. "I'd love to have people for dinner here sometime, but I just can't." She was pretending to be poor, and leading a secret life. Charlie knew it had to be lonely for her, just as his life was, for different reasons. She still had parents, but didn't like the ones she had, and had never been close to them. They had been emotionally absent all her life. He had no one. By different routes, they had arrived at the same place. She offered him hot chocolate in the cozy kitchen, and they sat at her kitchen table while it got dark outside. He mentioned again how much he hated the holidays and was dreading them, as he always did. She didn't ask him what his plans were, she thought it was too soon to ask. He had only that day walked back into her life. He offered to light a fire in the fireplace then, and they settled down on the couch in the main living room once it was lit, and talked for hours. Their lives scattered around them like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that they were slowly fitting together one by one, a piece of sky here, a tree there, a passing cloud, a house, a childhood trauma, a heartbreak, a favorite pet, how much he loved his sister, how devastated he had been when she died, how lonely she had been as a child. It all fit together seamlessly, better than either of them could have planned. It was after eight o'clock when she finally offered to cook him dinner. And he politely offered to take her out. It had just started snowing, and they both agreed it was much cozier inside. In the end, they made pasta and omelettes, standing together at the stove, with French bread, cheese, and salad. By the time dinner was over, they were both laughing at funny stories she told, and he told her about exotic places he'd been on the boat. |
| 1176 |
They decided not to tell his children until the baby showed, which was a couple of months off yet. And they weren't going to tell his mother till after the children knew. Adam wanted to do them the honor of telling them first. It was still going to be hard to explain. And he was sure Rachel would have plenty to say. He was busy with his clients, but he managed to go to the sonogram with her two weeks later. The baby was healthy, looked fine, and it was a boy. When they watched him moving around, Adam and Maggie cried. She was four months along. He had to go to Las Vegas the week after that, and he asked her if she wanted to go with him. Coincidentally she had two days off, which worked fine for her. He had been in surprisingly good spirits, given the amount of tension in his life, and he had been a good sport about the baby. Maggie was sleeping a lot, and sick almost every day, but she tried not to complain. It was for a good cause. The night they flew to Las Vegas, she was feeling slightly better. One of his major musical acts was playing there for two days. But he said he only had time to stay there for two nights, and Maggie had to be back at work anyway. They flew to Vegas on his plane, and stayed at the Bellagio, which she loved. And much to her delight, Adam said the hotel had given them the Presidential Suite, which had a dining room, conference room, and the biggest bed she'd ever seen. It had a grand piano in the living room, and they got there early enough to spend some time in bed before dinner. The act they had come to see wasn't going on till midnight, and just before they went downstairs for dinner, Adam said he had to do some business in the room. He told her he'd use the conference room, and closed the doors. Two men in suits arrived, and as Adam had asked her to, she showed them into the room. When she opened the conference room doors to let them in, there was an enormous bouquet of red roses on the table, and a bottle of Cristal chilling in a bucket, as Adam smiled at her. |
| 1177 |
If you stopped talking, you could hear insects and birds. There wasn't a cloud in the sky as the ragtag group made their way up the hill. It was almost too hot to move, and it was only eleven o'clock in the morning. A woman in a white eyelet peasant skirt and a full sleeved white blouse was carrying a bouquet of red roses, and wearing red sandals. She was wearing an enormous straw hat, and an armful of turquoise bracelets. Beside her, there was a man in white trousers and a blue shirt, with a mane of white hair. And behind them, two couples, both women heavy with child. All six of them walked into the Church of San Giorgio in Portofino. The priest was waiting for them there. It was her second marriage, but she hadn't been married in the church before, and he had never been married at all. The bride and groom stood at the altar, looking solemn as the priest had them exchange their vows, and their four friends looked on. When the priest told the groom he could kiss the bride, the groom cried. Sylvia and Gray turned to their friends then. Maggie and Carole were both pregnant. Charlie and Adam looked proud, not just of the women they had married, but of their two friends who had done it at last. They stood talking in the church for a long time, lit some candles, then walked slowly down the hill again, and stopped in the piazza. Sylvia and Gray were holding hands. They had their wedding lunch in the restaurant where they'd met two years before, to the day. It had been a long time and a long journey for all six of them. They had come far and done well, and had been blessed to find each other. "To Sylvia and Gray and a lifetime of happiness!" Charlie toasted them, and then looked at his wife. Their baby was due in December, their first. Maggie and Adam's second was due in October, two years after their life together began. The past two years had been happy and busy and full, for all of them, with babies and weddings, their other children had done well. Their careers were flourishing. |
| 1178 |
Christianna stood at her bedroom window, looking down at the hillside in the pouring rain. She was watching a large white dog, soaking wet with matted hair, digging excitedly in the mud. Every now and then he would look up at her and wag his tail, and then return to digging again. He was the Great Pyrenees her father had given her eight years before. His name was Charles, and in many ways he was her best friend. She laughed as she watched him chase a rabbit that eluded him and promptly disappeared. Charles barked frantically and then splashed happily through the mud again, looking for something else to pursue. He was having a great time, as Christianna was, watching him. It was the last of summer and the weather was still warm. She had returned to Vaduz in June, after four years of college in Berkeley. Coming home had been something of a shock, and so far the best thing about her homecoming was Charles. Other than her cousins in England and Germany, and acquaintances throughout Europe, her only friend was Charles. She led a sheltered and isolated life, and always had. It seemed unlikely she would see her Berkeley friends again. As she watched the dog disappear toward the stables, Christianna hurried out of her room, intent on going outside and following him. She grabbed her riding slicker and a pair of rubber boots she used to muck out her horse's stall, and ran down the back stairs. She was grateful that no one noticed her, and a moment later she was outside, sliding through the mud and running after the big white dog. She called his name, and in an instant he bounded up to her, nearly knocking her down. He wagged his tail, splashing water everywhere, put a muddy paw on her, and when she bent to stroke him, he reached up and licked her face, and then ran away again as she laughed. Together, they ran side by side along the bridle path. It was too wet today to ride. When the dog strayed from the path, she called his name, he hesitated only for an instant, and then came back to her each time. |
| 1179 |
He was normally well behaved, but the rain excited him, as he ran and barked. Christianna was having as much fun as the dog. After nearly an hour, slightly out of breath, she stopped, the dog panting heavily beside her. She took a shortcut then, and half an hour later, they were once again back where they began. It had been a wonderful outing for both mistress and dog, and each looked as disreputable and disheveled as the other. Christianna's long, almost white blond hair was matted to her head, her face was wet, and even her eyelashes were stuck together. She never wore makeup, unless she had to go out or was likely to be photographed, and she was wearing the jeans she had brought back from Berkeley. They were a souvenir of her lost life. She had loved every moment of her four years at UC Berkeley. She had fought hard to be allowed to go. Her brother had gone to Oxford, and her father had suggested the Sorbonne for her. Christianna had been adamant about going to college in the States, and her father had finally relented, though reluctantly. Going that far from home spelled freedom to her, and she had reveled in each day she was there, and had hated to come home when she graduated in June. She had made friends she missed sorely now, they were part of another life she missed so much. She had come home to face her responsibilities, and do what was expected of her. To Christianna, it felt like a heavy burden, lightened only by moments such as these, running through the woods with her dog. The rest of the time since coming home, she had felt as though she were in prison, serving a life sentence. There was no one she could have said that to, and doing so would have made her sound ungrateful for all she had. Her father was extremely kind to her. He had sensed, more than seen, her sadness since returning from the States. But there was nothing he could do about it. Christianna knew as well as he did that her childhood, and the freedom she had enjoyed in California, had come to an end. |
| 1180 |
The slicker protected her, and her boots were caked with mud. She laughed as she looked at him, thinking it was hard to believe that this muddy brown dog was really white. She needed the exercise, as did the dog. He wagged his tail as he looked at her, and then with a slightly more decorous step, they walked home. She was hoping to slip in the back door, but getting Charles into the house, in his disreputable condition, would be a greater challenge. He was too filthy to take upstairs, and she knew she would have to take him in through the kitchen. He was in desperate need of a bath after their muddy walk. She opened the kitchen door quietly, hoping to escape attention for as long as possible, but as soon as she opened it, the enormous muddy dog bounded past her, dashed into the middle of the room, and barked with excitement. So much for a quiet entrance, Christianna smiled ruefully, and glanced apologetically at the familiar faces around her. The people who worked in her father's kitchen were always kind to her, and sometimes she wished that she could still sit among them, enjoying their company and the friendly atmosphere, as she had as a child. But those days were over for her as well. They no longer treated her as they had when she and her brother Friedrich were children. Friedrich was ten years older than she, and was traveling in Asia for the next six months. Christianna had turned twenty three that summer. Charles was still barking and, shaking the water off enthusiastically, had splattered nearly everyone around him with mud, as Christianna tried vainly to subdue him. "I'm so sorry," she said as Tilda, the cook, wiped her face with her apron, shook her head, and smiled goodnaturedly at the young woman she had known since birth. She signaled quickly to a young man, who rushed to lead the dog away. "I'm afraid he got awfully dirty," Christianna said with a smile to the young man, wishing she could bathe the dog herself. She liked doing it, but she knew it was unlikely they would let her. |
| 1181 |
If Christianna had still been a child, she would have scolded her and told her that she looked worse than the dog. "Would you like some lunch?" Christianna hadn't even thought of it, and shook her head. "Your father is still in the dining room. He just finished his soup. I could send something up for you." Christianna hesitated, and then nodded. She hadn't seen him all day, and she enjoyed the quiet moments they shared when he wasn't working, and had a few minutes to himself, which was rare. He was usually surrounded by assorted members of his staff, and was in a rush to get to meetings. It was a treat for him to enjoy a meal alone, especially with her. She cherished the time they spent together. The only reason she had willingly come home from Berkeley was for him. There had been no other choice, although she would have loved to go on to graduate school just so she could stay in the States. She didn't dare ask. She knew the answer would have been no. Her father wanted her at home. She knew she had to be doubly responsible because her brother wasn't at all. If Friedrich had been willing to shoulder his responsibilities, it would have lightened the burden on her. But there was no hope of that. She left her slicker hanging on a peg outside the kitchen, and took off her boots. They were noticeably smaller than any other pair there. She had tiny feet, and was so small she was almost a miniature. In flat shoes, her brother often teased her that she looked like a little girl, particularly with her long blond hair, which was still hanging wet down her back. She had small delicate hands, a perfect figure nothing like a child's, although she was very slight and always just a little bit too thin, and a face like a cameo. People said she looked like her mother, and somewhat like her father, who was as fair as she was, although both he and her brother were very tall, well over six feet. Christianna's mother had been as small as she was and had died when Christianna was five, and Friedrich was fifteen. |
| 1182 |
He was a man worthy of respect, and was regarded with great affection by all who knew him. He was a man of compassion, integrity, and courage, and had set a powerful example for her and her brother to follow. Christianna learned from his example and listened to what he said. Freddy was far more self indulgent, and paid no attention to his father's edicts, wisdom, or requests. Freddy's indifference to what was expected of him made her feel as though she had to attend to duties and uphold traditions for them both. She knew how disappointed her father was in his son, and she felt she had to make it up to him somehow. And in fact, Christianna was much more like her father, and was always interested in his projects, particularly those involving indigent people in underdeveloped countries. She had done volunteer work several times, in poor areas in Europe, and had never been happier than when she did. He explained his latest endeavors to her as she listened to him with interest and commented from time to time. Her ideas on the subject were intelligent and well thought out, he had always had a deep respect for her mind. He only wished his son had her brains and drive. And he knew only too well that she felt she had been wasting her time ever since she got home. He had recently suggested that she consider studying law or political science in Paris. It was a way of keeping her busy and challenging her mind, and Paris was close enough to home. She had many relatives there, on her mother's side, could stay with them, and come home to see him often. Although she would have liked it, even at her age, there wasn't even the remotest possibility of her staying in an apartment on her own. She was still mulling over his plan, but she was more interested in doing something useful that would make a difference to other people, than in going back to school. At his father's insistence, Freddy had graduated from Oxford, and had a master's degree in business from Harvard, which was of no use to him, given the life he led. |
| 1183 |
From the engraving, the arms and hands are omitted. In the picture, they are, as they were in nature, indispensable to a correct reading of the vigorous face. The arms were very peculiar. They were rather short, and were curiously restrained and checked in their action at the elbows; in the action of the hands, even when separately clenched, there was the same kind of pause, and a noticeable tendency to relaxation on the part of the thumb. Let the face be never so intense or fierce, there was a commentary of gentleness in the hands, essential to be taken along with it. Like Hamlet, Landor would speak daggers, but use none. In the expression of his hands, though angrily closed, there was always gentleness and tenderness; just as when they were open, and the handsome old gentleman would wave them with a little courtly flourish that sat well upon him, as he recalled some classic compliment that he had rendered to some reigning Beauty, there was a chivalrous grace about them such as pervades his softer verses. Thus the fictitious Mr. Boythorn (to whom we may refer without impropriety in this connexion, as Mr. Forster does) declaims "with unimaginable energy" the while his bird is "perched upon his thumb", and he "softly smooths its feathers with his forefinger". From the spirit of Mr. Forster's Biography these characteristic hands are never omitted, and hence (apart from its literary merits) its great value. As the same masterly writer's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith is a generous and yet conscientious picture of a period, so this is a not less generous and yet conscientious picture of one life; of a life, with all its aspirations, achievements, and disappointments; all its capabilities, opportunities, and irretrievable mistakes. It is essentially a sad book, and herein lies proof of its truth and worth. The life of almost any man possessing great gifts, would be a sad book to himself; and this book enables us not only to see its subject, but to be its subject, if we will. |
| 1184 |
Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot hold at street corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds. Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. |
| 1185 |
There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three maces, or pettybags, or privy purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning, for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for certain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the halfdozenth time to make a personal application "to purge himself of his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "My Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal weather a little. |
| 1186 |
The last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. Blowers" a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses. How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes, down to the copying clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio pages under that eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle who was not well used when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the ill fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some off hand manner never meant to go right. |
| 1187 |
It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent and usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange games through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen shall begin to turn prodigiously! It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air. My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians, and it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to be unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire. The waters are out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been sapped and sopped away. The adjacent low lying ground for half a mile in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no crash or crackle as they fall. |
| 1188 |
The vases on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall drip, drip, drip upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a keeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a wrapped up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death." Therefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in Lincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the rabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The pictures of the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp walls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along the old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come forth again, the fashionable intelligence which, like the fiend, is omniscient of the past and present, but not the future cannot yet undertake to say. Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would on the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when not enclosed with a park fence), but an idea dependent for its execution on your great county families. He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. |
| 1189 |
She is perfectly well bred. If she could be translated to heaven to morrow, she might be expected to ascend without any rapture. She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet in its autumn. She has a fine face originally of a character that would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is so, but that "the most is made," as the Honourable Bob Stables has frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." The same authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in commendation of her hair especially that she is the best groomed woman in the whole stud. With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an oldfashioned old gentleman, attorney at law and eke solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the Dedlocks and has as many cast iron boxes in his office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of it fairy land to visit, but a desert to live in the old gentleman is conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence. The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made good thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic wills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of family confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository. |
| 1190 |
When she gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw drop from the stone porch it was a very frosty day I felt so miserable and self reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I knew, that she could say good bye so easily! "No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!" The coach was at the little lawn gate we had not come out until we heard the wheels and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach roof and shut the door. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old hearth rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first thing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost and snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her own shawl and quietly laid her I am half ashamed to tell it in the garden earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage. When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird cage in the straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the other window and took no notice of me. I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the coach gave me a terrible start. |
| 1191 |
In short, she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few minutes we were sitting in the window seat, with the light of the fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be. What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging to me! The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a light hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we talked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its red eyes at us as Richard said like a drowsy old Chancery lion. We conversed in a low tone because a full dressed gentleman in a bag wig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel in our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a bustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had risen and his lordship was in the next room. The gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and requested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling it is so natural to me now that I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and sitting in an arm chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship, whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was both courtly and kind. |
| 1192 |
The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back and that the open space was railed across with a lattice work of stay lace like a summer house. The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great writing table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy looking though by no means plain girl at the writing table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right place. "You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), "you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola Gha, on the left bank of the Niger." As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very gratifying. "It IS gratifying," said Mrs. Jellyby. |
| 1193 |
We begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and though the handle of Ada's went round and round with the greatest smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door. Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be very good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of the wolf. When we went downstairs we found a mug with "A Present from Tunbridge Wells" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick, and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage blowing the fire of the drawing room (now connected by an open door with Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the windows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the same sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so employed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us that he had washed his hands in a pie dish and that they had found the kettle on his dressing table, and he made Ada laugh so that they made me laugh in the most ridiculous manner. Soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs. Jellyby's advice, for the stair carpets, besides being very deficient in stair wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine cod fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was almost raw. |
| 1194 |
The notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their cousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he performed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to the most singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. Ada dimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very little child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity and that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see her through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by the back gate, and was not heard of for three months. This discourse led to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us all day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. If we did by any chance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and wondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there, and whether we should see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after a delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him. All of which we wondered about, over and over again. The roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was generally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked it so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got to the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old battlefield before the carriage came up. These delays so protracted the journey that the short day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came to St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House was, we knew. By that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard confessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to feeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and me, whom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and frosty, we trembled from head to foot. |
| 1195 |
Out of this you went up three steps into Ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad window commanding a beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath the stars), to which there was a hollow window seat, in which, with a spring lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of this room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best rooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of shallow steps with a number of corner stairs in it, considering its length, down into the hall. But if instead of going out at Ada's door you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an unexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, with mangles in them, and three cornered tables, and a native Hindu chair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in every form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird cage, and had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From these you came on Richard's room, which was part library, part sittingroom, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound of many rooms. Out of that you went straight, with a little interval of passage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the year round, with his window open, his bedstead without any furniture standing in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold bath gaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that you came into another passage, where there were back stairs and where you could hear the horses being rubbed down outside the stable and being told to "Hold up" and "Get over," as they slipped about very much on the uneven stones. Or you might, if you came out at another door (every room had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by half a dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back there or had ever got out of it. The furniture, old fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as pleasantly irregular. |
| 1196 |
The old roan, so famous for cross country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch broom. The grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to day!" may know it quite as well as the man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half dozen, stabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at the Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the loose box in the corner. So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court yard with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of the stable buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very much wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So now, half waking and all winking, he may recall the house full of company, the coach houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses, and the out buildings full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is. Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain and no family here!" as he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn. So with the dogs in the kennel buildings across the park, who have their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself upstairs, downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. |
| 1197 |
So the rabbits with their self betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in the poultry yard, always troubled with a class grievance (probably Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees, where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground. Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads off to ghosts and mystery. It has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old fashioned family fire grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she expresses it, "is what she looks at." She sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her mind. |
| 1198 |
The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, accompanies him though to do him justice, he is exceedingly unwilling to trouble her. "Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener goes before to open the shutters. As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house itself, rests apart in a window seat or other such nook and listens with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so attentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever and prettier. Thus they pass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves for seven hundred years. Even the long drawing room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney piece, painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a charm. |
| 1199 |
Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, though what with trying to remember the contents of each little store room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a methodical, old maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy that I could not believe it was breakfasttime when I heard the bell ring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been installed into the responsibility of the tea pot; and then, as they were all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it quite a delightful place in front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the gravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the flower garden, with my darling at her window up there, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have kissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower garden was a kitchen garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick yard, and then a dear little farm yard. As to the house itself, with its three peaks in the roof; its various shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and all so pretty; its trellis work, against the southfront for roses and honey suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with her arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold thing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it. Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight. There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of bees. |
| 1200 |
He didn't at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything that came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was a ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone as soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a Manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The drone said unaffectedly, "You will excuse me; I really cannot attend to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn't want to look about him." This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy, always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited about his honey! He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them still listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my new duties. They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed chamber, which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hatboxes. |
| 1201 |
We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were even more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in dealing out subscription cards to the whole post office directory shilling cards, half crown cards, half sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had or had not. Their objects were as various as their demands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) the Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their secretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother in law, whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up everything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea pot. They took a multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. |
| 1202 |
Felix, at the same time, stamped upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having the whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming purple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being natural. I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick field, with pigsties close to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors growing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old tub was put to catch the droppings of rain water from a roof, or they were banked up with mud into a little pond like a large dirtpie. At the doors and windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took little notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say something as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business and not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to look after other people's. Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the farthest corner, the ground floor room of which we nearly filled. Besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of washing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in, and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. |
| 1203 |
We both felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there was an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. By whom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that. Even what she read and said seemed to us to be ill chosen for such auditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so much tact. As to the little book to which the man on the floor had referred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it, though he had had no other on his desolate island. We were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. Pardiggle left off. The man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said morosely, "Well! You've done, have you?" "For to day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come to you again in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle with demonstrative cheerfulness. "So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then proceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of dealing in it to a large extent. She supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the baby were ill. She only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and violence and ill treatment from the poor little child. |
| 1204 |
The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but he was silent. An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! Jenny!" The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck. She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were "Jenny! Jenny!" All the rest was in the tone in which she said them. I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God. We felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We stole out quietly and without notice from any one except the man. He was leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He seemed to want to hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he did, and thanked him. He made no answer. Ada was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we found at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me, when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we arranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our visit at the brick maker's house. We said as little as we could to Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. Richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning expedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinkinghouse, where a number of men were flocking about the door. |
| 1205 |
Peffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there, for he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard of St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackneycoaches roaring past him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. If he ever steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in Cook's Court until admonished to return by the crowing of the sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor Street, whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he knows from his personal observation next to nothing about it if Peffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of Cook's Court, which no law stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly, and no one is the worse or wiser. In his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's "time" of seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same lawstationering premises a niece a short, shrewd niece, something too violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like a sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The Cook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a solicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her up every morning with her maternal foot against the bed post for a stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited internally pints of vinegar and lemon juice, which acids, they held, had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever of the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it either never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby, who, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's estate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the niece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ, is unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it. |
| 1206 |
Mr. Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet tones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his door in Cook's Court in his grey shop coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two 'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From beneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in its grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these reach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the 'prentices, "I think my little woman is a giving it to Guster!" This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened the wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the name of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and expression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character. It is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to have been christened Augusta) who, although she was farmed or contracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of his species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been developed under the most favourable circumstances, "has fits," which the parish can't account for. Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and is so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint that except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be near her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. |
| 1207 |
The crow flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still remain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, flowers, clouds, and big legged boys, and makes the head ache as would seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, among his many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country houses where the great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to day, quiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can open. Like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of the present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from attention, able to afford it. Heavy, broad backed, old fashioned, mahoganyand horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables with spindle legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the holders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one, environ him. A thick and dingy Turkey carpet muffles the floor where he sits, attended by two candles in old fashioned silver candlesticks that give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on the backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that can have a lock has got one; no key is visible. Very few loose papers are about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not referring to it. With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of sealing wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of indecision is in his mind. Now the inkstand top is in the middle, now the red bit of sealing wax, now the black bit. That's not it. Mr. Tulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again. |
| 1208 |
He comes to the dark door on the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and accidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so. The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, and dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as if poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the corner by the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness marked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of rope yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine might be staring in the banshee of the man upon the bed. For, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, lean ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of winding sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his whiskers and his beard the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the scum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. "Hallo, my friend!" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick against the door. He thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away, but his eyes are surely open. |
| 1209 |
The potboy at the corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge of life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges confidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance of an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable in station houses. People talk across the court out of window, and bare headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's the matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. Krook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural disappointment that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the beadle arrives. The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that must be borne with until government shall abolish him. The sensation is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the beadle is on the ground and has gone in. By and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation, which has rather languished in the interval. He is understood to be in want of witnesses for the inquest to morrow who can tell the coroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. Is immediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing whatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that Mrs. Green's son "was a law writer his self and knowed him better than anybody," which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on inquiry, to be at the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, three months out, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the Lords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public. |
| 1210 |
Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law and seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on condition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it a condition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for the time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or less, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible great coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues his lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white gloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a street corner to look casually about for anything between a lost child and a murder. Under cover of the night, the feeble minded beadle comes flitting about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name is wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own name, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep a small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently arriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in the shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which earthly lodgings take for No one and for Every one. And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through five and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that any one can trace than a deserted infant. Next day the court is all alive is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins, more than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation with that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first floor room at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice a week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional celebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes (according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally round him and support first rate talent. |
| 1211 |
The Sol's Arms does a brisk stroke of business all the morning. Even children so require sustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says his brandy balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering between the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the Sol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet spirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return. At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good dry skittle ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner frequents more public houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the piano and takes a Windsor chair at the head of a long table formed of several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the spittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. Over the coroner's head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be hanged presently. Call over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress, sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a large shirt collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public, but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates that this is Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get up an imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the Harmonic Meeting in the evening. "Well, gentlemen," the coroner begins. "Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. |
| 1212 |
If this forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would have seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the nowextinguished fire within him ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is she, while these ashes are above the ground! It is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's Court, where Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself allows not to put too fine a point upon it out of one fit into twenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender heart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been imagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it may, now, it was so direfully impressed at tea time by Mr. Snagsby's account of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper time she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came out of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of fits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not to give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appeals to the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed. Hence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in Cursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most patient of men, "I thought you was dead, I am sure!" What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes. |
| 1213 |
Their courtly politeness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme of general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady, says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head and the concession of her so genteel fingers! It is ravishing! The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like the small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage cheese and in whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the Radical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it after stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney Wold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire. Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. |
| 1214 |
In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke an enjoyment expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's mirrors when my Lady is not among them. All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of them after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen scent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. James's to their being run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By day guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and carriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers on pervade the village and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night from distant openings in the trees, the row of windows in the long drawing room, where my Lady's picture hangs over the great chimneypiece, is like a row of jewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the chill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes. The brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no contracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of its immense advantages. What can it be? Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to set the dandy fashion; there are no clear starched jack towel neckcloths, no short waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. |
| 1215 |
In this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the long run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as with the circle the necromancer draws around him very strange appearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the greater danger of their breaking in. Chesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of injury arises in the breasts of ill lodged ladies' maids, and is not to be extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber of the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and having an old fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. He is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a servant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of the library door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining flagstaff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any fine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen walking before breakfast like a larger species of rook. Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the library, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night my Lady casually asks her maid, "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?" Every night the answer is, "No, my Lady, not yet." One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her. |
| 1216 |
I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy. I was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was in the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection. It quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very embarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always with his hair straight and flat, his shirt collar turned down, and a general feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in, and I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little while to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his languishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening. I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box, I could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on having me next them and that they could never have talked together so happily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not knowing where to look for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes were following me and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this young man was putting himself on my account. |
| 1217 |
He had married a meek little dancing mistress, with a tolerable connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which were indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his deportment to the best models and to keep the best models constantly before himself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of fashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere at fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best clothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little dancing mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and laboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. For the mainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the last, believed in him and had, on her death bed, in the most moving terms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable claim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and deference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a day and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary pinnacle. "The airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her head at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on his tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was rendering. "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!" said the old lady, apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "I could bite you!" I could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with feelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the father and son before me. |
| 1218 |
Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake and found him to be train bearer and organ blower to a whole procession of people. Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle out. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in behalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist surface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr. Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great creature which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale meant in intellectual beauty and whether we were not struck by his massive configuration of brow. In short, we heard of a great many missions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing respecting them was half so clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it was the most popular mission of all. Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and self laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he plainly told us. |
| 1219 |
Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has some trouble to keep pace with her. It would have more but that his other faithful ally, for better and for worse the gout darts into the old oak bed chamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both legs. Sir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male line, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved, sir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but the Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the levelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. It has come down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities. Sir Leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the discharge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the aristocracy, "My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to you another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout." Hence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically twitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere, but he thinks, "We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has for some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make the vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and I submit myself to the compromise." And a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in the midst of the great drawing room before his favourite picture of my Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long perspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with soft reliefs of shadow. |
| 1220 |
Inside, his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "Each of us was a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to his greatness too. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him! My Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her portrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of remaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of the fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared for her reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in powder gapes disconsolate at the hall window; and he mentioned last night to another Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society, that if that sort of thing was to last which it couldn't, for a man of his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be expected to bear it there would be no resource for him, upon his honour, but to cut his throat! What connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him when he swept the churchyard step? What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world who from opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together! Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question by replying that he "don't know nothink." He knows that it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out. Jo lives that is to say, Jo has not yet died in a ruinous place known to the like of him by the name of Tom all Alone's. |
| 1221 |
He admires the size of the edifice and wonders what it's all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual destitution of a coral reef in the Pacific or what it costs to look up the precious souls among the coco nuts and bread fruit. He goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The town awakes; the great tee totum is set up for its daily spin and whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been suspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is market day. The blinded oxen, over goaded, over driven, never guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge redeyed and foaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often sorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like! A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog a drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for some hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three or four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the street as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his ears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and publichouses; a terrific dog to sheep, ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, they are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the brute! Turn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark but not their bite. |
| 1222 |
The day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly. Jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for the unsavoury shelter of Tom all Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder, runs along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is beginning to close in. In his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the nearest magistrate to morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a disappointed suitor, has been here to day and has been alarming. We are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill conditioned fellow shall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively toward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no reason, look out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does not look out of window. And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are women enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks too many; they are at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of that, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well. But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by her attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and assumed as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she treads with an unaccustomed foot she is a lady. Her face is veiled, and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of those who pass her look round sharply. She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her and can follow it. |
| 1223 |
He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that he was never to be thanked, and said no more. "Nine years, my dear," he said after thinking for a little while, "have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." I listened in silence and looked attentively at him. "Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter." I took his hand and kissed it. "It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one. I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. That more than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration disclose. My dear, I have told you all." I held his hand for a little while in mine. |
| 1224 |
He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn in front, a bright flower garden at the side, and a wellstocked orchard and kitchen garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable wall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But, indeed, everything about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old lime tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the cherry trees and apple trees were heavy with fruit, the gooseberry bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping pods, and marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. Such stillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the old red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to scare the birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that where, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still clung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the changing seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to the common fate. The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden, was a real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick floored kitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one side of it was the terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr. Boythorn maintained a sentry in a smock frock day and night, whose duty was supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to ring a large bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull dog established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal destruction on the enemy. |
| 1225 |
The week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my heart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the transparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the shadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. We had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where there were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped off. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by thousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a distant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in which we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through which we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon the Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard thunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle through the leaves. The weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm broke so suddenly upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot that before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning were frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if every drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a time for standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the moss grown steps which crossed the plantation fence like two broad staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's lodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy clustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were water. The lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only clearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there and put two chairs for Ada and me. |
| 1226 |
The courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there, walk. The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even unto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop sided stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket porters, who have nothing to do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it thoughtfully. There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his circuit could see him now! No full bottomed wig, no red petticoats, no fur, no javelin men, no white wands. Merely a close shaved gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with seabronze on the judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shellfish shop as he comes along and drinks iced ginger beer! The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How England can get on through four long summer months without its bar which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only legitimate triumph in prosperity is beside the question; assuredly that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. |
| 1227 |
The long vacation saunters on towards term time like an idle river very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will, but he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting nature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual energies under too heavy contribution. He finds that nothing agrees with him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool, and stab his desk, and gape. Kenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken out a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. Guppy's two fellow stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard Carstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is for the time being established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes. So exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the confidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce in the Old Street Road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good enough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming, he would have got it painted. Mr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool in Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course, sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary. It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find the new comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure can come of that. |
| 1228 |
On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at Krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good for nothing kind of young fellow, borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his landlord and goes to work devising apologies for window curtains, and knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. But what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only whiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of copper plate impressions from that truly national work The Divinities of Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined with capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent portraits, unworthily confined in a band box during his seclusion among the market gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress, plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every variety of flower pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing. But fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant and distinguished feat of leaving it to morrow gives him a thrill of joy. |
| 1229 |
Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life he has never bred a single butterfly. The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant, was a horny skinned, two legged, money getting species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it. Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke something something necessary to his existence, therefore it couldn't have been his heart and made an end of his career. As his character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a complete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an example of the failure of education. His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of "going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and anxiousminded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and marrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, twins. |
| 1230 |
The excellent old gentleman being at these times a mere clothes bag with a black skull cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post by the Black Serjeant, Death. Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded into one would hardly make a young person of average proportions, while she so happily exemplifies the before mentioned family likeness to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might walk about the table land on the top of a barrelorgan without exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of brown stuff. Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way, modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is Judy. And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows of the people in the stars. |
| 1231 |
Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it up with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious partner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money you brimstone chatterer! but just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been making the foundations for, through many a year you jade of a magpie, jackdaw, and poll parrot, what do you mean! he took ill and died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of business care I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a cushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of yourself! and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip, just dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born you are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!" Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups and saucers and from the bottom of the tea pot for the little charwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the iron bread basket, as many outside fragments and worn down heels of loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence. "But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old gentleman, "and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare for you both that you went out early in life Judy to the flower business, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will go back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law." One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower making. |
| 1232 |
Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool to night. Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one of its trustiest representatives may scatter, on occasion, in the eyes of the laity. In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth, animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee house, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes. Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys his wine. |
| 1233 |
Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not find that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told us, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he and Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds must be finally established if there were any sense or justice in the Court of Chancery but oh, what a great IF that sounded in my ears and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer delayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that side he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the infatuation. He had even begun to haunt the court. He told us how he saw Miss Flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did her little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied her from his heart. But he never thought never, my poor, dear, sanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such better things before him what a fatal link was riveting between his fresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged birds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind. Ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict silence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London to meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to be in waiting for me at the coach office, that we might have a little talk together. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in arm. |
| 1234 |
He and Richard were often closeted together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but maintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances that everything was going on capitally and that it really was all right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him. We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a ward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about until Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty years of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord Chancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor very seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing his mind "a pretty good joke, I think," said Richard, "from that quarter!" and at last it was settled that his application should be granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for an ensign's commission; the purchase money was deposited at an agent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every morning to practise the broadsword exercise. Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. |
| 1235 |
She gave me a gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification and pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to us and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the bland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a very good day for a visit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it was imposing, it was imposing. When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress if I may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion seemed to die out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to come, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, "Jarndyce and Jarndyce." Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers. I think it came on "for further directions" about some bill of costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough. But I counted twenty three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I. They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted and explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished bringing them in. I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "It can't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!" was all he said. |
| 1236 |
Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by a table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this opportunity of entering into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid of fire arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a good shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those rifles and what it might be worth first hand, telling him in return that it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was naturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and making himself generally agreeable. After a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and Richard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after us. He said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take a visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, "on the chance," he slightly observed, "of being able to do any little thing for a poor fellow involved in the same misfortune as himself." We all four went back together and went into the place where Gridley was. It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted wood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery roof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had looked down. The sun was low near setting and its light came redly in above, without descending to the ground. Upon a plain canvas covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed much as we had seen him last, but so changed that at first I recognized no likeness in his colourless face to what I recollected. He had been still writing in his hiding place, and still dwelling on his grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of such tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. |
| 1237 |
And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading the tributary channels of Leicester Square. But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself before a looking glass of minute proportions, then marches out, bare headed and bare chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry comb as he rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to take in the superfluous health his master throws off. When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave. "And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled out of bed. |
| 1238 |
In the distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty, Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of pot liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong shutting up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the complete round of foreign service. The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household cares involve much pattening and counter pattening in the backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her needlework, then and only then the greens being only then to be considered as entirely off her mind Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper to state his case. This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. "That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he. |
| 1239 |
She has an extensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's eggs. In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case for the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and when William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would be put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William Buffy somehow discovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the times when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot than most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly desirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a wellregulated body politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young gentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but somehow William Buffy found when he came in that these were not times in which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the second indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces. The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them. In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. |
| 1240 |
For he has his pictures, ancient and modern. Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally condescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like the miscellaneous articles in a sale. As "Three high backed chairs, a table and cover, long necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one Spanish female's costume, three quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg the model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote." Or "One stone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian senator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with profile portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly mounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very rare), and Othello." Mr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as indifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet it may be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it. It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of compunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty and all the state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest for what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it. Whether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made his duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined to have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed among secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the splendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always treasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous clients whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer with his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with ribbons at the knees. |
| 1241 |
We went to Newman Street two or three times, where preparations were in progress too a good many, I observed, for enhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house but our great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the wedding breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some faint sense of the occasion. The latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs. Jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting room (the back one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with wastepaper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be littered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong coffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by appointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a decline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby came home, he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. There he got something to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then, feeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about Hatton Garden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down the house as they had always been accustomed to do. The production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable condition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, I proposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a clean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good deal of attention, the lattice work up her back having widened considerably since I first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a dustman's horse. Thinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means of approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look at it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome boy was gone. |
| 1242 |
A party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly have been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as the domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of her tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a mission except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission cared at all for anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and applying benevolence to them like a strait waistcoat; as Miss Wisk was that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. Mrs. Jellyby, all the while, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but Borrioboola Gha. But I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride home instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr. Jellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. Turveydrop, with his hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman like a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig, stood stiff and high shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the ceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say enough to do it justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as prepossessing in appearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings, as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with her calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all the company. We duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of the table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was Turveydrop. |
| 1243 |
It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission for many days. None was falling just then, however. The sky had partly cleared, but was very gloomy even above us, where a few stars were shining. In the north and north west, where the sun had set three hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea stricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards London a lurid glare overhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two lights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and on all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was as solemn as might be. I had no thought that night none, I am quite sure of what was soon to happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when we had stopped at the garden gate to look up at the sky, and when we went upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself as being something different from what I then was. I know it was then and there that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with that spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and time, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and the sound of wheels coming down the miry hill. It was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place where we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it quieter than I had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. The kilns were burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale blue glare. We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the patched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported by the chimney piece, was cowering on the floor. |
| 1244 |
The friend had been here and there, and had been played about from hand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last it was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent her back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in evading their duties instead of performing them. And now, after all, she said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was frightened too, "Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's not far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for him!" They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his hand, and so, in an oblivious, half thankful, half insensible way, he shuffled out of the house. "Give me the child, my dear," said its mother to Charley, "and thank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my master don't fall out with me, I'll look down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!" She hurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her child at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her drunken husband. I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I should bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did, and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before me, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick kiln. I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went bare headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we called to him and again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his shivering fit. |
| 1245 |
There was more movement and more talking than usual a little before daybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my window and asked one of our men who had been among the active sympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the house. The lantern was still burning in the loft window. "It's the boy, miss," said he. "Is he worse?" I inquired. "Gone, miss." "Dead!" "Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off." At what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed hopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty cart house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was missing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to the painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and that, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary horror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of us, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in his usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend that he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him, and that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off. Every possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The brick kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women were particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had for some time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit of any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and stack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From the time when he was left in the loft room, he vanished. |
| 1246 |
At first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and even reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter saying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she loved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than the garden. After that she came beneath the window even oftener than she had come to the door, and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet voice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love it then, when I stood behind the window curtain listening and replying, but not so much as looking out! How did I learn to love it afterwards, when the harder time came! They put a bed for me in our sitting room; and by keeping the door wide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had vacated that part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. There was not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they would all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night without the least fear or unwillingness, but I thought it best to choose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could trust to come and go with all precaution. Through her means I got out to take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting Ada, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than in any other respect. And thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day and night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such a gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding her head in my arms repose would come to her, so, when it would come to her in no other attitude I silently prayed to our Father in heaven that I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught me. I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would change and be disfigured, even if she recovered she was such a child with her dimpled face but that thought was, for the greater part, lost in her greater peril. |
| 1247 |
At those times I used to think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their need was dead! There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me, telling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was sure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley would speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. And Charley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and given back to his poor children, and that if she should never get better and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come into Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. Then would I show Tom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on earth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven! But of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there was not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. And there were many, many when I thought in the night of the last high belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in God, on the part of her poor despised father. And Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend. The hope that never had been given, from the first, of Charley being in outward appearance Charley any more soon began to be encouraged; and even that prospered, and I saw her growing into her old childish likeness again. It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at last took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, I felt that I was stricken cold. |
| 1248 |
The house has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in brandy and water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot boy heard what had happened, he rolled up his shirt sleeves tight to his shoulders and said, "There'll be a run upon us!" In the first outcry, young Piper dashed off for the fire engines and returned in triumph at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in charge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid form. Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only stay there. "This is not a time," says Mr. Bogsby, "to haggle about money," though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; "give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever you put a name to." Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to all new comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile, one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well know what they are up to in there. Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little money left it unexpectedly. |
| 1249 |
Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and non professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The popular song of King Death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the great Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "J. G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation." There is one point connected with the deceased upon which the court is particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that he has received orders to construct "a six footer," the general solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. Smallweed's conduct does him great honour. Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of Messrs. |
| 1250 |
At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that "that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't account for!" After which the six footer comes into action and is much admired. In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock. For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang dog sense of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too. Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellowgentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young man in a large room, not over light, while he makes report of him. Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it? No, it's no ghost, but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed. "I have to beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. |
| 1251 |
But this was not the effect of time so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick room. Before I had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore. My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest of the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could put it. While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can quite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this source. For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my disorder it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both nights and days in it when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more of these never ending stairs, Charley more and more piled up to the sky', I think!" and labouring on again. |
| 1252 |
I could see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from the open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had always been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of my heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my strength. By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little, and so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to myself, and interested, and attached to life again. How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea drinking with Charley! The little creature sent into the world, surely, to minister to the weak and sick was so happy, and so busy, and stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so glad, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I was!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face here and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and the pretty tea table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the bedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley that was not new to my thoughts. First I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had been lying there so long. |
| 1253 |
How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me. My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter, of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early summer time. If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, and I had been a princess and her favoured god child, I could not have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that, however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to be able to say to myself after tea, "Esther, my dear, I think you are quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to your host." He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how, after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage, but whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and arranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I should want her no more that night. For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my own restored to me. |
| 1254 |
Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village. Charley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown people before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends was an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on its hinges, it shut up the whole house front. This old lady had a grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and drew at the top of it the chimney corner in which she had brought him up and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the world, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way to America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit that ought to have been given to the postoffice and was invested with the merit of the whole system. Thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so many cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it. I felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said, "Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?" But when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch, that soon set me up again. |
| 1255 |
I happened to stroll into the little church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had to sign the register. The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and admiration stood in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, miss; but he can't write yet he's going to learn of me and I wouldn't shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter! The air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown, and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my old one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole night. There was a favourite spot of mine in the park woods of Chesney Wold where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at least once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the startling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had heard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and gave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real charms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for violets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild flowers, she took as much to the spot as I did. It would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house or never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my arrival, and were not expected. |
| 1256 |
I was far from being incurious or uninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the house even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure were associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they repelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my story now arrives. I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been looking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and little it revealed itself to be a woman's a lady's Lady Dedlock's. She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I observed to my surprise, than was usual with her. I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in her manner and the absence of her haughty self restraint, as by a something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was a little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I had never seen in hers before. A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. |
| 1257 |
But when she caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me, and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy mother! Oh, try to forgive me!" when I saw her at my feet on the bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of likeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her and remotely think of any near tie between us. I raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her at MY feet. I told her or I tried to tell her that if it were for me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my heart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which nothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for me, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her to account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless her and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that I only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace. "To bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. I must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it." Even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off again. |
| 1258 |
I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of my mother's misery. Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took such precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been crying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation that there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a little while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of grief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might return. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the gate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after Lady Dedlock had left me and that I was over tired and would lie down. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from it and that was much then that I had not been abandoned by my mother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood, discovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead, had in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I should live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my mother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I hold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had never, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed had been buried had never been endowed with life had never borne a name. When she had first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of what would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on, but that was all then. What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has its own times and places in my story. My first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume even its ashes. |
| 1259 |
These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world with my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened of myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the owner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, "Your mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will come and soon enough when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can." With them, those other words returned, "Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head." I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation had come down. The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me, was attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not have gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it was, I took the path that led close by it. I did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its well kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone pedestal of the sun dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening gloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. |
| 1260 |
Seized with an augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never paused until I had gained the lodge gate, and the park lay sullen and black behind me. Not before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation that I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden, if I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in and about the house declared it was not the same house and was becoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me think how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought to be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me, as it ought to have done before, into a better condition. For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I should never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved for such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I had in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my birth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had experience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus soon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on me. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them, pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling that the darkness of the morning was passing away. |
| 1261 |
If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to Ada before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my dear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my mother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield to it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be except, of course, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I have no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it. The difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening when Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house, and when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock had spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great. Greater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied that she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting her beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her imperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously, by telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two nights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in the next county and that she had left early on the morning after we had seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage about little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month. We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the room. |
| 1262 |
My dearest cousin, Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so much wrong. I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for yourself and if for yourself, for me. In case this should be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for that source of trouble which had its share in making us both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got from it but sorrow. My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you are quite free and that it is very likely you may find some one whom you will love much better than your first fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own heart. |
| 1263 |
I encouraged her and praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed, dancing master's wife though she was, and dancing mistress though in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite as good as a mission. "My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer me. I shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!" Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball room, Caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet, I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away then. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I made one in the dance. The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, and cramp bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and feet and heels particularly. I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for them. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger beer shop. We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. |
| 1264 |
It looks as if Symond were a sparing man in his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which took kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and dismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness. Quartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond are the legal bearings of Mr. Vholes. Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three feet of knotty floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's jet black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk head of cellarage staircase against which belated civilians generally strike their brows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk can open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who elbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire. A smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and dust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of mutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and skins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. The place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames have but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to be always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the phenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of firewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather. Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business, but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater attorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, which is a mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, which is another mark of respectability. |
| 1265 |
All the while, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole. Lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for heaven's sake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to "pull him through" the Court of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm upon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, "Always here, sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel." Thus they part, and Vholes, left alone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his diary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three daughters. So might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of chickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to disparage by that word the three raw visaged, lank, and buttoned up maidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in an earthy cottage situated in a damp garden at Kennington. Richard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the sunshine of Chancery Lane for there happens to be sunshine there to day walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and passes under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on the like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and consumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but that may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is very rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from ten thousand? Yet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he saunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months together, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case as if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with corroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit there, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind. |
| 1266 |
So there is hope for the old ship yet. Doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly in the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed state he is available in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself upon a considerable portion of the country at one time. Britannia being much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the form of sovereigns, and swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself black in the face that she does neither plainly to the advancement of her glory and morality the London season comes to a sudden end, through all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist Britannia in those religious exercises. Hence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, though no instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be expected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and others who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And hence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and through the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that everything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread, curtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still room and kitchen cleared for action all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock dignity. This present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations are complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured forms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock in possession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this gallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I think, of the gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so find it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it could be without them; so pass from my world, as I pass from theirs, now closing the reverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die. |
| 1267 |
Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the country on which Doodle is at present throwing himself in an auriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless disposition and never do anything anywhere. On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the other cousins to ride over to polling booths and hustings here and there, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be hard to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her French conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time almost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner, or even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national occasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is constantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and unpensioning country. My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, away to hustings and polling booths (with leather gloves and hunting whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding canes for the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. |
| 1268 |
There is a capacious writing table in the room on which is a pretty large accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his reading glasses lie upon the desk, the easy chair is wheeled up to it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he happens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents awaiting his notice with his head bent low over the table, the old man's sight for print or writing being defective at night he opens the French window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks slowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool may have any need to subside, from the story he has related downstairs. The time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk on turret tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read their fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to night, though their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be seeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented below. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other characters nearer to his hand. As he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite the window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, too, but the night being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. These eyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the corridor outside. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into his face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he recognizes Lady Dedlock. He steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors behind her. There is a wild disturbance is it fear or anger? in her eyes. |
| 1269 |
It matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who had told me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to approach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of the peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my fears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a living creature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not always conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew the secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I did not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere, when I was present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, I tried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated something that I knew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now that I often did these things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken of, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing anything that might lead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me. It matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's voice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to do, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so new to me. It matters little that I watched for every public mention of my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of her house in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once sat in the theatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide asunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or confidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over. My lot has been so blest that I can relate little of myself which is not a story of goodness and generosity in others. I may well pass that little and go on. When we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations with my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My dear girl was deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but she was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him even for that. |
| 1270 |
It was in a state of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or three of the area railings were gone, the water butt was broken, the knocker was loose, the bell handle had been pulled off a long time to judge from the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps were the only signs of its being inhabited. A slatternly full blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the rents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over ripe berry answered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping up the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and I both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of her wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. The lock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied herself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action either, and said would we go upstairs? We went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture than the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further ceremony entered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy enough and not at all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy chair, and plenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music, newspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. A broken pane of glass in one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was another of grapes, and another of sponge cakes, and there was a bottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in a dressing gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china cup it was then about mid day and looking at a collection of wallflowers in the balcony. He was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and received us in his usual airy manner. "Here I am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some little difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. |
| 1271 |
I came to the time when I first saw my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived my happy life there over again, I went through my illness and recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented before me by the letter on the table. I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House. It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind protecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew since our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only served to show me through one poor instance that the whole world would readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood. |
| 1272 |
Thus he made it. If I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to be my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even then I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the same, he knew. This was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his integrity he stated the full case. But he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he had had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it. That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he could love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery of my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. That the more I stood in need of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in him to the last. But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of the benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means of thanking him? Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect for it was strange though I had expected the contents but as if something for which there was no name or distinct idea were indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very hopeful; but I cried very much. By and by I went to my old glass. |
| 1273 |
Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of excuse, and in a more loving spirit still my dear devoted girl! she wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge. Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted none and would willingly have left her at home. We all went to London that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. At our usual bed time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the Kentish letters. It was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed with me as I suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. At one while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. Now I thought I should do some good, and now I wondered how I could ever have supposed so. Now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in the world that I should have come, and now one of the most unreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with these two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune (to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and over again all night. At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they were spinning themselves into cordage. |
| 1274 |
But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down, comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very much. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships that we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. Some of these vessels were of grand size one was a large Indiaman just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to them and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful. The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into the downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of one man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew at home of such a case. I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack yard, we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I asked a sergeant standing on the guardhousesteps where he lived. He sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us. |
| 1275 |
And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined spirit. But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance. There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of society up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the high. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has his revenge. It is a moot point whether Tom all Alone's be uglier by day or by night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it. The day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the national glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the British dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder as Tom. A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted by curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the miserable by ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there, he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it before. On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street of Tom all Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut up and silent. |
| 1276 |
Yes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which he descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the soiled walls which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid and furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He shades his face with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and goes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and his shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what purpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They look, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of swampy growth that rotted long ago. Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form. He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge, still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his remembrance. He is gradually emerging from Tom all Alone's in the morning light, thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by the woman. "Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breathless. "Stop him, sir!" He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up half a dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the woman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. |
| 1277 |
Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn. Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him for a moment. "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?" With a look that plainly says, "You know you have the power to remain if you will," she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her and the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls upon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her life. It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that half adozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared into stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron work entwines itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high and dry master in the House of Lords. Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair, could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands. And yet and yet she sends a look in that direction as if it were her heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way. |
| 1278 |
Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to whisper, "Don't go home!" Through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing shop lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and nothing meets him murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last in his dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the Roman's hand to night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to give him the late warning, "Don't come here!" It is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only now rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining as they shone above the turret leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them. Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless. The large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden. Too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman, loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury attends with the key. Having opened the garden gate, he delivers the key into his Lady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. She will walk there some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may be more. She needs no further escort. The gate shuts upon its spring with a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of some trees. A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr. Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison like yard. He looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large moon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too. |
| 1279 |
A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads and on hill summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the water meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only does the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick, where many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping make it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements through marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed ashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds, rich in cornfield wind mill and steeple, and where it mingles with the ever heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and on the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread wings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only him; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some rest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more ethereal; its smoky house tops lose their grossness in the pale effulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away. In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the shepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. What's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it? The few foot passengers start, stop, and stare about them. |
| 1280 |
Some windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a loud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, or so a man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in the neighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper across the road. While the dogs are yet barking and howling there is one dog howling like a demon the church clocks, as if they were startled too, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to swell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last clock begins to strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, the fine night, the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace again. Has Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet, and his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring him out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of him. What power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man out of his immovable composure? For many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no particular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he has any new meaning in him to night. Once pointing, always pointing like any Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. There he is, no doubt, in his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long. Moonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. There he is still, eagerly pointing, and no one minds him. But a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the rooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that person shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. What does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber, and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily, carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. |
| 1281 |
Some men rarely revert to their father, but seem, in the bank books of their remembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection into their mother's name. Mr. Bagnet is one of like his trade the better for that. If I had kept clear of his old girl causes him usually to make the nounsubstantive "goodness" of the feminine gender. It is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young Woolwich's last birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and general advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on the changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism, accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two, "What is your name?" and "Who gave you that name?" but there failing in the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number three the question "And how do you like that name?" which he propounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and improving as to give it quite an orthodox air. This, however, was a speciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity. It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and reddest letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. |
| 1282 |
Their legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least of all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drum sticks without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, and the dinner service washed up and polished in the backyard. The great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of their mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the present. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an expenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs. Bagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. At last the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment. When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very near to half past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet announces, "George! Military time." It is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl (whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for Mr. Bagnet. |
| 1283 |
I had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that it was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better. Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday, and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us that Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that day I was for some weeks eight or nine as I remember very much with Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own illness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential manner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's rest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her. With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So selfdenying, so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the best of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began early every morning in the ballroom, and where the untidy little boy waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon. At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment, trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about Bleak House. |
| 1284 |
We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very little child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed to declare to Prince that she was all but well which I, heaven forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all. Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan on its native shores. As bright eyed as ever, as serene, and as untidy, she would say, "Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do to day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number of letters she had lately received and answered or of the coffee bearing power of Borrioboola Gha. This she would always do with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be disguised. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy required any little comfort that the house contained, she first carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day, all but blessing it showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a grace of manner in dispensing the light of his highshouldered presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life. |
| 1285 |
And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing her there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a short time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was then dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I cried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so very, very ill. It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss of my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after years. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which I had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed stony hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only to look up at her windows. It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me, and it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking up, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his office while we were there and turned his head to look up too before going home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air of that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in such an ill assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place. It was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might safely steal upstairs. |
| 1286 |
That one of the trooper's first anxieties was that we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn assurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning with these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to see the prisoner himself. My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret interest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I felt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become personally important to myself that the truth should be discovered and that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once run wild, might run wilder. In a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went. It was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, have had as I have read for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so glaringly white that they made the massive iron window bars and iron bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found the trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn. When he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread, and there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced, putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment. "This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen," said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath. "And now I don't so much care how it ends." He scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. |
| 1287 |
It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs. Bucket a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur he holds himself aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for companionship and conversation. A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person; strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin (thrown in as a make weight), but the amount of inconsolable carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four wheeled affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, with silver wheel boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified this day. Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd as for what not? and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the people's heads, nothing escapes him. |
| 1288 |
It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of his affections. Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he were still listening and his attention were still occupied. At length he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps, supporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and with more of those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at something. Heaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold, the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing them, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces sneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms. It is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at the core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her cast down from the high place she has graced so well. And even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of mourning and compassion rather than reproach. |
| 1289 |
It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. London reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great tribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite fresh and collected as she would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any other military station. But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her lavendercoloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its usual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece of old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has ruffled it these many years. Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as he shuts the door. So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite enough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their relationship. Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word betrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her emotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs. Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less, and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such touching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they run glistening down her sun brown face. |
| 1290 |
This dreadful accusation comes upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may be represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before merely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the hangman's hands were at her neck. She has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all wildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks and moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense. For as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure was laid low which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she sees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to think, "if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take him from my way!" it was but wishing that all he held against her in his hand might be flung to the winds and chance sown in many places. So, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was his death but the keystone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and mangling piecemeal! Thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from this pursuer, living or dead obdurate and imperturbable before her in his well remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable in his coffin bed there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she flies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, overwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self reliance is overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind. |
| 1291 |
Carriages rattle, doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers with skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the eyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging carriages guided by short legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk into downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries bearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a spectacle for the angels. The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before its exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair, being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at length to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; seeing no one there, takes possession. The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass grown city of the ancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description. Certain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a short peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at that document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of these researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass in that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree. Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not found. |
| 1292 |
Her letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another world requiring to be personally answered, and all the living languages, and all the dead, are as one to him. They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day has ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the candle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well filled face. He lies upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of himself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word he said that his words really had come to sound as if there were something in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers sounds like what it is mere jumble and jargon. His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes signs for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at first understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants and brings in a slate. After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that is not his, "Chesney Wold?" No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to London and is able to attend upon him. "It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be much better to morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say so." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. |
| 1293 |
Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to Miss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual principle, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the gloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little time Mr. Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him directly and place herself under his protection to accompany him where he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and awaits her coming at the door. There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. Many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. But the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places down by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a drowning hold on his attention. Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it and the night landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste where the brick kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the strawroofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of human torture traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at the great door of the Dedlock mansion. |
| 1294 |
I had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester Dedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door who was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find her, and that I was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. Something to this general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort I could make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to recover my right mind until hours had passed. But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley or any one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to me in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were, chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with her last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to consider taking time to think whether within my knowledge there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to confide under circumstances of the last necessity. |
| 1295 |
He came into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with her unhappy story. My companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, that we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on again and said to me, after considering within himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite willing to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough to understand it. We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a by street at a public looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket took me in and sat me in an arm chair by a bright fire. It was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any attention. A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised together while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. It was a description of my mother that they were busy with, for Mr. Bucket brought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. It was very accurate indeed. The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an outer room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was done with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire. |
| 1296 |
Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away. I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re crossed the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low lying, waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing bridges, and masts of ships. At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I could discern the words, "Found Drowned"; and this and an inscription about drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place. I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet, but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps as if to look at something secret that he had to show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared! After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to warm himself. |
| 1297 |
The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it made, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little rush towards me. It never did so and I thought it did so, hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and probably was less but the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses' feet. Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. "Don't you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here," he said, turning to me. "I only want to have everything in train and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!" We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging from the general character of the streets. We called at another office or station for a minute and crossed the river again. During the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be more on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet, he alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted past us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat lines of shore so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of substance and shadow; so death like and mysterious. I have seen it many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free from the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling on, and the light of the carriagelamps reflected back looks palely in upon me a face rising out of the dreaded water. |
| 1298 |
Such roads I had never seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the ploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great duration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free from the anxiety under which I then laboured. As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost confidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people, but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of one long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of coaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had seen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their replies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring beck of his finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but he seemed perplexed now when he said, "Get on, my lad!" At last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing, he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This corroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at direction posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a quarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not to be down hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the next stage might set us right again. The next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue. There was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before I knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the carriage door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the horses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to refuse. |
| 1299 |
They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On one side to a stable yard open to a by road, where the ostlers were unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage, and beyond that to the by road itself, across which the sign was heavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine trees. Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and its bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire glowing and gleaming in the windowpane. As I looked among the stems of the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the thaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the motherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now welcomed me and of MY mother lying down in such a wood to die. I was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was some little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the fire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no further to night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a tremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her words and compromised for a rest of half an hour. A good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, all so busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr. Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast and some hot negus, and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made some recompense. Punctual to the time, at the half hour's end the carriage came rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, comforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any more. |
| 1300 |
This sparkling sally is to the effect that although he always knew she was the best groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely received in turf circles. At feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the prevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it? How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never came out before positively say things! William Buffy carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House, where the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff box to keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under the corner of his wig) cries, "Order at the bar!" three times without making an impression. And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr. Sladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend that she is their topic too, and to retail her at secondhand with the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at second hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to fainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among these little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters on such majestic crutches! So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it? Sir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with difficulty and indistinctness. |
| 1301 |
She knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. Therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then gently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at the dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered self command, "As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the room!" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left to him to listen. But they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him. Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this wintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, and all is heavier than before. The corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to go, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and George keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags tardily on or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and three o'clock they find a restless craving on him to know more about the weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly every half hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his march to the hall door, looks about him, and brings back the best report he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling and even the stone footways lying ankledeep in icy sludge. |
| 1302 |
She declines to enter on the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and not in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a merit of not having "closed an eye" as if she had twenty or thirty though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having most indisputably opened two within five minutes. But when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, Volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for the morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact, howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her, as an act of self devotion, to desert the spot. So when the trooper reappears with his, "Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" and when the maid protests, more sharply than before, "You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock!" she meekly rises and says, "Do with me what you think best!" Mr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly, these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the house to himself. There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of the great door under it, into the corners of the windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's Walk, on the stone floor below. The trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur of a great house no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold goes up the stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's length. |
| 1303 |
It was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had stopped exhausted half way up hills, they had been driven through streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard any variation in his cool, "Get on, my lads!" The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very few words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we came, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into Islington. I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it and discussing it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her and what could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long dwelling on such reflections when we stopped. We stopped in a high street where there was a coach stand. My companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney coach he had chosen from the rest. |
| 1304 |
I recollect the wet house tops, the clogged and bursting gutters and water spouts, the mounds of blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my hearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained house fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great water gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real. At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground a dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a woman lying Jenny, the mother of the dead child. I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure. "Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They changed clothes at the cottage." They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no meaning to them in any other connexion. "And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!" I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what it meant. |
| 1305 |
Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would not hear of my returning home attended only by "Little Coavinses," and accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out for him about our young friends. As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being heavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their separation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It was this: "Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is the incarnation of selfishness." And now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as belonging to a part of my life that was gone gone like my infancy or my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the last words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me. The months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the miserable corner. |
| 1306 |
So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh air now "but for Woodcourt." It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that his desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a gamester. I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to finish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour when I bundled up my little work basket, gave my darling my last kiss for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as it was dusk. When we came to the usual place of meeting it was close by, and Mr. Woodcourt had often accompanied me before my guardian was not there. We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with me. It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done my appreciation of it had risen above all words then but I hoped he might not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly. |
| 1307 |
Being overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew concerning whom he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they would have been half so glad to see him he is taken home to an elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their children. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the state bed of his brother's house to think of all these things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over his counterpane. The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room, where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show how he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when George squeezes his hand and stops him. "Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How," says the trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable firmness at his brother, "how is my mother to be got to scratch me?" "I am not sure that I understand you, George," replies the ironmaster. |
| 1308 |
Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of occupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with great heaps of it baskets full and tables full and do a little, and spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it, were Charley's great dignities and delights. Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time, but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to retain only its feverish anxieties. From something my guardian said one day when we were talking about this, I understood that my marriage would not take place until after the term time we had been told to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how rejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were a little more prosperous. The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He had told me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just come in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him in the country and mentioned by what stagecoach my place was taken and at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added in a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada. I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next morning. |
| 1309 |
A most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we went out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my mighty housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower garden by a gate in a side wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw was that the beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds and flowers at home. "You see, my dear," observed my guardian, standing still with a delighted face to watch my looks, "knowing there could be no better plan, I borrowed yours." We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple trees were sporting on the grass, to the house itself a cottage, quite a rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung with summer growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where cricket players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded with woodbine, jasmine, and honey suckle, I saw in the papering on the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all the pretty objects, MY little tastes and fancies, MY little methods and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere. I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, but one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, oh, would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his peace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. |
| 1310 |
I had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done, but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back, and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers, and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of precious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for her, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm her down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan, standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased as either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than that I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking after Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach window as long as she could see us. This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared to be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pavement of the Hall. We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it. He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. |
| 1311 |
In one of the lodges of the park that lodge within sight of the house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child the stalwart man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a little lame man about the stable yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy little man he always is, in the polishing at harness house doors, of stirrup irons, bits, curb chains, harness bosses, anything in the way of a stable yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction. A shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to the name of Phil. A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to observe which few do, for the house is scant of company in these times the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found gambolling in sequestered saw pits and such nooks of the park; and when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and as the evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the old girl. Discipline must be maintained." The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show house no longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing room seems gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. |
| 1312 |
Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her bird like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course of reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay. The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness, but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at the old places of appointment for low spirited twos and threes of cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness of the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under penitential sofa pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that such fernal old jail's nough t'sew fler up frever. The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the place in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated, when something is to be done for the county or the country in the way of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come out in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the exhausted old assembly room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during three hundred and sixty four days and nights of every ordinary year, is a kind of antipodean lumberroom full of old chairs and tables upside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes of the dance. |
| 1313 |
It is difficult to believe that Charley (round eyed still, and not at all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the morning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to do and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I might suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill did half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was decimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being ashamed of it. Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with the children as if she had never given a dancing lesson in her life. Caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and lives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do very little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has to do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one. I have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but I hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in Borrioboola Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the king of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody who survived the climate for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more correspondence than the old one. |
| 1314 |
Everything was jammed into the tightest cases, fitted into the narrowest corners, fenced up behind the most impertinent cushions, and screwed into the acutest angles, to prevent its philosophical composure from being disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such extraordinary precautions were taken in every instance to save room, and keep the thing compact; and so much practical navigation was fitted, and cushioned, and screwed into every box (whether the box was a mere slab, as some were, or something between a cocked hat and a star fish, as others were, and those quite mild and modest boxes as compared with others); that the shop itself, partaking of the general infection, seemed almost to become a snug, sea going, ship shape concern, wanting only good sea room, in the event of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island in the world. Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships' Instrument maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted and bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among ship chandlers and so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable ships' biscuit on his table. It was familiar with dried meats and tongues, possessing an extraordinary flavour of rope yarn. Pickles were produced upon it, in great wholesale jars, with 'dealer in all kinds of Ships' Provisions' on the label; spirits were set forth in case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with alphabetical references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the walls; the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells, seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney piece; the little wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a sky light, like a cabin. Here he lived too, in skipper like state, all alone with his nephew Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman, to carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon Gills himself (more generally called old Sol) was far from having a maritime appearance. |
| 1315 |
To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as plain and stubborn a Welsh wig as ever was worn, and in which he looked like anything but a Rover, he was a slow, quiet spoken, thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns looking at you through a fog; and a newly awakened manner, such as he might have acquired by having stared for three or four days successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and suddenly came back to the world again, to find it green. The only change ever known in his outward man, was from a complete suit of coffee colour cut very square, and ornamented with glaring buttons, to the same suit of coffee colour minus the inexpressibles, which were then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise shirt frill, and carried a pair of first rate spectacles on his forehead, and a tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy against it on part of all the clocks and watches in the City, and even of the very Sun itself. Such as he was, such he had been in the shop and parlour behind the little Midshipman, for years upon years; going regularly aloft to bed every night in a howling garret remote from the lodgers, where, when gentlemen of England who lived below at ease had little or no idea of the state of the weather, it often blew great guns. It is half past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the reader and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the act of seeing what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The usual daily clearance has been making in the City for an hour or more; and the human tide is still rolling westward. "The streets have thinned," as Mr Gills says, "very much." It threatens to be wet to night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in low spirits, and the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden Midshipman. "Where's Walter, I wonder!" said Solomon Gills, after he had carefully put up the chronometer again. |
| 1316 |
Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for the incessant promptings of her black eyed companion, she would have abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for leave to see number one hundred and forty seven, under the awful shadow of Mr Dombey's roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in favour of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could bear the disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude, could not abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts in the way of this second thought, and stimulated the original intention with so many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr Dombey's stately back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his daily road towards the City, his unconscious son was on his way to Staggs's Gardens. This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the inhabitants of Staggs's Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a designation which the Strangers' Map of London, as printed (with a view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs, condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards carrying Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the hand, and giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she considered it wholesome to administer. The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural hill; there, confused treasures of iron soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally become a pond. |
| 1317 |
There were frowzy fields, and cow houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer houses, and carpet beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance. Nothing was the better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours. Staggs's Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes; with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into the gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer houses (one was an old boat), dried clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's Gardens derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs, who had built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste for the country, held that it dated from those rural times when the antlered herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had resorted to its shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens was regarded by its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by Railroads; and so confident were they generally of its long outliving any such ridiculous inventions, that the master chimney sweeper at the corner, who was understood to take the lead in the local politics of the Gardens, had publicly declared that on the occasion of the Railroad opening, if ever it did open, two of his boys should ascend the flues of his dwelling, with instructions to hail the failure with derisive cheers from the chimney pots. |
| 1318 |
Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever. It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were eating the stem. When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit skin to carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near for Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office in the City; also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown enforced with assurances that there would be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant of all she did; and these directions Florence promised faithfully and earnestly to observe. At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with a gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, after making a parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade her go and do it: remembering that she was watched. |
| 1319 |
His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in after life; and he had as hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful subservience of all other things and persons to it, as heart could desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a sullen disposition; but he had a strange, old fashioned, thoughtful way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his miniature arm chair, when he looked (and talked) like one of those terrible little Beings in the Fairy tales, who, at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have been substituted. He would frequently be stricken with this precocious mood upstairs in the nursery; and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired: even while playing with Florence, or driving Miss Tox in single harness. But at no time did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his father's room, he sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. They were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. Mr Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blare; his little image, with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage. Mr Dombey entertaining complicated worldly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. Mr Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted. On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for a long time, and Mr Dombey only knew that the child was awake by occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus: "Papa! what's money?" The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr Dombey's thoughts, that Mr Dombey was quite disconcerted. |
| 1320 |
In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As to its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances which gave it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account, more as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to be dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which he was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but not himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what a grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on the day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done wonders there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come back an Admiral of all the colours of the dolphin, or at least a Post Captain with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have married Florence (then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr Dombey's teeth, cravat, and watch chain, and borne her away to the blue shores of somewhere or other, triumphantly. But these flights of fancy seldom burnished the brass plate of Dombey and Son's Offices into a tablet of golden hope, or shed a brilliant lustre on their dirty skylights; and when the Captain and Uncle Sol talked about Richard Whittington and masters' daughters, Walter felt that he understood his true position at Dombey and Son's, much better than they did. So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day, in a cheerful, pains taking, merry spirit; and saw through the sanguine complexion of Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle; and yet entertained a thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to which theirs were work a day probabilities. Such was his condition at the Pipchin period, when he looked a little older than of yore, but not much; and was the same light footed, light hearted, light headed lad, as when he charged into the parlour at the head of Uncle Sol and the imaginary boarders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira. |
| 1321 |
He was overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon; and to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument maker already reviving, and hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when Walter found himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild fancies had been scattered to the winds in the fall, he began to suspect that they might have led him on to harmless visions of aspiring to Florence in the remote distance of time. The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different light. He appeared to entertain a belief that the interview at which he had assisted was so very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a step or two removed from a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter; and that the late transaction had immensely forwarded, if not thoroughly established, the Whittingtonian hopes. Stimulated by this conviction, and by the improvement in the spirits of his old friend, and by his own consequent gaiety, he even attempted, in favouring them with the ballad of "Lovely Peg" for the third time in one evening, to make an extemporaneous substitution of the name "Florence"; but finding this difficult, on account of the word Peg invariably rhyming to leg (in which personal beauty the original was described as having excelled all competitors), he hit upon the happy thought of changing it to Fle e eg; which he accordingly did, with an archness almost supernatural, and a voice quite vociferous, notwithstanding that the time was close at band when he must seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger. |
| 1322 |
The Doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it. In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had 'gone through' everything), suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains. There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly falling in love by sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his existence; and looking at the gas lighted world over the little iron bars in the left hand corner window of the front three pairs of stairs, after bed time, like a greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long. |
| 1323 |
Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended to be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It was the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor's young gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the largest possible shirt collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It was so classical, she said. As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of human barrel organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony hearted verbs, savage noun substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth, in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world. But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse, all the time; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends. Upon the Doctor's door steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. |
| 1324 |
Regularly, after that, Florence was prepared to sit down with Paul on Saturday night, and patiently assist him through so much as they could anticipate together of his next week's work. The cheering thought that he was labouring on where Florence had just toiled before him, would, of itself, have been a stimulant to Paul in the perpetual resumption of his studies; but coupled with the actual lightening of his load, consequent on this assistance, it saved him, possibly, from sinking underneath the burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled upon his back. It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred; and the Doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were all Doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen's nearest relations, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill considered haste, it would have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack. Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great progress and was naturally clever, Mr Dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short, however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire. Such spirits as he had in the outset, Paul soon lost of course. But he retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his character: and under circumstances so favourable to the development of those tendencies, became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful, than before. The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. |
| 1325 |
At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves. Where those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in troubled weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the wind issued on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the spot where he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked about these things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without them; whether it could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in some distant place, and she were sitting there alone. He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home, and of his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter with the poor old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that gruff voiced Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a number of little visits to pay, in the course of the day; to the schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber's study, to Mrs Blimber's private apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For he was free of the whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his desire to part with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his way, to them all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was always losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of silk for Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to rights; sometimes he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and, sitting on the carpet near his learned feet, turn the globes softly, and go round the world, or take a flight among the far off stars. In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general resumption of the studies of the whole half year, Paul was such a privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. |
| 1326 |
In the hurry of preparation: which Walter purposely enhanced as much as possible: the old man lost what little selfpossession he ever had; and so the time of departure drew on rapidly. The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all that passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the time still tending on towards his going away, without any occasion offering itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better understanding of his position. It was after much consideration of this fact, and much pondering over such an unfortunate combination of circumstances, that a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he made a call on Mr Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land really lay! Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's character, and discovered that they got on well together or the reverse. Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his button hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son. After taking a glass of warm rum and water at a tavern close by, to collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch. "Matey," said the Captain, in persuasive accents. |
| 1327 |
But the Major cut him short by giving him to understand that he followed his own inclinations, and that they had risen up in a body and said with one accord, "J. B., Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend." The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence of savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled grill and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover approaching for the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by which they were to leave town: the Native got him into his great coat with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a barrel. The Native then handed him separately, and with a decent interval between each supply, his washleather gloves, his thick stick, and his hat; which latter article the Major wore with a rakish air on one side of his head, by way of toning down his remarkable visage. The Native had previously packed, in all possible and impossible parts of Mr Dombey's chariot, which was in waiting, an unusual quantity of carpet bags and small portmanteaus, no less apoplectic in appearance than the Major himself: and having filled his own pockets with Seltzer water, East India sherry, sandwiches, shawls, telescopes, maps, and newspapers, any or all of which light baggage the Major might require at any instant of the journey, he announced that everything was ready. To complete the equipment of this unfortunate foreigner (currently believed to be a prince in his own country), when he took his seat in the rumble by the side of Mr Towlinson, a pile of the Major's cloaks and great coats was hurled upon him by the landlord, who aimed at him from the pavement with those great missiles like a Titan, and so covered him up, that he proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad station. But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the act of sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lilywhite handkerchief. |
| 1328 |
Away, and still away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage homes, of houses, mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of people, of old roads and paths that look deserted, small, and insignificant as they are left behind: and so they do, and what else is there but such glimpses, in the track of the indomitable monster, Death! Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into the earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and perseverance, that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems reversed, and to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon the Wet wall shows its surface flying past like a fierce stream, Away once more into the day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of exultation, roaring, rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with its dark breath, sometimes pausing for a minute where a crowd of faces are, that in a minute more are not; sometimes lapping water greedily, and before the spout at which it drinks' has ceased to drip upon the ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through the purple distance! Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing on resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of Death, is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There are dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far below. There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and through the battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are seen, where 'want and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes, while smoke and crowded gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity of brick and mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the murky distance. As Mr Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is never in his thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has let the light of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It was the journey's fitting end, and might have been the end of everything; it was so ruinous and dreary. |
| 1329 |
Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and remorseless enemy on which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a double handed sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he stood there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay, instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life had quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was gone, and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed instead of her? The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no reflection but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first; she was an aggravation of his bitterness now. If his son had been his only child, and the same blow had fallen on him, it would have been heavy to bear; but infinitely lighter than now, when it might have fallen on her (whom he could have lost, or he believed it, without a pang), and had not. Her loving and innocent face rising before him, had no softening or winning influence. He rejected the angel, and took up with the tormenting spirit crouching in his bosom. Her patience, goodness, youth, devotion, love, were as so many atoms in the ashes upon which he set his heel. He saw her image in the blight and blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the gloom. More than once upon this journey, and now again as he stood pondering at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust with his stick, the thought came into his mind, what was there he could interpose between himself and it? The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down, like another engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his newspaper to leer at the prospect, as if there were a procession of discomfited Miss Toxes pouring out in the smoke of the train, and flying away over the fields to hide themselves in any place of refuge, aroused his friends by informing him that the post horses were harnessed and the carriage ready. |
| 1330 |
Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus trees grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated, nobody knew whence nor how; spiders, moths, and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory blackbeetle now and then was found immovable upon the stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering how he got there. Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the night time, through dark galleries they mined behind the panelling. The dreary magnificence of the state rooms, seen imperfectly by the doubtful light admitted through closed shutters, would have answered well enough for an enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of gilded lions, stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers; the marble lineaments of busts on pedestals, fearfully revealing themselves through veils; the clocks that never told the time, or, if wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and struck unearthly numbers, which are not upon the dial; the accidental tinklings among the pendant lustres, more startling than alarm bells; the softened sounds and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and a phantom crowd of others, shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape. But, besides, there was the great staircase, where the lord of the place so rarely set his foot, and by which his little child had gone up to Heaven. There were other staircases and passages where no one went for weeks together; there were two closed rooms associated with dead members of the family, and with whispered recollections of them; and to all the house but Florence, there was a gentle figure moving through the solitude and gloom, that gave to every lifeless thing a touch of present human interest and wonder, For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone, and the cold walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the crevices of the basement paving. |
| 1331 |
The two trees with the smoky trunks were blighted high up, and the withered branches domineered above the leaves, Through the whole building white had turned yellow, yellow nearly black; and since the time when the poor lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long monotonous street. But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the story. Her books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only real companions, Susan Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the former, in her attendance on the studies of her young mistress, began to grow quite learned herself, while the latter, softened possibly by the same influences, would lay his head upon the window ledge, and placidly open and shut his eyes upon the street, all through a summer morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look with great significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking his way along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable recollection of his supposed enemy in the neighbourhood, rushing to the door, whence, after a deafening disturbance, he would come jogging back with a ridiculous complacency that belonged to him, and lay his jaw upon the window ledge again, with the air of a dog who had done a public service. So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of her innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could go down to her father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her loving heart humbly to approach him, without fear of repulse. She could look upon the objects that had surrounded him in his sorrow, and could nestle near his chair, and not dread the glance that she so well remembered. She could render him such little tokens of her duty and service' as putting everything in order for him with her own hands, binding little nosegays for table, changing them as one by one they withered and he did not come back, preparing something for him every' day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat. |
| 1332 |
Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment book on the shop desk, read the address aloud. Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a low voice, while Rob the round eyed, mindful of his patron's secret charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they kould go to Captain Cuttle's house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of the absence of any tidings ofthe Son and Heir; and bring him, if they could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a hackney coach being mentioned by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were appointed arbitrator of the argument. In time, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back. Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part whatever in its production. While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney coach, after encountering unheard of difficulties from swivel bridges, soft roads, impassable canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet beans and little wash houses, and many such obstacles abounding in that country, stopped at the corner of Brig Place. Alighting here, Florence and Susan Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of Captain Cuttle. |
| 1333 |
There were some children staying in the house. Children who were as frank and happy with fathers and with mothers as those rosy faces opposite home. Children who had no restraint upon their love and freely showed it. Florence sought to learn their secret; sought to find out what it was she had missed; what simple art they knew, and she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father that she loved him, and to win his love again. Many a day did Florence thoughtfully observe these children. On many a bright morning did she leave her bed when the glorious sun rose, and walking up and down upon the river's bank' before anyone in the house was stirring, look up at the windows of their rooms, and think of them, asleep, so gently tended and affectionately thought of. Florence would feel more lonely then, than in the great house all alone; and would think sometimes that she was better there than here, and that there was greater peace in hiding herself than in mingling with others of her age, and finding how unlike them all she was. But attentive to her study, though it touched her to the quick at every little leaf she turned in the hard book, Florence remained among them, and tried with patient hope, to gain the knowledge that she wearied for. Ah! how to gain it! how to know the charm in its beginning! There were daughters here, who rose up in the morning, and lay down to rest at night, possessed of fathers' hearts already. They had no repulse to overcome, no coldness to dread, no frown to smooth away. As the morning advanced, and the windows opened one by one, and the dew began to dry upon the flowers and and youthful feet began to move upon the lawn, Florence, glancing round at the bright faces, thought what was there she could learn from these children? It was too late to learn from them; each could approach her father fearlessly, and put up her lips to meet the ready kiss, and wind her arm about the neck that bent down to caress her. She could not begin by being so bold. |
| 1334 |
She did so always. If a book were read aloud, and there were anything in the story that pointed at an unkind father, she was in pain for their application of it to him; not for herself. So with any trifle of an interlude that was acted, or picture that was shown, or game that was played, among them. The occasions for such tenderness towards him were so many, that her mind misgave her often, it would indeed be better to go back to the old house, and live again within the shadow of its dull walls, undisturbed. How few who saw sweet Florence, in her spring of womanhood, the modest little queen of those small revels, imagined what a load of sacred care lay heavy in her breast! How few of those who stiffened in her father's freezing atmosphere, suspected what a heap of fiery coals was piled upon his head! Florence pursued her study patiently, and, failing to acquire the secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company who were assembled in the house, often walked out alone, in the early morning, among the children of the poor. But still she found them all too far advanced to learn from. They had won their household places long ago, and did not stand without, as she did, with a bar across the door. There was one man whom she several times observed at work very early, and often with a girl of about her own age seated near him' He was a very poor man, who seemed to have no regular employment, but now went roaming about the banks of the river when the tide was low, looking out for bits and scraps in the mud; and now worked at the unpromising little patch of garden ground before his cottage; and now tinkered up a miserable old boat that belonged to him; or did some job of that kind for a neighbour, as chance occurred. Whatever the man's labour, the girl was never employed; but sat, when she was with him, in a listless, moping state, and idle. Florence had often wished to speak to this man; yet she had never taken courage to do so, as he made no movement towards her. |
| 1335 |
It is so difficult for the young and ardent, even with such experience as hers, to imagine youth and ardour quenched like a weak flame, and the bright day of life merging into night, at noon, that hope was strong yet. Her tears fell frequently for Walter's sufferings; but rarely for his supposed death, and never long. She had written to the old Instrument maker, but had received no answer to her note: which indeed required none. Thus matters stood with Florence on the morning when she was going home, gladly, to her old secluded life. Doctor and Mrs Blimber, accompanied (much against his will) by their valued charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to Brighton, where that young gentleman and his fellow pilgrims to Parnassus were then, no doubt, in the continual resumption of their studies. The holiday time was past and over; most of the juvenile guests at the villa had taken their departure; and Florence's long visit was come to an end. There was one guest, however, albeit not resident within the house, who had been very constant in his attentions to the family, and who still remained devoted to them. This was Mr Toots, who after renewing, some weeks ago, the acquaintance he had had the happiness of forming with Skettles Junior, on the night when he burst the Blimberian bonds and soared into freedom with his ring on, called regularly every other day, and left a perfect pack of cards at the hall door; so many indeed, that the ceremony was quite a deal on the part of Mr Toots, and a hand at whist on the part of the servant. Mr Toots, likewise, with the bold and happy idea of preventing the family from forgetting him (but there is reason to suppose that this expedient originated in the teeming brain of the Chicken), had established a six oared cutter, manned by aquatic friends of the Chicken's and steered by that illustrious character in person, who wore a bright red fireman's coat for the purpose, and concealed the perpetual black eye with which he was afflicted, beneath a green shade. |
| 1336 |
Mr Dombey, with his bride upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little women who are on the steps, and every one of whom remembers the fashion and the colour of her every article of dress from that moment, and reproduces it on her doll, who is for ever being married. Cleopatra and Cousin Feenix enter the same carriage. The Major hands into a second carriage, Florence, and the bridesmaid who so narrowly escaped being given away by mistake, and then enters it himself, and is followed by Mr Carker. Horses prance and caper; coachmen and footmen shine in fluttering favours, flowers, and new made liveries. Away they dash and rattle through the streets; and as they pass along, a thousand heads are turned to look at them, and a thousand sober moralists revenge themselves for not being married too, that morning, by reflecting that these people little think such happiness can't last. Miss Tox emerges from behind the cherubim's leg, when all is quiet, and comes slowly down from the gallery. Miss Tox's eyes are red, and her pocket handkerchief is damp. She is wounded, but not exasperated, and she hopes they may be happy. She quite admits to herself the beauty of the bride, and her own comparatively feeble and faded attractions; but the stately image of Mr Dombey in his lilac waistcoat, and his fawn coloured pantaloons, is present to her mind, and Miss Tox weeps afresh, behind her veil, on her way home to Princess's Place. Captain Cuttle, having joined in all the amens and responses, with a devout growl, feels much improved by his religious exercises; and in a peaceful frame of mind pervades the body of the church, glazed hat in hand, and reads the tablet to the memory of little Paul. The gallant Mr Toots, attended by the faithful Chicken, leaves the building in torments of love. The Chicken is as yet unable to elaborate a scheme for winning Florence, but his first idea has gained possession of him, and he thinks the doubling up of Mr Dombey would be a move in the right direction. |
| 1337 |
Champagne has grown too common among them to be mentioned, and roast fowls, raised pies, and lobster salad, have become mere drugs. The very tall young man has recovered his spirits, and again alludes to the exciseman. His comrade's eye begins to emulate his own, and he, too, stares at objects without taking cognizance thereof. There is a general redness in the faces of the ladies; in the face of Mrs Perch particularly, who is joyous and beaming, and lifted so far above the cares of life, that if she were asked just now to direct a wayfarer to Ball's Pond, where her own cares lodge, she would have some difficulty in recalling the way. Mr Towlinson has proposed the happy pair; to which the silver headed butler has responded neatly, and with emotion; for he half begins to think he is an old retainer of the family, and that he is bound to be affected by these changes. The whole party, and especially the ladies, are very frolicsome. Mr Dombey's cook, who generally takes the lead in society, has said, it is impossible to settle down after this, and why not go, in a party, to the play? Everybody (Mrs Perch included) has agreed to this; even the Native, who is tigerish in his drink, and who alarms the ladies (Mrs Perch particularly) by the rolling of his eyes. One of the very tall young men has even proposed a ball after the play, and it presents itself to no one (Mrs Perch included) in the light of an impossibility. Words have arisen between the housemaid and Mr Towlinson; she, on the authority of an old saw, asserting marriages to be made in Heaven: he, affecting to trace the manufacture elsewhere; he, supposing that she says so, because she thinks of being married her own self: she, saying, Lord forbid, at any rate, that she should ever marry him. To calm these flying taunts, the silver headed butler rises to propose the health of Mr Towlinson, whom to know is to esteem, and to esteem is to wish well settled in life with the object of his choice, wherever (here the silver headed butler eyes the housemaid) she may be. |
| 1338 |
Mr Towlinson has a singing in his ears and a large wheel going round and round inside his head. The housemaid wishes it wasn't wicked to wish that one was dead. There is a general delusion likewise, in these lower regions, on the subject of time; everybody conceiving that it ought to be, at the earliest, ten o'clock at night, whereas it is not yet three in the afternoon. A shadowy idea of wickedness committed, haunts every individual in the party; and each one secretly thinks the other a companion in guilt, whom it would be agreeable to avoid. No man or woman has the hardihood to hint at the projected visit to the play. Anyone reviving the notion of the ball, would be scouted as a malignant idiot. Mrs Skewton sleeps upstairs, two hours afterwards, and naps are not yet over in the kitchen. The hatchments in the dining room look down on crumbs, dirty plates, spillings of wine, half thawed ice, stale discoloured heel taps, scraps of lobster, drumsticks of fowls, and pensive jellies, gradually resolving themselves into a lukewarm gummy soup. The marriage is, by this time, almost as denuded of its show and garnish as the breakfast. Mr Dombey's servants moralise so much about it, and are so repentant over their early tea, at home, that by eight o'clock or so, they settle down into confirmed seriousness; and Mr Perch, arriving at that time from the City, fresh and jocular, with a white waistcoat and a comic song, ready to spend the evening, and prepared for any amount of dissipation, is amazed to find himself coldly received, and Mrs Perch but poorly, and to have the pleasing duty of escorting that lady home by the next omnibus. Night closes in. Florence, having rambled through the handsome house, from room to room, seeks her own chamber, where the care of Edith has surrounded her with luxuries and comforts; and divesting herself of her handsome dress, puts on her old simple mourning for dear Paul, and sits down to read, with Diogenes winking and blinking on the ground beside her. |
| 1339 |
Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against surprise, because of the non appearance of the enemy. The Captain argued that his present security was too profound and wonderful to endure much longer; he knew that when the wind stood in a fair quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too well acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs MacStinger, to doubt that that heroic woman had devoted herself to the task of his discovery and capture. Trembling beneath the weight of these reasons, Captain Cuttle lived a very close and retired life; seldom stirring abroad until after dark; venturing even then only into the obscurest streets; never going forth at all on Sundays; and both within and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets, as if they were worn by raging lions. The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced upon by Mrs MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer resistance. He felt that it could not be done. He saw himself, in his mind's eye, put meekly in a hackney coach, and carried off to his old lodgings. He foresaw that, once immured there, he was a lost man: his hat gone; Mrs MacStinger watchful of him day and night; reproaches heaped upon his head, before the infant family; himself the guilty object of suspicion and distrust; an ogre in the children's eyes, and in their mother's a detected traitor. A violent perspiration, and a lowness of spirits, always came over the Captain as this gloomy picture presented itself to his imagination. It generally did so previous to his stealing out of doors at night for air and exercise. Sensible of the risk he ran, the Captain took leave of Rob, at those times, with the solemnity which became a man who might never return: exhorting him, in the event of his (the Captain's) being lost sight of, for a time, to tread in the paths of virtue, and keep the brazen instruments well polished. |
| 1340 |
Not that he associated the weather of that time with poor Walter's destiny, or doubted that if Providence had doomed him to be lost and shipwrecked, it was over, long ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite distinct from the subject matter of his thoughts, the Captain's spirits sank, and his hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had often done before him, and will often do again. Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting rain, looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilderness of house tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect near at hand was no better. In sundry tea chests and other rough boxes at his feet, the pigeons of Rob the Grinder were cooing like so many dismal breezes getting up. A crazy weathercock of a midshipman, with a telescope at his eye, once visible from the street, but long bricked out, creaked and complained upon his rusty pivot as the shrill blast spun him round and round, and sported with him cruelly. Upon the Captain's coarse blue vest the cold raindrops started like steel beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant against the stiff Nor' Wester that came pressing against him, importunate to topple him over the parapet, and throw him on the pavement below. If there were any Hope alive that evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it certainly kept house, and wasn't out of doors; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent manner, went in to look for it. Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was not there, though the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco box and pipe, and composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the bowl, and in the wreaths of vapour that curled upward from his lips; but there was not so much as an atom of the rust of Hope's anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy truth was at the bottom of that well, and he couldn't finish it. |
| 1341 |
Miss Tox, however, was not of an age or of a disposition long to abandon herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the harpsichord were dumb from disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled and trilled in the crooked drawing room: only one slip of geranium fell a victim to imperfect nursing, before she was gardening at her green baskets again, regularly every morning; the powdered headed ancestor had not been under a cloud for more than six weeks, when Miss Tox breathed on his benignant visage, and polished him up with a piece of wash leather. Still, Miss Tox was lonely, and at a loss. Her attachments, however ludicrously shown, were real and strong; and she was, as she expressed it, "deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from Louisa." But there was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's composition. If she had ambled on through life, in her soft spoken way, without any opinions, she had, at least, got so far without any harsh passions. The mere sight of Louisa Chick in the street one day, at a considerable distance, so overpowered her milky nature, that she was fain to seek immediate refuge in a pastrycook's, and there, in a musty little back room usually devoted to the consumption of soups, and pervaded by an ox tail atmosphere, relieve her feelings by weeping plentifully. Against Mr Dombey Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of complaint. Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such, that once removed from him, she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable, and as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her at all. No wife could be too handsome or too stately for him, according to Miss Tox's sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that in looking for one, he should look high. Miss Tox with tears laid down this proposition, and fully admitted it, twenty times a day. She never recalled the lofty manner in which Mr Dombey had made her subservient to his convenience and caprices, and had graciously permitted her to be one of the nurses of his little son. |
| 1342 |
He merely brought it out, at a certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it on the table, and sat gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke, in silent gravity, for two or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when he had contemplated it thus for a pretty long while, the Captain would hitch his chair, by degrees, farther and farther off, as if to get beyond the range of its fascination; but if this were his design, he never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by the parlour wall, the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in thoughtful wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image immediately followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or took up an advantageous position on the whitewash. In respect of Heart's Delight, the Captain's parental and admiration knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr Carker, Captain Cuttle had come to entertain doubts whether his former intervention in behalf of that young lady and his dear boy Wal'r, had proved altogether so favourable as he could have wished, and as he at the time believed. The Captain was troubled with a serious misgiving that he had done more harm than good, in short; and in his remorse and modesty he made the best atonement he could think of, by putting himself out of the way of doing any harm to anyone, and, as it were, throwing himself overboard for a dangerous person. Self buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never went near Mr Dombey's house, or reported himself in any way to Florence or Miss Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the occasion of his next visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he thanked him for his company, but had cut himself adrift from all such acquaintance, as he didn't know what magazine he mightn't blow up, without meaning of it. In this self imposed retirement, the Captain passed whole days and weeks without interchanging a word with anyone but Rob the Grinder, whom he esteemed as a pattern of disinterested attachment and fidelity. |
| 1343 |
Mrs Skewton, on one particular day, was in the irresolute, exacting, jealous temper that had developed itself on her recovery from her first attack. After sitting silent in the carriage watching Edith for some time, she took her hand and kissed it passionately. The hand was neither given nor withdrawn, but simply yielded to her raising of it, and being released, dropped down again, almost as if it were insensible. At this she began to whimper and moan, and say what a mother she had been, and how she was forgotten! This she continued to do at capricious intervals, even when they had alighted: when she herself was halting along with the joint support of Withers and a stick, and Edith was walking by her side, and the carriage slowly following at a little distance. It was a bleak, lowering, windy day, and they were out upon the Downs with nothing but a bare sweep of land between them and the sky. The mother, with a querulous satisfaction in the monotony of her complaint, was still repeating it in a low voice from time to time, and the proud form of her daughter moved beside her slowly, when there came advancing over a dark ridge before them, two other figures, which in the distance, were so like an exaggerated imitation of their own, that Edith stopped. Almost as she stopped, the two figures stopped; and that one which to Edith's thinking was like a distorted shadow of her mother, spoke to the other, earnestly, and with a pointing hand towards them. That one seemed inclined to turn back, but the other, in which Edith recognised enough that was like herself to strike her with an unusual feeling, not quite free from fear, came on; and then they came on together. The greater part of this observation, she made while walking towards them, for her stoppage had been momentary. Nearer observation showed her that they were poorly dressed, as wanderers about the country; that the younger woman carried knitted work or some such goods for sale; and that the old one toiled on empty handed. |
| 1344 |
It had been hard to feel in her deep heart what she had felt, and never know the happiness of one touch of response. But it was much more hard to be compelled to doubt either her father or Edith, so affectionate and dear to her, and to think of her love for each of them, by turns, with fear, distrust, and wonder. Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task imposed upon her by the very purity of her soul, as one she could not fly from. She saw her father cold and obdurate to Edith, as to her; hard, inflexible, unyielding. Could it be, she asked herself with starting tears, that her own dear mother had been made unhappy by such treatment, and had pined away and died? Then she would think how proud and stately Edith was to everyone but her, with what disdain she treated him, how distantly she kept apart from him, and what she had said on the night when they came home; and quickly it would come on Florence, almost as a crime, that she loved one who was set in opposition to her father, and that her father knowing of it, must think of her in his solitary room as the unnatural child who added this wrong to the old fault, so much wept for, of never having won his fatherly affection from her birth. The next kind word from Edith, the next kind glance, would shake these thoughts again, and make them seem like black ingratitude; for who but she had cheered the drooping heart of Florence, so lonely and so hurt, and been its best of comforters! Thus, with her gentle nature yearning to them both, feeling for the misery of both, and whispering doubts of her own duty to both, Florence in her wider and expanded love, and by the side of Edith, endured more than when she had hoarded up her undivided secret in the mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it. One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, Florence was spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by her tenderness for her widened the separation from her father, or gave him new cause of dislike. |
| 1345 |
She had never seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk within her, and her timid glance had dropped before its stern, unloving, and repelling harshness. As she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the first time, free from the cloud that had darkened her childhood. Calm, tranquil night was reigning in its stead. He might have gone to sleep, for anything she saw there, blessing her. Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting by; the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake! There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully, its motionless reponse recalled the faces that were gone. So they looked, so would he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when! so all the world of love and hatred and indifference around them! When that time should come, it would not be the heavier to him, for this that she was going to do; and it might fall something lighter upon her. She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath, bent down, and softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief moment by its side, and put the arm, with which she dared not touch him, round about him on the pillow. Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the hour is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake! In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften him towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he was wrong, and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And doing so, and looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing timidly away, passed out of his room, and crossed the other, and was gone. He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look for that slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the hour is come! Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs. The quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep she had been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to her of death and life in one. |
| 1346 |
The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new home dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home was nearly two years old; and even the patient trust that was in her, could not survive the daily blight of such experience. If she had any lingering fancy in the nature of hope left, that Edith and her father might be happier together, in some distant time, she had none, now, that her father would ever love her. The little interval in which she had imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was forgotten in the long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only remembered as a sorrowful delusion. Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him rather as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which she loved the memory of little Paul, or of her mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those old objects of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her: hardly more substantially connected with her real life, than the image she would sometimes conjure up, of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a man, who would protect and cherish her. The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts. She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her. |
| 1347 |
She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she could not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did not know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came back, there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing heart. The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith. Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room, opened the door and paced the staircase gallery outside, looked out of window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling, sat down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying like a storm driven ship through the sea of clouds. All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the return of their mistress, downstairs. One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away, or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was more and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain. Two o'clock. No Edith! Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery outside; and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the raindrops on the glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in the sky, so different from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and solitary. Three o'clock! There was a terror in every ash that dropped out of the fire. No Edith yet. More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery, and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No Edith yet. But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen and had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs, and observing what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning gown, and start when he was told his wife had not come home. |
| 1348 |
She heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely spread, and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person's, back to her own room. When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No one knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every ornament she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had worn; and everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he had seen, in yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the room in which he had wondered, idly, how these things would look when he should see them next! Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone. He read that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon her shameful wedding day, with the man whom he had chosen for her humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out of the house, with a frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she had been taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with his bare hand. Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she hurried out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going up and down with lights, and whispering together, and falling away from her father as he passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own powerlessness; and hiding in one of the great rooms that had been made gorgeous for this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief. Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if, in his prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which had gradually become so faint and dim. |
| 1349 |
To the home of Walter's Uncle. Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice, Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she could, was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little shadow darted past upon the sunny pavement, stopped short, wheeled about, came close to her, made off again, bounded round and round her, and Diogenes, panting for breath, and yet making the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet. "Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How could I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?" Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old, loving, foolish head against her breast, and they got up together, and went on together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring to kiss his mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again without the least concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his species, terrifying with touches of his nose young housemaids who were cleaning doorsteps, and continually stopping, in the midst of a thousand extravagances, to look back at Florence, and bark until all the dogs within hearing answered, and all the dogs who could come out, came out to stare at him. With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches, market places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works and cares of men, to the deep sea. At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view. Nearer yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post, intent as ever on his observations. |
| 1350 |
There was a glory and delight within the Captain that spread itself over his whole visage, and made a perfect illumination there. The pride with which the Captain looked upon the bronzed cheek and the courageous eyes of his recovered boy; with which he saw the generous fervour of his youth, and all its frank and hopeful qualities, shining once more, in the fresh, wholesome manner, and the ardent face, would have kindled something of this light in his countenance. The admiration and sympathy with which he turned his eyes on Florence, whose beauty, grace, and innocence could have won no truer or more zealous champion than himself, would have had an equal influence upon him. But the fulness of the glow he shed around him could only have been engendered in his contemplation of the two together, and in all the fancies springing out of that association, that came sparkling and beaming into his head, and danced about it. How they talked of poor old Uncle Sol, and dwelt on every little circumstance relating to his disappearance; how their joy was moderated by the old man's absence and by the misfortunes of Florence; how they released Diogenes, whom the Captain had decoyed upstairs some time before, lest he should bark again; the Captain, though he was in one continual flutter, and made many more short plunges into the shop, fully comprehended. But he no more dreamed that Walter looked on Florence, as it were, from a new and far off place; that while his eyes often sought the lovely face, they seldom met its open glance of sisterly affection, but withdrew themselves when hers were raised towards him; than he believed that it was Walter's ghost who sat beside him. He saw them together in their youth and beauty, and he knew the story of their younger days, and he had no inch of room beneath his great blue waistcoat for anything save admiration of such a pair, and gratitude for their being reunited. They sat thus, until it grew late. The Captain would have been content to sit so for a week. |
| 1351 |
So, into the drawing room and dining room he went, in succession, with the uncertain steps of a man in a strange place; looking fearfully about, and prying behind screens and couches; but she was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he could see that, at a glance. All this time, the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed, and those without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a distance, and going near it, listened. There were several voices talking together: at least two of them in English; and though the door was thick, and there was great confusion, he knew one of these too well to doubt whose voice it was. He took up his lamp again, and came back quickly through all the rooms, stopping as he quitted each, and looking round for her, with the light raised above his head. He was standing thus in the bed chamber, when the door, leading to the little passage in the wall, caught his eye. He went to it, and found it fastened on the other side; but she had dropped a veil in going through, and shut it in the door. All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell, and knocking with their hands and feet. He was not a coward: but these sounds; what had gone before; the strangeness of the place, which had confused him, even in his return from the hall; the frustration of his schemes (for, strange to say, he would have been much bolder, if they had succeeded); the unseasonable time; the recollection of having no one near to whom he could appeal for any friendly office; above all, the sudden sense, which made even his heart beat like lead, that the man whose confidence he had outraged, and whom he had so treacherously deceived, was there to recognise and challenge him with his mask plucked off his face; struck a panic through him. He tried the door in which the veil was shut, but couldn't force it. He opened one of the windows, and looked down through the lattice of the blind, into the court yard; but it was a high leap, and the stones were pitiless. |
| 1352 |
Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and springing up with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice. Of cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let her go, for not having confronted and defied him. Of having a deadly quarrel with the whole world, but chiefly with himself. Of blighting everything with his black mood as he was carried on and away. It was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded together; of his life and journey blended into one. Of being madly hurried somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among the novelties through which he travelled. Of musing and brooding over what was past and distant, and seeming to take no notice of the actual objects he encountered, but with a wearisome exhausting consciousness of being bewildered by them, and having their images all crowded in his hot brain after they were gone. A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of town and country, postyards, horses, drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road and pavement, height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the same monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. A vision of tending on at last, towards the distant capital, by busier roads, and sweeping round, by old cathedrals, and dashing through small towns and villages, less thinly scattered on the road than formerly, and sitting shrouded in his corner, with his cloak up to his face, as people passing by looked at him. Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon the road, or to comprehend the points of time and place in his journey. Of being parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on, in spite of all, as if he could not stop, and coming into Paris, where the turbid river held its swift course undisturbed, between two brawling streams of life and motion. |
| 1353 |
Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and dead of night, and feeble lights in windows by the roadside; and still the old monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of dawn, and daybreak, and the rising of the sun. Of tolling slowly up a hill, and feeling on its top the fresh sea breeze; and seeing the morning light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of coming down into a harbour when the tide was at its full, and seeing fishing boats float on, and glad women and children waiting for them. Of nets and seamen's clothes spread out to dry upon the shore; of busy sailors, and their voices high among ships' masts and rigging; of the buoyancy and brightness of the water, and the universal sparkling. Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck when it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little opening of bright land where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash, and murmur of the calm sea. Of another grey line on the ocean, on the vessel's track, fast growing clearer and higher. Of cliffs and buildings, and a windmill, and a church, becoming more and more visible upon it. Of steaming on at last into smooth water, and mooring to a pier whence groups of people looked down, greeting friends on board. Of disembarking, passing among them quickly, shunning every one; and of being at last again in England. He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote country place he knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly informed himself of what transpired, and determined how to act, Still in the same stunned condition, he remembered a certain station on the railway, where he would have to branch off to his place of destination, and where there was a quiet Inn. Here, he indistinctly resolved to tarry and rest. With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he could, and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep, was soon borne far away from the sea, and deep into the inland green. |
| 1354 |
He ushers them into an old brown, panelled, dusty vestry, like a corner cupboard with the shelves taken out; where the wormy registers diffuse a smell like faded snuff, which has set the tearful Nipper sneezing. Youthful, and how beautiful, the young bride looks, in this old dusty place, with no kindred object near her but her husband. There is a dusty old clerk, who keeps a sort of evaporated news shop underneath an archway opposite, behind a perfect fortification of posts. There is a dusty old pew opener who only keeps herself, and finds that quite enough to do. There is a dusty old beadle (these are Mr Toots's beadle and pew opener of last Sunday), who has something to do with a Worshipful Company who have got a Hall in the next yard, with a stained glass window in it that no mortal ever saw. There are dusty wooden ledges and cornices poked in and out over the altar, and over the screen and round the gallery, and over the inscription about what the Master and Wardens of the Worshipful Company did in one thousand six hundred and ninety four. There are dusty old sounding boards over the pulpit and reading desk, looking like lids to be let down on the officiating ministers in case of their giving offence. There is every possible provision for the accommodation of dust, except in the churchyard, where the facilities in that respect are very limited. The Captain, Uncle Sol, and Mr Toots are come; the clergyman is putting on his surplice in the vestry, while the clerk walks round him, blowing the dust off it; and the bride and bridegroom stand before the altar. There is no bridesmaid, unless Susan Nipper is one; and no better father than Captain Cuttle. A man with a wooden leg, chewing a faint apple and carrying a blue bag in has hand, looks in to see what is going on; but finding it nothing entertaining, stumps off again, and pegs his way among the echoes out of doors. No gracious ray of light is seen to fall on Florence, kneeling at the altar with her timid head bowed down. |
| 1355 |
The unfortunate Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not merely in his moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the Major every hour in the day, and riddled through and through, but in his sensitiveness to bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept continually on the stretch. For six entire weeks after the bankruptcy, this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy season of boot jacks and brushes. Mrs Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother had not made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to dinner on the day of that first party, it never would have happened; and that she had said so, at the time. Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best could be; that Mr Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no favour from anyone. That any resumption of the business was out of the question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had held, as a man respected among merchants; that he was dying, according to some; that he was going melancholy mad, according to others; that he was a broken man, according to all. The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence among themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off admirably. Some took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses at home; some looked up relations in the country, for whom they suddenly remembered they had a particular affection; and some advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr Perch alone remained of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket looking at the accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate the head accountant, who was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got to be dirty and neglected. |
| 1356 |
Boxes are packed, cabs fetched, and at dusk that evening there is not one member of the party left. The house stands, large and weather proof, in the long dull street; but it is a ruin, and the rats fly from it. The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and the gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and sit upon pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread and cheese from the public house on other pieces of furniture never made to be eaten on, and seem to have a delight in appropriating precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic combinations of furniture also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the dining room; the glass and china get into the conservatory; the great dinner service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing room; and the stair wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimneypieces. Finally, a rug, with a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the balcony; and a similar appendage graces either side of the hall door. Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and chaise carts in the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over run the house, sounding the plate glass minors with their knuckles, striking discordant octaves on the Grand Piano, drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing on the blades of the best dinner knives, punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists, touzling the feather beds, opening and shutting all the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything. There is not a secret place in the whole house. Fluffy and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen range as curiously as into the attic clothes press. Stout men with napless hats on, look out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street. Quiet, calculating spirits withdraw into the dressing rooms with catalogues, and make marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. |
| 1357 |
The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe characters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, the town hall might have been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial. The M'Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn't state in figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen. A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, of course got on well? Why no, not quite well. No? Dear me! No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all respects like gold that had stood the fire. First, the perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations? Because, whoever did, the labouring people did not. It was very strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday morning, and note how few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving the sick and nervous mad, called away from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners of their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing at all the church and chapel going, as at a thing with which they had no manner of concern. Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this, because there was a native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for acts of parliament that should make these people religious by main force. |
| 1358 |
The father of one of the families was in the habit of balancing the father of another of the families on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the apex, and himself for the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand basins, ride upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing. All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire and the tight rope, and perform rapid acts on bare backed steeds; none of them were at all particular in respect of showing their legs; and one of them, alone in a Greek chariot, drove six in hand into every town they came to. They all assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable gentleness and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity one another, deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much generous construction, as the everyday virtues of any class of people in the world. Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, with one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled head which was never sober and never drunk. "Thquire!" said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s, "Your thervant! Thith ith a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith. You've heard of my Clown and hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?" He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered "Yes." "Well, Thquire," he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining with his pocket handkerchief, which he kept inside for the purpose. |
| 1359 |
It hailed facts all day long so very hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a closely ruled ciphering book, that assuredly she would have run away, but for only one restraint. It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result of no arithmetical process, was self imposed in defiance of all calculation, and went dead against any table of probabilities that any Actuary would have drawn up from the premises. The girl believed that her father had not deserted her; she lived in the hope that he would come back, and in the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she was. The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on a sound arithmetical basis, that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet, what was to be done? M'Choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith; that she would burst into tears on being required (by the mental process) immediately to name the cost of two hundred and forty seven muslin caps at fourteen pence halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school, as low could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a prattler three feet high, for returning to the question, "What is the first principle of this science?" the absurd answer, "To do unto others as I would that they should do unto me." Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe "must be kept to it." So Jupe was kept to it, and became low spirited, but no wiser. |
| 1360 |
The man seemed to have brightened with the night, as he went on. His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it was narrower, was over a little shop. How it came to pass that any people found it worth their while to sell or buy the wretched little toys, mixed up in its window with cheap newspapers and pork (there was a leg to be raffled for to morrow night), matters not here. He took his end of candle from a shelf, lighted it at another end of candle on the counter, without disturbing the mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little room, and went upstairs into his lodging. It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a room could be. A few books and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture was decent and sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted, the room was clean. Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round threelegged table standing there, he stumbled against something. As he recoiled, looking down at it, it raised itself up into the form of a woman in a sitting attitude. "Heaven's mercy, woman!" he cried, falling farther off from the figure. "Hast thou come back again!" Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself with one begrimed hand on the floor, while the other was so purposeless in trying to push away her tangled hair from her face, that it only blinded her the more with the dirt upon it. A creature so foul to look at, in her tatters, stains and splashes, but so much fouler than that in her moral infamy, that it was a shameful thing even to see her. After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of herself with the hand not necessary to her support, she got her hair away from her eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then she sat swaying her body to and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved arm, which seemed intended as the accompaniment to a fit of laughter, though her face was stolid and drowsy. |
| 1361 |
Everything accordant there. (He did not go so far as to say, for her pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard claims almost as magnificent of late years.) They were now in the black by road near the place, and the Hands were crowding in. The bell was ringing, and the Serpent was a Serpent of many coils, and the Elephant was getting ready. The strange old woman was delighted with the very bell. It was the beautifullest bell she had ever heard, she said, and sounded grand! She asked him, when he stopped good naturedly to shake hands with her before going in, how long he had worked there? "A dozen year," he told her. "I must kiss the hand," said she, "that has worked in this fine factory for a dozen year!" And she lifted it, though he would have prevented her, and put it to her lips. What harmony, besides her age and her simplicity, surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantastic action there was a something neither out of time nor place: a something which it seemed as if nobody else could have made as serious, or done with such a natural and touching air. He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking about this old woman, when, having occasion to move round the loom for its adjustment, he glanced through a window which was in his corner, and saw her still looking up at the pile of building, lost in admiration. Heedless of the smoke and mud and wet, and of her two long journeys, she was gazing at it, as if the heavy thrum that issued from its many stories were proud music to her. She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights sprung up again, and the Express whirled in full sight of the Fairy Palace over the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the machinery, and scarcely heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then his thoughts had gone back to the dreary room above the little shop, and to the shameful figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart. Machinery slackened; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; stopped. |
| 1362 |
They became exhausted in imitation of them; and they yaw yawed in their speech like them; and they served out, with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There never before was seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced. Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind school, there was one of a good family and a better appearance, with a happy turn of humour which had told immensely with the House of Commons on the occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board of Directors) view of a railway accident, in which the most careful officers ever known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on the best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded thirty two, by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, and among the scattered articles unowned, a widow's cap. And the honourable member had so tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of humour) by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious reference to the Coroner's Inquest, and brought the railway off with Cheers and Laughter. Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day, "Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics." Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to "go in" for statistics as for anything else. |
| 1363 |
And consequently three cheers for the United Aggregate Tribunal! Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. The multitude of doubtful faces (a little conscience stricken) brightened at the sound, and took it up. Private feeling must yield to the common cause. Hurrah! The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when the assembly dispersed. Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The stranger in the land who looks into ten thousand faces for some answering look and never finds it, is in cheering society as compared with him who passes ten averted faces daily, that were once the countenances of friends. Such experience was to be Stephen's now, in every waking moment of his life; at his work, on his way to it and from it, at his door, at his window, everywhere. By general consent, they even avoided that side of the street on which he habitually walked; and left it, of all the working men, to him only. He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but little with other men, and used to companionship with his own thoughts. He had never known before the strength of the want in his heart for the frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or the immense amount of relief that had been poured into it by drops through such small means. It was even harder than he could have believed possible, to separate in his own conscience his abandonment by all his fellows from a baseless sense of shame and disgrace. The first four days of his endurance were days so long and heavy, that he began to be appalled by the prospect before him. Not only did he see no Rachael all the time, but he avoided every chance of seeing her; for, although he knew that the prohibition did not yet formally extend to the women working in the factories, he found that some of them with whom he was acquainted were changed to him, and he feared to try others, and dreaded that Rachael might be even singled out from the rest if she were seen in his company. |
| 1364 |
She was followed by the whelp. Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and bonnet in her hand, when Stephen, himself profoundly astonished by this visit, put the candle on the table. Then he too stood, with his doubled hand upon the table near it, waiting to be addressed. For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life she was face to face with anything like individuality in connection with them. She knew of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a given number of them would produce in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling insects than of these toiling men and women. Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and over ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its component drops. She stood for some moments looking round the room. From the few chairs, the few books, the common prints, and the bed, she glanced to the two women, and to Stephen. "I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what passed just now. I should like to be serviceable to you, if you will let me. Is this your wife?" Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently answered no, and dropped again. |
| 1365 |
When he first came out, Stephen thought he might be looking for him, and passed near; but the light porter only cast his winking eyes upon him slightly, and said nothing. Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after a long day's labour. Stephen sat upon the step of a door, leaned against a wall under an archway, strolled up and down, listened for the church clock, stopped and watched children playing in the street. Some purpose or other is so natural to every one, that a mere loiterer always looks and feels remarkable. When the first hour was out, Stephen even began to have an uncomfortable sensation upon him of being for the time a disreputable character. Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines of light all down the long perspective of the street, until they were blended and lost in the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed the first floor window, drew down the blind, and went up stairs. Presently, a light went up stairs after her, passing first the fanlight of the door, and afterwards the two staircase windows, on its way up. By and by, one corner of the second floor blind was disturbed, as if Mrs. Sparsit's eye were there; also the other corner, as if the light porter's eye were on that side. Still, no communication was made to Stephen. Much relieved when the two hours were at last accomplished, he went away at a quick pace, as a recompense for so much loitering. He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie down on his temporary bed upon the floor; for his bundle was made up for tomorrow, and all was arranged for his departure. He meant to be clear of the town very early; before the Hands were in the streets. It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look round his room, mournfully wondering whether he should ever see it again, he went out. The town was as entirely deserted as if the inhabitants had abandoned it, rather than hold communication with him. Everything looked wan at that hour. Even the coming sun made but a pale waste in the sky, like a sad sea. |
| 1366 |
Tom waited until the crowd had dispersed, and the bustle was over; and then referred to a posted list of trains, and took counsel with porters. That done, he strolled away idly, stopping in the street and looking up it and down it, and lifting his hat off and putting it on again, and yawning and stretching himself, and exhibiting all the symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in one who had still to wait until the next train should come in, an hour and forty minutes hence. "This is a device to keep him out of the way," said Mrs. Sparsit, starting from the dull office window whence she had watched him last. "Harthouse is with his sister now!" It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she shot off with her utmost swiftness to work it out. The station for the country house was at the opposite end of the town, the time was short, the road not easy; but she was so quick in pouncing on a disengaged coach, so quick in darting out of it, producing her money, seizing her ticket, and diving into the train, that she was borne along the arches spanning the land of coal pits past and present, as if she had been caught up in a cloud and whirled away. All the journey, immovable in the air though never left behind; plain to the dark eyes of her mind, as the electric wires which ruled a colossal strip of music paper out of the evening sky, were plain to the dark eyes of her body; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, with the figure coming down. Very near the bottom now. Upon the brink of the abyss. An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw beneath its drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass down the wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, cross it into a green lane, and become hidden in a summer growth of leaves and branches. One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their nests, and a bat heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the reek of her own tread in the thick dust that felt like velvet, were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she very softly closed a gate. |
| 1367 |
Mrs. Sparsit's white stockings were of many colours, green predominating; prickly things were in her shoes; caterpillars slung themselves, in hammocks of their own making, from various parts of her dress; rills ran from her bonnet, and her Roman nose. In such condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden in the density of the shrubbery, considering what next? Lo, Louisa coming out of the house! Hastily cloaked and muffled, and stealing away. She elopes! She falls from the lowermost stair, and is swallowed up in the gulf. Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined step, she struck into a side path parallel with the ride. Mrs. Sparsit followed in the shadow of the trees, at but a short distance; for it was not easy to keep a figure in view going quickly through the umbrageous darkness. When she stopped to close the side gate without noise, Mrs. Sparsit stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit went on. She went by the way Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged from the green lane, crossed the stony road, and ascended the wooden steps to the railroad. A train for Coketown would come through presently, Mrs. Sparsit knew; so she understood Coketown to be her first place of destination. In Mrs. Sparsit's limp and streaming state, no extensive precautions were necessary to change her usual appearance; but, she stopped under the lee of the station wall, tumbled her shawl into a new shape, and put it on over her bonnet. So disguised she had no fear of being recognized when she followed up the railroad steps, and paid her money in the small office. Louisa sat waiting in a corner. Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in another corner. Both listened to the thunder, which was loud, and to the rain, as it washed off the roof, and pattered on the parapets of the arches. Two or three lamps were rained out and blown out; so, both saw the lightning to advantage as it quivered and zigzagged on the iron tracks. The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, gradually deepening to a complaint of the heart, announced the train. |
| 1368 |
As he leaned upon his hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy's at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip. Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it. The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her despatch to have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter from him with his address, at a working colony, one of many, not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole town looked for Stephen to be brought in next day. During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly excited, horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station; offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who were sent in quest of him, and that he would not appear. The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael's letter had gone, Rachael's letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing that he really would come back, or warning him to fly. On this point opinion was divided. |
| 1369 |
With the people filing off at the door he held, who he knew would carry what had passed to the whole town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that remarkable man and self made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son's for that night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very far, and spoke with much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he thought this signal failure of the suspicions against Mrs. Pegler was likely to work well. As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that as long as Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge, he was so far safe. He never visited his sister, and had only seen her once since she went home: that is to say on the night when he still stuck close to Bounderby, as already related. There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister's mind, to which she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless and ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark possibility had presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this very day, to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who would be confounded by Stephen's return, having put him out of the way. Louisa had never spoken of harbouring any suspicion of her brother in connexion with the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence on the subject, save in that one interchange of looks when the unconscious father rested his gray head on his hand; but it was understood between them, and they both knew it. This other fear was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a ghostly shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far less of its being near the other. |
| 1370 |
When they came to the Old Hell Shaft, they found it as lonely as she had left it. The men called and listened as she had done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements they wanted should come up. Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves, every whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought it was a cry at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over it, and no sound arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting. After they had waited some time, straggling people who had heard of the accident began to come up; then the real help of implements began to arrive. In the midst of this, Rachael returned; and with her party there was a surgeon, who brought some wine and medicines. But, the expectation among the people that the man would be found alive was very slight indeed. There being now people enough present to impede the work, the sobered man put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there by the general consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed men to keep it. Besides such volunteers as were accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachael were at first permitted within this ring; but, later in the day, when the message brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and Louisa, and Mr. Bounderby, and the whelp, were also there. The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first sat down upon the grass, before a means of enabling two men to descend securely was rigged with poles and ropes. Difficulties had arisen in the construction of this machine, simple as it was; requisites had been found wanting, and messages had had to go and return. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of the bright autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent down to try the air, while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together, attentively watching it: the man at the windlass lowering as they were told. |
| 1371 |
Practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming up, and that only one was returning. The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There was an universal cry of "Alive or dead?" and then a deep, profound hush. When he said "Alive!" a great shout arose and many eyes had tears in them. "But he's hurt very bad," he added, as soon as he could make himself heard again. "Where's doctor? He's hurt so very bad, sir, that we donno how to get him up." They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon, as he asked some questions, and shook his head on receiving the replies. The sun was setting now; and the red light in the evening sky touched every face there, and caused it to be distinctly seen in all its rapt suspense. The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and the pitman going down again, carrying the wine and some other small matters with him. Then the other man came up. In the meantime, under the surgeon's directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which others made a thick bed of spare clothes covered with loose straw, while he himself contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs. As these were made, they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last come up, with instructions how to use them: and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand upon one of the poles, and sometimes glancing down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was not the least conspicuous figure in the scene. It was dark now, and torches were kindled. It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, which was quickly repeated all over the circle, that the lost man had fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half choked up, and that his fall had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side. |
| 1372 |
Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too had encountered no one whom he knew; and was now sanguine with Sleary's assistance, of getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of the three could be his companion without almost identifying him under any disguise, he prepared a letter to a correspondent whom he could trust, beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or South America, or any distant part of the world to which he could be the most speedily and privately dispatched. This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be quite vacated; not only by the audience, but by the company and by the horses. After watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit down by the side door, smoking; as if that were his signal that they might approach. "Your thervant, Thquire," was his cautious salutation as they passed in. "If you want me you'll find me here. You muthn't mind your thon having a comic livery on." They all three went in; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on the Clown's performing chair in the middle of the ring. On one of the back benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of the place, sat the villainous whelp, sulky to the last, whom he had the misery to call his son. In a preposterous coat, like a beadle's, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent; in an immense waistcoat, knee breeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked hat; with nothing fitting him, and everything of coarse material, moth eaten and full of holes; with seams in his black face, where fear and heat had started through the greasy composition daubed all over it; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other means have believed in, weighable and measurable fact though it was. And one of his model children had come to this! At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in remaining up there by himself. |
| 1373 |
So, with people lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day. In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured bench, immovable from the wall, with a draught board rudely hacked upon it with a knife, a set of draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones, a set of dominoes, two mats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all the chamber held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition to the seen vermin, the two men. It received such light as it got through a grating of iron bars fashioned like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be always inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave. There was a broad strong ledge of stone to this grating where the bottom of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above the ground. Upon it, one of the two men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with his knees drawn up, and his feet and shoulders planted against the opposite sides of the aperture. The bars were wide enough apart to admit of his thrusting his arm through to the elbow; and so he held on negligently, for his greater ease. A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the spice islands of the Indian ocean. |
| 1374 |
He resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had sucked up all the gravy in the baking dish with the flat of his knife, and had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery. Thus refreshed, he tucked up his shirt sleeves and went to work again; and Mr Arthur, watching him as he set about it, plainly saw that his father's picture, or his father's grave, would be as communicative with him as this old man. "Now, Affery, woman," said Mr Flintwinch, as she crossed the hall. "You hadn't made Mr Arthur's bed when I was up there last. Stir yourself. Bustle." But Mr Arthur found the house so blank and dreary, and was so unwilling to assist at another implacable consignment of his mother's enemies (perhaps himself among them) to mortal disfigurement and immortal ruin, that he announced his intention of lodging at the coffee house where he had left his luggage. Mr Flintwinch taking kindly to the idea of getting rid of him, and his mother being indifferent, beyond considerations of saving, to most domestic arrangements that were not bounded by the walls of her own chamber, he easily carried this point without new offence. Daily business hours were agreed upon, which his mother, Mr Flintwinch, and he, were to devote together to a necessary checking of books and papers; and he left the home he had so lately found, with depressed heart. But Little Dorrit? The business hours, allowing for intervals of invalid regimen of oysters and partridges, during which Clennam refreshed himself with a walk, were from ten to six for about a fortnight. Sometimes Little Dorrit was employed at her needle, sometimes not, sometimes appeared as a humble visitor: which must have been her character on the occasion of his arrival. His original curiosity augmented every day, as he watched for her, saw or did not see her, and speculated about her. Influenced by his predominant idea, he even fell into a habit of discussing with himself the possibility of her being in some way associated with it. |
| 1375 |
From that time the protection that her wondering eyes had expressed towards him, became embodied in action, and the Child of the Marshalsea took upon herself a new relation towards the Father. At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him. But this made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed to her, and began to be sensible of missing her when she was not there. Through this little gate, she passed out of childhood into the care laden world. What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much, or how little of the wretched truth it pleased God to make visible to her; lies hidden with many mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life! With no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but the one so strangely assorted; with no knowledge even of the common daily tone and habits of the common members of the free community who are not shut up in prisons; born and bred in a social condition, false even with a reference to the falsest condition outside the walls; drinking from infancy of a well whose waters had their own peculiar stain, their own unwholesome and unnatural taste; the Child of the Marshalsea began her womanly life. No matter through what mistakes and discouragements, what ridicule (not unkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what humble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of strength, even in the matter of lifting and carrying; through how much weariness and hopelessness, and how many secret tears; she drudged on, until recognised as useful, even indispensable. |
| 1376 |
She cried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill their father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip's graceless feet. It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring him to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be beside himself if he knew the truth. The thing was incomprehensible to Tip, and altogether a fanciful notion. He yielded to it in that light only, when he submitted to her entreaties, backed by those of his uncle and sister. There was no want of precedent for his return; it was accounted for to the father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better comprehension of the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally. This was the life, and this the history, of the child of the Marshalsea at twenty two. With a still surviving attachment to the one miserable yard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and fro in it shrinkingly now, with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out to every one. Since she had begun to work beyond the walls, she had found it necessary to conceal where she lived, and to come and go as secretly as she could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which she had never slept in her life. Her original timidity had grown with this concealment, and her light step and her little figure shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them. Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all things else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father, and the prison, and the turbid living river that flowed through it and flowed on. This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now going home upon a dull September evening, observed at a distance by Arthur Clennam. This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; turning at the end of London Bridge, recrossing it, going back again, passing on to Saint George's Church, turning back suddenly once more, and flitting in at the open outer gate and little court yard of the Marshalsea. |
| 1377 |
He had fully convinced himself, notwithstanding, that his own proper share of the Fund was three and ninepence a week; and that in this amount he, as an individual collegian, was swindled by the marshal, regularly every Monday. Apparently, he helped to make the bed, that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case; after which unloading of his mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he always did, without anything coming of it) that he was going to write a letter to the papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous conversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally broke out. In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part of a dream. Pending which, the long initiated Tip, with an awful enjoyment of the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water supported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to the Marshalsea. The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs, the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe lights, spittoons and repose. But the last item was long, long, long, in linking itself to the rest. The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without preparation, the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room up stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish form, and the face in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if not of want, kept him waking and unhappy. Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison, but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind while he lay awake. |
| 1378 |
It was as haggard a view of life as a man need look upon. Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had brought him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that where her father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw nothing of her. It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once, was to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to leave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam walked up and down, waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in his mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his discoveries. At last the lodge gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step, taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. With a joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself again in the little outer court yard where he had spoken to the brother last night. There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go betweens, and errand bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in the rain until the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival with greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp whitey brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of butter, eggs, milk, and the like. The shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency, was a sight to see. Such threadbare coats and trousers, such fusty gowns and shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and walking sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. All of them wore the cast off clothes of other men and women, were made up of patches and pieces of other people's individuality, and had no sartorial existence of their own proper. Their walk was the walk of a race apart. They had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the corner, as if they were eternally going to the pawnbroker's. |
| 1379 |
It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it. Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything. |
| 1380 |
Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn't get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office. Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. Unfortunates with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter English recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public departments; who, according to rule, had been bullied in this, over reached by that, and evaded by the other; got referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, except the business that never came out of it; and its name was Legion. Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office. Sometimes, parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was, How to do it. Then would the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, in whose department it was to defend the Circumlocution Office, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular field day of the occasion. Then would he come down to that house with a slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman foot to foot. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter, but was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this matter. |
| 1381 |
Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the Circumlocution Office alone, and never approached this matter. Then would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the Circumlocution Office sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with the Circumlocution Office account of this matter. And although one of two things always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution Office had nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say of which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always voted immaculate by an accommodating majority. Such a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of a long career of this nature, that several solemn lords had attained the reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of business, solely from having practised, How not to do it, as the head of the Circumlocution Office. As to the minor priests and acolytes of that temple, the result of all this was that they stood divided into two classes, and, down to the junior messenger, either believed in the Circumlocution Office as a heaven born institution that had an absolute right to do whatever it liked; or took refuge in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant nuisance. The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the Circumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered themselves in a general way as having vested rights in that direction, and took it ill if any other family had much to say to it. The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. |
| 1382 |
It was said that his being town agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also, that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched lettings, unquestioned, than anybody with a less nobby and less shining crown could possibly have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam called to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often accepted in lieu of the internal character. Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with them, Arthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding on it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting Booby aforesaid, with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished: and that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be seen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its own way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show of navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam tug will bear down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the cumbrous Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was now following in the wake of that dingy little craft. The return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these meditations. Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old passion than it shivered and broke to pieces. Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to an old idea. |
| 1383 |
His curious sense of a general superiority to Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so much on anything in Doyce's personal character as on the mere fact of his being an originator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, suggested the idea. It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner an hour afterwards, if he had not had another question to consider, which had been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at Marseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with it. No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to fall in love with Pet? He was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the other, and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at less.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in appearance, young in health and strength, young in heart. A man was certainly not old at forty; and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not marry, until they had attained that time of life. On the other hand, the question was, not what he thought of the point, but what she thought of it. He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his good wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only child, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial of their love which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to contemplate. But the more beautiful and winning and charming she, the nearer they must always be to the necessity of approaching it. And why not in his favour, as well as in another's? When he had got so far, it came again into his head that the question was, not what they thought of it, but what she thought of it. Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies; and he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and depressed his own, that when he pinned himself to this point, his hopes began to fail him. |
| 1384 |
The process by which this unvarying result was attained, whatever the premises, might have been stated by Mr Henry Gowan thus: "I claim to be always book keeping, with a peculiar nicety, in every man's case, and posting up a careful little account of Good and Evil with him. I do this so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell you I find the most worthless of men to be the dearest old fellow too: and am in a condition to make the gratifying report, that there is much less difference than you are inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel." The effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he seemed to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in reality lower it where it was, and set it up where it was not; but that was its only disagreeable or dangerous feature. It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much satisfaction as the Barnacle genealogy had done. The cloud that Clennam had never seen upon his face before that morning, frequently overcast it again; and there was the same shadow of uneasy observation of him on the comely face of his wife. More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog, it appeared to Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it; and, in one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of the dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw tears rise to Mr Meagles's eyes as he hurried out of the room. It was either the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not insensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with a more delicate affection than usual, to express to her good father how much she loved him; that it was on this account that she fell behind the rest, both as they went to church and as they returned from it, and took his arm. He could not have sworn but that as he walked alone in the garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous glimpse of her in her father's room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest tenderness, and weeping on her father's shoulder. |
| 1385 |
Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty second birthday without finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and winged a Collegian or two. Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the sentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of time, to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his early youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an ambition to retain the prison lock in the family. While the succession was yet in abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being a non resident turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection within the College walls. Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her little arm chair by the high Lodge fender, Young John (family name, Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder. When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting her out for real kisses. When he grew tall enough to peep through the keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down his father's dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that airy perspective. If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up again and screwed it tight. At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk on that part of the wall which fronted her lodgings, on the occasion of her birthday, "Welcome sweet nursling of the Fairies!" At twenty three, the same hand falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of the Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul. |
| 1386 |
An impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts. He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him personally. There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) wanting in him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending. In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery's politeness and that of the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold relief. Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge, had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam, coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone. |
| 1387 |
In a very few minutes she returned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers were as nimble as ever. Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told her where she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said that she understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure he would approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that she would therefore do so now with Flora's permission. Receiving an encouraging answer, she condensed the narrative of her life into a few scanty words about herself and a glowing eulogy upon her father; and Flora took it all in with a natural tenderness that quite understood it, and in which there was no incoherence. When dinner time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through hers, and led her down stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch and Mr Pancks, who were already in the dining room waiting to begin. (Mr F.'s Aunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her chamber.) By those gentlemen she was received according to their characters; the Patriarch appearing to do her some inestimable service in saying that he was glad to see her, glad to see her; and Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite sound as a salute. In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he glance at the little note book by his side. Observing that he made no sketch, however, and that he talked about business only, she began to have suspicions that he represented some creditor of her father's, the balance due to whom was noted in that pocket volume. Regarded from this point of view Mr Pancks's puffings expressed injury and impatience, and each of his louder snorts became a demand for payment. |
| 1388 |
In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to his own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it particularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long been carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit itself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the protection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged them in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun. This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and though they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be, that did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed that foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got their own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill humour, still it was with a blunt instrument, and that didn't count. They believed that foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional assize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to do with it. They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing. |
| 1389 |
He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like a stiff snow drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of the service and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb. He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables. There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the Post Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government. Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son's being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts, instead of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through its nose as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the evil days. It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what little pivots this great world goes round upon. "If John Barnacle," said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times had been fully ascertained, "if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and I think the country would have been preserved." The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if Augustus Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with instructions to charge, she thought the country would have been preserved. The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed their ever memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers, and rendered it penal for any Editor person to presume to discuss the conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the country would have been preserved. |
| 1390 |
And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped through twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or three at once, and who was the much respected inventor of an art which he practised with great success and admiration in all Barnacle Governments. This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary question on any one topic, to return an answer on any other. It had done immense service, and brought him into high esteem with the Circumlocution Office. And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through their probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses or not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and cheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family; and they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men's motions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the night and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried out that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever they were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a swoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn, quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the family, like so many cards below the court cards, to public meetings and dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on all sorts of toasts. And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. |
| 1391 |
It was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that attended the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and what is that subtracted from Legion! But the sprinkling was a swarm in the Twickenham cottage, and filled it. A Barnacle (assisted by a Barnacle) married the happy pair, and it behoved Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle himself to conduct Mrs Meagles to breakfast. The entertainment was not as agreeable and natural as it might have been. Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company while he highly appreciated it, was not himself. Mrs Gowan was herself, and that did not improve him. The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who had stood in the way, but that it was the Family greatness, and that the Family greatness had made a concession, and there was now a soothing unanimity, pervaded the affair, though it was never openly expressed. Then the Barnacles felt that they for their parts would have done with the Meagleses when the present patronising occasion was over; and the Meagleses felt the same for their parts. Then Gowan asserting his rights as a disappointed man who had his grudge against the family, and who, perhaps, had allowed his mother to have them there, as much in the hope it might give them some annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired his pencil and his poverty ostentatiously before them, and told them he hoped in time to settle a crust of bread and cheese on his wife, and that he begged such of them as (more fortunate than himself) came in for any good thing, and could buy a picture, to please to remember the poor painter. Then Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal, turned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the bride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the hair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting, with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much as wanted to get out of. |
| 1392 |
It was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, with a sensation of being raised out of them into an airy world of wealth and grandeur. When Arthur told her that she would soon ride in her own carriage through very different scenes, when all the familiar experiences would have vanished away, she looked frightened. But when he substituted her father for herself, and told her how he would ride in his carriage, and how great and grand he would be, her tears of joy and innocent pride fell fast. Seeing that the happiness her mind could realise was all shining upon him, Arthur kept that single figure before her; and so they rode brightly through the poor streets in the prison neighbourhood to carry him the great news. When Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he saw something in their faces which filled him with astonishment. He stood looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost a piece. Two or three Collegians whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently joining Mr Chivery, formed a little group on the Lodge steps, in the midst of which there spontaneously originated a whisper that the Father was going to get his discharge. Within a few minutes, it was heard in the remotest room in the College. Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. He was sitting in his old grey gown and his old black cap, in the sunlight by the window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in his hand, and he had just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon the stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing Arthur Clennam in her company. As they came in, the same unwonted look in both of them which had already caught attention in the yard below, struck him. He did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his newspaper on the table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth a little open and his lips trembling. |
| 1393 |
In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps. It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva. The air there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes. Baskets, troughs, and tubs of grapes stood in the dim village doorways, stopped the steep and narrow village streets, and had been carrying all day along the roads and lanes. Grapes, split and crushed under foot, lay about everywhere. The child carried in a sling by the laden peasant woman toiling home, was quieted with picked up grapes; the idiot sunning his big goitre under the leaves of the wooden chalet by the way to the Waterfall, sat Munching grapes; the breath of the cows and goats was redolent of leaves and stalks of grapes; the company in every little cabaret were eating, drinking, talking grapes. A pity that no ripe touch of this generous abundance could be given to the thin, hard, stony wine, which after all was made from the grapes! The air had been warm and transparent through the whole of the bright day. Shining metal spires and church roofs, distant and rarely seen, had sparkled in the view; and the snowy mountain tops had been so clear that unaccustomed eyes, cancelling the intervening country, and slighting their rugged heights for something fabulous, would have measured them as within a few hours easy reach. Mountain peaks of great celebrity in the valleys, whence no trace of their existence was visible sometimes for months together, had been since morning plain and near in the blue sky. And now, when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to recede, like spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of the sunset faded out of them and left them coldly white, they were yet distinctly defined in their loneliness above the mists and shadows. Seen from these solitudes, and from the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, which was one of them, the ascending Night came up the mountain like a rising water. |
| 1394 |
Darkness, outstripping some visitors on mules, had risen thus to the rough convent walls, when those travellers were yet climbing the mountain. As the heat of the glowing day when they had stopped to drink at the streams of melted ice and snow, was changed to the searching cold of the frosty rarefied night air at a great height, so the fresh beauty of the lower journey had yielded to barrenness and desolation. A craggy track, up which the mules in single file scrambled and turned from block to block, as though they were ascending the broken staircase of a gigantic ruin, was their way now. No trees were to be seen, nor any vegetable growth save a poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks of rock. Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent as if the ghosts of former travellers overwhelmed by the snow haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down. The file of mules, jaded by their day's work, turned and wound slowly up the deep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in his broad brimmed hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff or two upon his shoulder, with whom another guide conversed. There was no speaking among the string of riders. The sharp cold, the fatigue of the journey, and a new sensation of a catching in the breath, partly as if they had just emerged from very clear crisp water, and partly as if they had been sobbing, kept them silent. At length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed through the snow and mist. The guides called to the mules, the mules pricked up their drooping heads, the travellers' tongues were loosened, and in a sudden burst of slipping, climbing, jingling, clinking, and talking, they arrived at the convent door. |
| 1395 |
They were in three parties; of whom the first, as the most numerous and important, was the slowest, and had been overtaken by one of the others on the way up. It consisted of an elderly lady, two grey haired gentlemen, two young ladies, and their brother. These were attended (not to mention four guides), by a courier, two footmen, and two waiting maids: which strong body of inconvenience was accommodated elsewhere under the same roof. The party that had overtaken them, and followed in their train, consisted of only three members: one lady and two gentlemen. The third party, which had ascended from the valley on the Italian side of the Pass, and had arrived first, were four in number: a plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in spectacles, on a tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, hungry, and silent, and all in spectacles. These three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other drily, and waiting for supper. Only one among them, one of the gentlemen belonging to the party of three, made advances towards conversation. Throwing out his lines for the Chief of the important tribe, while addressing himself to his own companions, he remarked, in a tone of voice which included all the company if they chose to be included, that it had been a long day, and that he felt for the ladies. That he feared one of the young ladies was not a strong or accustomed traveller, and had been over fatigued two or three hours ago. That he had observed, from his station in the rear, that she sat her mule as if she were exhausted. That he had, twice or thrice afterwards, done himself the honour of inquiring of one of the guides, when he fell behind, how the lady did. That he had been enchanted to learn that she had recovered her spirits, and that it had been but a passing discomfort. That he trusted (by this time he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and addressed him) he might be permitted to express his hope that she was now none the worse, and that she would not regret having made the journey. |
| 1396 |
But, as both her father and her sister received his homage with some favour, she refrained from expressing any distrust of him, lest it should prove to be a new blemish derived from her prison birth. Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois, backed by the convent smoke which rose straight and high from the chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking down after them. Long after he was a mere black stick in the snow, she felt as though she could yet see that smile of his, that high nose, and those eyes that were too near it. And even after that, when the convent was gone and some light morning clouds veiled the pass below it, the ghastly skeleton arms by the wayside seemed to be all pointing up at him. More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to melt, Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they came down into the softer regions. Again the sun was warm, again the streams descending from glaciers and snowy caverns were refreshing to drink at, again they came among the pine trees, the rocky rivulets, the verdant heights and dales, the wooden chalets and rough zigzag fences of Swiss country. Sometimes the way so widened that she and her father could ride abreast. And then to look at him, handsomely clothed in his fur and broadcloths, rich, free, numerously served and attended, his eyes roving far away among the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen before them to darken his sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough. Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore the clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a sacrifice to the family credit, and went where he was taken, with a certain patient animal enjoyment, which seemed to express that the air and change did him good. In all other respects, save one, he shone with no light but such as was reflected from his brother. |
| 1397 |
So fixed was his figure, that it would have been matter of some difficulty to bend him sufficiently to get him in the carriage door, if he had not received the timely assistance of a maternal pull from within. He was no sooner within than the pad of the little window in the back of the chariot disappeared, and his eye usurped its place. There it remained as long as so small an object was discernible, and probably much longer, staring (as though something inexpressibly surprising should happen to a codfish) like an ill executed eye in a large locket. This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her so much to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her asperities exceedingly. When the procession was again in motion next day, she occupied her place in it with a new gaiety; and showed such a flow of spirits indeed, that Mrs General looked rather surprised. Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that Fanny was pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing part, and a quiet one. Sitting opposite her father in the travelling carriage, and recalling the old Marshalsea room, her present existence was a dream. All that she saw was new and wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed to her as if those visions of mountains and picturesque countries might melt away at any moment, and the carriage, turning some abrupt corner, bring up with a jolt at the old Marshalsea gate. To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as having glided into a corner where she had no one to think for, nothing to plan and contrive, no cares of others to load herself with. Strange as that was, it was far stranger yet to find a space between herself and her father, where others occupied themselves in taking care of him, and where she was never expected to be. At first, this was so much more unlike her old experience than even the mountains themselves, that she had been unable to resign herself to it, and had tried to retain her old place about him. |
| 1398 |
To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind, which time is not likely to improve. The worst class of sum worked in the every day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of others, and never in Addition as to their own. The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy. A certain idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of it. To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it. In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of painting that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the most liberal fellow on earth. He would declare such a man to have more power in his little finger (provided he had none), than such another had (provided he had much) in his whole mind and body. If the objection were taken that the thing commended was trash, he would reply, on behalf of his art, "My good fellow, what do we all turn out but trash? I turn out nothing else, and I make you a present of the confession." To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of showing that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud and decry the Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he belonged to the family. Howbeit, these two subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed them so well that he might have praised himself by the month together, and not have made himself out half so important a man as he did by his light disparagement of his claims on anybody's consideration. |
| 1399 |
He found a pleasure in declaring that a courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought to rise to the greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a pleasure in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making him a satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces. He seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration in the manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him and to every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly as the sun belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a caricature, which he found it a humorous resource to have at hand for the ridiculing of numbers of people who necessarily did more or less of what Blandois overdid. Thus he had taken up with him; and thus, negligently strengthening these inclinations with habit, and idly deriving some amusement from his talk, he had glided into a way of having him for a companion. This, though he supposed him to live by his wits at play tables and the like; though he suspected him to be a coward, while he himself was daring and courageous; though he thoroughly knew him to be disliked by Minnie; and though he cared so little for him, after all, that if he had given her any tangible personal cause to regard him with aversion, he would have had no compunction whatever in flinging him out of the highest window in Venice into the deepest water of the city. Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan, alone; but as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle's protest, though it was four and twenty hours of age, pressingly offered her company, the two sisters stepped together into one of the gondolas under Mr Dorrit's window, and, with the courier in attendance, were taken in high state to Mrs Gowan's lodging. |
| 1400 |
She surmised, she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher opportunities by marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, painting pictures for dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that she begged her papa to give him the commission whether he could paint a likeness or not: though indeed both she and Amy knew he could, from having seen a speaking likeness on his easel that day, and having had the opportunity of comparing it with the original. These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as perhaps they were intended to do) nearly distracted; for while on the one hand they expressed Miss Fanny's susceptibility of the tender passion, she herself showed such an innocent unconsciousness of his admiration that his eyes goggled in his head with jealousy of an unknown rival. Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it at the Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like an attendant Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their box, and Mr Sparkler entered on an evening of agony. The theatre being dark, and the box light, several visitors lounged in during the representation; in whom Fanny was so interested, and in conversation with whom she fell into such charming attitudes, as she had little confidences with them, and little disputes concerning the identity of people in distant boxes, that the wretched Sparkler hated all mankind. But he had two consolations at the close of the performance. She gave him her fan to hold while she adjusted her cloak, and it was his blessed privilege to give her his arm down stairs again. These crumbs of encouragement, Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; and it is not impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too. The Merman with his light was ready at the box door, and other Mermen with other lights were ready at many of the doors. The Dorrit Merman held his lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr Sparkler put on another heavy set of fetters over his former set, as he watched her radiant feet twinkling down the stairs beside him. |
| 1401 |
Mrs General, always on her coach box keeping the proprieties well together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend, and Mrs General's very dear young friend tried hard to receive it. Hard as she had tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she had never tried harder than she did now, to be varnished by Mrs General. It made her anxious and ill at ease to be operated upon by that smoothing hand, it is true; but she submitted herself to the family want in its greatness as she had submitted herself to the family want in its littleness, and yielded to her own inclinations in this thing no more than she had yielded to her hunger itself, in the days when she had saved her dinner that her father might have his supper. One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more sustaining to her, and made her more grateful than to a less devoted and affectionate spirit, not habituated to her struggles and sacrifices, might appear quite reasonable; and, indeed, it may often be observed in life, that spirits like Little Dorrit do not appear to reason half as carefully as the folks who get the better of them. The continued kindness of her sister was this comfort to Little Dorrit. It was nothing to her that the kindness took the form of tolerant patronage; she was used to that. It was nothing to her that it kept her in a tributary position, and showed her in attendance on the flaming car in which Miss Fanny sat on an elevated seat, exacting homage; she sought no better place. Always admiring Fanny's beauty, and grace, and readiness, and not now asking herself how much of her disposition to be strongly attached to Fanny was due to her own heart, and how much to Fanny's, she gave her all the sisterly fondness her great heart contained. The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused into the family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by Fanny into society, left but a very small residue of any natural deposit at the bottom of the mixture. |
| 1402 |
Mr Dorrit was undeniably very polite to her and had a high opinion of her; but Fanny, impetuous at most times, might easily be wrong for all that. Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the different footing that any one could see what was going on there, and Little Dorrit saw it and pondered on it with many doubts and wonderings. The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice and cruelty of his enslaver. Sometimes she would prefer him to such distinction of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; next day, or next hour, she would overlook him so completely, and drop him into such an abyss of obscurity, that he would groan under a weak pretence of coughing. The constancy of his attendance never touched Fanny: though he was so inseparable from Edward, that, when that gentleman wished for a change of society, he was under the irksome necessity of gliding out like a conspirator in disguised boats and by secret doors and back ways; though he was so solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called every other day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an intermittent fever; though he was so constantly being paddled up and down before the principal windows, that he might have been supposed to have made a wager for a large stake to be paddled a thousand miles in a thousand hours; though whenever the gondola of his mistress left the gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot out from some watery ambush and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler and he a custom house officer. It was probably owing to this fortification of the natural strength of his constitution with so much exposure to the air, and the salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine outwardly; but, whatever the cause, he was so far from having any prospect of moving his mistress by a languishing state of health, that he grew bluffer every day, and that peculiarity in his appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than a young man, became developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy puffiness. |
| 1403 |
They were the prelude to the first reception of Mr and Mrs Gowan at dinner, and they skilfully placed Gowan on his usual ground in the new family. His wife, too, they placed on her usual ground. Miss Fanny understood, with particular distinctness, that Mrs Gowan's good looks had cost her husband very dear; that there had been a great disturbance about her in the Barnacle family; and that the Dowager Mrs Gowan, nearly heart broken, had resolutely set her face against the marriage until overpowered by her maternal feelings. Mrs General likewise clearly understood that the attachment had occasioned much family grief and dissension. Of honest Mr Meagles no mention was made; except that it was natural enough that a person of that sort should wish to raise his daughter out of his own obscurity, and that no one could blame him for trying his best to do so. Little Dorrit's interest in the fair subject of this easily accepted belief was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate observation. She could see that it had its part in throwing upon Mrs Gowan the touch of a shadow under which she lived, and she even had an instinctive knowledge that there was not the least truth in it. But it had an influence in placing obstacles in the way of her association with Mrs Gowan by making the Prunes and Prism school excessively polite to her, but not very intimate with her; and Little Dorrit, as an enforced sizar of that college, was obliged to submit herself humbly to its ordinances. Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already established between the two, which would have carried them over greater difficulties, and made a friendship out of a more restricted intercourse. As though accidents were determined to be favourable to it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in the aversion which each perceived that the other felt towards Blandois of Paris; an aversion amounting to the repugnance and horror of a natural antipathy towards an odious creature of the reptile kind. |
| 1404 |
While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched out of all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling pencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam hammered away in Bleeding Heart Yard, and the vigorous clink of iron upon iron was heard there through the working hours. The younger partner had, by this time, brought the business into sound trim; and the elder, left free to follow his own ingenious devices, had done much to enhance the character of the factory. As an ingenious man, he had necessarily to encounter every discouragement that the ruling powers for a length of time had been able by any means to put in the way of this class of culprits; but that was only reasonable self defence in the powers, since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural and mortal enemy of How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the best of confiscating his property after a short term of enjoyment, as though invention were on a par with felony. The system had uniformly found great favour with the Barnacles, and that was only reasonable, too; for one who worthily invents must be in earnest, and the Barnacles abhorred and dreaded nothing half so much. That again was very reasonable; since in a country suffering under the affliction of a great amount of earnestness, there might, in an exceeding short space of time, be not a single Barnacle left sticking to a post. Daniel Doyce faced his condition with its pains and penalties attached to it, and soberly worked on for the work's sake. Clennam cheering him with a hearty co operation, was a moral support to him, besides doing good service in his business relation. |
| 1405 |
He sadly and sorely missed Little Dorrit. He had been prepared to miss her very much, but not so much. He knew to the full extent only through experience, what a large place in his life was left blank when her familiar little figure went out of it. He felt, too, that he must relinquish the hope of its return, understanding the family character sufficiently well to be assured that he and she were divided by a broad ground of separation. The old interest he had had in her, and her old trusting reliance on him, were tinged with melancholy in his mind: so soon had change stolen over them, and so soon had they glided into the past with other secret tendernesses. When he received her letter he was greatly moved, but did not the less sensibly feel that she was far divided from him by more than distance. It helped him to a clearer and keener perception of the place assigned him by the family. He saw that he was cherished in her grateful remembrance secretly, and that they resented him with the jail and the rest of its belongings. Through all these meditations which every day of his life crowded about her, he thought of her otherwise in the old way. She was his innocent friend, his delicate child, his dear Little Dorrit. This very change of circumstances fitted curiously in with the habit, begun on the night when the roses floated away, of considering himself as a much older man than his years really made him. He regarded her from a point of view which in its remoteness, tender as it was, he little thought would have been unspeakable agony to her. He speculated about her future destiny, and about the husband she might have, with an affection for her which would have drained her heart of its dearest drop of hope, and broken it. Everything about him tended to confirm him in the custom of looking on himself as an elderly man, from whom such aspirations as he had combated in the case of Minnie Gowan (though that was not so long ago either, reckoning by months and seasons), were finally departed. |
| 1406 |
The gloom, and must, and dust of the whole tenement, were secret. At the heart of it his mother presided, inflexible of face, indomitable of will, firmly holding all the secrets of her own and his father's life, and austerely opposing herself, front to front, to the great final secret of all life. He had turned into the narrow and steep street from which the court of enclosure wherein the house stood opened, when another footstep turned into it behind him, and so close upon his own that he was jostled to the wall. As his mind was teeming with these thoughts, the encounter took him altogether unprepared, so that the other passenger had had time to say, boisterously, "Pardon! Not my fault!" and to pass on before the instant had elapsed which was requisite to his recovery of the realities about him. When that moment had flashed away, he saw that the man striding on before him was the man who had been so much in his mind during the last few days. It was no casual resemblance, helped out by the force of the impression the man made upon him. It was the man; the man he had followed in company with the girl, and whom he had overheard talking to Miss Wade. The street was a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man (who although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some strong drink) went down it so fast that Clennam lost him as he looked at him. With no defined intention of following him, but with an impulse to keep the figure in view a little longer, Clennam quickened his pace to pass the twist in the street which hid him from his sight. On turning it, he saw the man no more. Standing now, close to the gateway of his mother's house, he looked down the street: but it was empty. There was no projecting shadow large enough to obscure the man; there was no turning near that he could have taken; nor had there been any audible sound of the opening and closing of a door. Nevertheless, he concluded that the man must have had a key in his hand, and must have opened one of the many house doors and gone in. |
| 1407 |
In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes round the Chief Butler's shoes without raising them to the index of that stupendous creature's thoughts, had signified to him his intention of giving a special dinner: not a very large dinner, but a very special dinner. The Chief Butler had signified, in return, that he had no objection to look on at the most expensive thing in that way that could be done; and the day of the dinner was now come. Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing rooms, with his back to the fire, waiting for the arrival of his important guests. He seldom or never took the liberty of standing with his back to the fire unless he was quite alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such a deed. He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary manner of his, and have paced up and down the hearthrug, or gone creeping about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive retainer had appeared in the room at that very moment. The sly shadows which seemed to dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back into it when the fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making himself so easy. They were even more than sufficient, if his uncomfortable glances at them might be taken to mean anything. Mr Merdle's right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the evening paper was full of Mr Merdle. His wonderful enterprise, his wonderful wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of the evening paper that night. The wonderful Bank, of which he was the chief projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle wonders. So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid achievements, that he looked far more like a man in possession of his house under a distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own hearthrug, while the little ships were sailing into dinner. Behold the vessels coming into port! The engaging young Barnacle was the first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase. |
| 1408 |
A blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is communicable. As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear. There never was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared. Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men as on the Stock Exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the small grocery and general trade in a snug little shop at the crack end of the Yard, at the top of the steps, with her little old father and Maggy acting as assistants, habitually held forth about him over the counter in conversation with her customers. Mr Plornish, who had a small share in a small builder's business in the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the tops of scaffolds and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell him as Mr Merdle was the one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of that which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much as we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist, sole lodger of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by the savings which were the result of his simple and moderate life, for investment in one of Mr Merdle's certain enterprises. The female Bleeding Hearts, when they came for ounces of tea, and hundredweights of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That how, ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in the line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons. |
| 1409 |
While Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest tempered, simplest hearted, altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him (Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post, and that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it himself. He said it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate, capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here. He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was not to be doubted. Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler's affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness, she sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good service. But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted with apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs Merdle triumphed in her distress. |
| 1410 |
And now, a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage inspired Mr Dorrit with the mistrust that the brigand moment was come for twisting him into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass again and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse than a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by, with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging censers, and a great cross borne before a priest. He was an ugly priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with an overhanging brow; and as his eyes met those of Mr Dorrit, looking bareheaded out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chaunted, seemed to threaten that important traveller; likewise the action of his hand, which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller's salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr Dorrit, made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling, as the priest drifted past him, and the procession straggled away, taking its dead along with it. Upon their so different way went Mr Dorrit's company too; and soon, with their coach load of luxuries from the two great capitals of Europe, they were (like the Goths reversed) beating at the gates of Rome. Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had been; but they had given him up until to morrow, not doubting that it was later than he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus, when his equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter appeared to receive him. Was Miss Dorrit from home? he asked. No. She was within. Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling servants; let them keep where they were; let them help to unload the carriage; he would find Miss Dorrit for himself. So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked into various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a small ante room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two other rooms; and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he approached it through the dark avenue they made. |
| 1411 |
His next care was to look about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their cases and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and key. After that, what with dozing and what with castle building, he lost himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on the eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed. Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped he had rested well after this fatiguing journey. He sent down his compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very well indeed, and was in high condition. Nevertheless, he did not come forth from his own rooms until late in the afternoon; and, although he then caused himself to be magnificently arrayed for a drive with Mrs General and his daughter, his appearance was scarcely up to his description of himself. As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right hand with immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice as she followed with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately dressed, and that his manner towards Mrs General was very particular. The perfect formation of that accomplished lady's surface rendered it difficult to displace an atom of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye. Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell asleep while it was in progress. His fits of dozing were as sudden as they had been overnight, and were as short and profound. When the first of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but, on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa, Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that infallible performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at about the same time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep. |
| 1412 |
My husband himself, as is well known, formerly had a very dear sister who was not in law his sister, but who was universally beloved and respected. I saw directly that they had taken me in for the sake of the dead woman, whoever she was, and to have that boast of me and advantage of me; I saw, in the nurse's knowledge of it, an encouragement to goad me as she had done; and I saw, in the children's shrinking away, a vague impression, that I was not like other people. I left that house that night. After one or two short and very similar experiences, which are not to the present purpose, I entered another family where I had but one pupil: a girl of fifteen, who was the only daughter. The parents here were elderly people: people of station, and rich. A nephew whom they had brought up was a frequent visitor at the house, among many other visitors; and he began to pay me attention. I was resolute in repulsing him; for I had determined when I went there, that no one should pity me or condescend to me. But he wrote me a letter. It led to our being engaged to be married. He was a year younger than I, and young looking even when that allowance was made. He was on absence from India, where he had a post that was soon to grow into a very good one. In six months we were to be married, and were to go to India. I was to stay in the house, and was to be married from the house. Nobody objected to any part of the plan. I cannot avoid saying he admired me; but, if I could, I would. Vanity has nothing to do with the declaration, for his admiration worried me. He took no pains to hide it; and caused me to feel among the rich people as if he had bought me for my looks, and made a show of his purchase to justify himself. They appraised me in their own minds, I saw, and were curious to ascertain what my full value was. I resolved that they should not know. I was immovable and silent before them; and would have suffered any one of them to kill me sooner than I would have laid myself out to bespeak their approval. |
| 1413 |
It was in vain that he tried to control his attention by directing it to any business occupation or train of thought; it rode at anchor by the haunting topic, and would hold to no other idea. As though a criminal should be chained in a stationary boat on a deep clear river, condemned, whatever countless leagues of water flowed past him, always to see the body of the fellow creature he had drowned lying at the bottom, immovable, and unchangeable, except as the eddies made it broad or long, now expanding, now contracting its terrible lineaments; so Arthur, below the shifting current of transparent thoughts and fancies which were gone and succeeded by others as soon as come, saw, steady and dark, and not to be stirred from its place, the one subject that he endeavoured with all his might to rid himself of, and that he could not fly from. The assurance he now had, that Blandois, whatever his right name, was one of the worst of characters, greatly augmented the burden of his anxieties. Though the disappearance should be accounted for to morrow, the fact that his mother had been in communication with such a man, would remain unalterable. That the communication had been of a secret kind, and that she had been submissive to him and afraid of him, he hoped might be known to no one beyond himself; yet, knowing it, how could he separate it from his old vague fears, and how believe that there was nothing evil in such relations? Her resolution not to enter on the question with him, and his knowledge of her indomitable character, enhanced his sense of helplessness. It was like the oppression of a dream to believe that shame and exposure were impending over her and his father's memory, and to be shut out, as by a brazen wall, from the possibility of coming to their aid. The purpose he had brought home to his native country, and had ever since kept in view, was, with her greatest determination, defeated by his mother herself, at the time of all others when he feared that it pressed most. |
| 1414 |
Arthur made no remark upon it, and repaired to his mother's room, where Mr Casby and Flora had been taking tea, anchovy paste, and hot buttered toast. The relics of those delicacies were not yet removed, either from the table or from the scorched countenance of Affery, who, with the kitchen toasting fork still in her hand, looked like a sort of allegorical personage; except that she had a considerable advantage over the general run of such personages in point of significant emblematical purpose. Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed, with a care indicative of an intention to stay some time. Mr Casby, too, was beaming near the hob, with his benevolent knobs shining as if the warm butter of the toast were exuding through the patriarchal skull, and with his face as ruddy as if the colouring matter of the anchovy paste were mantling in the patriarchal visage. Seeing this, as he exchanged the usual salutations, Clennam decided to speak to his mother without postponement. It had long been customary, as she never changed her room, for those who had anything to say to her apart, to wheel her to her desk; where she sat, usually with the back of her chair turned towards the rest of the room, and the person who talked with her seated in a corner, on a stool which was always set in that place for that purpose. Except that it was long since the mother and son had spoken together without the intervention of a third person, it was an ordinary matter of course within the experience of visitors for Mrs Clennam to be asked, with a word of apology for the interruption, if she could be spoken with on a matter of business, and, on her replying in the affirmative, to be wheeled into the position described. Therefore, when Arthur now made such an apology, and such a request, and moved her to her desk and seated himself on the stool, Mrs Finching merely began to talk louder and faster, as a delicate hint that she could overhear nothing, and Mr Casby stroked his long white locks with sleepy calmness. |
| 1415 |
He yielded to her imperious but elated look, and turned her chair back to the place from which he had wheeled it. In doing so he saw elation in the face of Mr Flintwinch, which most assuredly was not inspired by Flora. this turning of his intelligence and of his whole attempt and design against himself, did even more than his mother's fixedness and firmness to convince him that his efforts with her were idle. Nothing remained but the appeal to his old friend Affery. But even to get the very doubtful and preliminary stage of making the appeal, seemed one of the least promising of human undertakings. She was so completely under the thrall of the two clever ones, was so systematically kept in sight by one or other of them, and was so afraid to go about the house besides, that every opportunity of speaking to her alone appeared to be forestalled. Over and above that, Mistress Affery, by some means (it was not very difficult to guess, through the sharp arguments of her liege lord), had acquired such a lively conviction of the hazard of saying anything under any circumstances, that she had remained all this time in a corner guarding herself from approach with that symbolical instrument of hers; so that, when a word or two had been addressed to her by Flora, or even by the bottle green patriarch himself, she had warded off conversation with the toasting fork like a dumb woman. After several abortive attempts to get Affery to look at him while she cleared the table and washed the tea service, Arthur thought of an expedient which Flora might originate. To whom he therefore whispered, "Could you say you would like to go through the house?" Now, poor Flora, being always in fluctuating expectation of the time when Clennam would renew his boyhood and be madly in love with her again, received the whisper with the utmost delight; not only as rendered precious by its mysterious character, but as preparing the way for a tender interview in which he would declare the state of his affections. |
| 1416 |
He explained that his partner was then absent on an enterprise of importance, and that it particularly behoved himself publicly to accept the blame of what he had rashly done, and publicly to exonerate his partner from all participation in the responsibility of it, lest the successful conduct of that enterprise should be endangered by the slightest suspicion wrongly attaching to his partner's honour and credit in another country. He told Mr Rugg that to clear his partner morally, to the fullest extent, and publicly and unreservedly to declare that he, Arthur Clennam, of that Firm, had of his own sole act, and even expressly against his partner's caution, embarked its resources in the swindles that had lately perished, was the only real atonement within his power; was a better atonement to the particular man than it would be to many men; and was therefore the atonement he had first to make. With this view, his intention was to print a declaration to the foregoing effect, which he had already drawn up; and, besides circulating it among all who had dealings with the House, to advertise it in the public papers. Concurrently with this measure (the description of which cost Mr Rugg innumerable wry faces and great uneasiness in his limbs), he would address a letter to all the creditors, exonerating his partner in a solemn manner, informing them of the stoppage of the House until their pleasure could be known and his partner communicated with, and humbly submitting himself to their direction. If, through their consideration for his partner's innocence, the affairs could ever be got into such train as that the business could be profitably resumed, and its present downfall overcome, then his own share in it should revert to his partner, as the only reparation he could make to him in money value for the distress and loss he had unhappily brought upon him, and he himself, at as mall a salary as he could live upon, would ask to be allowed to serve the business as a faithful clerk. |
| 1417 |
In the reluctance he had felt to believe that she loved any one; in his desire to set that question at rest; in a half formed consciousness he had had that there would be a kind of nobleness in his helping her love for any one, was there no suppressed something on his own side that he had hushed as it arose? Had he ever whispered to himself that he must not think of such a thing as her loving him, that he must not take advantage of her gratitude, that he must keep his experience in remembrance as a warning and reproof; that he must regard such youthful hopes as having passed away, as his friend's dead daughter had passed away; that he must be steady in saying to himself that the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and old? He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day when she had been so consistently and expressively forgotten. Quite as he might have kissed her, if she had been conscious? No difference? The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness also found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought with them a basket, filled with choice selections from that stock in trade which met with such a quick sale and produced such a slow return. Mrs Plornish was affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but not lucid manner, that there was ups you see, and there was downs. It was in vain to ask why ups, why downs; there they was, you know. He had heerd it given for a truth that accordin' as the world went round, which round it did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his turn of standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying the wrong way into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What Mr Plornish said was, wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come up ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a pleasure to look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then! It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, wept. |
| 1418 |
Night after night he had risen from his bed of wretchedness at twelve or one o'clock, and had sat at his window watching the sickly lamps in the yard, and looking upward for the first wan trace of day, hours before it was possible that the sky could show it to him. Now when the night came, he could not even persuade himself to undress. For a burning restlessness set in, an agonised impatience of the prison, and a conviction that he was going to break his heart and die there, which caused him indescribable suffering. His dread and hatred of the place became so intense that he felt it a labour to draw his breath in it. The sensation of being stifled sometimes so overpowered him, that he would stand at the window holding his throat and gasping. At the same time a longing for other air, and a yearning to be beyond the blind blank wall, made him feel as if he must go mad with the ardour of the desire. Many other prisoners had had experience of this condition before him, and its violence and continuity had worn themselves out in their cases, as they did in his. Two nights and a day exhausted it. It came back by fits, but those grew fainter and returned at lengthening intervals. A desolate calm succeeded; and the middle of the week found him settled down in the despondency of low, slow fever. With Cavalletto and Pancks away, he had no visitors to fear but Mr and Mrs Plornish. His anxiety, in reference to that worthy pair, was that they should not come near him; for, in the morbid state of his nerves, he sought to be left alone, and spared the being seen so subdued and weak. He wrote a note to Mrs Plornish representing himself as occupied with his affairs, and bound by the necessity of devoting himself to them, to remain for a time even without the pleasant interruption of a sight of her kind face. As to Young John, who looked in daily at a certain hour, when the turnkeys were relieved, to ask if he could do anything for him; he always made a pretence of being engaged in writing, and to answer cheerfully in the negative. |
| 1419 |
It required such a painful effort to lift his head for the purpose of inquiring into this, or inquiring into anything, that the impression appeared to have become quite an old and importunate one when he looked round. Beside the tea cup on his table he saw, then, a blooming nosegay: a wonderful handful of the choicest and most lovely flowers. Nothing had ever appeared so beautiful in his sight. He took them up and inhaled their fragrance, and he lifted them to his hot head, and he put them down and opened his parched hands to them, as cold hands are opened to receive the cheering of a fire. It was not until he had delighted in them for some time, that he wondered who had sent them; and opened his door to ask the woman who must have put them there, how they had come into her hands. But she was gone, and seemed to have been long gone; for the tea she had left for him on the table was cold. He tried to drink some, but could not bear the odour of it: so he crept back to his chair by the open window, and put the flowers on the little round table of old. When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left him, he subsided into his former state. One of the night tunes was playing in the wind, when the door of his room seemed to open to a light touch, and, after a moment's pause, a quiet figure seemed to stand there, with a black mantle on it. It seemed to draw the mantle off and drop it on the ground, and then it seemed to be his Little Dorrit in her old, worn dress. It seemed to tremble, and to clasp its hands, and to smile, and to burst into tears. He roused himself, and cried out. And then he saw, in the loving, pitying, sorrowing, dear face, as in a mirror, how changed he was; and she came towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to keep him in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with her lips raised up to kiss him, and with her tears dropping on him as the rain from Heaven had dropped upon the flowers, Little Dorrit, a living presence, called him by his name. |
| 1420 |
Less remarkable, now that she was not alone and it was darker, Mrs Clennam hurried on at Little Dorrit's side, unmolested. They left the great thoroughfare at the turning by which she had entered it, and wound their way down among the silent, empty, cross streets. Their feet were at the gateway, when there was a sudden noise like thunder. "What was that! Let us make haste in," cried Mrs Clennam. They were in the gateway. Little Dorrit, with a piercing cry, held her back. In one swift instant the old house was before them, with the man lying smoking in the window; another thundering sound, and it heaved, surged outward, opened asunder in fifty places, collapsed, and fell. Deafened by the noise, stifled, choked, and blinded by the dust, they hid their faces and stood rooted to the spot. The dust storm, driving between them and the placid sky, parted for a moment and showed them the stars. As they looked up, wildly crying for help, the great pile of chimneys, which was then alone left standing like a tower in a whirlwind, rocked, broke, and hailed itself down upon the heap of ruin, as if every tumbling fragment were intent on burying the crushed wretch deeper. So blackened by the flying particles of rubbish as to be unrecognisable, they ran back from the gateway into the street, crying and shrieking. There, Mrs Clennam dropped upon the stones; and she never from that hour moved so much as a finger again, or had the power to speak one word. For upwards of three years she reclined in a wheeled chair, looking attentively at those about her and appearing to understand what they said; but the rigid silence she had so long held was evermore enforced upon her, and except that she could move her eyes and faintly express a negative and affirmative with her head, she lived and died a statue. Affery had been looking for them at the prison, and had caught sight of them at a distance on the bridge. She came up to receive her old mistress in her arms, to help to carry her into a neighbouring house, and to be faithful to her. |
| 1421 |
Rumour finally settled the number at two; the foreigner and Mr Flintwinch. The diggers dug all through the short night by flaring pipes of gas, and on a level with the early sun, and deeper and deeper below it as it rose into its zenith, and aslant of it as it declined, and on a level with it again as it departed. Sturdy digging, and shovelling, and carrying away, in carts, barrows, and baskets, went on without intermission, by night and by day; but it was night for the second time when they found the dirty heap of rubbish that had been the foreigner before his head had been shivered to atoms, like so much glass, by the great beam that lay upon him, crushing him. Still, they had not come upon Flintwinch yet; so the sturdy digging and shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission by night and by day. It got about that the old house had had famous cellarage (which indeed was true), and that Flintwinch had been in a cellar at the moment, or had had time to escape into one, and that he was safe under its strong arch, and even that he had been heard to cry, in hollow, subterranean, suffocated notes, "Here I am!" At the opposite extremity of the town it was even known that the excavators had been able to open a communication with him through a pipe, and that he had received both soup and brandy by that channel, and that he had said with admirable fortitude that he was All right, my lads, with the exception of his collar bone. But the digging and shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission, until the ruins were all dug out, and the cellars opened to the light; and still no Flintwinch, living or dead, all right or all wrong, had been turned up by pick or spade. It began then to be perceived that Flintwinch had not been there at the time of the fall; and it began then to be perceived that he had been rather busy elsewhere, converting securities into as much money as could be got for them on the shortest notice, and turning to his own exclusive account his authority to act for the Firm. |
| 1422 |
She returned this fealty by causing it to be understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly well. Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative height. That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect of nailing them to the mast. On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel little temple of inconvenience to which the smell of the day before yesterday's soup and coach horses was as constant as Death to man, arrayed themselves to fight it out in the lists of Society, sworn rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing all these things as they developed themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of the genteel establishment Fanny's children would be poked by and by, and who would take care of those unborn little victims. Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance during this heavy period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; but she had written to him through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in the Marshalsea and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points on which she was most anxious, but especially on one. To that one, the continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting presence in the Marshalsea, was referable. Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate. |
| 1423 |
On a healthy autumn day; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the summer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops had been laid low by the busy pickers, when the apples clustering in the orchards were russet, and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson among the yellowing foliage. Already in the woods, glimpses of the hardy winter that was coming were to be caught through unaccustomed openings among the boughs where the prospect shone defined and clear, free from the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had rested on it as the bloom lies on the plum. So, from the seashore the ocean was no longer to be seen lying asleep in the heat, but its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and its whole breadth was in joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach to the little sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn tinted leaves that had drifted from the trees. Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a touch of any of these beauties on it. Blossom what would, its bricks and bars bore uniformly the same dead crop. Yet Clennam, listening to the voice as it read to him, heard in it all that great Nature was doing, heard in it all the soothing songs she sings to man. At no Mother's knee but hers had he ever dwelt in his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the harvests of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early fostered seeds of the imagination; on the oaks of retreat from blighting winds, that have the germs of their strong roots in nursery acorns. But, in the tones of the voice that read to him, there were memories of an old feeling of such things, and echoes of every merciful and loving whisper that had ever stolen to him in his life. When the voice stopped, he put his hand over his eyes, murmuring that the light was strong upon them. Little Dorrit put the book by, and presently arose quietly to shade the window. |
| 1424 |
How can I ever convey to others an idea of the comfort and consolation that this old Clock has been for years to me! It is associated with my earliest recollections. It stood upon the staircase at home (I call it home still mechanically), nigh sixty years ago. I like it for that; but it is not on that account, nor because it is a quaint old thing in a huge oaken case curiously and richly carved, that I prize it as I do. I incline to it as if it were alive, and could understand and give me back the love I bear it. And what other thing that has not life could cheer me as it does? what other thing that has not life (I will not say how few things that have) could have proved the same patient, true, untiring friend? How often have I sat in the long winter evenings feeling such society in its cricket voice, that raising my eyes from my book and looking gratefully towards it, the face reddened by the glow of the shining fire has seemed to relax from its staid expression and to regard me kindly! how often in the summer twilight, when my thoughts have wandered back to a melancholy past, have its regular whisperings recalled them to the calm and peaceful present! how often in the dead tranquillity of night has its bell broken the oppressive silence, and seemed to give me assurance that the old clock was still a faithful watcher at my chamber door! My easy chair, my desk, my ancient furniture, my very books, I can scarcely bring myself to love even these last like my old clock. It stands in a snug corner, midway between the fireside and a low arched door leading to my bedroom. Its fame is diffused so extensively throughout the neighbourhood, that I have often the satisfaction of hearing the publican, or the baker, and sometimes even the parish clerk, petitioning my housekeeper (of whom I shall have much to say by and by) to inform him the exact time by Master Humphrey's clock. My barber, to whom I have referred, would sooner believe it than the sun. Nor are these its only distinctions. |
| 1425 |
But these were the only friends I knew, and beyond them I had none. It happened, however, when I had gone on thus for a long time, that I formed an acquaintance with a deaf gentleman, which ripened into intimacy and close companionship. To this hour, I am ignorant of his name. It is his humour to conceal it, or he has a reason and purpose for so doing. In either case, I feel that he has a right to require a return of the trust he has reposed; and as he has never sought to discover my secret, I have never sought to penetrate his. There may have been something in this tacit confidence in each other flattering and pleasant to us both, and it may have imparted in the beginning an additional zest, perhaps, to our friendship. Be this as it may, we have grown to be like brothers, and still I only know him as the deaf gentleman. I have said that retirement has become a habit with me. When I add, that the deaf gentleman and I have two friends, I communicate nothing which is inconsistent with that declaration. I spend many hours of every day in solitude and study, have no friends or change of friends but these, only see them at stated periods, and am supposed to be of a retired spirit by the very nature and object of our association. We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud upon our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has not cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are alchemists who would extract the essence of perpetual youth from dust and ashes, tempt coy Truth in many light and airy forms from the bottom of her well, and discover one crumb of comfort or one grain of good in the commonest and least regarded matter that passes through our crucible. Spirits of past times, creatures of imagination, and people of to day are alike the objects of our seeking, and, unlike the objects of search with most philosophers, we can insure their coming at our command. |
| 1426 |
The more he thought of this, the more lonely and sad he felt. When the company dispersed and adjourned to the ball room, he paced the hall and passages alone, ruminating in a very melancholy condition upon the disappointment he had experienced. It chanced, while he was lounging about in this moody state, that he stumbled upon a flight of stairs, dark, steep, and narrow, which he ascended without any thought about the matter, and so came into a little music gallery, empty and deserted. From this elevated post, which commanded the whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon the attendants who were clearing away the fragments of the feast very lazily, and drinking out of all the bottles and glasses with most commendable perseverance. His attention gradually relaxed, and he fell fast asleep. When he awoke, he thought there must be something the matter with his eyes; but, rubbing them a little, he soon found that the moonlight was really streaming through the east window, that the lamps were all extinguished, and that he was alone. He listened, but no distant murmur in the echoing passages, not even the shutting of a door, broke the deep silence; he groped his way down the stairs, and found that the door at the bottom was locked on the other side. He began now to comprehend that he must have slept a long time, that he had been overlooked, and was shut up there for the night. His first sensation, perhaps, was not altogether a comfortable one, for it was a dark, chilly, earthy smelling place, and something too large, for a man so situated, to feel at home in. However, when the momentary consternation of his surprise was over, he made light of the accident, and resolved to feel his way up the stairs again, and make himself as comfortable as he could in the gallery until morning. As he turned to execute this purpose, he heard the clocks strike three. Any such invasion of a dead stillness as the striking of distant clocks, causes it to appear the more intense and insupportable when the sound has ceased. |
| 1427 |
He winked too, and though it could not be doubted for a moment that he winked to himself, still he certainly cocked his enormous eye towards the gallery where the listener was concealed. Nor was this all, for he gaped; and when he gaped, Joe was horribly reminded of the popular prejudice on the subject of giants, and of their fabled power of smelling out Englishmen, however closely concealed. His alarm was such that he nearly swooned, and it was some little time before his power of sight or hearing was restored. When he recovered he found that the elder Giant was pressing the younger to commence the Chronicles, and that the latter was endeavouring to excuse himself on the ground that the night was far spent, and it would be better to wait until the next. Well assured by this that he was certainly about to begin directly, the listener collected his faculties by a great effort, and distinctly heard Magog express himself to the following effect: In the sixteenth century and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory (albeit her golden days are sadly rusted with blood), there lived in the city of London a bold young 'prentice who loved his master's daughter. There were no doubt within the walls a great many 'prentices in this condition, but I speak of only one, and his name was Hugh Graham. This Hugh was apprenticed to an honest Bowyer who dwelt in the ward of Cheype, and was rumoured to possess great wealth. Rumour was quite as infallible in those days as at the present time, but it happened then as now to be sometimes right by accident. It stumbled upon the truth when it gave the old Bowyer a mint of money. His trade had been a profitable one in the time of King Henry the Eighth, who encouraged English archery to the utmost, and he had been prudent and discreet. Thus it came to pass that Mistress Alice, his only daughter, was the richest heiress in all his wealthy ward. Young Hugh had often maintained with staff and cudgel that she was the handsomest. To do him justice, I believe she was. |
| 1428 |
If he could have gained the heart of pretty Mistress Alice by knocking this conviction into stubborn people's heads, Hugh would have had no cause to fear. But though the Bowyer's daughter smiled in secret to hear of his doughty deeds for her sake, and though her little waiting woman reported all her smiles (and many more) to Hugh, and though he was at a vast expense in kisses and small coin to recompense her fidelity, he made no progress in his love. He durst not whisper it to Mistress Alice save on sure encouragement, and that she never gave him. A glance of her dark eye as she sat at the door on a summer's evening after prayer time, while he and the neighbouring 'prentices exercised themselves in the street with blunted sword and buckler, would fire Hugh's blood so that none could stand before him; but then she glanced at others quite as kindly as on him, and where was the use of cracking crowns if Mistress Alice smiled upon the cracked as well as on the cracker? Still Hugh went on, and loved her more and more. He thought of her all day, and dreamed of her all night long. He treasured up her every word and gesture, and had a palpitation of the heart whenever he heard her footstep on the stairs or her voice in an adjoining room. To him, the old Bowyer's house was haunted by an angel; there was enchantment in the air and space in which she moved. It would have been no miracle to Hugh if flowers had sprung from the rush strewn floors beneath the tread of lovely Mistress Alice. Never did 'prentice long to distinguish himself in the eyes of his lady love so ardently as Hugh. Sometimes he pictured to himself the house taking fire by night, and he, when all drew back in fear, rushing through flame and smoke, and bearing her from the ruins in his arms. At other times he thought of a rising of fierce rebels, an attack upon the city, a strong assault upon the Bowyer's house in particular, and he falling on the threshold pierced with numberless wounds in defence of Mistress Alice. |
| 1429 |
Everything was in its old place. Her bed looked as if she had risen from it but that morning. The sight of these familiar objects, marking the dear remembrance in which she had been held, and the blight she had brought upon herself, was more than the woman's better nature that had carried her there could bear. She wept and fell upon the ground. A rumour was spread about, in a few days' time, that the Bowyer's cruel daughter had come home, and that Master Graham had given her lodging in his house. It was rumoured too that he had resigned her fortune, in order that she might bestow it in acts of charity, and that he had vowed to guard her in her solitude, but that they were never to see each other more. These rumours greatly incensed all virtuous wives and daughters in the ward, especially when they appeared to receive some corroboration from the circumstance of Master Graham taking up his abode in another tenement hard by. The estimation in which he was held, however, forbade any questioning on the subject; and as the Bowyer's house was close shut up, and nobody came forth when public shows and festivities were in progress, or to flaunt in the public walks, or to buy new fashions at the mercers' booths, all the well conducted females agreed among themselves that there could be no woman there. These reports had scarcely died away when the wonder of every good citizen, male and female, was utterly absorbed and swallowed up by a Royal Proclamation, in which her Majesty, strongly censuring the practice of wearing long Spanish rapiers of preposterous length (as being a bullying and swaggering custom, tending to bloodshed and public disorder), commanded that on a particular day therein named, certain grave citizens should repair to the city gates, and there, in public, break all rapiers worn or carried by persons claiming admission, that exceeded, though it were only by a quarter of an inch, three standard feet in length. Royal Proclamations usually take their course, let the public wonder never so much. |
| 1430 |
With equal impetuosity, and stimulating each other by loud cries and shouts, the citizens and common people took up the quarrel on their side, and encircling Master Graham a hundred deep, forced him from the gate. In vain he waved the broken sword above his head, crying that he would die on London's threshold for their sacred homes. They bore him on, and ever keeping him in the midst, so that no man could attack him, fought their way into the city. The clash of swords and roar of voices, the dust and heat and pressure, the trampling under foot of men, the distracted looks and shrieks of women at the windows above as they recognised their relatives or lovers in the crowd, the rapid tolling of alarm bells, the furious rage and passion of the scene, were fearful. Those who, being on the outskirts of each crowd, could use their weapons with effect, fought desperately, while those behind, maddened with baffled rage, struck at each other over the heads of those before them, and crushed their own fellows. Wherever the broken sword was seen above the people's heads, towards that spot the cavaliers made a new rush. Every one of these charges was marked by sudden gaps in the throng where men were trodden down, but as fast as they were made, the tide swept over them, and still the multitude pressed on again, a confused mass of swords, clubs, staves, broken plumes, fragments of rich cloaks and doublets, and angry, bleeding faces, all mixed up together in inextricable disorder. The design of the people was to force Master Graham to take refuge in his dwelling, and to defend it until the authorities could interfere, or they could gain time for parley. But either from ignorance or in the confusion of the moment they stopped at his old house, which was closely shut. Some time was lost in beating the doors open and passing him to the front. About a score of the boldest of the other party threw themselves into the torrent while this was being done, and reaching the door at the same moment with himself cut him off from his defenders. |
| 1431 |
The fire glows brightly, crackling with a sharp and cheerful sound, as if it loved to burn. The merry cricket on the hearth (my constant visitor), this ruddy blaze, my clock, and I, seem to share the world among us, and to be the only things awake. The wind, high and boisterous but now, has died away and hoarsely mutters in its sleep. I love all times and seasons each in its turn, and am apt, perhaps, to think the present one the best; but past or coming I always love this peaceful time of night, when long buried thoughts, favoured by the gloom and silence, steal from their graves, and haunt the scenes of faded happiness and hope. The popular faith in ghosts has a remarkable affinity with the whole current of our thoughts at such an hour as this, and seems to be their necessary and natural consequence. For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old? It is thus that at this quiet hour I haunt the house where I was born, the rooms I used to tread, the scenes of my infancy, my boyhood, and my youth; it is thus that I prowl around my buried treasure (though not of gold or silver), and mourn my loss; it is thus that I revisit the ashes of extinguished fires, and take my silent stand at old bedsides. If my spirit should ever glide back to this chamber when my body is mingled with the dust, it will but follow the course it often took in the old man's lifetime, and add but one more change to the subjects of its contemplation. In all my idle speculations I am greatly assisted by various legends connected with my venerable house, which are current in the neighbourhood, and are so numerous that there is scarce a cupboard or corner that has not some dismal story of its own. |
| 1432 |
I was at once glad and sorry to find that there was only one person in the dining room; glad to know that there were not more, and sorry that he should be there by himself. He did not look so old as I, but like me he was advanced in life, and his hair was nearly white. Though I made more noise in entering and seating myself than was quite necessary, with the view of attracting his attention and saluting him in the good old form of that time of year, he did not raise his head, but sat with it resting on his hand, musing over his half finished meal. I called for something which would give me an excuse for remaining in the room (I had dined early, as my housekeeper was engaged at night to partake of some friend's good cheer), and sat where I could observe without intruding on him. After a time he looked up. He was aware that somebody had entered, but could see very little of me, as I sat in the shade and he in the light. He was sad and thoughtful, and I forbore to trouble him by speaking. Let me believe it was something better than curiosity which riveted my attention and impelled me strongly towards this gentleman. I never saw so patient and kind a face. He should have been surrounded by friends, and yet here he sat dejected and alone when all men had their friends about them. As often as he roused himself from his reverie he would fall into it again, and it was plain that, whatever were the subject of his thoughts, they were of a melancholy kind, and would not be controlled. He was not used to solitude. I was sure of that; for I know by myself that if he had been, his manner would have been different, and he would have taken some slight interest in the arrival of another. I could not fail to mark that he had no appetite; that he tried to eat in vain; that time after time the plate was pushed away, and he relapsed into his former posture. His mind was wandering among old Christmas days, I thought. Many of them sprung up together, not with a long gap between each, but in unbroken succession like days of the week. |
| 1433 |
He is a great thinker from living so much within himself, and, having a lively imagination, has a facility of conceiving and enlarging upon odd ideas, which renders him invaluable to our little body, and greatly astonishes our two friends. His powers in this respect are much assisted by a large pipe, which he assures us once belonged to a German Student. Be this as it may, it has undoubtedly a very ancient and mysterious appearance, and is of such capacity that it takes three hours and a half to smoke it out. I have reason to believe that my barber, who is the chief authority of a knot of gossips, who congregate every evening at a small tobacconist's hard by, has related anecdotes of this pipe and the grim figures that are carved upon its bowl, at which all the smokers in the neighbourhood have stood aghast; and I know that my housekeeper, while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious feeling connected with it which would render her exceedingly unwilling to be left alone in its company after dark. Whatever sorrow my dear friend has known, and whatever grief may linger in some secret corner of his heart, he is now a cheerful, placid, happy creature. Misfortune can never have fallen upon such a man but for some good purpose; and when I see its traces in his gentle nature and his earnest feeling, I am the less disposed to murmur at such trials as I may have undergone myself. With regard to the pipe, I have a theory of my own; I cannot help thinking that it is in some manner connected with the event that brought us together; for I remember that it was a long time before he even talked about it; that when he did, he grew reserved and melancholy; and that it was a long time yet before he brought it forth. I have no curiosity, however, upon this subject; for I know that it promotes his tranquillity and comfort, and I need no other inducement to regard it with my utmost favour. Such is the deaf gentleman. I can call up his figure now, clad in sober gray, and seated in the chimney corner. |
| 1434 |
His health is none of the best, and he wears a quantity of iron gray hair, which shades his face and gives it rather a worn appearance; but we consider him quite a young fellow notwithstanding; and if a youthful spirit, surviving the roughest contact with the world, confers upon its possessor any title to be considered young, then he is a mere child. The only interruptions to his careless cheerfulness are on a wet Sunday, when he is apt to be unusually religious and solemn, and sometimes of an evening, when he has been blowing a very slow tune on the flute. On these last named occasions he is apt to incline towards the mysterious, or the terrible. As a specimen of his powers in this mood, I refer my readers to the extract from the clock case which follows this paper: he brought it to me not long ago at midnight, and informed me that the main incident had been suggested by a dream of the night before. His apartments are two cheerful rooms looking towards the garden, and one of his great delights is to arrange and rearrange the furniture in these chambers, and put it in every possible variety of position. During the whole time he has been here, I do not think he has slept for two nights running with the head of his bed in the same place; and every time he moves it, is to be the last. My housekeeper was at first well nigh distracted by these frequent changes; but she has become quite reconciled to them by degrees, and has so fallen in with his humour, that they often consult together with great gravity upon the next final alteration. Whatever his arrangements are, however, they are always a pattern of neatness; and every one of the manifold articles connected with his manifold occupations is to be found in its own particular place. Until within the last two or three years he was subject to an occasional fit (which usually came upon him in very fine weather), under the influence of which he would dress himself with peculiar care, and, going out under pretence of taking a walk, disappeared for several days together. |
| 1435 |
After advancing towards it softly, and laying his hand upon it with as much respect and as many smiling looks as if it were alive, he set himself to consider it in every possible direction, now mounting on a chair to look at the top, now going down upon his knees to examine the bottom, now surveying the sides with his spectacles almost touching the case, and now trying to peep between it and the wall to get a slight view of the back. Then he would retire a pace or two and look up at the dial to see it go, and then draw near again and stand with his head on one side to hear it tick: never failing to glance towards me at intervals of a few seconds each, and nod his head with such complacent gratification as I am quite unable to describe. His admiration was not confined to the clock either, but extended itself to every article in the room; and really, when he had gone through them every one, and at last sat himself down in all the six chairs, one after another, to try how they felt, I never saw such a picture of good humour and happiness as he presented, from the top of his shining head down to the very last button of his gaiters. I should have been well pleased, and should have had the utmost enjoyment of his company, if he had remained with me all day, but my favourite, striking the hour, reminded him that he must take his leave. I could not forbear telling him once more how glad he had made me, and we shook hands all the way down stairs. We had no sooner arrived in the Hall than my housekeeper, gliding out of her little room (she had changed her gown and cap, I observed), greeted Mr. Pickwick with her best smile and courtesy; and the barber, feigning to be accidentally passing on his way out, made him a vast number of bows. When the housekeeper courtesied, Mr. Pickwick bowed with the utmost politeness, and when he bowed, the housekeeper courtesied again; between the housekeeper and the barber, I should say that Mr. Pickwick faced about and bowed with undiminished affability fifty times at least. |
| 1436 |
You know very well that in those times there flourished divers evil old women who, under the name of Witches, spread great disorder through the land, and inflicted various dismal tortures upon Christian men; sticking pins and needles into them when they least expected it, and causing them to walk in the air with their feet upwards, to the great terror of their wives and families, who were naturally very much disconcerted when the master of the house unexpectedly came home, knocking at the door with his heels and combing his hair on the scraper. These were their commonest pranks, but they every day played a hundred others, of which none were less objectionable, and many were much more so, being improper besides; the result was that vengeance was denounced against all old women, with whom even the king himself had no sympathy (as he certainly ought to have had), for with his own most Gracious hand he penned a most Gracious consignment of them to everlasting wrath, and devised most Gracious means for their confusion and slaughter, in virtue whereof scarcely a day passed but one witch at the least was most graciously hanged, drowned, or roasted in some part of his dominions. Still the press teemed with strange and terrible news from the North or the South, or the East or the West, relative to witches and their unhappy victims in some corner of the country, and the Public's hair stood on end to that degree that it lifted its hat off its head, and made its face pale with terror. You may believe that the little town of Windsor did not escape the general contagion. The inhabitants boiled a witch on the king's birthday and sent a bottle of the broth to court, with a dutiful address expressive of their loyalty. The king, being rather frightened by the present, piously bestowed it upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, and returned an answer to the address, wherein he gave them golden rules for discovering witches, and laid great stress upon certain protecting charms, and especially horseshoes. |
| 1437 |
But it was not in such scenes as these, or even in the deep and miry road, that Will Marks found the chief obstacles to his progress. There were kites and ravens feeding in the streets (the only scavengers the City kept), who, scenting what he carried, followed the cart or fluttered on its top, and croaked their knowledge of its burden and their ravenous appetite for prey. There were distant fires, where the poor wood and plaster tenements wasted fiercely, and whither crowds made their way, clamouring eagerly for plunder, beating down all who came within their reach, and yelling like devils let loose. There were single handed men flying from bands of ruffians, who pursued them with naked weapons, and hunted them savagely; there were drunken, desperate robbers issuing from their dens and staggering through the open streets where no man dared molest them; there were vagabond servitors returning from the Bear Garden, where had been good sport that day, dragging after them their torn and bleeding dogs, or leaving them to die and rot upon the road. Nothing was abroad but cruelty, violence, and disorder. Many were the interruptions which Will Marks encountered from these stragglers, and many the narrow escapes he made. Now some stout bully would take his seat upon the cart, insisting to be driven to his own home, and now two or three men would come down upon him together, and demand that on peril of his life he showed them what he had inside. Then a party of the city watch, upon their rounds, would draw across the road, and not satisfied with his tale, question him closely, and revenge themselves by a little cuffing and hustling for maltreatment sustained at other hands that night. All these assailants had to be rebutted, some by fair words, some by foul, and some by blows. But Will Marks was not the man to be stopped or turned back now he had penetrated so far, and though he got on slowly, still he made his way down Fleet street and reached the church at last. As he had been forewarned, all was in readiness. |
| 1438 |
He turned, therefore, towards the point at which he had entered, and seeing by a faint gleam in the distance that the door was again partially open, groped his way towards it and so passed into the street. Meantime the local authorities of Kingston had kept watch and ward all the previous night, fancying every now and then that dismal shrieks were borne towards them on the wind, and frequently winking to each other, and drawing closer to the fire as they drank the health of the lonely sentinel, upon whom a clerical gentleman present was especially severe by reason of his levity and youthful folly. Two or three of the gravest in company, who were of a theological turn, propounded to him the question, whether such a character was not but poorly armed for single combat with the Devil, and whether he himself would not have been a stronger opponent; but the clerical gentleman, sharply reproving them for their presumption in discussing such questions, clearly showed that a fitter champion than Will could scarcely have been selected, not only for that being a child of Satan, he was the less likely to be alarmed by the appearance of his own father, but because Satan himself would be at his ease in such company, and would not scruple to kick up his heels to an extent which it was quite certain he would never venture before clerical eyes, under whose influence (as was notorious) he became quite a tame and milk and water character. But when next morning arrived, and with it no Will Marks, and when a strong party repairing to the spot, as a strong party ventured to do in broad day, found Will gone and the gibbet empty, matters grew serious indeed. The day passing away and no news arriving, and the night going on also without any intelligence, the thing grew more tremendous still; in short, the neighbourhood worked itself up to such a comfortable pitch of mystery and horror, that it is a great question whether the general feeling was not one of excessive disappointment, when, on the second morning, Will Marks returned. |
| 1439 |
Mr. Pickwick smiled, and shook hands, and looked at him through his spectacles, and under them, and over them, and nodded his head approvingly, and then nodded to me, as much as to say, "This is just the man; you were quite right;" and then turned to Jack and said a few hearty words, and then did and said everything over again with unimpaired vivacity. As to Jack himself, he was quite as much delighted with Mr. Pickwick as Mr. Pickwick could possibly be with him. Two people never can have met together since the world began, who exchanged a warmer or more enthusiastic greeting. It was amusing to observe the difference between this encounter and that which succeeded, between Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Miles. It was clear that the latter gentleman viewed our new member as a kind of rival in the affections of Jack Redburn, and besides this, he had more than once hinted to me, in secret, that although he had no doubt Mr. Pickwick was a very worthy man, still he did consider that some of his exploits were unbecoming a gentleman of his years and gravity. Over and above these grounds of distrust, it is one of his fixed opinions, that the law never can by possibility do anything wrong; he therefore looks upon Mr. Pickwick as one who has justly suffered in purse and peace for a breach of his plighted faith to an unprotected female, and holds that he is called upon to regard him with some suspicion on that account. These causes led to a rather cold and formal reception; which Mr. Pickwick acknowledged with the same stateliness and intense politeness as was displayed on the other side. Indeed, he assumed an air of such majestic defiance, that I was fearful he might break out into some solemn protest or declaration, and therefore inducted him into his chair without a moment's delay. This piece of generalship was perfectly successful. The instant he took his seat, Mr. Pickwick surveyed us all with a most benevolent aspect, and was taken with a fit of smiling full five minutes long. His interest in our ceremonies was immense. |
| 1440 |
Nor was Mr. Weller's pride satisfied with even this display, for when he took his leave he carried the child, like some rare and astonishing curiosity, first to the barber's house and afterwards to the tobacconist's, at each of which places he repeated his performances with the utmost effect to applauding and delighted audiences. It was half past nine o'clock when Mr. Weller was last seen carrying him home upon his shoulder, and it has been whispered abroad that at that time the infant Tony was rather intoxicated. I was musing the other evening upon the characters and incidents with which I had been so long engaged; wondering how I could ever have looked forward with pleasure to the completion of my tale, and reproaching myself for having done so, as if it were a kind of cruelty to those companions of my solitude whom I had now dismissed, and could never again recall; when my clock struck ten. Punctual to the hour, my friends appeared. On our last night of meeting, we had finished the story which the reader has just concluded. Our conversation took the same current as the meditations which the entrance of my friends had interrupted, and The Old Curiosity Shop was the staple of our discourse. I may confide to the reader now, that in connection with this little history I had something upon my mind; something to communicate which I had all along with difficulty repressed; something I had deemed it, during the progress of the story, necessary to its interest to disguise, and which, now that it was over, I wished, and was yet reluctant, to disclose. To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart. This temper, and the consciousness of having done some violence to it in my narrative, laid me under a restraint which I should have had great difficulty in overcoming, but for a timely remark from Mr. Miles, who, as I hinted in a former paper, is a gentleman of business habits, and of great exactness and propriety in all his transactions. |
| 1441 |
Thus, even age and weakness have their consolations. If I were a younger man, if I were more active, more strongly bound and tied to life, these visionary friends would shun me, or I should desire to fly from them. Being what I am, I can court their society, and delight in it; and pass whole hours in picturing to myself the shadows that perchance flock every night into this chamber, and in imagining with pleasure what kind of interest they have in the frail, feeble mortal who is its sole inhabitant. All the friends I have ever lost I find again among these visitors. I love to fancy their spirits hovering about me, feeling still some earthly kindness for their old companion, and watching his decay. "He is weaker, he declines apace, he draws nearer and nearer to us, and will soon be conscious of our existence." What is there to alarm me in this? It is encouragement and hope. These thoughts have never crowded on me half so fast as they have done to night. Faces I had long forgotten have become familiar to me once again; traits I had endeavoured to recall for years have come before me in an instant; nothing is changed but me; and even I can be my former self at will. Raising my eyes but now to the face of my old clock, I remember, quite involuntarily, the veneration, not unmixed with a sort of childish awe, with which I used to sit and watch it as it ticked, unheeded in a dark staircase corner. I recollect looking more grave and steady when I met its dusty face, as if, having that strange kind of life within it, and being free from all excess of vulgar appetite, and warning all the house by night and day, it were a sage. How often have I listened to it as it told the beads of time, and wondered at its constancy! How often watched it slowly pointing round the dial, and, while I panted for the eagerly expected hour to come, admired, despite myself, its steadiness of purpose and lofty freedom from all human strife, impatience, and desire! I thought it cruel once. It was very hard of heart, to my mind, I remember. |
| 1442 |
It was an old servant even then; and I felt as though it ought to show some sorrow; as though it wanted sympathy with us in our distress, and were a dull, heartless, mercenary creature. Ah! how soon I learnt to know that in its ceaseless going on, and in its being checked or stayed by nothing, lay its greatest kindness, and the only balm for grief and wounded peace of mind. To night, to night, when this tranquillity and calm are on my spirits, and memory presents so many shifting scenes before me, I take my quiet stand at will by many a fire that has been long extinguished, and mingle with the cheerful group that cluster round it. If I could be sorrowful in such a mood, I should grow sad to think what a poor blot I was upon their youth and beauty once, and now how few remain to put me to the blush; I should grow sad to think that such among them as I sometimes meet with in my daily walks are scarcely less infirm than I; that time has brought us to a level; and that all distinctions fade and vanish as we take our trembling steps towards the grave. But memory was given us for better purposes than this, and mine is not a torment, but a source of pleasure. To muse upon the gaiety and youth I have known suggests to me glad scenes of harmless mirth that may be passing now. From contemplating them apart, I soon become an actor in these little dramas, and humouring my fancy, lose myself among the beings it invokes. When my fire is bright and high, and a warm blush mantles in the walls and ceiling of this ancient room; when my clock makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth, and are sometimes, by a good superstition, looked upon as the harbingers of fortune and plenty to that household in whose mercies they put their humble trust; when everything is in a ruddy genial glow, and there are voices in the crackling flame, and smiles in its flashing light, other smiles and other voices congregate around me, invading, with their pleasant harmony, the silence of the time. |
| 1443 |
I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and quite un English; the custom having been a foreign one, ever since the reigns of the uncivilised sultans in the Arabian Nights, who always called the wise men of their time about them. But so it is. And when you don't dine at the royal table, there is always a knife and fork for you at the equerries' table: where, I understand, all gifted men are made particularly welcome. But all men can't be gifted, Mr. Hood. Neither scientific, literary, nor artistical powers are any more to be inherited than the property arising from scientific, literary, or artistic productions, which the law, with a beautiful imitation of nature, declines to protect in the second generation. Very good, sir. Then, people are naturally very prone to cast about in their minds for other means of getting at Court Favour; and, watching the signs of the times, to hew out for themselves, or their descendants, the likeliest roads to that distinguished goal. Mr. Hood, it is pretty clear, from recent records in the Court Circular, that if a father wish to train up his son in the way he should go, to go to Court: and cannot indenture him to be a scientific man, an author, or an artist, three courses are open to him. He must endeavour by artificial means to make him a dwarf, a wild man, or a Boy Jones. Now, sir, this is the shoal and quicksand on which the constitution will go to pieces. I have made inquiry, Mr. Hood, and find that in my neighbourhood two families and a fraction out of every four, in the lower and middle classes of society, are studying and practising all conceivable arts to keep their infant children down. Understand me. I do not mean down in their numbers, or down in their precocity, but down in their growth, sir. A destructive and subduing drink, compounded of gin and milk in equal quantities, such as is given to puppies to retard their growth: not something short, but something shortening: is administered to these young creatures many times a day. |
| 1444 |
They who are too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any other place: who could gain admission into no charity school, and who would be driven from any church door; are invited to come in here, and find some people not depraved, willing to teach them something, and show them some sympathy, and stretch a hand out, which is not the iron hand of Law, for their correction. Before I describe a visit of my own to a Ragged School, and urge the readers of this letter for God's sake to visit one themselves, and think of it (which is my main object), let me say, that I know the prisons of London well; that I have visited the largest of them more times than I could count; and that the children in them are enough to break the heart and hope of any man. I have never taken a foreigner or a stranger of any kind to one of these establishments but I have seen him so moved at sight of the child offenders, and so affected by the contemplation of their utter renouncement and desolation outside the prison walls, that he has been as little able to disguise his emotion, as if some great grief had suddenly burst upon him. Mr. Chesterton and Lieutenant Tracey (than whom more intelligent and humane Governors of Prisons it would be hard, if not impossible, to find) know perfectly well that these children pass and repass through the prisons all their lives; that they are never taught; that the first distinctions between right and wrong are, from their cradles, perfectly confounded and perverted in their minds; that they come of untaught parents, and will give birth to another untaught generation; that in exact proportion to their natural abilities, is the extent and scope of their depravity; and that there is no escape or chance for them in any ordinary revolution of human affairs. Happily, there are schools in these prisons now. If any readers doubt how ignorant the children are, let them visit those schools and see them at their tasks, and hear how much they knew when they were sent there. |
| 1445 |
The Ragged School was of recent date and very poor; but he had inculcated some association with the name of the Almighty, which was not an oath, and had taught them to look forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life, which would correct the miseries and woes of this. The new exposition I found in this Ragged School, of the frightful neglect by the State of those whom it punishes so constantly, and whom it might, as easily and less expensively, instruct and save; together with the sight I had seen there, in the heart of London; haunted me, and finally impelled me to an endeavour to bring these Institutions under the notice of the Government; with some faint hope that the vastness of the question would supersede the Theology of the schools, and that the Bench of Bishops might adjust the latter question, after some small grant had been conceded. I made the attempt; and have heard no more of the subject from that hour. The perusal of an advertisement in yesterday's paper, announcing a lecture on the Ragged Schools last night, has led me into these remarks. I might easily have given them another form; but I address this letter to you, in the hope that some few readers in whom I have awakened an interest, as a writer of fiction, may be, by that means, attracted to the subject, who might otherwise, unintentionally, pass it over. I have no desire to praise the system pursued in the Ragged Schools; which is necessarily very imperfect, if indeed there be one. So far as I have any means of judging of what is taught there, I should individually object to it, as not being sufficiently secular, and as presenting too many religious mysteries and difficulties, to minds not sufficiently prepared for their reception. But I should very imperfectly discharge in myself the duty I wish to urge and impress on others, if I allowed any such doubt of mine to interfere with my appreciation of the efforts of these teachers, or my true wish to promote them by any slight means in my power. |
| 1446 |
I will take for the subject of this letter, the effect of Capital Punishment on the commission of crime, or rather of murder; the only crime with one exception (and that a rare one) to which it is now applied. Its effect in preventing crime, I will reserve for another letter: and a few of the more striking illustrations of each aspect of the subject, for a concluding one. The effect of Capital Punishment on the commission of Murder. Some murders are committed in hot blood and furious rage; some, in deliberate revenge; some, in terrible despair; some (but not many) for mere gain; some, for the removal of an object dangerous to the murderer's peace or good name; some, to win a monstrous notoriety. On murders committed in rage, in the despair of strong affection (as when a starving child is murdered by its parent) or for gain, I believe the punishment of death to have no effect in the least. In the two first cases, the impulse is a blind and wild one, infinitely beyond the reach of any reference to the punishment. In the last, there is little calculation beyond the absorbing greed of the money to be got. Courvoisier, for example, might have robbed his master with greater safety, and with fewer chances of detection, if he had not murdered him. But, his calculations going to the gain and not to the loss, he had no balance for the consequences of what he did. So, it would have been more safe and prudent in the woman who was hanged a few weeks since, for the murder in Westminster, to have simply robbed her old companion in an unguarded moment, as in her sleep. But, her calculation going to the gain of what she took to be a Bank note; and the poor old woman living between her and the gain; she murdered her. On murders committed in deliberate revenge, or to remove a stumbling block in the murderer's path, or in an insatiate craving for notoriety, is there reason to suppose that the punishment of death has the direct effect of an incentive and an impulse? A murder is committed in deliberate revenge. |
| 1447 |
Such are the instances of wrong judgment which are known to us. How many more there may be in which the real murderers never disclosed their guilt, or were never discovered, and where the odium of great crimes still rests on guiltless people long since resolved to dust in their untimely graves, no human power can tell. The effect of public executions on those who witness them, requires no better illustration, and can have none, than the scene which any execution in itself presents, and the general Police office knowledge of the offences arising out of them. I have stated my belief that the study of rude scenes leads to the disregard of human life, and to murder. Referring, since that expression of opinion, to the very last trial for murder in London, I have made inquiry, and am assured that the youth now under sentence of death in Newgate for the murder of his master in Drury Lane, was a vigilant spectator of the three last public executions in this City. What effects a daily increasing familiarity with the scaffold, and with death upon it, wrought in France in the Great Revolution, everybody knows. In reference to this very question of Capital Punishment, Robespierre himself, before he was "in blood stept in so far", warned the National Assembly that in taking human life, and in displaying before the eyes of the people scenes of cruelty and the bodies of murdered men, the law awakened ferocious prejudices, which gave birth to a long and growing train of their own kind. With how much reason this was said, let his own detestable name bear witness! If we would know how callous and hardened society, even in a peaceful and settled state, becomes to public executions when they are frequent, let us recollect how few they were who made the last attempt to stay the dreadful Monday morning spectacles of men and women strung up in a row for crimes as different in their degree as our whole social scheme is different in its component parts, which, within some fifteen years or so, made human shambles of the Old Bailey. |
| 1448 |
The case is far too plain. The Rev. Henry Christmas, in a recent pamphlet on this subject, shows clearly that in five important versions of the Old Testament (to say nothing of versions of less note) the words, "by man", in the often quoted text, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed", do not appear at all. We know that the law of Moses was delivered to certain wandering tribes in a peculiar and perfectly different social condition from that which prevails among us at this time. We know that the Christian Dispensation did distinctly repeal and annul certain portions of that law. We know that the doctrine of retributive justice or vengeance, was plainly disavowed by the Saviour. We know that on the only occasion of an offender, liable by the law to death, being brought before Him for His judgment, it was not death. We know that He said, "Thou shalt not kill". And if we are still to inflict capital punishment because of the Mosaic law (under which it was not the consequence of a legal proceeding, but an act of vengeance from the next of kin, which would surely be discouraged by our later laws if it were revived among the Jews just now) it would be equally reasonable to establish the lawfulness of a plurality of wives on the same authority. Here I will leave this aspect of the question. I should not have treated of it at all in the columns of a newspaper, but for the possibility of being unjustly supposed to have given it no consideration in my own mind. In bringing to a close these letters on a subject, in connection with which there is happily very little that is new to be said or written, I beg to be understood as advocating the total abolition of the Punishment of Death, as a general principle, for the advantage of society, for the prevention of crime, and without the least reference to, or tenderness for any individual malefactor whomsoever. Indeed, in most cases of murder, my feeling towards the culprit is very strongly and violently the reverse. |
| 1449 |
A composition of such marvellous beauty, of such infinite variety, of such masterly design, of such vigorous and skilful drawing, of such thought and fancy, of such surprising and delicate accuracy of detail, subserving one grand harmony, and one plain purpose, that it may be questioned whether the Fine Arts in any period of their history have known a more remarkable performance. It is the cartoon of Daniel Maclise, "executed by order of the Commissioners", and called The Spirit of Chivalry. It may be left an open question, whether or no this allegorical order on the part of the Commissioners, displays any uncommon felicity of idea. We rather think not; and are free to confess that we should like to have seen the Commissioners' notion of the Spirit of Chivalry stated by themselves, in the first instance, on a sheet of foolscap, as the ground plan of a model cartoon, with all the commissioned proportions of height and breadth. That the treatment of such an abstraction, for the purposes of Art, involves great and peculiar difficulties, no one who considers the subject for a moment can doubt. That nothing is easier to render it absurd and monstrous, is a position as little capable of dispute by anybody who has beheld another cartoon on the same subject in the same Hall, representing a Ghoule in a state of raving madness, dancing on a Body in a very high wind, to the great astonishment of John the Baptist's head, which is looking on from a corner. Mr. Maclise's handling of the subject has by this time sunk into the hearts of thousands upon thousands of people. It is familiar knowledge among all classes and conditions of men. It is the great feature within the Hall, and the constant topic of discourse elsewhere. It has awakened in the great body of society a new interest in, and a new perception and a new love of, Art. Students of Art have sat before it, hour by hour, perusing in its many forms of Beauty, lessons to delight the world, and raise themselves, its future teachers, in its better estimation. |
| 1450 |
It would be idle to observe of this last group that, both in execution and idea, they are of the very highest order of Art, and wonderfully serve the purpose of the picture. There is not one among its three and twenty heads of which the same remark might not be made. Neither will we treat of great effects produced by means quite powerless in other hands for such an end, or of the prodigious force and colour which so separate this work from all the rest exhibited, that it would scarcely appear to be produced upon the same kind of surface by the same description of instrument. The bricks and stones and timbers of the Hall itself are not facts more indisputable than these. It has been objected to this extraordinary work that it is too elaborately finished; too complete in its several parts. And Heaven knows, if it be judged in this respect by any standard in the Hall about it, it will find no parallel, nor anything approaching to it. But it is a design, intended to be afterwards copied and painted in fresco; and certain finish must be had at last, if not at first. It is very well to take it for granted in a Cartoon that a series of cross lines, almost as rough and apart as the lattice work of a garden summerhouse, represents the texture of a human face; but the face cannot be painted so. A smear upon the paper may be understood, by virtue of the context gained from what surrounds it, to stand for a limb, or a body, or a cuirass, or a hat and feathers, or a flag, or a boot, or an angel. But when the time arrives for rendering these things in colours on a wall, they must be grappled with, and cannot be slurred over in this wise. Great misapprehension on this head seems to have been engendered in the minds of some observers by the famous cartoons of Raphael; but they forget that these were never intended as designs for fresco painting. They were designs for tapestry work, which is susceptible of only certain broad and general effects, as no one better knew than the Great Master. |
| 1451 |
Considerable delay occurred before they could be got together, arising out of certain claims preferred, and formalities insisted on by the authorities of the Canton de Vaud. When at length the whole of his late friend's papers passed into the Literary Executor's hands, it was found that Religious Opinions were scattered up and down through a variety of memoranda and note books, the gradual accumulation of years and years. Many of the following pages were carefully transcribed, numbered, connected, and prepared for the press; but many more were dispersed fragments, originally written in pencil, afterwards inked over, the intended sequence of which in the writer's mind, it was extremely difficult to follow. These again were intermixed with journals of travel, fragments of poems, critical essays, voluminous correspondence, and old school exercises and college themes, having no kind of connection with them. To publish such materials "without alteration", was simply impossible. But finding everywhere internal evidence that Mr. Townshend's Religious Opinions had been constantly meditated and reconsidered with great pains and sincerity throughout his life, the Literary Executor carefully compiled them (always in the writer's exact words), and endeavoured in piecing them together to avoid needless repetition. He does not doubt that Mr. Townshend held the clue to a precise plan, which could have greatly simplified the presentation of these views; and he has devoted the first section of this volume to Mr. Townshend's own notes of his comprehensive intentions. Proofs of the devout spirit in which they were conceived, and of the sense of responsibility with which he worked at them, abound through the whole mass of papers. Mr. Townshend's varied attainments, delicate tastes, and amiable and gentle nature, caused him to be beloved through life by the variously distinguished men who were his compeers at Cambridge long ago. To his Literary Executor he was always a warmly attached and sympathetic friend. |
| 1452 |
I take this to have been the case (as it unquestionably was in London), not because of its picturesqueness, not because of its novelty, not because of its many scattered beauties, but because of its perfect consistency with itself. As the animal painter said of his favourite picture of rabbits that there was more nature about those rabbits than you usually found in rabbits, so it may be said of Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, that there was more consistency about that Hamlet than you usually found in Hamlets. Its great and satisfying originality was in its possessing the merit of a distinctly conceived and executed idea. From the first appearance of the broken glass of fashion and mould of form, pale and worn with weeping for his father's death, and remotely suspicious of its cause, to his final struggle with Horatio for the fatal cup, there were cohesion and coherence in Mr. Fechter's view of the character. Devrient, the German actor, had, some years before in London, fluttered the theatrical doves considerably, by such changes as being seated when instructing the players, and like mild departures from established usage; but he had worn, in the main, the old nondescript dress, and had held forth, in the main, in the old way, hovering between sanity and madness. I do not remember whether he wore his hair crisply curled short, as if he were going to an everlasting dancing master's party at the Danish court; but I do remember that most other Hamlets since the great Kemble had been bound to do so. Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, a pale, woebegone Norseman with long flaxen hair, wearing a strange garb never associated with the part upon the English stage (if ever seen there at all) and making a piratical swoop upon the whole fleet of little theatrical prescriptions without meaning, or, like Dr. Johnson's celebrated friend, with only one idea in them, and that a wrong one, never could have achieved its extraordinary success but for its animation by one pervading purpose, to which all changes were made intelligently subservient. |
| 1453 |
And pretty well the only thing that grated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether you change your money at a money dealer's or whether you take your ticket at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose by government) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological appearance than a free country. Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed that night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks "What do you think of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?" I says "Jemmy I feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let off in my head." And very cool and refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to look after my Legacy, and rested me much and did me a deal of good. So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little town with a great two towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of a stone pulpit. In which pulpit with the birds skimming below him if you'll believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and which really was. I had been a fancying as I sat in the balcony of the hotel that an Angel might light there and call down to the people to be good, but I little thought what Jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place to some one in the town. The pleasantest situated inn my dear! Right under the two towers, with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, and country people driving in and out of the courtyard in carts and hooded cabriolets and such like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter. The Major and me agreed that whatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear boy had best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight of the Englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go together and alone. |
| 1454 |
The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled hair and a sun browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the rudder lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman or river carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight head way against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as he directed his daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was a touch of dread or horror. Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason of the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they often did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the man showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown arms bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a looser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard and whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the mud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business like usage in his steady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; they were things of usage. |
| 1455 |
And the pot boy afterwards remarked, that he hadn't been "so rattled to bed", since his late mother had systematically accelerated his retirement to rest with a poker. The chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, disenchanted Lizzie Hexam of that first relief she had felt. The night was black and shrill, the river side wilderness was melancholy, and there was a sound of casting out, in the rattling of the iron links, and the grating of the bolts and staples under Miss Abbey's hand. As she came beneath the lowering sky, a sense of being involved in a murky shade of Murder dropped upon her; and, as the tidal swell of the river broke at her feet without her seeing how it gathered, so, her thoughts startled her by rushing out of an unseen void and striking at her heart. Of her father's being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure. And yet, repeat the word inwardly as often as she would, the attempt to reason out and prove that she was sure, always came after it and failed. Riderhood had done the deed, and entrapped her father. Riderhood had not done the deed, but had resolved in his malice to turn against her father, the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort. Equally and swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed the frightful possibility that her father, being innocent, yet might come to be believed guilty. She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshed of which they were afterwards proved pure, and those ill fated persons were not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her father stood. Then at the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against, and avoided, was a certain fact. It dated from that very night. And as the great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to her view in the gloom, so, she stood on the river's brink unable to see into the vast blank misery of a life suspected, and fallen away from by good and bad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching away to the great ocean, Death. |
| 1456 |
They had newly agreed to set up a joint establishment together. They had taken a bachelor cottage near Hampton, on the brink of the Thames, with a lawn, and a boat house; and all things fitting, and were to float with the stream through the summer and the Long Vacation. It was not summer yet, but spring; and it was not gentle spring ethereally mild, as in Thomson's Seasons, but nipping spring with an easterly wind, as in Johnson's, Jackson's, Dickson's, Smith's, and Jones's Seasons. The grating wind sawed rather than blew; and as it sawed, the sawdust whirled about the sawpit. Every street was a sawpit, and there were no top sawyers; every passenger was an under sawyer, with the sawdust blinding him and choking him. That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when the wind blows, gyrated here and there and everywhere. Whence can it come, whither can it go? It hangs on every bush, flutters in every tree, is caught flying by the electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks at every pump, cowers at every grating, shudders upon every plot of grass, seeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails. In Paris, where nothing is wasted, costly and luxurious city though it be, but where wonderful human ants creep out of holes and pick up every scrap, there is no such thing. There, it blows nothing but dust. There, sharp eyes and sharp stomachs reap even the east wind, and get something out of it. The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung their many hands, bemoaning that they had been over persuaded by the sun to bud; the young leaves pined; the sparrows repented of their early marriages, like men and women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, not in floral spring, but in the faces of the people whom it nibbled and pinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. When the spring evenings are too long and light to shut out, and such weather is rife, the city which Mr Podsnap so explanatorily called London, Londres, London, is at its worst. |
| 1457 |
Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents boldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with them. Genuine orphan stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the market. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that Mr and Mrs Milvey were coming down the court, orphan scrip would be instantly concealed, and production refused, save on a condition usually stated by the brokers as "a gallon of beer". Likewise, fluctuations of a wild and South Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan holders keeping back, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the uniform principle at the root of all these various operations was bargain and sale; and that principle could not be recognized by Mr and Mrs Milvey. At length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charming orphan to be found at Brentford. One of the deceased parents (late his parishioners) had a poor widowed grandmother in that agreeable town, and she, Mrs Betty Higden, had carried off the orphan with maternal care, but could not afford to keep him. The Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down himself and take a preliminary survey of this orphan, or to drive her down, that she might at once form her own opinion. Mrs Boffin preferring the latter course, they set off one morning in a hired phaeton, conveying the hammer headed young man behind them. The abode of Mrs Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in such complicated back settlements of muddy Brentford that they left their equipage at the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in search of it on foot. After many inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to them in a lane, a very small cottage residence, with a board across the open doorway, hooked on to which board by the armpits was a young gentleman of tender years, angling for mud with a headless wooden horse and line. In this young sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan. |
| 1458 |
For then, an inclined plane of unfortunate infants would be handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good intentions, whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand on the floor before them as chief executioner, would be attended by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where it first became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when and where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion of blinkers. And so the jumble would be in action in this department for a mortal hour; the exponent drawling on to My Dearert Childerrenerr, let us say, for example, about the beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; and repeating the word Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred times, and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boy smoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the whole hot bed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, whooping cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembled in High Market for the purpose. Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boy exceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, having learned it, could impart it much better than the teachers; as being more knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stood towards the shrewder pupils. In this way it had come about that Charley Hexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been received from the jumble into a better school. |
| 1459 |
He could not but feel that, like an eminently aristocratic family cheese, it was much too large for his wants, and bred an infinite amount of parasites; but he was content to regard this drawback on his property as a sort of perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt the more resigned to it, forasmuch as Mrs Boffin enjoyed herself completely, and Miss Bella was delighted. That young lady was, no doubt, and acquisition to the Boffins. She was far too pretty to be unattractive anywhere, and far too quick of perception to be below the tone of her new career. Whether it improved her heart might be a matter of taste that was open to question; but as touching another matter of taste, its improvement of her appearance and manner, there could be no question whatever. And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set Mrs Boffin right; and even further, that Miss Bella began to feel ill at ease, and as it were responsible, when she saw Mrs Boffin going wrong. Not that so sweet a disposition and so sound a nature could ever go very wrong even among the great visiting authorities who agreed that the Boffins were 'charmingly vulgar' (which for certain was not their own case in saying so), but that when she made a slip on the social ice on which all the children of Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be saved, are required to skate in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss Bella up (so that young lady felt), and caused her to experience great confusion under the glances of the more skilful performers engaged in those ice exercises. At Miss Bella's time of life it was not to be expected that she should examine herself very closely on the congruity or stability of her position in Mr Boffin's house. And as she had never been sparing of complaints of her old home when she had no other to compare it with, so there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain in her very much preferring her new one. "An invaluable man is Rokesmith," said Mr Boffin, after some two or three months. |
| 1460 |
A part of the Hole, indeed, contained so much public spirit and private virtue that not even this strong leverage could move it to good fellowship with a tainted accuser. But, there may have been the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponents held a true witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly and accursed character to a false one. Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr Riderhood might have found the Hole a mere grave as to any means it would yield him of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some little position and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of small scales, she was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on insignificant articles of property deposited with her as security. In her four and twentieth year of life, Pleasant was already in her fifth year of this way of trade. Her deceased mother had established the business, and on that parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital of fifteen shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence of such capital in a pillow being the last intelligible confidential communication made to her by the departed, before succumbing to dropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally with coherence and existence. Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might possibly have been at some time able to explain, and possibly not. Her daughter had no information on that point. Pleasant she found herself, and she couldn't help it. She had not been consulted on the question, any more than on the question of her coming into these terrestrial parts, to want a name. Similarly, she found herself possessed of what is colloquially termed a swivel eye (derived from her father), which she might perhaps have declined if her sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was not otherwise positively ill looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy complexion, and looking as old again as she really was. |
| 1461 |
Miserly literature not being abundant, the proportion of failures to successes may have been as a hundred to one; still Mr Boffin, never wearied, remained as avaricious for misers as he had been at the first onset. It was curious that Bella never saw the books about the house, nor did she ever hear from Mr Boffin one word of reference to their contents. He seemed to save up his Misers as they had saved up their money. As they had been greedy for it, and secret about it, and had hidden it, so he was greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond all doubt it was to be noticed, and was by Bella very clearly noticed, that, as he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records with the ardour of Don Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began to spend his money with a more sparing hand. And often when he came out of a shop with some new account of one of those wretched lunatics, she would almost shrink from the sly dry chuckle with which he would take her arm again and trot away. It did not appear that Mrs Boffin knew of this taste. He made no allusion to it, except in the morning walks when he and Bella were always alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that he took her into his confidence by implication, and partly in remembrance of Mrs Boffin's anxious face that night, held the same reserve. While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs Lammle made the discovery that Bella had a fascinating influence over her. The Lammles, originally presented by the dear Veneerings, visited the Boffins on all grand occasions, and Mrs Lammle had not previously found this out; but now the knowledge came upon her all at once. It was a most extraordinary thing (she said to Mrs Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the power of beauty, but it wasn't altogether that; she never had been able to resist a natural grace of manner, but it wasn't altogether that; it was more than that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree to which she was captivated by this charming girl. |
| 1462 |
The weather had been hard and the roads had been bad, and her spirit was up. A less stanch spirit might have been subdued by such adverse influences; but the loan for her little outfit was in no part repaid, and it had gone worse with her than she had foreseen, and she was put upon proving her case and maintaining her independence. Faithful soul! When she had spoken to the Secretary of that 'deadness that steals over me at times', her fortitude had made too little of it. Oftener and ever oftener, it came stealing over her; darker and ever darker, like the shadow of advancing Death. That the shadow should be deep as it came on, like the shadow of an actual presence, was in accordance with the laws of the physical world, for all the Light that shone on Betty Higden lay beyond Death. The poor old creature had taken the upward course of the river Thames as her general track; it was the track in which her last home lay, and of which she had last had local love and knowledge. She had hovered for a little while in the near neighbourhood of her abandoned dwelling, and had sold, and knitted and sold, and gone on. In the pleasant towns of Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, her figure came to be quite well known for some short weeks, and then again passed on. She would take her stand in market places, where there were such things, on market days; at other times, in the busiest (that was seldom very busy) portion of the little quiet High Street; at still other times she would explore the outlying roads for great houses, and would ask leave at the Lodge to pass in with her basket, and would not often get it. But ladies in carriages would frequently make purchases from her trifling stock, and were usually pleased with her bright eyes and her hopeful speech. In these and her clean dress originated a fable that she was well to do in the world: one might say, for her station, rich. As making a comfortable provision for its subject which costs nobody anything, this class of fable has long been popular. |
| 1463 |
A stranger to the scene might have been certain that here and there along the line of hedge a figure stood, watching the bargeman, and waiting for him to come up. So he himself had often believed at first, until his eyes became used to the posts, bearing the dagger that slew Wat Tyler, in the City of London shield. Within Mr Riderhood's knowledge all daggers were as one. Even to Bradley Headstone, who could have told to the letter without book all about Wat Tyler, Lord Mayor Walworth, and the King, that it is dutiful for youth to know, there was but one subject living in the world for every sharp destructive instrument that summer evening. So, Riderhood looking after him as he went, and he with his furtive hand laid upon the dagger as he passed it, and his eyes upon the boat, were much upon a par. The boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their tranquil shadows in the water. The bargeman skulking on the opposite bank of the stream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed Riderhood when and where the rower dipped his blades, until, even as he stood idly watching, the sun went down and the landscape was dyed red. And then the red had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven, as we say that blood, guiltily shed, does. Turning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of view of it), the Rogue pondered as deeply as it was within the contracted power of such a fellow to do. "Why did he copy my clothes? He could have looked like what he wanted to look like, without that." This was the subject matter in his thoughts; in which, too, there came lumbering up, by times, like any half floating and half sinking rubbish in the river, the question, Was it done by accident? The setting of a trap for finding out whether it was accidentally done, soon superseded, as a practical piece of cunning, the abstruser inquiry why otherwise it was done. And he devised a means. Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock house, and brought forth, into the now sober grey light, his chest of clothes. |
| 1464 |
It was a chance to relax and catch up with what they were all doing. It was rare for him to spend Saturday afternoons alone with her anymore. And when he did, there was always something else they had to do. Like Andy's games, or one of Allyson's swim meets, which always seemed to be held in the most godforsaken places. Either that, or their dog cut her paw, the roof leaked, the plumbing fell apart, or some other minor emergency had to be taken care of. There were no lazy Saturdays anymore, there hadn't been in years. She was used to it, and she and Brad stole whatever moments they could, at night when the kids were asleep, between his business trips, or on their rare weekends away together. Finding time for romance in busy lives was quite a feat, but somehow they managed to do it. She was still crazy about him, after sixteen years of marriage and two kids. She had everything she wanted, a husband she adored, and who loved her, a secure life, and two wonderful children. Their house in Ross wasn't elaborate, but it was pretty and comfortable, it was in a nice area, and with her constant puttering and knack for improving things, Page had made it really lovely. Her years as an art student and an apprentice set designer in New York hadn't served her much, but she had used her talents in recent years to paint beautiful murals for herself and friends. She had done a spectacular one at Ross Grammar School. She had turned their home into a place of real beauty. Her paintings and murals and artistic touch had turned an ordinary little ranch house into a home that everyone admired and envied. It was all Page's doing, and all who saw it knew that. She had painted a baseball game in full swing on one wall of Andy's room as his Christmas present the previous year, and he really loved it. For Allyson, she had done a Paris street scene the year she'd been in love with all things French, and later a string of ballerinas inspired by Degas, and more recently she had turned Allyson's room into a swimming pool with her magic touch. |
| 1465 |
She was good to him, and he knew it. But he was a good boy, and he deserved it. "Anytime, Mr. Clarke. Now go tell Dad about that famous catch. You made history out there today!" He laughed and ran into the house, as she picked up Allyson's bicycle sprawled across the walkway. Her roller blades were leaning up against the garage, and her tennis racket lay on a chair just outside the kitchen door with a can of balls she had "borrowed" from her father. She had obviously had a busy day, and as soon as Page walked into the house, she saw her on the kitchen phone, still wearing her tennis clothes, her long blond hair in a French braid, her back turned to her mother. She was concluding some plan, and then hung up and turned to face her. She was a beautiful girl, and it still startled Page sometimes when she saw her. She was so striking looking, and she seemed so mature. She had a woman's body, and a young girl's mind, and she was always in motion, in action, in mid plan. She always had something to say, tell, ask, do, somewhere she had to be, right now, two hours ago, this minute... she really had to! She had that look on her face now, as Page rapidly shifted gears from the easy roll of being with Andy. Allyson was more intense, more like Brad, always on the move, on the go, thinking ahead to what she wanted to do next, where she had to be, and what was important to her. She was more intense than Page, more focused, not as kind, or as gentle as Andy would be one day. But she was a bright girl with a fine mind and lots of good ideas and good intentions. Every now and then her common sense went astray, and occasionally she and Page would get into a roaring fight over some typically teenage mistake she'd made, but eventually Allyson usually made sense, and calmed down enough to listen to her parents. At fifteen, none of her antics were very surprising. She was trying her wings, testing her limits, trying to figure out who she was going to be, not Page, or Brad, but herself, someone entirely different. |
| 1466 |
Teenagers certainly brought one back to earth and reminded one of one's failures and misfortunes. "How do you know?" His wife had left him the year before and right after the divorce, she had taken a job with a theatrical agent in England. She'd offered to take their three children with her, and put them in English boarding schools. She was American herself, but she thought the English school system was a lot better than anything here, but Trygve Thorensen had no intention of giving them up, and kept them with him. Sadly, after twenty years of suburban life, she was so sick and tired of being chauffeur, maid, and tutor to her children that she'd been willing to give it all up. Everything. Trygve, the kids, her whole life in Ross. She hated all of it. As far as Dana Thorensen was concerned, now it was her turn. She'd tried to tell him all along, but Trygve just didn't hear her. He wanted it to work so badly that he refused to see her anger and desperation. They'd all been pretty badly shaken up when she left, and Page was shocked at her leaving her kids, but apparently it had all been too much for her for a long time. And everyone in Ross had always been impressed by how well Trygve managed his children, and how much he did with them. He was a free lance political writer, and worked out of his home. It was a perfect setup for him, and unlike his wife, he never seemed to tire of his parental responsibilities and obligations. He had taken them on with the good humor and warmth he was so well known for. It wasn't easy, he admitted from time to time, but he was managing fine, and his kids seemed happier than they had in years. He seemed to find time for his work while the kids were in school, and late at night after they went to bed. And in the hours that they were around, he seemed to do everything with them. He was a familiar figure to all their friends, and well liked by most of them. It didn't surprise Page at all that he had offered to take a bunch of them to the movies and dinner at Luigi's. |
| 1467 |
At seven he was already a big boy, but he was still her baby, and always would be. In her own way, Allyson was still her baby too. Maybe children always are, at any age. She smiled, thinking of her, in the borrowed pink cashmere, and how pretty she looked when she left to have dinner with the Thorensens. Page thought of Brad then too. And when she checked for messages on the machine, she discovered that he had called her from the airport. He had probably known they would be out, but he had just called to tell her he loved her. She watched a movie on TV then. She was tired and would have gone to sleep, but she wanted to wait up for Allyson. Page had not yet reached the point of being able to assume that she would come in. She wanted to know for sure, so she sat up and waited. At eleven o'clock she watched the news. Nothing too remarkable had happened, and Page saw with relief that there had been no disasters in the air, or at the airport. Whenever Brad was traveling, she was always nervous that something terrible might happen to him. But nothing had. There had been the usual shootings in Oakland, the gang wars, the politicians insulting each other, and a minor crisis at a water treatment plant. And other than that, there had been an accident on the Golden Gate Bridge, and a few minutes before they had closed the bridge, but at least Page knew that she didn't have to worry about that. Brad was in the air, and Allyson had stayed in Marin, with the Thorensens. Andy was in bed next to her. All her chickens were accounted for, thank God. It was something to be grateful for, as she glanced at the clock and waited for Allyson to come home by eleven thirty. It was eleven twenty by then, and knowing her well, Page knew she would come racing through the door at eleven twenty nine, eyes bright, hair flying... and probably with a huge spot of spaghetti sauce on the borrowed pink cashmere sweater. Page smiled to herself, thinking of it, as she settled deeper into her bed, to watch the weather. |
| 1468 |
It was Jamie who had set up the date, and Chloe who had arranged it. She had consulted with Allyson immediately, who said that her mother would never let her go out with a senior. She had only had a few very tentative dates by then, usually to go to movies with boys she had known all her life, or in a large group of friends, and so far always dropped off and picked up by their parents. None of their sophomore friends had driver's licenses yet, so transportation was all important. There were parties, of course, and she had gone steady for a few weeks before Christmas, but they were sick of each other by the New Year. There had never been a real date with a real boy who picked her up in a real car and took her out for a real dinner. Until tonight. This was very real, a little too much so. After considerable consultation with Allyson and her other friends, Chloe had decided that her father wouldn't want her going out with Jamie Applegate, at least not in a car, driven by him. She knew instinctively that her father would complain that she scarcely knew him. Maybe if Jamie spent some time with them, came to dinner once or twice, hung around with them, maybe her father would feel different. But certainly not in time for this once in a lifetime opportunity that she had to seize now, or surely it would never come again. Carpe diem. Seize the day. And she had. She had convinced Allyson that the only way was to lie to their parents. Just this once. This one time wouldn't hurt anything, and if they liked the boys after that, and wanted to go out with them again, then they could lay all the groundwork with their parents. This was like a tryout. Allyson wasn't sure about it at first, but Phillip Chapman was so beautiful, so overwhelming in his coolness and seniority, there was no way she could resist a chance to go out with him. Chloe was right. After endless phone calls, and whispered conversations at school, they accepted, and made arrangements to meet the boys around the corner from Chloe's house. |
| 1469 |
It was apparent by then that a black Lincoln had hit them head on. The engine was crushed, and the two cars seemed to have merged into one. Except for the color, it was almost impossible to distinguish between them. A woman was wandering nearby, murmuring to herself and whimpering, but she appeared unharmed, and two other motorists went to her, as the two men peered into the gray Mercedes. One man had brought a flashlight with him and was wearing rough clothes, the other one was a young man in jeans, and had already said he was a doctor. "Do you see anything?" the man with the flashlight asked, feeling his whole body shake as he looked inside the Mercedes. He had seen a lot of things, but never anything like this. He had almost hit another car as he swerved to avoid them. There was traffic stopped everywhere, in all lanes, and no one was moving across the bridge now. It was dark in the car at first, in spite of the lights overhead, everything was so crushed and so condensed that it was hard to see who was in it. And then, they saw him. His face was covered with blood, his whole body compressed into an impossible space, the back of his head crushed against the door, his neck at an awful angle. It was obvious instantly that he was dead, although the doctor searched for a pulse, and couldn't find one. "The driver's dead," the doctor said quietly to the other man, who shone his flashlight into the backseat, and found himself staring into a young man's eyes. He was conscious and seemed alert, but he said not a word as he stared at the man with the flashlight. "Are you all right?" he asked as Jamie Apple gate nodded. There was a cut over one eye, and he had hit his forehead on something, possibly Phillip. He looked dazed, but he seemed otherwise unhurt, which was nothing less than amazing. The man with the flashlight tried to open the door for him, but everything was so jammed that he couldn't. "The highway patrol will be here in a minute, son." He spoke calmly, and Jamie nodded again. |
| 1470 |
From what he could see, both of the young people in the front seat were a loss. Only the two in the back had been extremely lucky. "Christ, they're taking forever, aren't they?" the man with the flashlight said under his breath, looking at the carnage in the car. With the flashlight, they could see more clearly how much blood had been lost. Both of the girls seemed to be bleeding profusely. "It just feels that way," the doctor said softly. He had ridden an ambulance as part of his residency in New York ten years before, and he had seen a lot of ugly things, on the highways, in the streets, and in the ghettos. He had delivered his share of babies in back hallways too, but he had seen more scenes like this one, and frequently with no survivors. "They'll be here in a minute." The other man was sweating profusely and Chloe's screams were getting to him. And he was afraid to look at Allyson's face, she was in such bad shape. He wasn't even sure she had a face left. And then, finally, they came. Two fire engines, an ambulance, and three police cars. Several people had called from their car phones and reported how bad the accident was, others had approached the two cars cautiously, and learned that there were four passengers in the smaller car, two of them badly injured. The driver of the other car had been miraculously untouched except for a few scratches and bruises, and she was sobbing hysterically by the side of the road, in the arms of a stranger. Three of the firemen and two cops approached the car simultaneously, along with both paramedics. The other policemen tried to take charge of the traffic, directing it slowly around the two cars, and getting it moving in one direction. Their own vehicles had added to the confusion and the roadblock, and the single file of cars heading north barely crawled past the two cars and the emergency vehicles, as people stared at the carnage. "What have we got?" The highway patrolman glanced in first, and shook his head when he looked at Phillip. |
| 1471 |
If they didn't get her to the hospital soon, she just wasn't going to make it. And then, finally, the Jaws of Life rumbled up, and the five man crew leapt out and came running. They assessed the situation within milliseconds, had a brief consultation with the people on the scene, and then moved swiftly into action. Chloe was starting to lose consciousness by then, and one of the firemen was giving her oxygen through the open window. It was Allyson who had to be freed first, Allyson who was almost dead, who had no hope at all unless they could pry her from the car in minutes, maybe seconds. No matter how great Chloe's distress, she had to wait. She was not in as great danger. And they couldn't move her anyway until the front seat was removed, and Allyson with it. While one man stabilized the vehicle with wedges and chocks so that nothing more would move, a second man on the team deflated the tires, and two others moved with lightning speed to remove the remaining glass from all the windows. The fifth conferred with the patrolmen and paramedics on the scene, and then rapidly joined his partner, to help remove the rear window. The young people within had all gently been covered by tarps, so that no random piece of falling glass would hurt them. The windshield took two of them to remove, with one man using a flathead ax around the edges. Eventually, the windshield came away, and they actually folded it almost like a blanket. They slid it swiftly under the car with practiced hands, moving like a highly practiced ballet team. Two others removed the rear window. Only slightly more than a minute had passed since they'd arrived on the scene, and the doctor watched them, thinking that if Allyson survived at all it would be thanks to them and their speedy, almost surgical reactions. With a tarp still covering Allyson, one of the rescuers moved inside, removed the keys and cut the seat belts. And then, as one group, they began flapping the roof, using a hydraulic cutter, and hand hacksaws. |
| 1472 |
But Allyson never stirred, and the paramedics continued pumping oxygen into her through the air tube. Within moments, they pulled the roof off the car, drilled a hole in the door, and inserted the Jaws of Life in the door to force it open. The machine itself weighed close to a hundred pounds and took two men to hold, and made a sound as loud as a jackhammer. Jamie was crying openly by now, and the noise of the spreader was so intense that it even drowned out Chloe's screaming. Only Allyson was oblivious to all they were going through, and one of the paramedics was lying next to her on the driver's side, keeping track of the IV and her air tube, and making sure she was still breathing. She was, but barely. They removed the door entirely, and then moved swiftly to work pulling away the dashboard and the steering. They used nine foot chains and a giant hook to pull it away, and before it was even fully freed, the paramedics had slipped a backboard under Allyson to immobilize her further. But as they did, the entire car was open to the night air, the front end gone, the roof open, the doors off, and Allyson could finally be moved now. And they could see, as the paramedics bent over her, how acute her wounds were. She looked as though she'd received blows at the front of her head, and the side as well. Her head must have bounced around like a marble when the car hit her. And her seat belt had been so loose, it was almost as though she hadn't worn one. But all their manpower was concentrated now on moving her, ever so gently, to the gurney. Speed was of the essence, and yet every movement had to be infinitely delicate and carefully planned, or they might do her further cervical or spinal damage. She was barely clinging to life as the head of the paramedic team shouted "Go!" and they ran as smoothly as they could to the waiting ambulance with the gurney. Two more ambulances had arrived on the scene by then, and the newly arrived paramedics turned their attention to Chloe and Jamie. |
| 1473 |
And they were starting to hose down the oil and debris, and the blood that had spattered on the pavement. It would be another hour or two before bridge traffic could resume, and even then there would be only one lane open in each direction until the early morning, when the last of the wreckage was towed away to be examined. The camera crews were getting ready to leave by then. There was nothing left to see, and the Senator's wife had refused to comment on the other driver's death. The highway patrol had protected her from them very discreetly. It was twelve thirty when they finally took her home to her house on Clay Street in San Francisco. Her husband was in Washington, D.C., and she had gone to a party in Belvedere. Her children were asleep in bed, and the housekeeper opened the door to them and began to cry when she saw Mrs. Hutchinson's disheveled state and heard the story. Laura Hutchinson thanked them profusely, insisted that she didn't need to go to the hospital, and would see her own doctor the next morning, if there was any need for it. And she made them promise that they would call her to tell her of the other young people's condition. She already knew that the young driver was dead, but they hadn't yet told her that Allyson would probably not survive until morning. The highway patrolmen felt sorry for her, she was so distraught, so frightened, so desperately upset by what had happened. She had cried terribly when she saw Phillip's body covered with the drape and removed. She had three children of her own, and the thought of these young people dying in an accident was almost more than she could bear to think of. The patrolman who brought her home suggested that she take a tranquilizer that night, to calm her nerves, if she had any in the house, or at least have a strong drink. She looked as though she needed it, and he was sure that the Senator wouldn't mind his suggestion. "I haven't had a drink all night," she said nervously. "I never drink when I go out without my husband," she explained. |
| 1474 |
They looked like brother and sister as they hurried down the hall, both of them so blond and Scandinavian looking. He was a pleasant man, with healthy good looks, and a gentle manner. It was easy to be with him. She had never felt as comfortable with anyone. They were partners in disaster. The door to the conference room looked ominous as they pushed their way through, and there were three men in surgical gowns and caps waiting around an oval table. Their masks were down around their necks, and Page noticed with a shudder that one of them still had blood on his gown, and she prayed that it wasn't her daughter's. "How is she?" She couldn't restrain the words, it was all she wanted to know. But the answer was not as simple as the question. "She's alive, Mrs. Clarke. She's a strong girl. She sustained a tremendous blow, and an ugly injury. A lot of people wouldn't have made it this far. But she has, and we hope that's a good sign. But there's a long way to go right now. "What she has sustained are essentially two kinds of injuries, each with its own particular complications. Her first injury occurred at the moment of impact. Her brain was decelerated against the skull, and to put it simply, pretty badly shaken around. It may well have been rotated, and in the process, nerve fibers probably got stretched, and arteries and veins would have gotten torn. This can cause a tremendous amount of damage. "Her second injury actually appears to be more frightening than the first, but may not be. She has an open wound where the skull was cut through, and the bone of the skull had been broken. Her brain is actually exposed right now, in that area, probably where she was struck by some sharp piece of steel in the car just after the impact." Page made a horrifying little sound as she listened, and clutched Trygve's hand without thinking. She felt ill thinking of what they had just said, but she was willing herself not to faint or throw up. She knew she had to absorb what they were saying. |
| 1475 |
They were a nice looking couple in their late fifties. She had well groomed white hair, and Mr. Chapman looked like a banker. Page saw them arrive at the front desk, looking exhausted and worn. They had driven all the way from Carmel the moment they had been called, unable to believe what had happened. Phillip was their only child, they had had him late, and had never been able to have any others. He was the light of their life, which was why they hadn't wanted him to go East to college. They couldn't bear the idea of his being so far away, and now he couldn't be farther. He was gone from their life forever. Mrs. Chapman stood with her head bowed, crying softly as they listened to the doctor, her husband had an arm around her and cried openly as he told them that Phillip had been killed instantly from a head injury and a broken neck that had severed both his spinal cord and his brain stem. There had been no hope of his surviving from the moment of impact. The doctor told them too that there had been a small amount of alcohol in his blood, not enough to make him legally drunk, but maybe enough for a boy his age to be slightly affected. He did not say that the accident was due to him, it still remained unclear who had hit whom, or why. But the implication was there, and the Chapmans looked horrified when they heard it. The doctor in the examining room told them that the other driver had been Senator Hutchinson's wife, and that she was devastated over it, not that that changed anything for the Chapmans. Phillip was dead, no matter who the other driver had been. Mrs. Chapman's grief turned suddenly to anger as she listened to him and the implication that Phillip might have been drinking. She asked if the other driver had been checked too, and was told that she hadn't. The patrolmen at the scene had been certain she was sober. There had been no suspicion about her at all. And as he listened, Tom Chapman grew visibly angry. He looked outraged by what they'd just told them. |
| 1476 |
A photographer took their picture as they sat in a corner of the emergency room. They looked confused at the flash of light. So much had already happened to them, it was just one more incomprehensible moment. And when they realized that the press had photographed them, they were understandably outraged by the intrusion. In the midst of their grief, they were being subjected to indignity as well, and Tom Chapman looked as though he were going to physically assault the man who had taken their picture, but of course he didn't. He was in great distress, but he was a reasonable person. But it was then that they understood that their agony was going to become a news event because of who the other driver had been. It was news, something hot, something to tantalize people with. Was it the Senator's wife's fault, or was she a very lucky innocent victim? Was it the Chapman boy's fault? Was he drunk? Irresponsible? Merely young? Or was there some malfeasance on the part of Laura Hutchinson? Were any or all of them into drugs? The fact that a seventeen year old boy had died, his parents' lives had been shattered, another child had been crippled, and a third nearly killed was merely more fodder for the press, or better yet for the tabloids. The Chapmans looked devastated as they left the hospital, but the most devastating of all had been seeing Phillip. Mary Chapman knew she would never forget the horror of that moment, of seeing him broken and pale, so deathly still as they stared at him and cried, and bent to kiss him. Tom sobbed openly, and Mary bent over him and gently touched his face with her hands, and then kissed him. All she could think of was the first moment she had seen him, seventeen years before, when she had held him in her arms, and been overwhelmed by the sheer joy of being his mother. She knew she would always be, time could never take that from her, but death had taken Phillip from her. She would never see him laugh again, or run across the lawn, slam the front door, or tell her a joke. |
| 1477 |
But she didn't even notice how uncomfortable the chair was. She scarcely slept, worrying about Allie. The noises of the hospital kept her awake, the smells, and the fear that at any moment her daughter might slip away. It was a relief when, finally, at six the next morning, they let her see her. A pretty young nurse took Page to the recovery room, and spoke pleasantly to her on the way there, about what a beautiful girl Allie was, and what lovely hair she had had. Page listened with one ear, and found her mind wandering as they walked the endless halls. She was too distracted to really listen. But she was grateful for the nurse's attempts to be comforting. She couldn't imagine how they could even glimpse Allyson's beauty now. She was so battered, there were even bandages on her eyes from the repairs they had had to do there. Several sets of electric doors opened on the way, and Page tried to force herself back to reality. For a minute, she had been thinking about Brad and all he had told her. But she knew that seeing Allyson would require her full attention. But what she saw when she approached the gurney Allyson was lying on was far from encouraging. If anything, she looked worse than she had before surgery. The bandage on her head looked frightening, her head had been shaved, her face was deathly pale, and she seemed to be surrounded by monitors and machines. She seemed a million miles away, in her coma. The operating room nurse had saved a long silky blond lock of hair for Page, and the recovery room nurse handed it to her as soon as she saw her. It brought tears to Page's eyes again, as she clutched the lock of hair in one hand, and gently touched Allyson with the other. Page stood quietly next to her for a long time, gently touching her hand, and thinking of how life had been only two days before. How was it possible that everything had gone so wrong so quickly? It made you no longer trust anyone or anything, surely not the fates, or destiny. How cruel they had been. |
| 1478 |
Everything had gone so wrong between them so quickly. It was almost impossible to understand it. The pressure they were under was excruciating, but so much else seemed to be wrong too, and she never knew it. The accident had uncovered everything, and brought its own problems along with it. She showered and dressed for the funeral then, and Trygve came to pick her up at exactly two fifteen. He was wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt, and dark tie, and he looked serious and very handsome. Page was wearing a black linen suit she had bought in New York the last time she visited her mother. The service was at St. John's Episcopal Church, and somehow Page hadn't been prepared for the hundreds of kids who would attend, their shining young faces stricken by the loss of their friend, their hearts open for all to see, their grief overwhelming. There was a wonderful photograph of him with the swimming team on the program that the ushers handed out. And then Page realized that the ushers were Phillip's friends from the swim team. She saw Jamie Applegate there too. He looked devastated as he sat between his parents. But they seemed supportive of him. And his father had an arm around his shoulders. They played all the music that the kids loved too, and Page felt tears instantly fill her throat as she heard it. There were at least three or four hundred young people in the church, and she knew Allyson would have been there too, if she hadn't been in the hospital in a coma. And then, looking very dignified, and overwhelmed with grief, Phillip's parents walked in and took their seats in the front pew. There was another much older couple with them, Phillip's grandparents, and just seeing them made one cry. The power of his loss was so obvious just from their faces. The minister spoke very movingly about the mysteries of God's love, and the terrible pain we feel at the loss of a loved one. He spoke of what an extraordinary young man Phillip had been, how admired by everyone, what a bright future he'd had before him. |
| 1479 |
And Chloe came home from the hospital on Sunday, six weeks after the accident that had almost killed her. Trygve drove her home, and Bjorn was waiting for them with big signs everywhere, and bouquets of flowers he had picked from their garden. He had baked a cake for her with Trygve the night before, and he made her lunch himself that day, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, his favorite, and the S'Mores he had learned to make at camp. It was a wonderful homecoming for Chloe. Even Nick had come home from college for the long weekend. And he had given up his room to his sister. Page and Andy had come by to see her too, after she'd settled in. She was lying on the couch in the living room by then, not looking very comfortable, but extremely happy. She still had quite a lot of pain, but she was trying not to overdo the pain medicine. She didn't want to get hooked on any of it, and she tried to cope with it by distraction. Jamie Applegate had come to see her that afternoon too, and he looked suddenly awkward when he arrived. He had visited her a lot in the hospital, and he'd gotten used to seeing her there, but seeing her at home for the first time suddenly reminded him of how dishonest they had been when they had snuck away for the date that had injured her and Allyson, and killed Phillip. It seemed to bring back all of it, for both of them, and they talked quietly for a long time, in the living room, while Bjorn and Trygve and Page and Andy sat in the kitchen. It was a happy, easy day. For the moment, the worst was over. She might have to be operated on again, the doctor thought it was likely that she would. But she would never be in danger again, or in as much pain, or as severely incapacitated as she still was now. Now it was a matter of repairing the damaged limbs, but not of surviving. She looked pretty and young as she lay on the couch in the living room, covered by a pink blanket Page had given her. It was cashmere, and soft, and she fingered it unconsciously as she and Jamie talked about Allie and Phillip. |
| 1480 |
Chloe had helped him a lot, she talked about the things that he wouldn't have dared to say, about the accident and what she was feeling. Because she was a girl, it seemed okay to her, and it somehow gave him permission to vent the guilt and the anguish he felt for surviving the accident unscathed by the cruel hand of fate that had touched the other three. He was still having trouble with it, and seeing a therapist from time to time to help him get over the inevitable guilt he felt. He had even gone to a group of people who had survived plane crashes, and fires, and accidents, but lost members of their families and friends. It had been a great relief to talk to them, and he had told Chloe all about it. "So what are we going to do today?" Jamie asked eventually. They had become close friends in the past six weeks, and he thought he knew everything about her. The kind of music she liked, her favorite actors and actresses and movies, the friends she really loved, and the people she hated, the kind of house she wanted to live in when she grew up, how many children she thought she'd like to have, where she wanted to go to college. They talked about everything, from the trivial to the important. "I don't know," she said, teasing him, "I thought maybe we'd go dancing." She hadn't lost her sense of humor through it all, and he took her hand gently and looked at her, after she said it. "We will one day. I promise you that, we'll go in a great big limousine, like to a prom, and we'll go somewhere and dance all night," he promised with a look of determination. He was serious, and she was touched by the intensity of his feelings. She liked him a lot too, he had come to mean a lot to her in the past weeks. In an odd way, he had almost come to take the place of Allie. If anyone had asked, she would have said they were best friends now. In a way, they were more than that, and they both knew that too, but they didn't say it in words. They had just come to count on each other. In a funny way, not unlike Page and Trygve. |
| 1481 |
It made her look even more childlike as she lay stiffly on her bed, with her head on the pillow. "I love you," Page would whisper and then go back to work again, her hair tied up in a knot, with her brushes sticking into it, and an old work shirt. But she also started another very special project at the same time. Suddenly she was moving ahead at full steam, and Trygve was relieved to see it. She was returning to the living. She started an art project at Bjorn's new school, and everyone was in love with her, especially the students. She did papiermache with them, and sculpture in clay, pottery, watercolors and drawings. They were so proud of their work, and she was so proud of them. It was the most rewarding thing she'd ever done, she told Trygve one night, as they cooked the kids dinner. Bjorn was explaining to them what Page was doing at school, and Page beamed at him when he said how much he liked it. She had a warm relationship with him, and now when he went to bed, and she was there, he clung to her and kissed her good night, and asked her to read him a story, just as she did to Andy. She was surprised by his strength sometimes when he squeezed her, or lifted her up, but he was always gentle, and affectionate, and loving. "He's such a good boy," she said to Trygve after she put him to bed one night, and Trygve was so touched by what she said and did for him, and for Chloe. She worked tirelessly with Chloe, in her therapy when she had time. "I wish you'd been their mother all along," he said honestly, and she smiled. "That's what Bjorn said. I'm honored." But it meant a lot to her to be with him now, and share a relationship with him at school. She had the feeling finally that she was doing something important with her art, and even if she wasn't getting paid for it yet, she knew she would be. They had already asked her if she would be open to heading their art program at a later date, and it was something that appealed to her a great deal, and the hours would have worked out perfectly for Andy. |
| 1482 |
Trygve had offered to take Andy to Tahoe with them, and Andy was tempted to go, but he still wanted to stay close to his mother. He was not as secure as he had been before the accident, he didn't like to spend the night at friends' anymore, and sometimes he still had nightmares about Allie. The accident had been almost four months earlier. The feared three month mark had passed, without a whimper from Allie. Page had almost come to accept that. She had wanted so desperately for her to wake up, for her to be herself again, even if it took a long time to get her back on her feet or rehabilitate her. She would have done anything to bring her back. But she was slowly beginning to understand that it wasn't going to happen. Trygve called her from Tahoe every day. And she was settling into a routine by then. She took Andy to day camp, went to the hospital, visited with Allyson, worked with the therapist to keep Allie's body moving and from atrophying completely. Then she'd work on the mural, sit with Allyson again. And pick Andy up at day camp, go home, and cook dinner. She missed Trygve terribly, more than even she expected. Once he said he was so lonely for her that he drove down one night just to spend the night with her and go back up in the morning. He was wonderful to her, and they were very happy together. She had finished the first mural by then, and had started on the port scene in the waiting room by the end of the first week in August. There were a lot of intricate details she had done in her early sketches, and she was sitting next to Allyson thinking about them, and checking her drawings. It was a peaceful afternoon and the sun was streaming into the room, as Page felt a little movement of Allie's hand on the bed. She did that sometimes. It didn't mean anything, she knew now. It was just the body responding to some electricity in the brain. But instinctively she looked up and glanced at her, and went back to her drawings again as she munched absentmindedly on her pencil. |
| 1483 |
The tables were set with cream colored damask cloths, the silver candlesticks, flatware, and crystal gleamed. They had been rented from an outside source, which had donated their use for the evening, and offered fancier options than those provided by the hotel. The plates were rimmed with gold. Silver wrapped party favors were on the tables at each place. A calligrapher had written up the menus on heavy ecru stock, and they'd been clipped into little silver stands. The placecards with tiny gold angels on them had already been set down according to Sarah's carefully thought out seating chart. The gold sponsor tables were at the front of the room, three rows of them in fact, with the silver and bronze tables behind them. There was a beautiful program on every seat, along with an auction catalogue and numbered paddle. Sarah had organized the event with the same meticulous diligence and precision that she did everything, and in the way she had run similar charity events in New York. She had given every detail a personal touch, and it looked more like a wedding than a benefit, as she glanced at the cream colored roses encircled with gold and silver ribbons on every table. They had been provided by the city's best florist at one third of the normal cost. Saks was providing a fashion show, Tiffany was sending models to wear their jewelry and wander through the crowd. There was an auction of high ticket items, which included jewelry, exotic trips, sports packages, celebrity meet and greet opportunities, and a black Range Rover parked in front of the hotel with a huge gold bow tied on top. Someone was going to be very happy driving the car home at the end of the evening. And the neonatal unit at the hospital benefiting from the evening was going to be even happier. This was the second Smallest Angels Ball that Sarah had organized and run for them. The first one had netted them more than two million dollars, between seat prices, the auction, and donations. She hoped to make three million tonight. |
| 1484 |
Although she and Seth had both grown up in comfortable circumstances, neither of them had had the extravagant life they had now. It worried Sarah a little from time to time that maybe they were spending too much money, with a fabulous house in Tahoe in addition to their city house, and their own plane. But Seth insisted they were fine. He said that the kind of money he was making was meant to be enjoyed. And there was no question that he did. Seth drove a Ferrari, and Sarah a Mercedes station wagon that was perfect for her with two kids, although she had an eye on the Range Rover that was going to be auctioned off that night. She had told Seth she thought it was really cute. And most of all, it was for a good cause, one they both really cared about. After all, the neonatal unit had saved Molly's life. In a less high tech, medically sophisticated hospital, their adorable three year old wouldn't be alive today. It meant the world to Sarah to give back by organizing the benefit, which had been her idea. The committee turned an enormous profit over to them after the evening's expenses were paid. Seth had kicked things off for them with a two hundred thousand dollar donation in both their names. Sarah was very proud of him. She always had been and still was. He was the star of her heavens, and even after four years of marriage and two children, they were very much in love. They were even thinking about trying for a third baby. She had been overwhelmed with the benefit for the past three months. They were chartering a yacht in Greece in August, and Sarah thought that would be the perfect time to get pregnant again. Sarah walked slowly around each table in the ballroom, doublechecking the names on the placecards against her list. Part of the success of the Smallest Angels Ball was that it was exquisitely run. It was a first class event. As she made her way toward the silver tables, after checking the gold, she found two mistakes, and switched the placecards with a serious expression. |
| 1485 |
They had gotten an advance list of everything she required, including Calistoga bottled water, low fat yogurt, a dozen kinds of natural foods, and a case of Cristal champagne. The list was twenty six pages long, referring to all her personal needs, her mother's food preferences, even the beer her boyfriend drank. And then there were another forty pages referring to the band, and all the electrical and sound equipment they'd need on stage. The eight foot grand piano she required for her performance had been brought in at midnight the night before. She and the band were scheduled to rehearse that afternoon at two. Everyone else had to be cleared out of the ballroom by then, which was why Sarah was finishing her rounds at one. "She's fine. The boyfriend is a little odd, and her mom scared me to death, but her best friend is cute. And Melanie is really beautiful and very sweet." Sarah had had that impression the one time she spoke to her on the phone. The rest of the time, Sarah had dealt with her manager, but she had made a point of calling and thanking Melanie personally for doing their benefit. And now the big day was here. Melanie hadn't canceled in favor of a performance somewhere else, the plane hadn't crashed, they'd all arrived on time. The weather was warmer than usual. It was a sunny afternoon in mid May. In fact it was hot and muggy, which was rare in San Francisco, and more like a summer day in New York. Sarah knew that it would break soon, but it always created a festive atmosphere in the city when the nights were warm. The only thing she didn't like about it was that someone had told her that days like this one were considered "earthquake weather" in San Francisco. They'd been teasing her about it, but she didn't like hearing it anyway. Earthquakes were the one thing that had worried her about the city since they'd moved there, but everyone assured her that they rarely happened, and when they did, they were small. In six years of living in the Bay Area, she hadn't felt one yet. |
| 1486 |
She and Seth had decided it would be easier to dress at the hotel than go home and rush back. Their babysitter had agreed to stay overnight with the kids, which made it a nice night off for Sarah and Seth. She could hardly wait till the next day, when they could lie in bed, order room service, and talk about the event the night before. But for now, she just hoped everything would go okay. As soon as she got off the elevator, Sarah saw the huge lounge on the club floor. Pastries, sandwiches, and fruit were set out, bottles of wine, and a small bar. There were comfortable chairs, tables, telephones, a vast array of newspapers, a gigantic wide screen TV, and two women sitting at a desk, to help guests in any way they could, with dinner reservations, questions about the city, directions, manicures, massages, whatever whim a guest could have. Sarah asked them for the directions to Melanie's room, and then continued down the hall. To avoid security hassles, and fans, Melanie was registered under the name Hastings, her mother's maiden name. They did that at every hotel, as did some of the other stars, who rarely registered in their own names. Sarah gently knocked on the door of the suite number she'd been given by the woman in the lounge. She could hear music inside, and a moment later the door was opened by a short, heavy set woman in a halter top and jeans. She was carrying a yellow pad, with a pen stuck in her hair, and carrying an evening gown. Sarah guessed correctly that she was Melanie's assistant, whom she had also spoken to on the phone. "Pam?" Sarah asked, as the other woman smiled and nodded. "I'm Sarah Sloane. I just came to say hello." "Come on in," she said cheerfully, as Sarah followed her into the living room of the suite, and saw chaos all around her. Half a dozen suitcases were open on the floor, with their contents spilling everywhere. One was full of slinky gowns. Out of the others poured boots, jeans, handbags, tops, blouses, a cashmere blanket, and a teddy bear. |
| 1487 |
In fact, she looked like the hill. She was a robust looking woman, with a loud voice and a personality to match. Sarah was feeling overwhelmed as she struggled for excuses to leave the room, while Melanie and her school chum were mesmerized by the TV. "I'll meet you downstairs to make sure everything is set for your rehearsal," Sarah said to Janet, since she appeared to be the full time proxy for her daughter in real life. Sarah calculated quickly that if she stayed with them for twenty minutes, she'd still have time to get to the hairdresser. Everything else would be done by then, and in fact already was. "See you there." Janet beamed at her, as Sarah slipped out of the suite and headed down the hall to her own room. She sat down for a few minutes, and checked the messages on her cell phone. It had vibrated twice while she was in Melanie's suite, and she hadn't wanted to pick up. One was from the florist, telling her that the four huge urns outside the ballroom would be filled by four o'clock. The other was from the dance band, confirming their start time at eight o'clock. She called home to check on the children then, and the sitter told her they were fine. Parmani was a lovely Nepalese woman who had been with them since Molly was born. Sarah didn't want a live in, she loved taking care of her babies herself, but Parmani was there in the daytime to help her, and she stayed in the evening when Seth and Sarah went out. She was spending the night, which she seldom did, but she was more than happy to help on a special occasion like this. She knew how important the benefit was to Sarah, and how hard she'd worked on it for months. She wished her good luck before they hung up. Sarah had wanted to say hi to Molly, but she was still having a nap. By the time Sarah finished, checked some notes on her clipboard, and brushed her hair, which looked a mess, it was time to go back to the ballroom to meet Melanie and her crew for rehearsal. She had already been told that Melanie didn't want anyone in the room when she rehearsed. |
| 1488 |
She was happiest when on stage. This was what she did best. It was a familiar world to her, even though this was a lot nicer than where she usually played. She loved the suite, and so did Jake. "You got everything you need, guys?" she asked the band. They all nodded, said they did, and started getting their instruments in the right key, as Melanie forgot Sarah and turned to them. She told them what she wanted to play first. They had already agreed on the order of the songs she was going to sing, including her current smash hit. Sarah realized she was no longer needed then, and started to leave. It was five after four, and she was going to be half an hour late for her hair appointment. She'd be lucky if she could get her nails done. Maybe not. She made it to just outside the ballroom door when one of the committee members stopped her with a catering manager in tow. There was a problem with the hors d'oeuvres. The Olympia oysters weren't in, what they had on hand wasn't fresh enough, and she had to pick something else. A minor decision for once. Sarah was used to bigger ones. She told the committee member to make the choice, just so it wasn't caviar or something that would destroy their budget, and with that she ran into the elevator, rushed across the lobby, and claimed her car from the valet. He had left it parked nearby. The big tip she'd given him early that morning had served her well. She pulled sharply onto California Street, turned left, and headed up Nob Hill. Fifteen minutes later, she was at her hairdresser, and out of breath when she walked in, apologizing for how late she was. It was fourthirty five, and she had to leave no later than six. She had hoped to be out by five forty five at the latest, which was no longer possible. They knew she was chairing her big benefit that night, and whisked her into the chair. They brought her some sparkling mineral water, followed by a cup of tea. The manicurist went to work on her as soon as her hair was washed, and they blew it out carefully. |
| 1489 |
Several of his shots had made the cover of Time magazine. He had a name in the business, and for a time had screwed it all up by drinking, but at least that had changed. He had spent six months in rehab, and another five in an ashram figuring out his life. By now he thought he had. Booze was out of his life forever. There was just no other way. By the time he hit bottom, he had damn near died in a fleabag hotel in Bangkok. The hooker he had hired had saved him, and kept him alive till the paramedics came. One of his fellow journalists had shipped him back to the States. The AP had fired him for having been missing in action for nearly three weeks, and blowing all his deadlines, for about the hundredth time that year. He couldn't keep it together anymore, and he had put himself in rehab against his better judgment, and had only agreed to thirty days. It was only after he got there that he realized how bad things were. It was either dry out or die. So he had stayed six months and chose to dry out instead of dying the next time he went on a binge. Since then, he had gained weight, looked healthy, and went to AA meetings every day, sometimes as many as three. It wasn't as tough for him now as it had been at first, but he figured if the meetings didn't always help him, his being there would help someone else. He had a sponsor, was one, and had been sober now for just over a year. He had his one year chip in his pocket, his lucky boots on, and had forgotten to comb his hair. He picked up the room key, and headed out at three minutes after six, with his camera bag slung over his shoulder, and a smile on his face. He was feeling better than he had half an hour before. Life wasn't easy for him every day, but it was a hell of a lot better than it had been a year ago. As someone had once said to him in AA, "I still have bad days, but I used to have bad years." Life seemed pretty sweet to him, as he walked out of the hotel, turned right on California Street, and walked a block down the hill to Old St. Mary's Church. |
| 1490 |
She had forty five minutes to dress, and five to get downstairs from her room. Her nails were freshly done, although she had messed up two of them reaching into her bag too soon for the tip. But they looked fine, and she liked the way they'd done her hair. Her flip flops made a flopping sound as she ran across the lobby. The concierge smiled at her as she sped by, and called out, "Good luck tonight!" "Thanks." She waved, used her key in the elevator to get to the club floor, and three minutes later, she was in her room, ran the tub, and took her dress out of the plastic zipper bag it came in. It was sparkling white and silver, and would show off her figure to perfection. She had bought silver high heel Manolo Blahnik sandals that were going to be murder to walk in, but they looked fabulous with the dress. She was in and out of the tub in five minutes, sat down to do her makeup, and was clipping on diamond earrings, when Seth walked in at twenty to seven. It was a Thursday night, and he had begged her to do the fund raiser on the weekend, so he didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning, but this was the only date that both the hotel and Melanie had given them, so they went with it. Seth looked as stressed as he always did coming home from the office. He worked hard, and kept a lot of balls in the air. A success like his didn't happen by being relaxed and casual about it. But she noticed that he looked particularly harassed that night. He sat down on the edge of the tub, ran a hand through his hair, and leaned over to kiss his wife. "You look beat," she said sympathetically. They were a great team. They had gotten along brilliantly since the day they met in business school. They had a happy marriage, loved their life, and were crazy about their kids. He had provided her with an incredible life in the past few years. She loved everything about their life together, and most all, she loved everything about him. "I am beat," he confessed. "How's everything lining up for tonight?" he asked her. |
| 1491 |
Sarah whispered to him that it was all right, she was happy with the car she owned. He smiled at her but looked distracted. She noticed again how stressed he seemed, and assumed he'd had a tough day at the office. She caught a glimpse of Everett Carson a couple of times during the evening. She had given him the table numbers of the important socialites. W was there, Town and Country, Entertainment Weekly, and Entertainment Tonight. There were TV cameras waiting for Melanie to go on. The evening was turning out to be a huge success. They made over four hundred thousand in the auction, thanks to a very aggressive auctioneer. Two very expensive paintings from a local art gallery had helped, and there had been some great cruises and trips. Added to the price of the seats, the funds raised so far had exceeded expectations, and checks always came in for days afterward, with random donations. Sarah made the rounds of the tables, thanking people for coming, and saying hello to friends. There were several tables at the back of the room that had been donated to charitable organizations, the local Red Cross chapter, a foundation committed to suicide prevention, and a table that had been filled with priests and nuns, purchased by Catholic Charities, who were affiliated with the hospital that housed the neonatal unit. Sarah saw the priests in their Roman collars, and several women with them in dark, simple navy or black suits. There was only one nun in a habit at the table, a tiny woman who looked like a pixie, with red hair and electric blue eyes. Sarah had recognized her immediately. Her name was Sister Mary Magdalen Kent, and she was the city's version of Mother Teresa. She was well known for her work on the streets with the homeless, and her position against city government for not doing more for them was very controversial. Sarah would have loved to talk to her tonight, but she was too busy with the thousand details she had to keep an eye on to ensure the success of the event. |
| 1492 |
He had been distracted and worried earlier, but now he was loving and attentive to her. "Holy shit! She's fantastic!" Seth added, as Sarah noticed Everett Carson crouched just below the stage, taking shots of Melanie while she performed. She was breathtakingly beautiful in the nearly invisible costume. The dress she wore was mostly illusion and looked like glitter on her skin. Sarah had gone backstage to see her before she went on. Her mother was running interference for her, and Jake was half smashed, drinking straight gin. The songs Melanie sang mesmerized the audience. She sat down at the edge of the stage for the last one, reaching out to them, singing to them, ripping their hearts out. Every man in the room was in love with her by then, and every woman wanted to be her. Melanie was a thousand times more beautiful than she had seemed to Sarah when she hung out in her suite. She had a stage presence that was electrifying and a voice that no one would ever forget. She had made the evening for everyone, and Sarah sat back in her chair with a smile of total satisfaction. It had been an absolutely perfect night. The food had been excellent, the room looked gorgeous, the press was there in full force, the auction had made a fortune, and Melanie was the big hit of the night. The event had been a total success, and would sell out even faster the following year as a result, maybe even at higher prices. Sarah knew that she had done her job, and done it well. Seth had said he was proud of her, and she was even proud of herself. She saw Everett Carson get even closer to Melanie, as he took more shots. Sarah felt giddy at the thrill of it all, and as she did, she felt the room sway gently. For an instant, she thought she was dizzy. And then, instinctively, she looked up and saw the chandeliers swinging overhead. It made no sense to her, and at the moment she looked up, she heard a low rumble, like a terrifying groan all around them. For a minute, everything seemed to stop, as the lights flickered, and the room swayed. |
| 1493 |
The room was in total darkness, the groaning sound grew louder, people were shouting and screaming over it, and the rolling movement of the room turned into a terrifying shudder as it went from side to side. Sarah and Seth were on the floor by then, he had pulled her under their table before it overturned. "Oh my God," she said to him, clutching him as he put his arms around her and held her tight. All she could think of were her babies at home with Parmani. She was crying, terrified for them, and desperate to get back to them, if they all lived through what was happening to them now. The undulating of the room and the crashing sounds seemed to go on forever. It was several minutes before it stopped. There were more crashing sounds after that, and people shouting and pushing and shoving as the exit signs came back on. They had gone out, but a generator somewhere in the hotel had gotten them going again. There was a sense of chaos all around them. "Don't move for a few minutes," Seth told her from where they lay. She could feel him, but no longer see him in the total darkness. "You'll get trampled by the crowd." "What if the building falls in on us?" She was shaking and still crying. "If it does, we're fucked," he said bluntly. They, and everyone else in the room, were well aware that they were three floors underground. They had no idea how to get out, or by what route. The noise in the room was deafening as people shouted to each other, and then hotel employees with powerful flashlights appeared beneath the exit signs. Someone with a bullhorn was telling them to stay calm and proceed with caution toward the exits and not to panic. There were dim lights in the hall beyond, while the ballroom remained totally dark. It had been the most terrifying experience of Sarah's life. Seth grabbed her arm, and pulled her to her feet, as five hundred and sixty people pushed their way toward the exits. There were sounds of people crying, others groaning in pain, some shouting for help, saying that someone next to them was hurt. |
| 1494 |
The enormous urns of roses had fallen over, and the scene in the ballroom was one of total chaos and disorder. Father Joe thought Maggie was confused as she made her way deeper into the room. "I'll meet you outside!" she shouted, as she disappeared into the crowd, and within minutes was on her knees next to a man who said he thought he'd had a heart attack, but had nitroglycerin in his pocket. She reached in unceremoniously and helped him find it, took out a pill, and put it in his mouth, and then told him not to move. She was sure help would come soon to assist the injured. She left him with his frightened wife, and moved along a littered path wishing she was wearing her workboots and not the flat pumps she had worn. The ballroom floor was an obstacle course of tables lying on their sides or even upside down, with food, dishes, and broken glass everywhere, and some people lying amid the debris. Sister Maggie made her way systematically toward them, as did several other people who said they were doctors. There had been many of them in the room, but only a few had stayed to help the wounded. A crying woman with an injured arm said she thought she was going into labor. Sister Maggie told her not to even think about it until she got out of the hotel, and the pregnant woman smiled as Maggie helped her stand up and start moving out of the ballroom holding tightly to her husband's arm. Everyone was terrified of an aftershock, which might be even worse than the first quake. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that it had been greater than seven on the Richter scale, maybe even eight, and there were groaning sounds in the room all around them as the earth settled again, which was anything but reassuring. At the front of the room, Everett Carson had been next to Melanie when the quake hit. As the room tilted crazily, she had slid right off the stage into his arms, and they both fell to the floor. He helped her up when the shaking stopped. "Are you okay? That was a great performance, by the way," he said lightly. |
| 1495 |
He wanted to see if there was anything he could do to help the people in the ballroom. A few minutes later, he stumbled over a woman helping a man who said he'd had a heart attack. The woman moved away to help someone else, and Everett helped get the man outside. He and a man who said he was a doctor put him on a chair and lifted him up. They had to carry him up three flights of stairs. There were paramedics, ambulances, and fire trucks outside, helping people pouring out of the hotel with minor injuries and reporting on others who were hurt inside. A battalion of firemen rushed in. There was no evidence of fires around them, but electric lines were down, and there were sparks shooting into the air as firemen with bullhorns shouted at them to stay clear, and set up barricades. Everett noticed quickly that the city all around them was dark. And then by instinct more than design, he reached for the camera still slung around his neck, and started taking pictures of the scene, without intruding on the gravely injured. Everyone around him looked dazed. The man who had the heart attack was already on the way to the hospital in an ambulance, along with another man who had a broken leg. There were injured people lying on the street, most of whom had come out of the hotel, and others who hadn't. The stoplights were no longer functioning, and traffic had stopped. A cable car at the corner had jumped the tracks, and at least forty people were injured, as paramedics and firemen ministered to them. One woman was dead and had been covered by a tarp. It was a grisly scene, and Everett didn't even notice till he got outside and saw blood on his shirt that he had a cut on his cheek. He had no idea how it had happened. It appeared to be superficial and he wasn't worried about it. He took a towel when a hotel employee handed it to him and wiped his face. There were dozens of them handing out towels, blankets, and bottles of water for the shocked people all around them. No one could figure out what to do next. |
| 1496 |
They just stood there, staring at each other, and talking about what had happened. There were several thousand people crowded into the street as the hotel was emptied. Half an hour later the firemen said that the ballroom was clear now. It was then that Everett noticed Sarah Sloane standing near him with her husband. Her dress was torn and covered with wine and the remains of dessert that had been on their table when it tipped over. "Are you all right?" he asked her. It was the same question everyone was asking each other again and again. She was crying, and her husband looked distressed. So was everyone else. People were crying all around them, in shock, fear, and relief, and worried about their families at home. Sarah had been frantically calling on her cell phone, which didn't work. Seth had tried his too, and looked grim. "I'm worried about my babies," she explained. "They're at home with a babysitter. I don't even know how we'll get there. I guess we'll have to walk." Someone had said that the garage where all their cars were parked had collapsed, and there were people trapped inside. There was no way to access their cars, and everyone whose car had been in it was now stranded. There were no cabs. San Francisco had become a ghost town in a matter of minutes. It was after midnight, and the quake had hit an hour before. The Ritz Carlton employees were being wonderful, wandering through the crowd, asking people what they could do to help. There wasn't much anyone could do right now, except the paramedics and firemen trying to triage those who had been hurt. A few minutes later, the firemen announced that there was an emergency earthquake shelter two blocks away, and gave them directions. They urged people to get off the street and go there. Power lines were down, and there were live wires on the street. They were warned to steer a wide berth around them, and to go to the shelter rather than try to go home. The possibility of an aftershock was still frightening everyone. |
| 1497 |
There was finally a shift in movement in the crowd, as they walked on shaking legs toward the earthquake shelter down the hill. People kept talking to each other about what had happened, what they had thought at first, and where they'd been. One man had been in the shower in his room at the hotel, and said he thought it was some kind of vibrating feature in the tub for the first seconds. He was wearing a terrycloth robe and nothing else, and his feet were bare. One of them was cut, from glass lying in the street, but there was nothing anyone could do. And another woman said she thought she had broken the bed as she slid toward the floor, and then the whole room rock and rolled like a carnival game. But this was no game. It was the second biggest disaster the city had ever known. Everett took a bottle of water from a bellman handing them out. He opened it, took a long swig, and realized how dry his mouth was. There were clouds of dust coming out of the hotel from structures inside that had broken, and things that had collapsed. No bodies had been brought out. The firemen were covering those who had died with tarps in the lobby as a central location. There were about twenty so far, and there were rumors that people were trapped inside, which made everyone panic. Here and there, people were crying, unable to find the friends or relatives they had been staying with in the hotel, or still hadn't located in the group from the benefit. They were easy to identify from their torn and soiled evening clothes. They looked like survivors of the Titanic. It was then that Everett spotted Melanie and her mother. Her mother was crying hysterically. Melanie looked alert and calm, and was still wearing his rented tuxedo jacket. "Are you okay?" he asked the familiar question, and she smiled and nodded. "Yeah. My mom is pretty freaked out. She thinks there will be a bigger one in a few minutes. Do you want your jacket back?" She would have been nearly naked if she'd given it back to him, and he shook his head. |
| 1498 |
Everett figured that whether or not he found her, Melanie would be fine. She was young and resourceful, the members of her band were near at hand, and if she wanted to help the injured in the crowd, that didn't seem like such a bad idea to him. There were a lot of people around them who needed assistance of some kind, more than the paramedics could provide. He was taking pictures again when he came across the small redheaded woman he'd seen help the man with the heart attack and then move on. He saw her assist a child, and turn her over to a fireman to try and help her find her mother. Everett took several photographs of the woman, and then dropped his camera again as she moved away from the little girl. "Are you a doctor?" he asked with interest. She had seemed very confident in her treatment of the man with the heart attack. "No, I'm a nurse," she said simply, her brilliant blue eyes locking into his briefly, and then she smiled. There was something both funny and touching about her. She had the most magnetic eyes he'd ever seen. "That's a good thing to be tonight." Many people had gotten hurt, not all of them severely. But there were a multitude of cuts and minor injuries, as well as bigger ones, and several people had gone into shock. He knew he'd seen the woman at the benefit, but there was something incongruous about her plain black dress and flat shoes. Her coif had vanished in the aftermath of the quake, and it never occurred to him what she was, other than a nurse. She had an ageless, timeless face, and it would have been difficult to guess her age. He figured her for late thirties, early forties, and in fact she was fortytwo. She stopped to talk to someone as he followed her, and then she paused for a bottle of water herself. They were all feeling the effects of the dust still billowing from the hotel. "Are you going to the shelter? They probably need help there too," he commented. He had thrown his bow tie away by then, and there was blood on his shirt from the cut on his cheek. |
| 1499 |
They were cut off from the world, without electricity or cell phones. It was a strange feeling. The sun was coming up as he said goodbye to her, and he wondered if he'd ever see her again. It seemed unlikely. It had been an odd and unforgettable night for all of them. "Goodbye, Maggie," he said as she let herself into the building. There were bits of broken plaster lying all over the hallway, but she commented with a smile that it hardly looked worse than usual. "Take care of yourself." "You too," she said as she waved at him and closed the door. An evil smell had drifted toward them as she opened the door into the hallway, and he couldn't imagine how she could live there. She was truly a saintly woman, he realized as he walked away, and then laughed softly. He had spent the night of the San Francisco earthquake with a nun. He thought she was a hero. He could hardly wait to see the pictures of her. And then oddly, as he walked away from her building, back through the Tenderloin, he found himself thinking about his son, and the way Chad had looked when he was three, and for the first time in the twenty seven years since he'd last seen him, he missed him. Maybe he would look him up one day, if he ever got back to Montana, and if Chad was still living there. It was something to think about. Some of what Maggie had said had gotten under his skin, and he forced it out of his head again. He didn't want to feel guilty about his son. It was too late for that, and would do neither of them any good. He strode off then in his lucky boots, past the drunks and the hookers on Maggie's street. The sun was coming up, as he walked back into the heart of the city to see what stories of the earthquake he would find there. There were endless opportunities to shoot. And for him, who knew, maybe even another Pulitzer one day. Even after the shocking events of the previous night, he felt better than he had in years. He was back in the saddle as a journalist, and felt more confident and in control of his life than ever before. |
| 1500 |
And parts of Pacific Heights had been badly shaken. Firemen were attempting to rescue people trapped in buildings and elevators, and still have enough manpower to fight the fires that had erupted in many parts of the city, which was no mean feat with broken water mains nearly everywhere. As their benefactor drove Seth and Sarah home, they could hear sirens in the distance. And both of the city's main bridges, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate, had been closed since minutes after the earthquake. The Golden Gate had swung wildly, and several people had been injured. Two sections of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge had collapsed onto the deck below it, and several cars were reported crushed with people trapped in them. So far, the highway patrol had not been able to effect a rescue. Reports of people blocked in cars and unable to get out, screaming as they died, had been horrendous. So far, it was impossible to even guess at the death toll. But it was easy to assume there would be many, and thousands injured. The three of them listened to the car radio as they drove carefully through the streets. Sarah gave the doctor their address, and was quiet on the way home, praying for her children. There was still no way to communicate with the house or the babysitter for reassurance. All telephone lines were down, and cell phones weren't working. The badly shaken city seemed completely cut off from the outside world. All she wanted to know now was that Oliver and Molly were okay. Seth was staring out the window in a daze, and kept trying to use his cell phone, as the doctor drove them the rest of the way. They finally arrived at their large brick house perched on top of the hill on Divisadero and Broadway, overlooking the bay. It appeared to be intact. They thanked the doctor, wished him well, and got out. Sarah ran to the front door as Seth followed behind her, looking exhausted. Sarah already had the door open when he reached her. She had kicked her impossible shoes off, and was running down the hall. |
| 1501 |
Parmani said her keys were in it, and the car was in their garage. It was a battered old Honda Accord, but it got her where she wanted to go. Sarah wouldn't let her drive the children in it, and she wasn't enthusiastic about Seth traveling with it either. The car had over a hundred thousand miles, had no current safety features, and was at least a dozen years old. "Don't worry, ladies." He smiled at them. "I'll be back." He ran out the door. It worried Sarah to have him venturing out, with no streetlights to drive by, no stoplights to control traffic, and maybe fallen obstacles on the road. But she could tell that nothing would stop him. He had left before she could say another word. Parmani went to get another flashlight, and the candles flickered as Sarah sat in her living room, thinking about Seth. It was one thing to be a workaholic and another to dash off down the peninsula, hours after a major earthquake, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves. She wasn't happy about it at all. It seemed like irrational, obsessive behavior to her. She and Parmani sat in the living room talking softly until almost sunrise. She thought about going upstairs to her bedroom, and putting the children in bed with her, but she felt safer downstairs, able to leave the house if there was another quake. Parmani told her a tree had fallen in the garden, and there were things all over the floor upstairs, a huge mirror had fallen and cracked, and several of the back windows had popped out and shattered on the cement outside. Most of their china and crystal lay smashed on the kitchen floor, along with groceries that had literally flown off the shelves. Parmani said several jars of juice and bottles of wine had broken, and Sarah wasn't looking forward to cleaning up the mess. Parmani had apologized for not doing it, but she'd been too worried about the children, and didn't want to leave them for the amount of time it would have taken her to deal with it. Sarah said she would do it herself. |
| 1502 |
He had just spent four hours getting people out of an elevator where they'd been trapped. One woman had fainted, the others had been okay. It had been a long night for everyone. Melanie waved as the two little girls she'd found walked past her with their mother on the way to the shelter. Their mother looked stunned as she realized who Melanie was. Even with her long blond hair uncombed and tangled, and dirt on her face, it was easy to recognize the star. "Do you get tired of people recognizing you?" one of the other firemen asked her. "Yeah, a lot. My boyfriend hates it. He punched a photographer in the face, and wound up in jail. It really gets on his nerves." "Sounds like it." The firefighter smiled and went back to work. The remaining ones told her she should go to the shelter then. It was safer for her there. She had been helping hotel guests and random strangers all night, but the Office of Emergency Services wanted people in shelters. There was falling debris everywhere, pieces of windows along with signs and chunks of concrete off buildings. It really wasn't safe for her outside. Not to mention the live wires that were a constant danger. The youngest of the firefighters offered to walk her the two blocks to the shelter, and she reluctantly accepted. It was seven in the morning, and she knew her mother would be worried sick by then, and would probably be having a fit about where she was. Melanie talked easily with the young fireman on the way to the large church auditorium where people were being sent. As it turned out, the whole building was full to the rafters, and Red Cross volunteers and church members were serving breakfast. When she saw the size of the crowd, Melanie couldn't imagine how she'd find her mother. She left the fireman at the door, thanked him for providing her an escort, and threaded her way through the crowd looking for someone she knew. It was a massive group of people talking, crying, laughing, some looking worried, and hundreds of people sitting on the floor. |
| 1503 |
She admired Melanie for helping people all night. She had spent the night bringing Janet blankets, cigarettes, and coffee that was being prepared on butane stoves in the mess hall. And Ashley was so panicked she'd thrown up twice. Jake was out like a light, drunk out of his mind. It had been a terrible night, but at least they were all alive. Melanie's hairdresser and manager had both been at the front of the auditorium serving sandwiches and cookies, and handing out bottles of water. The food ran out quickly, from the church's enormous kitchen where they usually fed the homeless. After that they were handing people tins of turkey, deviled ham, and beef jerky. It wasn't going to be long before there was nothing left. Melanie didn't care, she wasn't hungry anyway. At noon, they were told that they were being taken to a shelter in the Presidio. Buses would arrive for them, and they would leave the church in shifts. They were given blankets, sleeping bags, and personal supplies like toothbrushes and toothpaste, which they carried with their own belongings, since they wouldn't be coming back to the church. Melanie and her entourage didn't make it onto a bus till three o'clock that afternoon. She had managed to sleep for a couple of hours, and was feeling fine when she helped her mother roll up her blankets, and shook Jake awake. "Come on, Jakey, we're going," she said, wondering just what drugs he'd taken the night before. He'd been dead to the world all day and still looked hung over. He was a handsome guy, but as he got up and looked around, he was looking very raw. "Jesus, I hate this movie. This looks like the set for one of those disaster epics, and I feel like a dress extra. I keep waiting for someone to paint blood on my face and put a bandage on my head." "You'd look great even in blood and a bandage," Melanie reassured him, tying her own hair back in a braid. Her mother complained all the way to the bus, and said the way they were being treated was disgusting, didn't anyone know who they were. |
| 1504 |
The announcement also said that translators were available in both Mandarin and Spanish, and the person making the announcement thanked everyone for their cooperation in obeying the rules of the temporary camp. They said over eighty thousand people were now living in the Presidio, and two more mess halls were opening that day. They promised to keep everyone informed of further developments as they occurred, and wished everyone a pleasant day. When Melanie found Maggie at the field hospital, the little nun was complaining that the president had toured the Presidio by helicopter but hadn't visited the field hospital. The mayor had come through briefly the day before, and the governor was due to make a tour of the Presidio that afternoon. Plenty of press had been there as well. They were becoming a model city within one that had been badly shattered by the earthquake nearly two days before. Considering how hard they had been hit, the local authorities were impressed by how well organized they all were, and what good sports San Franciscans were. There was an atmosphere of kindness and compassion that prevailed everywhere in the camp, a sense of camaraderie like that among soldiers in a war zone. "You're up bright and early," Sister Maggie commented, when Melanie turned up. She looked young and beautiful, and clean, although she was wearing the same clothes as the day before. She had no others, but she had gotten up at seven to line up at the shower stalls. It had felt wonderful to wash her hair and take a hot shower. And she'd had oatmeal and dry toast in the mess hall. Fortunately the generators were keeping the food cold. The medical personnel were worried about food poisoning and dysentery if they didn't. But so far their biggest problems were injuries, not diseases, although eventually that could become a problem too. "Did you sleep last night?" Maggie asked her. Sleeplessness was one of the key symptoms of trauma, and many of the people they were seeing said they hadn't slept in two days. |
| 1505 |
Maggie had sent many people over to see them, particularly the elderly and the very young, who were frightened and badly shaken. She set Melanie to work doing intakes then, writing down the details, symptoms, and data about patients. There was no charge for what they were doing, no billing system, and all the administration and paperwork was being done by volunteers. Melanie was glad she was there. The night of the earthquake had been terrifying, but for the first time in her life, she felt as though she was doing something important instead of just hanging out backstage in theaters, recording studios, and singing. At least here, she was doing people some good. And Maggie was very pleased with her work. Several other nuns and priests were also working at the Presidio, from a variety of orders and local churches. There were ministers who walked around, talking to people, and had set up offices where people could come for counseling. Clergy members of all denominations were visiting the injured and sick. Very few of them were identified by Roman collars or habits, or religious paraphernalia of any kind. They said who they were and readily talked to people as they wandered around. Some of them were even serving food in the mess hall. Maggie knew a lot of the priests and nuns. She seemed to know everyone. Melanie commented on it later that morning, when they took a break, and Maggie laughed. "I've been around for a long time." "Do you like being a nun?" Melanie was curious about her. She thought she was the most interesting woman she'd ever met. In her nearly twenty years on earth, she had never met anyone with as much kindness, wisdom, depth, and compassion. She lived her beliefs and exemplified them, instead of talking them. And she had a gentleness and poise about her that seemed to touch everyone she met. One of the other workers at the field hospital said that Maggie had an amazing grace about her, and the expression made Melanie smile. She had always loved the hymn by that name and sang it often. |
| 1506 |
She was living her dreams through her daughter. It was lucky for her Melanie was a star. The blue eyed nun had a sixth sense for people, and she could sense that Melanie was her mother's hostage, and somewhere deep inside, even without knowing it, she was struggling to get free. They got busy with Maggie's patients then. They saw an endless stream of injured people all day, most of them minor injuries that could be ministered to by a nurse and not a doctor. The others, in the triage system they were using at the field hospital, went to someone else. Melanie was a good little assistant, and Sister Maggie praised her often. They took a lunch break together later that afternoon, and were sitting outside in the sunshine, eating turkey sandwiches that were surprisingly good. Some very decent cooks seemed to be volunteering for the cooking, and food was appearing from somewhere, donated in many cases by other cities, or even other states, being airlifted in, and often delivered by helicopter right on the Presidio grounds. Medical supplies, clothes, and bedding for the thousands of people living there now were airlifted in as well. It was like living in a war zone, and there were helicopters constantly whirring overhead, night and day. Many of the older people said it interfered with their sleep. The younger people didn't care and had gotten used to it. It was a symbol of the shocking experience they were living. They had just finished their sandwiches, when Melanie noticed Everett walk by. Like so many others, he was still wearing the same black tux pants and white dress shirt he had had on the night the earthquake struck. He walked past them, without noticing them, with his camera around his neck, and his camera bag slung over his arm. Melanie called out to him, and he turned, and saw them with a look of surprise. He came over quickly, and sat down on the log where they were sitting. "What are you two doing here? And together yet. How did that happen?" "I'm working at the field hospital here," Sister Maggie explained. |
| 1507 |
She had brought her daughter with her too, because she said she didn't want to leave her at home. She didn't want to be away from them now for a minute, after the traumatic experience of Thursday night. If another quake hit, as everyone feared it might, she wanted to be with them. She had left Seth alone at home, in the same state of anguished desperation he had been in since Thursday night. It was only getting worse, and he knew there was no hope of banks opening or his being able to communicate with the outside world anytime soon, to cover what he'd done. His career, and maybe his life as it had been for several years, was over. And Sarah's too. In the meantime, she was worried about their baby. This was no time for him to get sick. She had gone to the emergency room of the hospital nearest them, but they were accepting only seriously injured people for treatment. They had referred her to the field hospital in the Presidio, so she had come in Parmani's car. Melanie had spotted her at the front desk, and told Maggie who she was. They approached Sarah together, and Maggie had the baby cooing and laughing in less than a minute, although he was still pulling at his ear. Sarah told her what was wrong. And he looked a little flushed. "Let me find you a doctor," Maggie promised, and disappeared, and a few minutes later she beckoned to Sarah, who had been talking to Melanie about the benefit and how fabulous her performance had been, and how shocking when the earthquake hit. Melanie and Sarah, the little girl, and the nanny all followed Maggie to where the doctor was waiting to see them. As Sarah had feared, the baby had an ear infection. His fever had come down a little in the balmy May air, and the doctor said he had the beginnings of a red throat. He gave her an antibiotic that she said Oliver had taken before, and he gave Molly a lollipop and ruffled her hair. The doctor was very sweet with both of them, although he had been working since right after the earthquake on Thursday night, with almost no sleep. |
| 1508 |
And there were still many areas being explored. Emergency Services workers were searching for survivors among the rubble, and under the fallen overpasses leading to the freeway. It was only sixty hours since the earthquake had struck on Thursday night, and there was still hope of rescuing many people who had not been freed yet. The news was both terrifying and encouraging all at once, and people looked somber as they walked away from the grassy area where the announcements were being made every day. Most of them headed for the mess hall afterward for breakfast. They had also been told that it would probably be several weeks before they could return to their homes. The bridges, freeways, airports, and many areas of the city were still not open. And there was no way of telling when the electricity would be on again, and even less when life might return to normal. Everett was talking quietly to Sister Maggie when Melanie walked in, after breakfast with her mother, assistant, Ashley, Jake, and several members of the band. They were all getting restless and were anxious to get back to L.A., which obviously wasn't even remotely possible for the moment. They just had to sit tight and see what happened. There was word in the camp by then that Melanie Free was there. She had been spotted in the mess hall with her friends, and her mother had been foolishly bragging about her. But so far, no one in the hospital had paid much attention to her. Even when they recognized her, they smiled and moved on. It was easy to see that she was working hard as a volunteer. Pam had signed up at the camp's checkin desk as people continued to filter in, as food ran out in the city, and people came to the Presidio for shelter. "Hi, kid," Everett greeted her unceremoniously, and she grinned. She had gotten a new T shirt from one of the donation tables, and a huge man's sweater with holes in it, which made her look like an orphan. She was still wearing the camouflage pants and flip flops. Sister Maggie had changed clothes too. |
| 1509 |
He seemed old enough to be her father. It was when one spoke to Maggie that one was aware of the seasoning of age, and the benefits of wisdom. He went off to take photographs around the Presidio that day, and said he was going to walk into the Marina and Pacific Heights to see if anything was happening there. They were urging people to stay out of the Financial District and the downtown area as buildings were taller, more dangerous, and the damage far more extensive. The police were still afraid of heavy objects or broken pieces falling off buildings. It was easier to wander into the residential neighborhoods, although many of them had been blocked off by police and Emergency Services too. Helicopters were continuing to patrol the entire city, usually flying low, so you could even see the pilots' faces. They landed from time to time at Crissy Field in the Presidio, and the pilots chatted with people who approached to ask further news of what was happening in the city, or outlying regions. Many of the people staying in the shelters at the Presidio actually lived in the East Bay, on the Peninsula, and Marin, and had no way of getting home for the moment with the bridges and freeways closed. Real news was scarce among them, and rumors rampant, of death, destruction, and carnage elsewhere in the city. It was always reassuring to hear from people who knew, and the helicopter pilots were the most reliable source of all. Melanie spent the day helping Maggie, as she had for the two days before. Injured people were still trickling in, and hospital emergency rooms around the city were still referring people to them. There was a huge airlift that afternoon, which brought them more medicines and food. The meals in the mess hall were plentiful, and there seemed to be an abundance of surprisingly decent, creative cooks. The owner and chef of one of the city's best restaurants was living in one of the hangars with his family, and he had taken charge of the main mess hall, much to everyone's delight. |
| 1510 |
Eventually she left the hospital with him, when she signed out, and he walked her back to the building where all the religious volunteers were staying. There were nuns, priests, ministers, brothers, several rabbis, and two Buddhist priests in orange robes. They came and went as Maggie and Everett sat on the front step. She enjoyed talking to him. And he felt renewed after the meeting, and thanked her again when he got up to leave. "Thank you, Maggie. You're a terrific friend." "So are you, Everett." She smiled at him. "I'm glad it worked out." For a minute she had worried about what would happen if no one came. But the group had agreed to meet every day at the same time, and she had a feeling it was going to grow exponentially. Everyone was under a lot of stress. She was even feeling it herself. The priests in her building said mass every morning, and it got her day off to a good start, just as Everett's meeting had done for him. And she prayed for at least an hour at night before she went to sleep, or as long as she could stay awake. She was working long, hard, exhausting days. "See you tomorrow," he promised, and then left. She walked into the building where she was staying. There were battery operated lanterns in the hall as she went up the stairs. She was thinking about him as she walked into the room she was sharing with six other nuns, all of whom had assorted volunteer jobs at the Presidio, and for the first time in years, she felt separate from them. One of them had been complaining for two days that she couldn't wear her habit. She had left it at the convent, when the building caught fire from a gas leak, and they fled, and arrived at the Presidio in bathrobes and slippers. She said she felt naked without her habit. Maggie hated wearing hers in recent years, and had only worn it the night of the benefit because she didn't own a dress, just the clothes she wore while working on the streets. For the first time in her life, she felt isolated from the other nuns. |
| 1511 |
Her connection was with God, and the lost souls she worked with. People in religious orders seemed irritating to her at times, particularly when they were righteous or narrow minded about their own choices in life. But what she was feeling worried her. He had asked if she had ever questioned her vocation, and she never had. She wasn't now. But suddenly she missed talking to him, their philosophical exchanges, the funny things he said. And as she thought of him, it worried her. She didn't want to get too attached to any man. She wondered if the other nun was right. Perhaps nuns needed habits to remind other people of who they were and to keep a distance. There was no distance between her and Everett. In the unusual circumstances they were all living, powerful friendships had been formed, unseverable bonds, and even budding romances. She was willing to be Everett's friend, but surely nothing more. She reminded herself of that as she washed her face in cold water, and then lay on her cot, praying as she always did. She didn't allow him to intrude on her prayers, but there was no question, he kept meandering into her head, and she had to make a conscious effort to shut him out. It reminded her, as she hadn't been reminded in years, that she was God's bride and no one else's. She belonged to no one but Him. That was the way it always had been, always would be, and would stay forever. And as she prayed, with particular fervor, she finally managed to shut out the vision of Everett from her mind, and fill it only with Christ. She breathed a long sigh when she finished praying, closed her eyes, and fell peacefully to sleep. Melanie was exhausted when she went back to her own building that night. It had been her third day of hard work at the field hospital, and although she loved the work she was doing there, on her way back to the hall where she was staying, she had to admit to herself for a minute that it would have been great to have a hot bath, and settle into her comfortable bed with the TV on and fall asleep. |
| 1512 |
Instead she was sharing an enormous room with several hundred people. It was noisy, crowded, smelled bad, and her cot was hard. And she knew they'd be there for at least several more days. The city was still completely shut down, and there was no way to leave. They had to make the best of it, as she told Jake every time he complained. She was disappointed by how whiny he had been, and a lot of the time he took it out on her. And Ashley was no better. She cried a lot, said she was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and wanted to go home. Janet didn't like it there either, but at least she was making friends, and talked about her daughter constantly, in order to let everyone know how important and special she was. Melanie didn't care. She was used to it. Her mother did that everywhere they went. And the guys in her band, and roadies, had made a lot of friends. They hung out and played poker a lot. She and Pam were the only ones in the group who were working, so Melanie hardly saw the others now. She helped herself to a cherry soda on the way in. The hall was dimly lit with the battery operated torches that lit up the edges of the room at night. It was just dark enough to stumble over people, or fall if you weren't careful. There were people in sleeping bags in the aisles, others on cots, and all night long there seemed to be children crying. It was like being on a ship in steerage, or a refugee camp, which was in fact what it was. Melanie made her way to where her group was sleeping. They had more than a dozen cots all grouped together, with some of the roadies on the floor in sleeping bags. Jake's cot was right next to hers. She sat down on the edge of it, and patted his bare shoulder, which was poking out of the sleeping bag. He had his back to her. "Hi, baby," she whispered in the semidarkness. The hall had already quieted down for the night. People went to bed early. They were upset, frightened, depressed over what they'd lost, and there was nothing to do at night, so they went to bed. |
| 1513 |
Commuting would be a nightmare, and traffic would be extremely slow. And for now, only those who lived on the peninsula would be able to go home on Saturday. Several neighborhoods were being opened again, and people would be able to check the condition of their homes. Others had to face police barricades and yellow tape, if conditions were too dangerous to enter. The Financial District was still a disaster and off limits to everyone, which meant that many businesses could not reopen. And electricity would become available to only a small portion of the city over the weekend. There were rumors that electricity would not be fully restored for perhaps as long as two months, or one if they were lucky. The city was on all fours, but it was beginning to crawl. After being completely flattened for the past eight days, it was showing signs of life, but it would be months before San Francisco would stand fully upright again. There had been much talk in the shelters about people saying they would move away. They had lived with the threat of a major earthquake for years, and now that it had come, it had hit too hard. Some were ready to quit, others were determined to stay. Old people said they wouldn't live long enough to see another one like it, so it didn't matter to them. Young people were anxious to rebuild and start again. And many in between said they had had it with the city. They had lost too much and were too frightened. There was a constant cacophony of worried voices in the sleeping halls, the mess hall, and on the walkways where people strolled, and even along the beaches bordering Crissy Field. On a sunny day, it was easier to forget what had happened to them. But late at night, when they all felt the aftershocks that had begun to hit them a day later, everyone looked panicked. It had been a traumatic time for everyone in the city, and it wasn't over yet. After they heard the news that the airport was going to open the next day, Melanie and Tom sat on the beach, talking, looking out at the bay. |
| 1514 |
The band and roadies were flying home with them. Theoretically, they were still on the benefit's tickets, but those had been lost at the hotel. Pam was going to sort it out with them later. For now, all any of them wanted was to get home. They had had no way of reassuring their families they were okay since the earthquake, except through the Red Cross, which had been very helpful. Now the airline took over for them. They took their seats on the plane, and as soon as they took off, the pilot made an announcement, welcoming them, and saying that he hoped the past nine days hadn't been too traumatic for them. As soon as he said it, several passengers burst into tears. Everett had taken a few last photos of Melanie and her group. It was a far cry from the way they'd all looked when they arrived. Melanie was wearing yet another pair of combat pants, held up with a rope, with a T shirt that must have belonged to a man ten times her size. Janet was still wearing some of her own clothes that she had worn backstage at the benefit. Her polyester pants had served her well, although she, like everyone else, had finally helped herself to some sweatshirts from the donation tables. The one she was wearing was several sizes too tight. It wasn't a great look with the polyester pants and high heels, which she had refused to exchange for the flip flops everyone else was wearing by then. Pam was wearing a full set of army clothes that had been given to her by the National Guard. And the roadies and band looked like convicts in overalls. As Everett said, it made one hell of a great picture. It was one he knew that Scoop would run, possibly on the cover, in sharp contrast to the ones he had taken of her performing at the benefit in the slinky sequin and net dress and platform shoes. As Melanie said, her feet looked like a farmer's, her fancy L.A. pedicure had entirely disappeared in the dirt and gravel of the camp as she ran around in rubber flip flops. Everett still had his beloved black lizard cowboy boots. |
| 1515 |
They never even saw Ashley in the crowd. She stepped back and waited with Janet and Pam as she had a thousand times before. The roadies and band took off on their own, after saying goodbye to Melanie and her mother. The guys in the band told her they would see her at rehearsal the following week, and Pam said she'd call them to set it up. Melanie's next recording session was in less than a week. It took them half an hour to press through the crowd of photographers and reporters. Everett helped run interference for them, and accompanied them to several taxis at the curb. For the first time in several years, there was no waiting limousine. But all Melanie wanted now was to get away from the press hounding her. Everett slammed the door to her cab, waved, and watched them pull away. He couldn't help thinking it had been one hell of a week. Within minutes of Melanie's departure, the rest of the press disappeared. Melanie had taken the first cab with Pam, and Ashley was in the second one with Janet. Jake had long since left on his own. And the roadies and musicians had fended for themselves. Everett took a long look around him, relieved to be back in spite of himself. L.A. looked as though nothing had ever happened. It was hard to believe that life was normal here. It seemed impossible to fathom that the world had nearly ended in San Francisco, and here it was all business as usual. It was a weird feeling to see it. Everett got in a cab then, and gave the driver the address of his favorite AA meeting. He wanted to go there before he even went home. And the meeting was terrific. In his share, he told them all about the earthquake, the meeting he had organized in the Presidio, and then before he could stop himself, he blurted out that he had fallen in love with a nun. Since cross talk wasn't allowed at twelve step meetings, no one made any comment. It was only afterward, when he got up and people came over to ask him about the earthquake, that one of the men he knew there made a comment. |
| 1516 |
For the next ten days, Seth's life continued to unravel. His case was presented to the grand jury by the federal prosecutor, and they granted the indictment. Two days later federal agents came to arrest him. He was informed of his rights, taken to the federal courthouse, photographed, formally charged, and booked. He spent the night in jail, until bail was set by a judge the next morning. The funds he had fraudulently deposited in the bank were returned to New York, by a court order, to cover Sully's investors. So Sully's investors had suffered no loss, but Seth's had been shown books that looked sixty million dollars fatter than they really were. And they had invested in his hedge fund accordingly, as a result of Seth's fraudulent representations to them. The nature and severity of Seth's crime caused the judge to set his bail at ten million dollars. He had to pay one million to the bail bondsman to be released on bail. That wiped out all the cash they had on hand. He was assessed as not being a flight risk, and he was eligible for bail because there had been no loss of life or physical violence involved. What he had done had been far subtler than that. They had no choice except to put their house up as bail. It was worth about fifteen million, and the night he got out of jail, he told Sarah they had to sell the house. The bail bondsman could keep ten million of it as collateral, and the other five he needed to pay his attorneys. Henry had already told him that their fee would probably be in the vicinity of three million dollars through trial. It was a complicated case. He told Sarah they had to sell the house in Tahoe too. They needed to sell as much as they could. The only good news was that they owned the house on Divisadero free and clear. There was a mortgage on Tahoe that was going to eat into their profit, but they could use the difference for his defense and related expenses. "I'll sell my jewelry too," she said, looking wooden. She didn't care about the jewelry, but was crushed to lose their home. |
| 1517 |
He hadn't warned her, and hoped he'd find her at the Presidio, if nothing had changed in the weeks since he'd left. The plane landed at ten A.M. in San Francisco. He hailed a cab at the curb, and gave the driver the address. He had the box of photographs under his arm to show to her. It was nearly eleven when they reached the Presidio and he noticed the helicopters still patrolling overhead. He stood staring up at the field hospital, hoping she was inside. He was well aware that what he'd just done was a little crazy. But he had to see her. He had missed her ever since he left. The volunteer at the front desk told him that Maggie was off today. It was Sunday, and the woman who knew her well said she had probably gone to church. He thanked her and decided to check the building where the religious volunteers and assorted chaplains were living. There were two nuns and a priest standing on the front step when he asked for Maggie, and one of the nuns said she'd go inside and check. Everett's heart sank as he stood and waited, and it seemed to take forever. And then suddenly she was standing there, in a terrycloth bathrobe, with her bright blue eyes, and soaking wet red hair. She said she'd been in the shower. She broke into a smile the minute she saw him, and he nearly cried he was so relieved to see her. For a minute, he'd been afraid he wouldn't find her, but there she was. He swept her up in a warm hug, and nearly dropped the box of photographs. He stepped back to look at her as he beamed. "What are you doing here?" she asked him, as the other nuns and the priest walked away. Deep friendships had formed for all of them during the initial days after the earthquake, so they saw nothing unusual about the visit or the obvious delight with which they greeted each other. One of the nuns remembered him from when he'd been at the camp, before he went back to L.A., and Maggie said she'd catch up with them later. They'd already been to church, and were heading to the mess hall for lunch. |
| 1518 |
There were definitely some downsides, but lying in the sun with her and talking, everything seemed so simple, and she was just like any other girl. They went for a drive in the late afternoon. He took her out for ice cream, and she showed him where she'd gone to school before she dropped out. She told him she still wanted to go to college, but for now it was only a dream for her, and not a possibility. She was away too much, so she read everything she could get her hands on. They stopped at a bookstore together and found they liked to read the same things, and had loved many of the same books. They drove back to her house then, and later, he took her out for dinner at a little Mexican restaurant she liked, and afterward they went back to her place and watched a movie in the playroom downstairs on the gigantic plasma screen. It was almost like being in a theater. When Janet came home, she seemed surprised he was still there. Tom looked mildly uncomfortable, sensing her displeasure. She made no effort to hide it. It was eleven o'clock when he left. Melanie walked him out to his van in the driveway, and they stood kissing through his window. He said he'd had a wonderful day, and so had she. It had been a very respectable and thoroughly enjoyable first date. He said he'd call her the next day, and instead called her as soon as he left the driveway. Her cell phone rang in her pocket just as she was walking back into the house, thinking of him. "I miss you already," he said as she giggled. "Me too. It was so much fun today. I hope you weren't bored just hanging around here." It was hard for her to get out sometimes. People recognized her everywhere. It had been fine when they went out for ice cream, but people in the bookstore had stared at her, and three people had asked her for autographs while they paid. She hated that whenever she went out on dates. It always felt like an intrusion and bothered the man she was with. Tom had been amused. "I had a great time," he reassured her. |
| 1519 |
He realized that she thought he was a threat, and not the kind of man Melanie should go out with, particularly if her mother wanted tabloids and mainstream press for her, which she did. Melanie apologized to him constantly for her mother, and started spending more time in Pasadena, when she wasn't in rehearsal. He came to rehearsal with her twice, and was incredibly impressed by how professional she was. Her career was no accident of fate. She was brilliant at all the technical details, did her own arrangements, wrote some of her songs, and worked unbelievably hard. Both rehearsals Tom went to, for the Hollywood Bowl concert, lasted until two A.M., until Melanie felt they had it right. The technicians he talked to, as he wandered around, said she always did that. Sometimes she worked till four or five A.M., and then wanted them back at nine the next morning. She drove them hard, but she was even harder on herself. And Tom thought she had the voice of an angel. The day of the concert, she had told him he could come early, and he and Nancy could stay in her dressing room with her until it started. He took her at her word, and when they got there, Janet was with Melanie, hovering, and giving orders and directions. She was drinking champagne and getting her own makeup done. Sometimes photographers wanted her to pose too. She ignored Tom and Nancy for as long as she could, and then stormed off to find Melanie's hairdresser, who was smoking outside with some of the men in the band. They knew Tom by name now, and thought he was a nice guy. They left her half an hour before the concert started. Melanie had to finish her makeup and put on her costume. Tom thought she was amazingly calm, considering she was about to perform in front of eighty thousand people. This was what she did best. She was introducing four new songs to try them out before her tour. She was leaving soon. Tom had promised to visit whenever he could, although he was starting a job in July that he was excited about. |
| 1520 |
Her parents were very much alive and would be shocked, particularly since they loved Seth, and had right from the beginning. "It's not a pretty story, is it?" Seth said, glancing at her. They had both lost a lot of weight. He looked gaunt, and she looked drained. "There's not much they can do with it to dress it up," she said honestly. These were the last days of their living together. They had agreed to stay in the house on Divisadero, for the kids' sake, until it sold, before they moved into their own apartments. They were expecting several offers that week. It wouldn't be long. Sarah knew it would make her sad to see the house go. But she was far more upset about her marriage and her husband than about the house they had owned only for a few years. The house in Tahoe was on the market, with everything in it, even kitchenware, TVs, and linens. It was easier to sell that way to someone who wanted a ski house and didn't want to bother decorating it or filling it. The house in the city would be sold empty. They were putting their antiques up for auction at Christie's, along with their modern paintings. Her jewelry was beginning to sell in L.A. Sarah was still looking for a job, but hadn't found anything yet. She was keeping Parmani for the children, because she knew that when she found work, she'd need someone to take care of them. She hated the idea of leaving her children in day care, even though she knew that others did. What she really wished was that she could do what she had done until now, stay home with them, as she had for the past three years. But that was over. With Seth spending every penny they had on lawyers for his defense, and possibly fines, she had to work, not just to help contribute, but maybe at some point to support her children and herself, with no help from Seth. If everything they had and owned was going to be swallowed up by court orders, lawsuits, and his defense fund, and he went to prison, who was going to help them? She had to rely on herself. |
| 1521 |
They had taken the rising platform out of the show because she was afraid of falling and getting hurt again. She always said she felt like the Flying Wallendas when she used it, and said she should have a net. She had fallen off it twice before, but this was the first time she had actually gotten injured. It hurt, but it could have been worse. She hobbled onto the stage with her crutches that night and laid them down. They had given her a tall chair to sit on, and she joked about it with the crowd. She said she'd done it having sex, which they thought was funny. And the audience forgot about it as soon as she started her show. She sat down on stage for most of the performance that night, but no one seemed to mind. She had worn hot pants, fishnet stockings, and a red sequined bra. And even in flat shoes, she looked hot. She kept the encores short that night. She was dying to get back to her room and take another pill. She went right to sleep after she did, even before she called Tom to tell him how the show went. He had told her he was going to L.A. for dinner with his sister, and didn't call her either. But normally, they talked to each other all the time on their cell phones. They spent two days in Phoenix, and from there they flew to Dallas and Fort Worth. They did two shows in each city, one in Austin, and another at the Astrodome in Houston. She was religiously wearing the boot while she was offstage, and her foot was better. They finally got two days off in Oklahoma City, which was sheer heaven. They were flying all over the country, and she was working hard. Performing with an injury was just one of the challenges she had to face while doing concerts. One of the roadies had broken an arm, and their sound man slipped a disk, carrying heavy equipment. But whatever happened, they all knew the show had to go on. It wasn't an easy life when they were on the road. The hours were exhausting, the performances were tough, and their hotel rooms were dreary. Whenever possible, they got suites. |
| 1522 |
It gave her some relief, but not enough. And the ankle was still just as swollen. It hadn't improved at all. It would have been infinitely worse without their own plane. At least she could lie down on every flight. Flying commercial with all their equipment would have been nearly impossible, and would have driven them all insane. Checking luggage and equipment in would have required their spending hours boarding the flight. This way they just loaded up and took off. When Tom met her in Chicago, he was surprised at how tired and pale she looked, and she was absolutely exhausted. He was waiting for her at the hotel when they got in from the airport, and he spun her around in his arms, even with the heavy boot, and then set her down gently on a chair. She was beaming from ear to ear. He had checked in to their suite half an hour before she arrived. It was a decent hotel, and they had a giant suite. But Melanie was sick of room service, signing autographs, and performing night after night no matter how much pain she was in. Tom was shocked at how swollen and painful her ankle still was. They were playing a concert on Tuesday. And it was only Saturday night. Tom was leaving on Monday morning, to get to work in L.A. He had started the job after she left, and said he loved it. The travel they were promising him sounded terrific. It was with an urban planner, and although most of their jobs were for profit, they had several going that were in developing countries where they offered their services for free to governments, which was right up Tom's alley. She was proud and impressed by his humanitarian side, and she was happy he had found a job he liked. Tom had been worried about finding employment when he came back to Pasadena. He didn't even mind the commute to L.A. After the earthquake in San Francisco, he was happy to be back. And finding this job had been the perfect opportunity for him. Tom took her out to dinner that night, and she ate an enormous greasy hamburger, with fried onion rings. |
| 1523 |
And after that they went back to the hotel and talked about a lot of things. She told him about all the cities they had been to and various incidents along the way. Sometimes being on the road was like kids going to camp, or young soldiers being shipped out. There was a constant sense of temporary living, breaking camp, and moving on. It was fun at times, and the atmosphere between them was great, but it was exhausting anyway. To break the monotony of traveling so much, the band and roadies had water balloon fights and threw some out the windows of the hotel, designed to hit pedestrians on the street below. The manager caught on to them eventually, came upstairs, and gave them a sound scolding. They were like children with nothing better to do. The roadies and guys in the band got into a fair amount of mischief when they had time off, mostly going to topless bars and strip joints, hanging out in bars, and getting drunk. Tom enjoyed talking to them and thought they were a lot of fun. But what interested him most was being with Melanie. He was beginning to miss her more and more when they were apart. And Melanie had told Pam conspiratorially that she was falling more and more in love with Tom. He was the nicest boyfriend she'd ever had, and she said she felt really lucky to have him in her life. Pam reminded her that she was one of the hottest stars in the world at the moment, and he was lucky too. Besides, she was a nice person. Pam had known Melanie since she was sixteen, and thought she was one of the kindest people she'd ever met, unlike her mother, who could be really tough. Pam thought Tom and Melanie were a very good match. They were similar in disposition, easygoing and friendly, they were both intelligent, and he didn't appear to be jealous of her stardom or her work, which was incredibly rare. Pam knew that there weren't many people on the planet like them, and thanks to Melanie, she thoroughly enjoyed her work. Tom and Melanie had a fantastic time in Chicago. |
| 1524 |
Melanie didn't have to be completely grown up. In some ways, she was just a kid. It was part of her charm. And she had a flock of people around her to take care of her. In other ways, Melanie was far older and had matured from years of hard work and discipline in her career. She was both woman of the world, and enchanting child. Her mother would have preferred to convince her she was still a baby. It gave her all the power, but in spite of Janet's efforts, Melanie was growing up, and becoming a woman in her own right. Melanie tried to take care of the ankle. She went to physical therapy, did the exercises they gave her, and soaked it at night. It was better, but she was afraid to wear platform shoes or high heels, and when she stood for a long time in rehearsal, it hurt. It was like a constant reminder now of the price she paid for the work she did, and that it wasn't as easy as it looked. The money, fame, and razzle dazzle of her business didn't come easily. She had performed with a nasty injury all summer, getting on stage with it at night, traveling constantly, and having to make it look as though everything was fabulous, or at least fine, even when it wasn't. She thought about it all one night as she lay awake in bed, with her ankle hurting, and in the morning she made a call. She'd had the name and number in her wallet since she left the Presidio in May. She made an appointment for the following afternoon, went to meet him by herself, and told no one. The man she went to see was a small rotund man with a bald head and the kindest eyes she'd ever seen, except Maggie's. They talked for a long, long time. And when Melanie drove back to the house in Hollywood, she was crying. They were tears of love, joy, and relief. She needed to find some answers now, and all of his suggestions had been good. And the questions he had asked her about her life had plunged her into ever deeper thought. She had made only one decision that day. She didn't know if she could do it, but she had promised him and herself she would try. |
| 1525 |
Melanie was free and clear until two weeks after Thanksgiving. Some of it had been rescheduled, and other things just had to be canceled, to be addressed at some distant, later date, if ever. None of it was a big deal. This had been the perfect time to do it. All she'd be missing were the press opportunities that came up at parties and benefits she'd be invited to. And there was no way to predict those. Janet liked her to do them all. And Melanie always did. Until now. As expected, Janet wandered into Melanie's room two days after all of her engagements had been canceled. No one had said anything to her yet, and Melanie had told Tom she was going to tell her mother that night. She was planning to leave the following Monday and had already made her reservations. She wanted to spend the weekend with Tom before she left. He was a hundred percent behind her. And he was planning to come down to visit her when he could. He was excited about what she was doing and wanted to volunteer some time too. He had a strong urge to help his fellow man, as she did, and wanted to balance a serious career with the humanitarian traditions that he firmly believed in. Three months wasn't a long time to be apart, but he said he would miss her. What they had was solid and good, and could withstand the distraction of their respective obligations. Their relationship was going full speed ahead, and was turning into a great thing for both of them. They were kind, compassionate, intelligent, and supportive. They couldn't believe their good luck in having found each other. In many ways, they were so much alike and inspired each other in constructive ways. Together, their world had grown. Tom was even thinking of taking a week or two off himself, and volunteering at one of the Mexican missions with her, if they gave him the time off work. He loved working with kids, and in high school had been a Big Brother to a boy in Watts, and another in East L.A., and was still in touch with both. This was just his kind of thing. |
| 1526 |
And after that, she had to make some major decisions. She had promised Seth and his lawyers that she would stand by him at the trial. But Sarah was trying to make up her mind about whether or not to divorce him. The key for her was whether or not she could forgive him. She didn't have the answer to that question yet, and had talked about it to Maggie a lot. Maggie told her to keep praying and the answer would come. But so far nothing had. All Sarah could think of was the terrible thing Seth had done when he betrayed everyone and himself and broke the law. It seemed an almost unforgivable sin to Sarah. Maggie was still at the field hospital in the Presidio herself. They had been there for four months, and the office of Emergency Services was thinking of closing the camp the following month, in October. There were still people living in the residence halls and hangars, and some of the old brick barracks, but not nearly as many as before. Most people had gone home by then, or made other arrangements. And Maggie was planning to move back to her apartment in the Tenderloin later in the month. She realized that she was going to miss the companionship of all the people she lived with and had met there. In a strange way, it had been a good time for her. And the studio apartment in the Tenderloin was going to seem very lonely. She told herself it would give her more time for prayer, but nonetheless she would miss the camp. She had made some wonderful new friends. Everett called her at the end of September, a few days before she was moving back home. He said he was coming to San Francisco to do a story on Sean Penn, and said he wanted to take Maggie to dinner. She hesitated, and then started to say she couldn't, desperately groping for some excuse, but couldn't find one that sounded plausible, so feeling stupid for it afterward, she accepted his invitation. She prayed about it that night, asking not to be confused, and to be only grateful for his friendship, and want nothing more. |
| 1527 |
It had been a beautiful September, with lots of warm weather, and now there was the faint chill of autumn in the air. Maggie tucked her hand into his arm comfortably, as they strolled along, and continued talking about a variety of subjects. They hadn't intended to walk all the way back to the Presidio, but in the end they did. It gave them a little more time together, and was all on level ground, which was rare in San Francisco. He walked her to the building where she lived, and it was after eleven, late enough so no one was outside. They had taken their time with dinner, and always seemed to fit together like two halves of one whole, each one complementing the other, in their thinking and opinions. "Thanks for a nice time," she said, feeling foolish for having tried to avoid him. The last time she had seen Everett had confused her. She had felt such a powerful pull toward him, but now all she felt was warmth and deep affection. It was perfect, and he was looking down at her with all the love and admiration he felt for her. "It was good to see you, Maggie. Thanks for having dinner with me. I'll call you when I leave tomorrow. I'll stop by if I can, but I think the interview may run long, so I'll be rushing to catch the last plane. If not, I'll come by for a cup of coffee." She nodded, looking up at him. Everything about him was so perfect. His face. His eyes, the deep soul and ancient suffering that peeked through them, along with the light of resurrection and healing. Everett had been to hell and back, but it had made him who he was. As she looked at him, she saw him gently lean his face toward her. She was going to kiss his cheek, and then before she knew what had happened, she felt his lips on hers, and they were kissing each other. She hadn't kissed a man since nursing school, and even then, it hadn't been often. And now suddenly she felt her whole being, heart and soul, pulled toward him, and his spirit mingling with hers. It was the sudden blending of two beings becoming one through a single kiss. |
| 1528 |
He was walking now. And Molly dashed in to see what was under his tree. He had gotten her a pink tricycle, a doll as big as she was, and a stack of other presents. His finances were in the same shape as Sarah's, but Seth had always spent more money than she did. She was trying to be careful now, with her salary, and the money he gave her for the kids. Her parents were helping her too and had invited her to Bermuda for the holidays, but she didn't want to go. She had wanted to stay here, and keep the children near him. For all they knew, it might be his last Christmas out of prison for a long time, and she didn't want to deprive him of his children, or them of him. "I'm okay," she answered Seth, and smiled in the Christmas spirit, but there was so much wreckage between them. It showed in his eyes and hers too, so much disappointment and sorrow, and the force of his betrayal, which had hit her like a bomb. She still couldn't understand what had happened, or why. She realized now that once again there was a piece of him she just never knew, one that had more in common with people like Sully, and nothing in common with her. That was the scary part. There had always been a stranger living in the house with her. It was too late to meet him now, and she didn't want to. That stranger had destroyed her life. But she was rebuilding it quietly on her own. Two men had asked her out recently, and she had turned both down. As far as Sarah was concerned, she was still married, until they decided otherwise, which they hadn't yet. She was putting that decision off until after the trial, unless it came to her in a blinding flash before that. She was still wearing her wedding band, and Seth was too. For now, at least, they were still husband and wife, even if living apart. He handed her a Christmas present before she left, and she had one for him too. She had bought him a cashmere jacket and some sweaters, and he got her a beautiful little mink jacket. It was exactly what she liked, and it was gorgeous in a lush dark brown. |
| 1529 |
He loved the mix, because it was so real. Some of the meetings he'd been to in Hollywood and Beverly Hills were a little too manicured and polished for him. He preferred his meetings rougher and more down to earth. This one always was. He shared during the regular part of the meeting too. He said his name and that he was an alcoholic, and fifty people in the room said "Hi, Everett!" at once. Even after nearly two years, it gave him a warm feeling and made him feel at home. His shares were never practiced or rehearsed. He just said whatever came to mind, or was bothering him at the time. He mentioned Maggie this time, that he loved her and she was a nun. He said she was in love with him too, was remaining faithful to her vows, and had asked him not to call her again, so he hadn't. He had felt the loss sorely for the past three months, but respected her wishes. And then, as he left the meeting and got into his car to go home, he thought about what he'd said. That he loved her as he had never loved any other woman before, nun or not. That was worth something, and he suddenly wondered if he had done the right thing, or if he should have fought for her. It had never occurred to him before. He was on the way home, when he made a sharp turn and headed for the airport. Traffic was light on Christmas Day. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, and he knew he could catch a one o'clock flight to San Francisco, and be in the city by three. Nothing could have stopped him then. He paid for his ticket, got on the flight, and sat staring out the window at the clouds and the countryside and highways below. He had no one else to spend Christmas with, and if she refused to see him, he hadn't lost much. Just some time, and a round trip ticket from L.A. It was worth a shot. He had missed her unbearably in the last three months, her wise views, her thoughtful comments, her delicate ventures into advice, the sound of her voice, and the brilliant blue of her eyes. He could hardly wait to see her now. |
| 1530 |
The day after Christmas, filled with the energy of seeing Maggie, Everett sat down at his computer, got on the Internet, and started playing. He knew there were sites that did particular searches. He typed in some information, and a questionnaire appeared on his screen. He carefully answered all the questions, although he didn't have much information. Name, birthdate, place of birth, parents' names, last known address. That was all he had to go on. No current address, Social Security number, or any other type of information. He kept it limited to Montana. If nothing turned up there, he could search other states. He sat quietly at his computer waiting to see what would come back. There was hardly a pause before a name and address were on his screen. It had all been so simple and so quick. After twenty seven years, there he was. Charles Lewis Carson. Chad. With an address in Butte, Montana. It had taken twenty seven years to look for him, but now he was ready. There was a phone number and e mail address too. He thought about e mailing and decided not to. He jotted all the information down on a piece of paper, sat thinking about it for a while, walked around his apartment, and then took a deep breath, called the airline, and made a reservation. There was a flight out at four o'clock that afternoon. Everett decided to be on it. He could call him when he got there, or maybe just drive by and see what the house looked like. Chad was thirty years old, and Everett hadn't even seen a photograph in all these years. He and his ex wife had completely lost contact, after he stopped sending her support checks when Chad turned eighteen, and the only contact between them before that, as Chad grew up, were the checks he sent her every month, and her signature on the back when she endorsed them. They had stopped exchanging letters when Chad was four, and he hadn't had a single photograph since, nor asked for one. Everett knew nothing about him now, married, single, whether or not he went to college, what he did for a living. |
| 1531 |
Everything here was spare, just like the rugged terrain. There was an incredible natural beauty to it, and he thought it was interesting that his son had stayed close to home, unlike his father, who had gone as far as he could from his roots. He had no family here now, the little he had were all dead. He had never come back again, except finally, for his son. They reached the little church then, where the meeting was, and as he followed Chad down the stairs to the basement, he realized how lucky he was to have found him, and that Chad had been willing to see him at all. It could easily have been otherwise. He gave silent thanks to Maggie as he walked into the room. It was only due to her gentle, persistent persuasion that he had come, and he was thrilled now that he had. She had asked him about his son the night they met. Everett was surprised to see that there were thirty people in the room, mostly men and a few women. He and Chad sat down next to each other on folding chairs. The meeting had just started and followed the familiar format. Everett spoke up when they asked newcomers or visitors to identify themselves. He said that his name was Everett, he was an alcoholic, and had been in recovery for twenty months. Everyone in the room said "Hi, Everett!" and they went on. He shared that night, and so did Chad. Everett spoke first, and found himself talking about his early drinking, his unhappy shotgun marriage, leaving Montana, and abandoning his son. He said it was the single event in his life he most regretted, that he was there to make amends and clean up the wreckage of the past, if possible, and that he was grateful to be there. Chad sat and looked at his feet while his father spoke. He was wearing well worn cowboy boots, not unlike his father's. Everett was wearing his favorite pair of black lizard. Chad's were the boots of a working cowboy, splattered with mud, dark brown, and well worn. All the men in the room were wearing cowboy boots and even some of the women. |
| 1532 |
The next day Everett went shopping for some toys to bring to the children. He bought a bottle of cologne for Debbie, and a big chocolate cake for dessert. He was carrying all of it in shopping bags when Chad picked him up, and helped him put it in the back of the truck. He told his father they were having barbecued chicken wings that night and mac and cheese. He and the kids were designing the menus these days. The two men were happy to see each other, and Chad drove him to the small, neat house Everett had seen when he looked around to see where his son lived. It was warm and cozy inside, although there were toys in the living room, children lying on all the furniture, the television was on, and a pretty blond girl looking pale was reclining on the couch. "You must be Debbie." He spoke to her first, and she got up and shook his hand. "I am. Chad was really happy to see you last night. We've talked about you a lot over the years." She made it sound as though the comments in the past had been pleasant, although realistically he couldn't imagine that that would have been the case. Any mention of him would have had to be angry, or sad, for Chad anyway. Everett turned to the children then, amazed by how sweet they were. They were as beautiful as their parents, and didn't seem to fight with each other. His granddaughter looked like an angel, and the two boys were sturdy little cowboys and big for their age. They looked like a poster family for the state of Montana. And while Chad cooked dinner and Debbie lay on the couch again, visibly pregnant, Everett played with the kids. They loved the toys he gave them. Then he showed the boys card tricks, sat Amanda on his lap, and when dinner was ready, he helped Chad dish it up for the kids. Debbie couldn't sit at the table, the sight and smell of the food made her feel too sick, but she joined in the conversation from the couch. Everett had a ball, and hated to leave when it was time for Chad to take him back to the motel. Everett thanked him profusely for a great evening. |
| 1533 |
After she left, he could go to a meeting, just as he had that day, in the afternoon before he saw Chad and the kids. He was religious about his meetings, wherever he was. There were plenty to choose from in L.A., though fewer here. Chad said he'd relay the message and pick his father up for dinner the following night. And Everett reported on the evening to Maggie. He told her what a good time he'd had, how beautiful the children were, and well behaved. And for some reason, he didn't tell her about possibly seeing his ex wife the next day. He hadn't quite absorbed it yet himself, and he was apprehensive about it. Maggie was even more thrilled for him than she'd been the day before. Susan showed up at the motel at ten o'clock the next morning, just as Everett was finishing a Danish and coffee. She knocked on the door of his room, and when he opened it, they stood staring at each other for a long moment. There were two chairs in the room, and he invited her in. She looked both different and the same. She was a tall woman, and she had gotten heavy, but her face was the same. Her eyes explored his and looked him over. Seeing her was like examining a piece of his own history, a place and person he remembered, but no longer felt anything for. He couldn't remember loving her, and wondered if he had. They had both been so young, confused, and angry at the situation they were in. They sat in the room's two chairs, looking at each other, struggling for words. He had the same feeling he had then, of having absolutely nothing in common with her, a fact that, in his youthful lust and enthusiasm, he had failed to notice when they started dating, and she got pregnant. And then he remembered how trapped he had felt, how desperate, how bleak the future had looked to him when her father had insisted they get married, and Everett had agreed to what felt like a life sentence. The years had stretched ahead like a long lonely road, whenever he thought about it, and had filled him with despair then. |
| 1534 |
It was probably the first and last they'd ever have. He hoped she was happy, although she didn't look like a cheerful, extroverted person. Her face was solemn and devoid of emotion. But this meeting wasn't easy for her either. She looked content as she looked at Everett, as though their meeting put something to rest for her too. They were so totally different, they would have been miserable if they'd stayed together. And as their visit ended, they both knew things had happened as they should. She only stayed a short time, and he apologized to her again. And then she left for the dentist, and he went for a walk, and then to his AA meeting. He shared about seeing her and how it had reminded him of how desperate he had felt and how unhappy and trapped he felt when he was married to her. He felt as though he had finally closed the door on the past and double locked it. She was all the reminder he needed of why he had left. A lifetime with her would have killed him, but he was grateful now to have Chad and his grandchildren. So in the end, she had shared something good with him. It had all happened for a reason, and now he could see what that was. He couldn't have known then that thirty years later it would all make sense, and Chad and his children would become the only family he had. She had actually brought something good into his life, and he was grateful to her for that. Dinner at the Chinese restaurant that night was a huge amount of fun. He and Chad talked constantly, the children chattered and giggled and slopped Chinese food all over the place. Debbie came and tried to be a good sport about the food smells. She only had to go outside for air once. And when Chad dropped his father off at the motel afterward, he gave him a big hug, as did all the children and Debbie. And then Chad said, "Thanks for seeing Mom. I think it meant a lot to her. She never really felt like she said goodbye to you. She always thought you'd come back." He could see why he never had, but he didn't say that to his son. |
| 1535 |
He was busy, and Maggie had to meet with a social worker to get a homeless man she knew into a shelter. She and Everett both had busy lives, and enjoyed what they did. She had dinner with him again that night, after he finished work at the trial. They were working on jury selection, and they both thought the trial could take a long time. The judge was warning jurors it could last a month, with detailed financial material to examine, and extensive reading to do on the matter at hand. Everett told her that night that Seth had looked grim all afternoon, and he and Sarah had hardly spoken to each other, but she was there, staunchly at his side. It took two weeks for jury selection, which seemed agonizingly slow to Seth and Sarah, but finally they were set. They had twelve jurors and two alternates. Eight women and six men. And then finally the trial began. The prosecutor and defense attorney made their opening arguments. The prosecutor's description of Seth's immoral and illegal behavior made Sarah wince as she listened. Seth sat stonefaced, while the jury watched. He had the benefit of tranquilizers. She didn't. She couldn't imagine the defense team overcoming those arguments, as day after day, the prosecution presented evidence, witnesses, experts, all of it condemning Seth. By the third week of the trial, Seth looked exhausted, and Sarah felt like she could hardly crawl when she went home to her children at night. She had taken time off from work to be with him, and Karen Johnson at the hospital told her not to worry about it. She was desperately sorry for Sarah, as was Maggie. She called Sarah every night to see how she was. Sarah was holding up despite the incredible pressure of the trial. Everett dined with Maggie often during the agonizing weeks of the trial. It was April when he finally mentioned their situation again. Maggie said she didn't want to talk about it, she was still praying, so they discussed the trial instead, which was always depressing, but obsessed them both. |
| 1536 |
The prosecution was burying Seth daily, and Everett said he had been suicidal to go to trial. The defense was doing their best, but the federal prosecutor's case was so damning that there was little they could do to balance the avalanche of evidence against him. As the weeks wore on, whenever she came to court to support her, Maggie could see Sarah getting thinner and paler by the hour. There was no way out but through it, but it was truly a trial by fire for them and their marriage. Seth's credibility and reputation were being utterly destroyed. It was upsetting for everyone who cared about them, particularly for Sarah's sake, to see where this was going. It became clearer to everyone that Seth should have plea bargained for a lesser charge or sentence, rather than go to trial. It didn't seem possible that he could be acquitted given the accusations against him, and the testimony and evidence to support it. Sarah was innocent in all this, she had been duped just as his investors had been, but in the end, she was paying just as high a price, perhaps more. Maggie was devastated for her. Sarah's parents came out for the first week of the trial, but her father had a heart condition. Her mother didn't want him wearing himself out, or sitting through the stress of the proceedings, so they went home as the case was still building against Seth, and they still had weeks ahead of them before it would be over. The defense put an enormous amount of energy into defending Seth. Henry Jacobs was masterful in his demeanor, and solid in his talent as a lawyer. The problem was that Seth had given them little to work with, and their case was mostly smoke and mirrors, and it showed. The defense was about to rest the next day, as Everett and Maggie had dinner in the coffee shop across the street from her apartment, where they met often at the end of their days. Everett was writing daily items about the trial for Scoop. And Maggie was pursuing her normal activities, while spending any spare time she had at the trial. |
| 1537 |
The problem for her was not so much her work as her vows. They both knew that was the issue for her. What he didn't know was that she had been talking to the provincial of the order for three months now, her mother superior, her confessor, and a psychologist who specialized in the problems that arose in religious communities. She was doing everything possible to make the decision wisely, not just wrestling with it alone. He would have been encouraged to know it, but she didn't want to give him false hope, if she didn't come through for him in the end. "Can you give me a little more time?" she asked, looking pained. She had set herself a deadline of June to make up her mind, but she didn't tell him that either, for the same reasons. "Of course I can," he said reasonably, and walked her back to her building across the street. He had been up to see her apartment by then and was horrified by how small, spare, and depressing it was. She insisted she didn't mind and said it was much nicer and larger than any nun's cell in any convent. She took the vow of poverty seriously, just as she did the others she'd taken. He didn't say it, but he couldn't have lived in her apartment for a day. And the only decoration was a simple crucifix on one wall. Other than that, the apartment was bare, except for her bed, a chest of drawers, and a single broken chair she'd found on the street. He went to a meeting after he dropped her off, and then went back to his hotel room to write his report on the trial for the day. Scoop liked what he was sending them. His editorials were well written, and he had gotten some terrific photographs outside the courthouse. The defense took nearly a full day to rest its case. Seth sat frowning, looking anxious, while Sarah closed her eyes several times, listening with total concentration, as Maggie sat in the back of the courtroom and prayed. Henry Jacobs and his team of defense attorneys had made a good case, and defended Seth as best they could. Under the circumstances, they had done a fine job. |
| 1538 |
And others had said worse, although not to Sarah's face. She was the hero in the story, and the victim, and in Everett's eyes, the saint. They waited six days for the jury to finish their deliberations. The evidence was complicated, and the wait agonizing for Sarah and Seth. Night after night, they went home to their separate apartments. Seth had asked if she would come home with him one night, he was too terrified to be alone, but Molly was sick, and in truth, she didn't want to spend the night with Seth. It would have been too hard for her. She was trying to protect herself a little, although she felt sad to say no to him. She knew how badly he was hurting, but so was she. He went back to his apartment and got drunk instead. He called her at two in the morning, incoherent, telling her he loved her. And he was visibly hung over the next day. The jury finally came back into the courtroom, late that afternoon. And everyone started scurrying, as court was reconvened. The judge was solemn as he asked them if they had reached a verdict in the matter of United States v. Seth Sloane, and the foreman stood, looking equally solemn and serious. He owned a pizzeria, had attended a year of college, and was a Catholic with six children. He was extremely respectful of his duties, and had worn a suit and tie to court every day. "We have, your honor," the foreman said. There were five felony charges against Seth. The judge reeled each of them off, and in each case the foreman answered the question of how the jury had found Seth. The entire courtroom held its breath as he responded. They had found him guilty of each charge. There was a momentary silence as spectactors in the courtroom absorbed it, and then an explosion of talk and sounds, as the judge rapped his gavel soundly, called them all to order, thanked the jury, and dismissed them. The trial had taken five weeks, and their deliberations had added a sixth. And as Sarah understood what had happened, she turned to look at Seth. |
| 1539 |
He looked up at her in desperation. The only hope they had for appeal, according to Henry Jacobs, was in the case of new evidence or some irregularity during the proceedings of the trial. He had already told Seth that, barring some unforeseen later development, he had no grounds for appeal. It was over. He had been found guilty. And in a month it would be up to the judge to sentence him. But he was going to jail. Sarah looked as devastated as he did. She knew it was coming, she had done everything to prepare herself for it, and she wasn't surprised. She was just heartbroken for him, for herself, and for their children, who would grow up with a father they scarcely knew in prison. "I'm sorry," she whispered to him, and then their attorneys helped get them out of the courtroom. Everett sprang into action then, to get the photographs he knew he had to get for Scoop. He hated to intrude on Sarah, at such a time of distress for her. But he had no choice but to rush at them outside the courtroom, in the press of photographers and news cameras. It was his job. Seth was almost snarling as he pushed his way through the crowd, and Sarah looked as though she might faint as she followed him to their waiting car. They had a driver and town car waiting for them outside the courthouse. They were gone in minutes, as the crowd milled around. Everett saw Maggie on the courthouse steps. She hadn't been able to get near Sarah to say anything to her. He waved at her, and she saw him and came down the steps to meet him. She was grave faced and looked worried, although the verdict was no surprise. And the sentencing was liable to be worse. There was no telling how long the judge would send him away for, but it was likely to be a very long time. Particularly since he hadn't pled guilty, and had pushed for a jury trial, which wasted taxpayers' money, in the hope of having a fleet of highly paid lawyers do their fancy footwork to get him off. It hadn't worked, but made an inclination toward leniency less likely for him. |
| 1540 |
Seth had given up his apartment and was staying at the Ritz Carlton for the last few nights. He had explained what was happening to his children, that he was going away for a while. Molly had cried, but he had promised she could visit, which seemed to reassure her. She was only four, and she didn't really understand. How could she? The concept was hard for all the grown ups involved too. He had made arrangements with the bail bondsman to return the money to the bank, where it would be held in escrow for future lawsuits against him from investors, and a small portion was going to Sarah to help support herself and the children, but it wouldn't last long. Eventually, she'd have to rely only on her job, or her parents to do what they could for her, and it wouldn't be much. They were retired and lived on a fixed income. She might even have to live with them for a while, if she ran out of cash, and couldn't live on her salary. Seth was sorry, but he couldn't do better than that for her. He sold his new Porsche and somewhat grandly gave her the money. Every little bit helped, and he put his belongings in storage and said he'd figure out what to do with them later. Sarah had promised to do whatever his lawyers couldn't do for him. And the week of his sentencing, he had started proceedings for their divorce. It would be final in six months. Sarah cried when she got the notification, but she couldn't imagine staying married to him now. She didn't feel as though there was a choice. The judge had investigated Seth's financial situation, and imposed a two million dollar fine on him, which would wipe him out, after the sale of everything he still had left. And a fifteen year prison sentence, three years for each of the five charges he was convicted of. It was stiff, but it wasn't thirty. A muscle in Seth's jaw tightened as he listened, but he had been prepared for the bad news this time. The last time, waiting for the verdict, he had hope that a miracle would happen to let him off. |
| 1541 |
Mrs. Everett Carson. She rolled it around on her tongue as she packed her bags and looked around the studio for the last time. It had served her well during her years in the Tenderloin. Those days were over now. She had packed the crucifix in her single bag. The rest she had given away. She handed her keys to the landlord, wished him well, and said goodbye to the familiar people lingering in the hallways. The transvestite she had grown fond of waved as she got into the cab. Two of the prostitutes who knew her had seen her carrying her suitcase, and waved too as she drove by. She hadn't told anyone she was leaving, or why, but it was as though they knew she wouldn't be back. She said a prayer for them as she left. Her flight to L.A. was on time, and Everett met her at the airport. For a moment, he had his heart in his mouth. What if she changed her mind? And then he saw Maggie, a tiny woman in blue jeans, with bright red hair, wearing pink high top sneakers and a white T shirt that said "I love Jesus" coming toward him with an irresistible smile. This was the woman he had waited a lifetime for. He had been lucky enough to find her, and she looked as though she felt just as lucky as she tucked herself into his arm. He took her suitcase from her, and they walked away. Tomorrow was their wedding day. The prison Seth had been sent to was a minimum security facility in northern California, and conditions there had been reported to be good. It had a forestry camp attached to it, and the inmates there served as rangers, overseeing the safety of the area, and fighting forest fires when they occurred. Seth was hoping to make it to the forestry camp soon. In the meantime, he had been given a single cell, after his attorneys had pulled some strings. He was comfortable, and wasn't in any great danger. The other inmates were there for white collar crimes. In fact, most of them had committed crimes similar to his, on a much smaller scale. If anything, he was considered a hero among the men. |
| 1542 |
There were conjugal visits for those of them who were married, they were allowed to have packages, and the Wall Street Journal was widely read by most of the inmates. It was called the country club of federal prisons, but a prison was nonetheless what it was. He missed his freedom, his wife, and his children. He wasn't sorry for what he'd done, but he was desperately sorry he had gotten caught. Sarah had come to see him with the children in the first institution he'd been in, in Dublin, southeast of Oakland, while he was being processed. It had been uncomfortable, frightening, and a shock for all of them. Visiting him in prison now was more like visiting a hospital or a bad hotel in the forest. There was a small town attached to it where Sarah and the children could stay. Sarah could have had conjugal visits with him, as their divorce wasn't final yet, but as far as she was concerned the marriage was over, and he regretted that too, as much as the sorrow he'd caused her. He had seen it so clearly in her eyes the last time she visited him with their children, two months before. This was the first time he was seeing them that summer. It wasn't an easy place to get to, and they had been away. Sarah and the children had been in Bermuda with her parents since June. He was nervous as he waited for them on a hot August morning. He pressed his khaki pants and shirt, and shined his regulation brown leather shoes. Among all the other things he missed, he missed his custom made British shoes. When visiting time came, he wandered down to the grassy area at the front of the camp. Inmates' children played there, while husbands and wives talked, kissed, and held hands. And then, as he watched the road intently, he saw them drive up. Sarah parked the car, and took a picnic basket out of the back. Visitors were allowed to bring food. Oliver was walking along beside her, holding on to her skirt with a cautious look, and Molly bounced along with a doll under her arm. For a moment, he felt tears sting his eyes, and then Sarah saw him. |
| 1543 |
He didn't tell her that he missed her, although he did. And she didn't tell him how hard it still was for her without him. There was no longer room for that in what they shared. The anger had gone out of it for her, and all that was left was sadness, but there was also a kind of peace, as she started to move on with her life. There was nothing left to reproach him about, or regret. It had happened. It was done. It was over. And for the rest of their lives they would share children, decisions about them, and memories of another time. She served lunch for all of them on one of the picnic tables. Seth carried chairs over, and both children took turns sitting on his lap. She had brought delicious sandwiches from a local deli, fruit, and the cheesecake she knew Seth liked. She had even thought to bring him his favorite chocolates and a cigar. "Thank you, Sarah. The lunch was delicious." He sat back, smoking the cigar, as the children ran off. She could see that he was doing well, and had adjusted to the turn of fate that had landed him there. He seemed to accept it now, particularly after Henry Jacobs had confirmed that there were no grounds for an appeal. The trial had been run correctly, and the proceedings had been clean. Seth didn't seem bitter, and neither did she. "Thanks for bringing the kids." "Molly starts school in two weeks. And I have to get back to work." He didn't know what to say to her. He wanted to tell her he was sorry he had lost their house, that her jewelry was gone, that everything they'd built and shared had disappeared, but he couldn't find the words. Instead, they sat there together, watching their children. She filled the awkward silences with news of her family, and he told her about prison routine. It wasn't impersonal so much as different. There were things they couldn't say anymore, and never would again. He knew she loved him, the lunch she'd brought had told him that, the loving way she'd prepared it in the picnic basket, the way she had brought their children to him. |
| 1544 |
He didn't do it out of malice, but it had been years since he'd come home from the office and given her a hug. She had no idea when he'd stopped. She'd been so busy with their daughters that she didn't notice, until one day she realized that he didn't touch her when he came home anymore. She was always doing homework with the girls, or bathing one of them, when he came home at night. But it had been a long, long time since he'd been affectionate with her. Longer than either of them knew or cared to remember. There was a chasm between them now that they had both long since accepted, and she felt as though she were looking at him from a great distance as she poured him a glass of wine. "It was all right. Sad," she said, as he glanced at the paper, and she took the chicken out of the oven. He preferred fish, but she hadn't had time to buy any on the way home. "He looked so small." She was speaking of her stepfather, Charles Armstrong. He had died two days before, at the age of eighty four. The rosary had been that day, and the casket had been open so Charles could be "viewed" by family and friends. "He was old, Faith. He'd been sick for a long time." As though that not only explained it, but dismissed it. Alex did that. He dismissed things. Just as for years now, he had dismissed her. She felt lately as though she had served her purpose, done her job, and been dispensed with, not only by her children, but by her husband as well. The girls had their own lives now that they'd left home. And Alex lived in a world that didn't include her, except on rare occasions, when he expected her to entertain clients, or go to a dinner party with him. The rest of the time, he expected her to amuse herself. She saw women friends sometimes in the daytime, but most of her old friends still had children at home and were pressed for time. In the past several months, since Zoe left for college, Faith had been spending most of her time alone, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. |
| 1545 |
Business took precedence over all else, and had for a long time. He had become a very successful man. It had bought them the townhouse, and their daughters' educations, an unexpected amount of ease and luxury that Faith hadn't expected to enjoy But there were other things that would have meant more to her. Comfort, laughter, warmth. She felt as though she never laughed anymore, and hadn't in a long time, except when she was with the girls. It wasn't that Alex treated her badly. It was more that he didn't treat her at all. He had other things on his mind, and he didn't hesitate to make that clear to her. Even his lengthy silences told her that he would rather think than talk to her. "It would be nice if you were there," Faith said cautiously, as she sat down across the table from him. He was a handsome man, and had always been. At fifty two, he had grown distinguished as well, with a full head of gray hair. He had piercing blue eyes, and an athletic build. One of his partners had died suddenly of a heart attack two years before, and Alex had been careful about diet and exercise since then. Which was why he preferred fish to anything else, and was pushing the chicken she had cooked around his plate. She hadn't had time to be creative. She had been at the funeral parlor with her stepsister, Allison, all afternoon, while people came by to pay their respects. The two women hadn't seen each other since Faith's mother's funeral the year before, and not for ten years before that. Allison hadn't come to her brother Jack's funeral two years before Faith's mother's. There had been too many funerals in recent years. Her mother, Jack, now Charles. Too many people had disappeared. And although she and her stepfather had never been close, she had respected him nonetheless, and it saddened her to think of his being gone. It felt as though all the familiar landmarks were fading from her life. "I have to be at the meeting in Chicago tomorrow," Alex said, looking intently into his plate. |
| 1546 |
She didn't argue with him, didn't fight. She rarely disagreed with him. There was no point anyway. Alex had a way of removing himself. He did what he wanted, usually without asking or consulting her, and had for years. He operated like a separate entity from her most of the time, and what motivated him was business and the demands it put on him, not what Faith wanted him to do. She knew how he worked and what he thought. It was hard to get behind the walls he put up around himself. She was never entirely sure if it was a defense, or simply what made him comfortable. It had been different when they were young, but it had been this way for years. Being married to him was a lonely place, but she was used to it. She only felt it more now because the girls were gone. They had provided all the warmth she needed for years. It was their absence she felt now, more than his. And she seemed to have drifted away from many of her friends. Time and life and marriage and kids had somehow gotten in the way. Zoe had left for Brown two months before. She seemed happy there, and had yet to come home for a weekend, although Providence was close enough. But she was busy with her friends, her life, her activities at school. Just as Eloise was happy in London, with her job. Faith had been feeling for a while that they all had fuller lives than she, and she had been wrestling with trying to decide what to do with her own. She had thought of getting a job, but had no idea what kind of work she could do. It had been twenty five years since she'd worked at Vogue, before Eloise was born. She had also thought about going back to law school, and had mentioned it to Alex a couple of times. He thought the idea was ridiculous, at her age, and dismissed it out of hand. "At your age, Faith? You don't start law school again at forty seven. You'd be nearly fifty before you graduated and passed the bar." He said it with a look of utter contempt, and although she still thought of it from time to time she didn't mention it to him. |
| 1547 |
All of which had begun to seem meaningless to Faith, particularly now with the girls away. She wanted something with more substance to fill her life, but she had yet to find a plan that seemed sensible to her, and one she could convince her husband would be worthwhile. "No one is going to miss me at Charles's funeral," Alex said conclusively, as Faith cleared his plate, and offered him some ice cream, which he declined. He was careful about his weight, and was very trim and in good shape. He played squash several times a week, and tennis on weekends, when the weather in New York allowed. They had rented a weekend house in Connecticut when the girls were small, but they hadn't done that in years. Alex liked to be able to go in to the office, if he needed to, on the weekends. She wanted to tell him that she would miss him at her stepfather's funeral the next day. But she knew there was no point. Once he made up his mind, one way or another, he could not be swayed. It never occurred to him that she might need him there. And it wasn't the nature of their relationship for her to portray herself that way. She was capable, and well able to take care of herself. She had never leaned heavily on him, even when their children were small. She made good decisions, and was sure of herself. She had been the perfect wife for him. She never "whined," as he put it. And she didn't now. But she was disappointed that he didn't want to be there for her. Disappointment had become a way of life for Faith now. Alex was almost never there when she needed him. He was responsible, respectable, intelligent, provided well for them. And the emotional side of him had vanished into thin air years before. They had wound up with the same relationship his parents had. When she had met them, she had been shocked by how cold they were, and unable to express affection for each other. His father had been particularly remote, just exactly the way Alex had become in time, although Faith had never pointed out to him how similar to his father he was. |
| 1548 |
Alex wasn't demonstrative, and in fact it made him uncomfortable when others were, particularly Zoe and Faith. Their constant displays of affection always made him uneasy, and even more distant and critical of them. Of the two girls, Zoe was the most like her, warm, affectionate, good natured, with a sense of mischief about her, reminiscent of Faith when she was young. She was a terrific student, and a bright girl. But it was Eloise who was closer to her father, they had a kind of silent bond that was more comfortable for him. She was quieter than her sister, and always had been, and like Alex, she was often far more critical of Faith, and outspoken about it. Perhaps because he was. Zoe was always quick to come to her mother's defense, and to stand by her. She had wanted to come to Charles's funeral, although she wasn't close to him. He had never had any real interest in the girls. But as it turned out, she had midterm exams, and couldn't get away. And there was no reason for Eloise to come all the way from London for her step grandfather's funeral, after he had never given her the time of day. Faith didn't expect it of them, but it would have been nice if Alex could have made the effort to be there. Faith didn't mention it to him again. As she did with a lot of other things, she let it go. She knew she wouldn't win the argument. As far as he was concerned, she was perfectly capable of going alone. And he knew, just as his daughters did, that Faith and her stepfather had never been close. His loss was more symbolic to her. And what Faith didn't verbalize to him was that it was more painful because it reminded her acutely of the others who had gone before. Her mother, her brother, Jack, whose death had devastated Faith when his plane went down on the way to Martha's Vineyard three years before. He was forty six years old at the time, had been an excellent pilot, and the engine had caught fire. The plane had exploded in midair, and it was a shock she had only just recently begun to recover from. |
| 1549 |
She and Jack had always been soulmates and best friends. He had been her sole emotional support, and a source of comfort for her throughout her childhood and adult life. He was always forgiving, never critical, and fiercely loyal. They were two years apart, and growing up, their mother had always said they had been like twins. Particularly when their father died suddenly of a heart attack when Faith was ten and Jack twelve. Faith's relationship with her father had been difficult, nightmarish in fact. It was something she never talked about, and which had taken her a good part of her adult life to resolve. She had worked on it with a therapist, and made her peace with her past as best she could. Her earliest memories were of her father molesting her. He had been sexually inappropriate and abusive with her starting when she was four or five. She had never dared to tell her mother about it, and her father had threatened to kill her and her brother if she told. Her deep love for her brother had kept her silent until Jack had discovered it when he was eleven and she was nine, and he and his father had had a huge fight over it. And he had told Jack the same thing, that he would kill Faith if either of them told. He had been a very sick man. It had been so traumatic for both of them that they had never talked about it again until both of them were grown, and she was in therapy, but it had formed an unseverable bond between them, a love born of compassion, and a deep sadness in each of them that it had happened at all. Jack had been tormented by the fact that he hadn't been able to shield Faith from the nightmare their father had inflicted on her physically and emotionally. It tore Jack apart, knowing what was happening and that he was helpless to turn the tides. But he was only a child. And a year after he had discovered it, their father died. Years later, Faith had tried to tell their mother about it when she was in therapy, but her mother's denial mechanisms had been insuperable. |
| 1550 |
She insisted that Faith's father had been a kind and loving man, who adored his family and revered his wife. She had somehow managed to canonize him in the years since he had died. It left Faith with nowhere to go with her memories, except to Jack, as usual. He had gone to the therapist with her, and dredged up painful memories for both of them. Faith had sat and sobbed in his arms for hours. But in the end, Jack's love and support had helped her put old ghosts to rest. Her memory of her father was of a monster who had violated the innocence and sanctity of her life as a child. And it took Jack years to get over the fact that he couldn't keep it from happening to her. It was a painful bond they shared, and a wound they both fought valiantly to heal. And Faith had finally made her peace with it, in great part thanks to Jack. But the scars had taken a toll nonetheless. Both of them had sought out difficult relationships, with people who were cold and critical of them. They managed to match their mother's coldness in their mates, and found spouses who blamed them for anything that went awry. Jack's wife was neurotic and difficult, and left him several times, for reasons that no one could understand. And Alex had kept Faith at arm's length for years, while blaming her for whatever problems came along. Their choices were something she and Jack had discussed often, and although they both understood what they'd done eventually, neither of them had ever been able to turn it around. It was as though they had chosen situations that reproduced many of their childhood miseries, so that this time they could win them over and make the outcome different, but they had chosen people who couldn't be won, and the outcome in each case was as disappointing as their childhood had been, though less traumatic at least. Jack handled it by being a peacemaker and tolerating almost anything his wife dished out, including frequent abandonment, so as not to anger her or risk losing her. And Faith had done much the same thing. |
| 1551 |
The lessons her father had taught her ran deep. She knew in her heart of hearts that she was to blame for everything. It was her sin, not his, and somehow her fault. Her father had convinced her of it. And as awful as it had been, his final punishment had been to abandon both of them when he died. Faith had somehow sensed, or feared, that she was to blame for that too, and it made her careful not to do anything in her marriage that would make Alex leave her. In some part of her, she had spent a lifetime trying to be the perfect little girl, to atone for the sins no one but her brother knew about. She had thought about telling Alex the truth about her childhood over the years, but never did. At some deep, unconscious level, she was afraid that if he knew what her father had done to her, he wouldn't love her anymore. And in recent years, she wondered if Alex ever had. Perhaps he loved her in his own way, but it was a love based on her doing as he said and not rocking the boat. She had sensed early on that he couldn't have borne hearing the truth about what her father had done to her. Her dark secret remained with Jack and his was the only unconditional love she'd ever known. It was mutual between them. She loved him totally and unconditionally, as he did her, which made it even harder for her when he died. His death was an almost unbearable loss for her, particularly in light of everything she didn't have at home. It had been difficult for both of them when her mother married Charles when Faith was twelve and Jack fourteen. Faith had been suspicious of him, and fully expected him to do the same things her father had. Instead, he ignored her entirely, which was a mercy for her. He was not a man who was comfortable with women or girls. Even his own daughter was a stranger to him. He was a military man, and he was hard on Jack, but he was at least able to demonstrate some affection for him. All he did for Faith was sign her report cards and complain about her grades, which he seemed to think was expected of him. |
| 1552 |
They had separated several times, and in a fifteen year marriage they never had children, because Debbie couldn't stand the idea of them. Faith could never understand the attraction he'd had for her. But he had been devoted to her, in spite of their difficulties, always made excuses for her personality, and saw things in her no one else did. She had stood stone faced at his funeral, and shed not a tear. And six months after his death, Debbie had remarried and moved to Palm Beach. Faith hadn't heard from her since. Not even a Christmas card. In a sense, she was yet another loss, however little Faith had cared for her. She was a surviving piece of Jack in a way, but had disappeared. In truth, Faith had no one now, except Alex and her two girls. She felt as though her own world were growing smaller and smaller these days. The people she had known and loved, or even cared about, were leaving one by one. If nothing else, they had been familiar to her, like Charles. And in the end his sanity and wholesome ness, even if cool and aloof, proved to be a safe place for her. And now they were all gone. Her parents, Jack, and now Charles. It made Alex and the girls even more precious and important to her. She dreaded Charles's funeral the next day. She knew it would remind her of Jack's funeral, if nothing else, and that in itself would be hard enough. She was thinking about it as she walked past the study where Alex liked to read at night. He was poring over some papers and didn't look up at her as she paused in the doorway. He had a way of isolating himself, of letting people know he didn't want to be touched or disturbed. It made him unreachable even as he sat across a room from her. The vast distance that had grown between them over the years couldn't be bridged. Like glaciers, they had moved imperceptibly, each of them moving slowly away from the other, and now all they could do was look at each other from the distance and wave. There was no way to get close to him anymore. |
| 1553 |
He inspected their rooms, gave them orders, meted out punishments, and had left Jack out in the rain all night once for failing a test at school. Faith had let him in her window and hidden him under her bed, and in the morning they had splashed water on him so his clothes would be wet, and he'd sneaked back outside when the sun came up. Charles hadn't caught on to it, but there would have been hell to pay if he had. Their mother had never intervened on their behalf, just as she hadn't in their previous life. She avoided confrontation at all costs. All she wanted was a peaceful life. She'd had a difficult, emotionally barren first marriage. And two years of dire financial problems when her husband died and left her drowning in debt. She was grateful that Charles had rescued her, and was willing to take care of her and Jack and Faith. She didn't care that Charles seldom spoke to her, except to bark orders at her. All he seemed to want from her was that she was there and cleaned his house. And all he wanted from Faith and Jack was for them to follow orders, get good grades, and keep out of sight. It had helped set the stage for both of them to marry people who were as removed and unemotional as Charles and their mother had been, and Faith's father before that. Faith and Jack had talked a lot about it the year before he died, when he and his wife had separated yet again. He and Faith had both been aware of the parallels in the relationships they had. They had married cool, aloof people, who were neither affectionate nor warm. Although Alex had seemed affectionate at first. But he had cooled rapidly by the time Eloise was born. And it had been a progressive cooling process after that, it was just the way he was. Faith no longer resented it, but accepted him as he was. Alex was also far more sophisticated than Charles had been. Charles had been more of a rugged man's man, a West Point man to the bitter end. But in some ways, over the years, Alex had begun to remind her of Charles. |
| 1554 |
It was her defense to keep the world at bay. She managed to convey that life had disappointed her, without saying it in words, and yet she did what was expected of her, and had been married to Charles for thirty four years when she died. She never seemed happy to Jack or Faith. It was not a marriage Faith would have wanted, and yet in an odd way, it was the one Faith herself had now. She wondered why she hadn't seen that when she and Alex married. And Debbie, Jack's wife, was just as cold to him. Their history was what had made Faith determined to be overtly affectionate with Zoe and Eloise. She had gone to great efforts to go overboard the other way, and with Alex as well at first. But he had made it clear over the years that affection was something that not only made him uncomfortable, but that he didn't need from her. He needed an orderly life, a great career, a handsome house, and a wife who was there for him, doing what he expected her to do, while he conquered the business world. But he didn't want the little frills and flourishes and warmth Faith would have liked to offer him. So instead, all the love that came bubbling out of her, she lavished on her brother and her girls. The limousine was waiting outside the house, when Faith left at ten fifteen. She was wearing a black dress and coat, black stockings and high heeled black leather pumps. Her blond hair was swept back in the same bun she had worn the day before, and the only jewelry she wore was the pair of pearl earrings that had been her mother's and that Charles had given her. Faith looked sedate and subdued and dignified, and beautiful, and despite what she wore, she looked younger than her years. There was something open and kind about her face, and she had an easy smile and gentle ways. When she wore blue jeans and her hair down, she still looked almost as young as her girls. Whatever sorrows she had had in recent years had not appeared on her face, and as she slipped onto the backseat of the limousine, she was thinking of Jack. |
| 1555 |
He would somehow have managed to be irreverent, even about this somber day. He would have made it easier for her, and found some subtle levity or absurdity that he would have whispered to her. Just thinking of it, as they drove to Allison's hotel, made her smile in spite of herself. He had been full of mischief right up to his untimely and unexpected end. Jack had been an attorney in a Wall Street law firm, and had been much loved by his colleagues and friends. Only Alex had found him undignified and had issues with him. The two men were at opposite poles on every subject, and Jack had found his brother in law tedious, although he rarely said as much, out of deference to her. He knew there was no point discussing it, Faith didn't like his wife either, and talking about it just made it more awkward for him. Their spouses were a taboo subject most of the time, except when they themselves chose to bring it up. And Jack was wise enough to offer as little criticism as possible, out of his deep love for her. Allison and her husband were waiting outside the hotel when Faith stopped to pick them up. They looked like solid, decent older people. They had run a large prosperous farm in Canada for forty years. They had three sons nearly Faith's age who helped them run it, but hadn't come to the funeral, and a daughter who had stayed home because she was ill. Allison and her husband Bertrand seemed uncomfortable with Faith. She was sleek and citified, and although Allison had known her since she was a child, they had scarcely seen each other once adults, and their lives were centered in different worlds. They inquired about Alex, and she explained that he had to fly to Chicago for the day. Allison nodded, she had only met him a few times, and he was like someone from another planet to her. They had been of no interest to him, and he had made no effort to talk to them when they met, and again when he saw them at Faith's mother's funeral. He knew that Allison meant little to Faith. |
| 1556 |
And Charles's death, however timely and appropriate at eighty four, seemed like yet another blow. Another departure. Another person moving away from her, abandoning her. She and Allison and Bertrand said little to each other on the way to church. Allison seemed quiet and composed. She and her father rarely saw each other, and had never been close. She told Faith she wanted to invite people to come back to the hotel afterward, if there was anyone she wanted to include. She had taken over a large sitting room, and ordered a buffet, which Faith thought was a nice touch, and thoughtful of her when she offered it. It would be nice for their parents' friends. "I'm not sure how many people I'll know," Faith said honestly. The obituary they'd given to the newspaper had said where the funeral was, and she had called a number of her parents' friends. But many of their old friends were gone, or in convalescent homes. Charles and her mother had lived in Connecticut for many years, and had had a number of friends there, but after her mother's death, Faith had moved Charles into town, to a care facility, and he had been ill for most of the past year. His death had come as no surprise to any of them. But it was hard to say how many people would come to his funeral service. Faith suspected that attendance would be pretty thin. They were going to the cemetery immediately after the funeral, to bury him. And she and Allison agreed that more than likely by one thirty they'd be back at the hotel. They anticipated greeting people at the hotel for the remainder of the afternoon, and Allison and Bertrand were flying back to Canada at eight o'clock that night. Faith and Alex were going to a business dinner, which would be a good diversion after a depressing afternoon. All three of them were surprised, as they entered a side door of the church, how many people had actually come and were already sitting in the pews. Charles had been a respected member of the community in the small town in Connecticut where they had lived. |
| 1557 |
Everyone sang "Amazing Grace" at the end, and as they did, Faith felt tears begin to slide down her cheeks. For some reason, she had just had a vision of Charles when he was young, one time when they were children and he had taken them to a lake, and was trying to teach Jack to fish. Jack had had big bright eyes, and had looked lovingly at Charles for one of the rare times he did, when Charles wasn't berating them, and all she could see in her mind's eye, was Charles standing over Jack, showing him how to hold the pole, and Jack grinning from ear to ear... It made her miss Jack far more than Charles, as she closed her eyes, and could almost feel the August sunshine from that day on her face. It made her heart ache thinking back to that time. It was all gone now, part of a lifetime of memories. She couldn't stop the tears as they continued to slide down her face, and a sob caught in her throat, as the pallbearers from the funeral home slowly rolled the casket away, just as they had Jack's three years before. His friends had been his pallbearers, and he'd had so many of them. There had been hundreds of people at his funeral, and for Faith, the memory was only a vague blur. She had been so distraught that day that she could hardly remember it, which was merciful. But as she watched Charles's casket roll slowly down the aisle, it brought back agonizing memories for her, particularly as she followed Allison and Bertrand down the aisle. They stopped in the vestibule as the pallbearers took the casket to the hearse, and Charles's three surviving relatives waited to shake hands with friends. They were halfway through the hundred or so mourners who had come, when Faith heard a voice behind her that was so familiar, all she could do was stare. She had been shaking the hand of a woman who had been one of her mother's friends, and before she could turn, he said a single word. "Fred." It brought a smile to her face in spite of the circumstances, and she was beaming as she turned. |
| 1558 |
They hung up a few minutes later. Faith tidied up the girls' rooms that night, and put vases of fresh flowers in them. She wanted everything perfect for their homecoming, and she felt happy and relaxed when she went back to her own room. She started to say something to Alex, and then realized he'd fallen asleep with a book in his hands. She laid it gently on the night table next to the bed, turned off his light. He looked peaceful and handsome as he lay there, and she couldn't help wondering why he was so rigid sometimes, and so hard on her and the girls. And then suddenly she thought of Charles Armstrong. In some ways, Alex's views weren't so different from his. He had enormous expectations of his children, he wanted them to work hard, get good grades, and be successful. It was what Charles had demanded of Jack when he was young, although he expected far less of her, because she was "only" a girl. Alex had the same old fashioned ideas, although he had modified them somewhat because he had daughters instead of sons, and he expected as much of them as he would have of sons. But he treated Faith in very much the same way that Charles had treated her mother, as though she didn't exist some of the time, and wouldn't understand what he did with his days, as though she were somehow less competent than he was. It was a subtle form of devaluation that irked her when she was a child. It had bothered her that her mother had let Charles treat her that way. And now Faith realized that she had done the same thing. She let Alex put her down, and criticize her, belittle her, and ignore her. Letting him forbid her to go to law school was something her mother would have done. And as she got into bed next to him, as he snored softly, she vowed not to let him do the same thing to her. The tides had slowly started to turn. She couldn't help wondering if she had married Alex because he was like Charles. His silence and distance were familiar to her, although they hadn't been as noticeable in the beginning. |
| 1559 |
She thought the sun rose and set on him. And in contrast, Zoe criticized nearly everything he said and did. She felt he had never been there for her, whereas Ellie thought him the perfect father. She was far more critical of Faith, and had battled ferociously with her during her teen years, unlike Zoe, who had been easy for Faith, and still was. Although they looked very similar, the girls had totally different personalities and points of view about everything. The three of them sat in the kitchen for an hour, chatting about nothing in particular, and then finally Faith put the dishes in the sink, turned off the lights, and they went upstairs to their respective rooms. Faith got into bed next to Alex and she slept like a child that night, knowing that her girls were home. And she got up at the crack of dawn the next day, to make the dressing and put the turkey in the oven and get everything ready before the others came downstairs. They had a late breakfast, and sat reading the paper in their pajamas, as Faith checked on the turkey, and set the table in the dining room. Zoe offered to help, and Ellie sat talking to her father. There was an easy, convivial atmosphere that they all enjoyed. And even Alex looked pleased to spend time with them. It was noon before they all went back upstairs to dress. They usually congregated in the living room at two o'clock on Thanksgiving Day, and ate at three. And when the girls came back downstairs, dressed and made up, and looking very pretty, they sat next to their father and watched the football game with him. Ellie was a huge football fan, and told him she'd been to some rugby games with friends, but it just wasn't the same thing. Zoe went to help Faith in the kitchen then, and by three o'clock, the candles were lit, the table looked beautiful, and they were ready to sit down for the meal. They ate neither lunch nor dinner on that day usually. Instead, they picked at leftovers late at night, which was almost a tradition with them, after eating the enormous meal Faith prepared. |
| 1560 |
Their friends were coming at six o'clock, and they weren't going to eat dinner till seven or eight. She had invited forty people, at least half of whom he didn't know. And he didn't even bother to object. There was no point. Pam did what she wanted to. The only difference his objections made was that she prepared better arguments to convince him. But in the end, perhaps because of lack of energy on his part, Pam prevailed. He preferred to save his energy for bigger things, like his work. He got a lot of paperwork done, and caught up on a number of things. And in a sentimental moment, he wrote a long letter to his sons, telling them how proud of them he was, and that he was grateful for them. They were both terrific boys. He admired their spunk in going to Africa for a year. They were working on a game preserve, tending to injured animals, and assisting animals that were somehow in trouble in the wild. And in their spare time they had volunteered at a church in the village. Dylan was teaching kids and their parents how to read, and Jason was digging trenches for a new sewer system. Their letters so far had been full of enthusiasm and excitement for everything they'd done and seen. It was an unforgettable experience for them. They were going to be there until July, and he had promised himself and Pam that he was going to take some time off from work, and visit them for a couple of weeks. But so far, he hadn't had the time. And neither had Pam. She was far less enthusiastic than Brad about going to Africa. She was terrified of diseases, accidents on a trip like that, and bugs. Her idea of adventure travel was flying to L.A. and staying with friends in Bel Air. She and Brad had done some traveling over the years, but never to exotic places, usually to Europe, or somewhere in the States. They stayed in luxurious hotels, and ate at three and four star restaurants. Pam loved going to spas, when she had the time, and playing golf with business associates, or clients she was trying to woo to the firm. |
| 1561 |
Almost everything Pam did was geared toward advancing herself somehow, either socially or professionally. She rarely did anything just for the fun of it. She always had a plan. And was totally unlike Brad. He had no social ambitions, no desire to run the world, no need for enormous amounts of money, and the only real passion he had was for his work. The rest went over his head. Pam teased him about it sometimes, and had tried to show him the ropes to greed and success. They were lessons that, much to her chagrin, he had refused to learn. And since he'd gone out on his own, and left the firm, she'd given up. Most of the time, nearly always in fact, they each did their own thing, which was a relief for Brad. The work she put into her social and business life exhausted him. He didn't give a damn about showing off, being in the papers, or impressing people in her world. Brad sealed his letter to his sons, and told them he sent them his love. They had only called a few times in the past four months. There were no phones on the game preserve, only radios that connected to nearby farms, and the local town. In order to call home, they had to go into town, and wait for hours at the post office for a phone and an outside line. It sounded like being on another planet to him. But at least they wrote occasionally, and so did he. Pam kept sending them care packages with vitamins and insect repellent, purchased by her secretary, and so far, all but two of the packages had been stolen or lost. Somewhere in Zambia there were postal workers or customs officers who were taking her vitamins, and no longer plagued by bugs. But he figured the boys were fine. He thought of calling Faith before he left the office, but when he glanced at his watch, he realized that they were probably about to sit down and eat. It was a real bonus for him to have found her again. She was a piece of his childhood, his history, a memory of a happy time for him. Things had gotten complicated for him after college. |
| 1562 |
His mother had died of breast cancer at forty three, after being obsessed with the things Brad's father had done to her, and his father had had a heart attack two years afterward. They had become and remained bitter, angry people whose only interest had been doing each other harm. His father had refused to attend his ex wife's funeral, as a final slight to her, and in the end the only one it had hurt was Brad. He had vowed to himself that he would never marry. And when he met Pam, and dated her, she had had a hard time convincing him to get married. And when she finally did, after issuing a tough ultimatum to him, he was equally determined never to get divorced. He didn't want his sons to feel the same anguish he had, watching his parents' pitched battle to destroy each other. When he said "for better or worse" when he married Pam, he had meant every word of it. He knew then that no matter what happened later on, he was married to her for life. It made him philosophical when their paths slowly began to go separate ways, and she disappointed him again and again. He knew he was a disappointment to her as well. He wasn't ambitious enough in her eyes, or interested in the same things. By the time the boys finished college, or even when they started it, Pam and Brad had no shared interests at all, and few friends they both liked. Brad's values were entirely different from hers, and the only joy they still shared was their sons. Brad turned off the lights in the office, and got into the Jeep he used for work. He had a Mercedes parked in the garage at home, but he seldom used it anymore. It was the wrong signal to send out for a court appointed attorney, or one doing mostly pro bono work, defending indigent kids accused of violent crimes. The Mercedes embarrassed him, and he'd been thinking of selling it, although Pam had just bought herself a Rolls. The difference in their cars seemed symbolic, to him at least, of their differences in all else. He didn't delude himself that he was happy with her. |
| 1563 |
He hadn't had any illusions about his marriage in a long time, but he was entirely clear that he wasn't going to do anything about it, and never would. And that was comfortable for Pam too. He suspected she had brief affairs from time to time, and he had gotten involved with a married secretary for two years. But eventually she'd gotten divorced and wanted a deeper involvement with him. He had never misled her about his plans, and they parted ways and she quit on good terms. And she had since married someone else. Brad hadn't been involved with anyone since, and that had been three years before. He would have been lonely, if he'd thought about it, but he didn't allow himself to. He simply accepted what was, and stayed submerged in work. But talking to Faith had added another dimension to his life in the past two months. He had no romantic notions about her, on the contrary, she was sacred to him, and he cherished the friendship they had. She seemed to understand him perfectly, shared many of the same points of view, and her own loneliness allowed her to reach out to him in ways that others wouldn't have dared. And in his head, she was still like a little sister to him, and that made him interact with her in a totally chaste way. He loved what he felt for her, and what they said to each other. He loved helping her, and being there for her. He was determined to do everything he could to encourage her to go back to school, and he hoped she would. He felt as though he was of some use to her, and that made him feel good. She was, in every sense of the word, his friend. Brad drove into the driveway just after six o'clock. He had intended to get home by five and get changed, but it had taken him longer than he thought to wrap up. He knew it wouldn't take him more than a few minutes to shower and change, and he was startled to find, when he let himself into the house, that they already had guests. They were standing in the front hall in black tie, and looked surprised when he walked in, in jeans and a sweatshirt. |
| 1564 |
His love for her had been a casualty to the way she treated him, but even after his feelings for her had died, he made every effort to keep the outer shell of their marriage intact. The inside, the soul of it, had long since died. "Do you want me to introduce you to the people you don't know?" Pam asked generously as she came to stand next to Brad, and slipped a hand into her father's arm, and he turned to her and smiled. "I'm fine. Your father and I were singing your praises. You've pulled off some major coups recently, from what he's telling me. You're doing a hell of a job." She looked pleased with his praise. Brad tried to give her credit whenever he thought it was deserved, although he didn't have a great deal of respect for the arena she competed in. She rarely returned the favor to him, and most of the time dismissed what he did, however important it seemed to him, or the rest of the world. She was also disturbed by Brad's influence over their sons. She thought their altruistic leanings were of no consequence, and she had been trying for several years to convince them to go to law school, and join their grandfather's firm. It would have been a huge victory for her. But so far, neither of the boys had been swayed, much to Brad's relief. She was a pretty woman, though not in an overtly feminine way. She was tall, athletic, with a strong, sinewy figure. She played a lot of tennis and golf, and was in great shape. And she had brown eyes, and hair as dark as Brad's. She looked more like his sister than his wife. And people had often said she looked like him. Pam drifted away then from where Brad and her father were standing. And Brad made a minor effort before they sat down. He introduced himself to several people, and had two glasses of wine to make the evening more bearable for him. He spoke to a woman who played tennis with Pam. She ran an ad agency Brad had heard of, but as he listened to her, his mind began to wander, and he finally left her to join a small circle of lawyers standing near the bar. |
| 1565 |
Everything she did with her life, and had, was in accommodation of him. But she realized that she didn't always let her daughters see that. It was something she did discreetly, as she planned her life around him. But she seemed to get no credit for it, from him, or the girls, Ellie at least. Zoe was far more cognizant of the sacrifices her mother made. Eloise went to finish packing her suitcase, and Faith made her a sandwich and a cup of soup before she left. No matter how awkward the conversations had been, or how stressful their Thanksgiving dinner, she was thrilled that Ellie had come home, and thanked her for it before she left. "I'll see you in a few weeks," Faith said as she hugged her before she left. Ellie was planning to come home for Christmas, and had insisted her mother didn't need to come to the airport. She was perfectly capable of taking a cab to the airport by herself, and in fact preferred it that way. Alex would have preferred that too. Faith and Zoe liked companionship at all times. Eloise was very different from them. The house was astonishingly silent once both girls were gone. It depressed Faith as she checked their rooms, stripped the beds, and washed the sheets. There was a cleaning person who came in three times a week, but as a motherly gesture, which still allowed her to take care of them, she preferred to do their rooms and laundry herself. It was all she could do for them. And as she wandered around the silent house, she was reminded of how empty her life was without them. She was actually relieved to see Alex come home that night. He had spent the afternoon at a downtown maritime museum with a friend from Princeton who was asking him to be on the board. Alex said he had enjoyed himself, and he seemed slightly more pleased than usual to see Faith, which startled her. She wondered if he was lonely for the girls too. Their absence impacted everyone, even Zoe, who felt like an only child now when she came home, and didn't like it. But it was hardest of all for Faith. |
| 1566 |
Faith and Alex spent a quiet evening together. He told her about the maritime museum he'd visited, and the plans he had for that week. It was the longest conversation they'd had in months, and after their argument at the end of Thanksgiving dinner, and his vehemence about her not going to school, she was stunned. It also gave her a chance to share with him how lonely she was without the girls. "You knew this would happen eventually," he said sensibly, seemingly surprised that it bothered her as much as it did. It was hard for him to conceptualize that this had not only been her heart, but her job for twenty four years. Had he lost his, he would have understood. "You have to find other things to do. Going back to school just seems so extreme to me. And so pointless, Faith. Most lawyers want to retire at your age, not start their careers." "It would open a lot of doors to me. Everything else seems so short term, like a Band Aid on a wound. This would be a whole new life. And who knows what I would actually do with it eventually. I'm not even sure of that myself." He still seemed not to understand, but he wasn't taking it quite as personally, which was a relief. His talking to her about it made for a cozy evening for them, and took the edge off her missing the girls. It was one of those rare evenings that only happened to them once in a blue moon. And for the moment at least, he seemed to have forgiven her for wanting to go to school. Or had put his own hatred of the project on hold. For the time being at least. And his doing that created some much needed and unexpected warmth between them. For the next two weeks, Faith kept busy getting ready for Christmas. She bought presents for Alex and the girls. He took several trips, and they saw so little of each other that the topic of her going back to school didn't come up between them again. In the little she saw of him between business trips and after work at night, all he did was eat, say a few words to her, and go to bed. |
| 1567 |
She lit candles for him at mass several times a week. "Sure." He hadn't been to church in years, although he had gone to church with her and Jack and their mother when they were all kids. He was Episcopalian, but he liked the pomp and ceremony of the Catholic Church, and had taken communion with them once or twice to see what it was like in a Catholic church, and was surprised to find it was no different than in his. The Catholic Church had always seemed more mysterious and impressive to him. And Jack dared him to go to confession once, and he was surprised by how kind the priest had been. There was a lot about Catholicism that had always appealed to him, although he had drifted away from his own church too in recent years. Faith still went to church regularly, but Alex wasn't religious, and resisted it energetically, and she had never been able to sell it to her kids. It was something she did on her own, but she had gone more frequently ever since her brother died. Instead of once or twice, she now went several times a week. It gave her a sense of communion with him, and of peace. It was the only way she had found consolation from his death. Brad didn't say anything as he followed her across the street to the church. It was just after ten o'clock, and the doors were still open. There were beautiful Christmas decorations and poinsettias everywhere, and the church was spectacularly lit. It was an impressive sight, as they walked in, and just stood there, looking around. There were altars to individual saints all along the sides, and banks of candles in front of them, and the main altar stood at the end of the central aisle, straight ahead. She made the sign of the cross, and side by side, they walked to the front of the church. It was almost as though she could feel Jack walking with them. They slipped quietly into a pew, and sat there for a while, and she knelt and prayed, for Jack and her mother, and Charles, and her daughters finally, and then, still on her knees, she turned to smile at Brad. |
| 1568 |
It was almost as though there were an aura of peace around her, and a look of great tenderness in her eyes. "I feel him here, with us," she whispered. They both knew who she was talking about, and Brad nodded, with tears in his eyes, and then knelt next to her. "Me too." And then he bowed his head and closed his eyes. It was just like the old days, skating together, and going to church. The only one missing was Jack, but it didn't really seem as though he was. It was a while before they both looked up, and then walked past the main altar, to the smaller ones in honor of the saints. Faith genuflected down to one knee as they crossed the center of the church. And he followed her to the altar of Saint Jude. He had always been her favorite saint. She slipped a five dollar bill into the slot, lit a candle for Jack, and then held the burning stick toward Brad so he could light one himself. It had always seemed magical to him, as though something as powerful as that could only result in good things, and they stood side by side for a moment, thinking of her brother, in silent prayer. And then he took her hand, and they walked slowly away. They stopped just before they left the church, and Faith dipped her fingers in the holy water, made the sign of the cross, and smiled up at him. "Thank you for coming here with me," she whispered. She'd been to church earlier that week, but it meant more to her now, because he was here, as though their combined prayers were more powerful, as though it meant more to pray for Jack with him. Brad was silent as he followed her outside, deeply moved. It had been years since he'd been to church, and he was surprised by how much it had just meant to him, or maybe it was just going with her, and the memories it stirred, of the three of them. "Do you still have your rosary?" he asked, as they walked down the steps of St. Patrick's hand in hand. He felt even closer to her than he had in a long time, as though she were his sister now too, his blood, and not simply his friend. |
| 1569 |
Seeing him had been the best of all possible Christmas presents, except if Ellie had come home. She still had to tell Zoe her sister was going to Switzerland for the holidays. But all she could think of now was the time she had just spent with Brad, and what it had meant to her. Their conversation over both dinners had been meaningful, and she had loved skating with him. It was amazing how easily they still opened up to each other, just like the old days, only better, because they were wiser now. It was so comfortable talking to him. In some ways, he was even easier to talk to than Jack had been. They had always disagreed about things like their mother's marriage, Faith had seen her as lonely and unhappy all her life, while Jack thought Charlie was a decent guy and his sister was too critical of him. And they had never seen eye to eye about their respective mates. She hadn't liked Debbie, and he had hated Alex. But there were no loyalties at issue with Brad, and they saw most things the same way, from the same side. It made her sad to realize how much he had compromised in his marriage. And she felt sorry for him. Pam sounded like the wrong woman for him, but it was obvious that he was entrenched for life. It was noble of him, but seemed misguided somehow, to her at least. But he might have said the same thing about Alex. Neither of them were easy marriages or mates, but they were whom and what they had chosen, and had decided to stand by. She respected him for it, and at the same time, pitied him. She sent him an e mail that night, thanking him for the dinners, and the skating. And just as she sent it, Zoe walked in, with four suitcases, her tennis racket, a camera bag, and her computer under one arm. She dumped it all in the front hall and walked into the kitchen. She was pouring herself a glass of milk as her mother walked in. "Welcome home." Faith put her arms around her and gave her a warm hug, and offered to make her something to eat, but she said she'd had a sandwich in the airport on the way home. |
| 1570 |
In the pit of her stomach, she was afraid that she had done miserably, and Brad tried to reassure her when she called him afterward. He was the only person in her life who knew she had taken it. She didn't even tell Zoe where she'd gone. But at least it was behind her now. Another hurdle crossed. And all she could do now was hope she'd gotten a decent score. Zoe left for Brown on New Year's Day. She was starting school the next day, and she hated to leave. She had had fun with her friends over the holidays, and she always hated leaving her mother, although Faith had reason to be excited herself. She was starting school the next day. Alex was painfully silent at dinner after Zoe left, and Faith knew why. He was still annoyed with her for going back to school. Zoe had made a big fuss over her before she left, and Faith had her backpack and her school supplies ready for the next day. They were in her study, all ready and waiting on a chair. She went downstairs to check everything again before she went to bed. She hadn't been this excited since she was a little girl. She'd had an e mail from Brad that day, wishing her good luck and telling her how brilliantly she was going to do. She wasn't sure of that, but she was really excited to be going back to school. She knew it would be hard, but she was finally doing what she wanted to do. She was up at dawn the next day, and dressed by eight o'clock, when she made breakfast for Alex. He left at eight thirty, as he always did, and he said not a word to her. He wanted to be sure she knew he still disapproved. It was hardly a secret to her, or to anyone in the house. He simply glowered at her, and closed the front door. She made herself another cup of coffee, and kept looking at the clock. She was going to leave at nine, and take a cab downtown. She didn't have to sign in until nine thirty And she was just picking up her backpack, and getting ready to leave, when her laptop came alive and told her she had mail. She clicked it twice, and was surprised to see it was from Brad. |
| 1571 |
And his blurb about Valentine's Day reminded her that she wanted to send candy to the girls. She was sure Alex wouldn't mention the day to her, he never did. They were hardly in Valentine mode anymore, particularly lately. The day no longer meant much to her. The rest of the trip to Washington was fascinating, and continued at a brisk pace. They went to museums, libraries, universities, gathering data and information to illustrate their course. And it was only on the last morning that they ran into a major snag. They still had a final day to complete, and a last night. But the teacher got an emergency call, her mother had been taken to the hospital. She'd had a stroke and was not expected to live. She got the call on her cell phone, and was understandably upset and said she had to leave. She urged the others to complete the day and remaining night. They weren't due to go home until the following afternoon. It was Friday morning by then anyway. And they weren't due back in New York until late Saturday. But by the time she made the announcement, Faith realized that she had completed all she had to do. She had more than enough for her paper, and more than half the group decided to go home. Without their leader to direct them, they rapidly lost steam. Some of them decided to stay without her, but Faith was among the group that opted to leave at noon. It also allowed her to spend the whole weekend with Alex, which she hoped would redeem her after being gone for three days. He hadn't called her once, or returned her daily calls, since she left. She picked up her things at the hotel, and took a cab to National with five of her classmates. They caught a shuttle home, and were back in New York at two. It was perfect. She could get home, organize her papers, and cook him a nice dinner as a peace offering. She stopped at the market on the way home, and let herself into the house shortly after three. She was carrying two bags of groceries and set them down in the kitchen, along with all her other bags and belongings. |
| 1572 |
She felt like she had been gone for weeks. And as she looked around the kitchen, she was surprised to see that it was admirably neat. She wondered if he had eaten out every night after all. And as she set the bags down on the floor, she noticed a pair of shoes under a chair. They were high heeled black satin pumps, and she didn't own any like them. But more surprising, as she picked one up and looked at it closely, was that it was several sizes larger than hers. Her heart began to pound when she saw it, and with a sick feeling in her stomach, she walked upstairs. The bed in their bedroom had been hastily made, with the bedspread thrown over the unmade bed. And when she pulled it back, she almost instantly spotted a black lace brassiere, and as she looked down, there was a matching pair of thong underwear, seemingly hastily discarded on the floor. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sick feeling, and sat down on the bed, feeling faint. This couldn't be happening to her. There was no way to explain it, except for the obvious. This wasn't a house guest, or a daughter, or anyone she could explain to herself. Alex had had a woman in the house while she was gone. And when she walked into her bathroom, there were cosmetics all over her dressing table, of a brand she didn't wear, and there was long black hair in the sink. There was no way she could paint a prettier picture for herself as she saw another pair of shoes, and a sweater hanging on the towel rack. And all she could do, as she looked at two dresses and three unfamiliar suits in her closet, was cry. It hadn't even been a one night stand. Whoever the woman was who was staying with Alex, she had obviously moved in for the entire four days. And then with a sudden feeling of terror, she realized that they would be coming back that night, maybe even that afternoon. Without even thinking clearly, she ran down the stairs, after throwing the bedspread over the bed the way it had been, and leaving everything else undisturbed. |
| 1573 |
But the worst of all was that it was her home too. He had defiled their home, and their bed. All she could think of as they drove up Madison was the sight of the brassiere and the thong. And all she wanted was to die. It was the ultimate payback for her trip to Washington, if that was what he had intended. But what she also realized as they stopped at the hotel, and the doorman opened the door for her, was that this couldn't have been a new woman to Alex. He wouldn't have moved a stranger into the house for four days. He must have been having an affair with her for a while. Faith felt sick as the doorman asked her if she was checking in, and she said yes. She didn't want to confront Alex and make a scene. She was going to stay at the hotel, and go home Saturday afternoon, as planned, which meant that Alex and the woman, whoever she was, were going to be cozily ensconced in her house. All she wanted was to check into the Carlyle and throw up. She asked for a room, and was lucky they had one, since she had no reservation, and told them she would be there for one night, or at most for the weekend. They signed her in, handed her a key, and a bellman carried her Washington gear upstairs. She was clutching her computer as though it were the Sierra Madre treasure, and her last link to the real world. But she didn't plug it in when she got upstairs. She just sat on the bed, sobbing, and it was dark outside by the time she stopped. She didn't even know what time it was. And when she glanced at the clock, she saw it was six o'clock. She couldn't even call Zoe to tell her. She didn't think it was fair to turn her against Alex. She had to sort this out for herself. It just didn't seem possible. But it was obvious to her now that he was having an affair. After all his coldness to her, all his fury and accusations over her going back to school, all the icy unkindness he had showered on her for so long, all the distance, all the silence, all the indifference to her as a woman, he was sleeping with someone else. |
| 1574 |
She had far too much on her plate. And he knew she had the added stress of waiting to hear from law school. But that was the least of her worries, and she didn't expect to hear for another month. By the time he came to town three days later, she was feeling better and nearly over her flu. She looked thin and pale, and more stressed than she had a month before. But he also knew how upset she was about Ellie, and about the house. It accounted for a lot. She had decided to make dinner for him, and said she really didn't want to go out. And that worried him too. He managed to talk her into going to Serendipity for a banana split afterward for dessert. And after she ate almost none of the dinner she'd cooked, he was happy to see her dig in. She had greeted him like the long lost brother he was to her, and literally thrown herself into his arms when he walked into the house, and he had lifted her slim body right off the ground. She was even thinner than before. "So how long will you be in Africa?" she asked, taking a huge mouthful of chocolate ice cream, and he smiled as he wiped a tiny spot of whipped cream off her nose. "How come you always get food all over your face?" he teased, and told her he'd be gone for two weeks. He was faintly panicked about not talking to her. He liked knowing how she was, and being there for her. When she wasn't in a total state over the divorce, or something Alex had done to her, they talked or e mailed each other every day, and had now for five months. She was part of the furniture of his life, and he counted on communicating with her. He not only listened to her problems and concerns, but shared his with her as well. And he didn't like the fact that she wasn't going to be able to reach him. He had given her a sheet of paper with several numbers on it. But they were contact numbers to leave messages for him, and nothing more. Just as he couldn't reach his sons on the game preserve where they lived, she couldn't reach Brad while he was with them. |
| 1575 |
But they were both unnerved at the prospect of not being able to communicate for two weeks. Faith knew the bond they had formed with each other was unusual, and had become addictive for both of them. It was going to be a test of their self sufficiency to manage without it now. "I'm going to have withdrawals without talking to you," she confessed. "Yeah. Me too." But there was nothing they could do. He held her tightly in his arms for a long moment before he left, and hugged her so close, she could hardly breathe. "I love you, Fred," he said to her just as Jack would have done, and yet she felt so much more for him. Somehow when neither of them had been looking, Brad had slipped into another part of her heart, and she had to get him out of there again, without him ever knowing where he'd been. It was up to her to do the work, she knew, and she said nothing of it to him, as she kissed his cheek and waved when he left. Faith was up and left the house by seven thirty the next day. She walked the two blocks to St. Jean Baptiste Church on Lexington Avenue, in a freezing rain. It seemed suitable punishment to her, and what she deserved. She went to confession before mass began, and spoke in whispers to the priest. She knew she had to confess. She had to tell someone. She had done a terrible thing, and she had only just discovered it herself. She was in love with him, with her whole heart and soul, and he was married to someone else, and intended to stay that way. She had no right to jeopardize his life, his marriage, or his peace of mind. She told herself, and the priest in the confessional, that she had abused the brotherly friendship he had extended to her, and now she had to find a way back from what she felt for him. The priest gave her absolution, and ten Hail Marys to say, which seemed far too small a penance to Faith. She felt certain she deserved far greater punishment for the feelings she had for him, and the pain and risk she would create for him, if he ever found out. |
| 1576 |
It was perfect for their trip. "What a nice gift. Thanks." It reminded him briefly that they had once liked each other, and been friends, but it had been a long time since then. There had been a lot of water under the bridge, and too many disappointments for either of them to rekindle much more than friendship. But for this trip, at least, it was enough. They settled into their seats on the plane, ordered dinner, and selected movies for their individual screens. Pam took out a stack of fashion magazines she'd brought, and some papers from the office. She was working on some major deals when she left, and her father had promised to baby sit them for her. He was the only one she really trusted in the firm. Other than that, she relied on herself. In spite of all the other attorneys, and capable people around her, she was a one man band. Pam didn't work well on a team. And neither did Brad. They had never trusted each other either when they were working together. He handled his own clients, as she did hers, and they had argued constantly about work. It was one of the many reasons he had left. That and the fact that he had felt like he was on a leash, with Pam and her father at the other end. It had been untenable for him. And it was part of why she was so angry when he left. She had lost control of him. Which was one of the things he loved most about working on his own. He was his own man, and no longer answered to her or her father. They said very little to each other on the trip, and they both looked exhausted when they arrived at the first airport. Neither of them had slept. And as Brad had lain staring at the movies he'd selected, all he could think about was Faith. He would have died rather than admit it to her, but Pam was right. He couldn't get her out of his mind. He worried about her feelings, and her well being, and what Alex was doing to her. He was afraid Alex would do something really awful to her in his absence. He felt badly for her about Ellie's betrayal. |
| 1577 |
And he had convinced Pam it would be a great trip. But she was already worrying about the food, and even the bottled water, when they got on the next flight. And this time, out of sheer exhaustion, they both slept. It was morning in Kalabo when they arrived. And they both woke up at exactly the same moment, as the plane touched down. There was an incredible sunrise, and a sky streaked with pink and orange as the sun hovered over the mountains, and they could see herds of animals gathered on the plains. Brad had never seen anything like it in his life. The terrain seemed to stretch out forever, and there were only a handful of roads and vehicles. And there were half naked tribesmen standing near the tarmac, waiting for people to disembark from the plane. "Well, here goes," Pam said, looking nervous. "I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," she said as Brad laughed. She was not a woman who liked being taken out of her own environment, or the places where she felt in control. And this was far from being one of those. But Brad didn't care where they landed, or what they had to go through to get there. It had been nine months since he'd seen his sons, and that was enough for him. He'd have gone to hell and back to see them. They walked down the stairs to the tarmac, and into the terminal to clear customs, which consisted of a barefooted man in a shirt with epaulets and a pair of white shorts. He had a head like an African carving, and he glowered at them both, checked their passports, and then waved them on. The customs officer had the kind of face and demeanor that would have terrified Pam if she'd been alone. All she wanted was to go back to Claridge's, and then home. The only consolation was seeing Dylan and Jason, but as far as Pam was concerned, being there was a high price to pay to see her sons. Brad gave a whoop the moment he saw them. They were waiting next to a van outside, and as Pam and Brad and a porter emerged, they hurried toward their parents, and embraced them both. |
| 1578 |
They had filled out, and from the work they were doing, had developed powerful muscles in their backs, shoulders, and arms. They looked like bodybuilders in their T shirts and jeans. And even Pam looked excited now that she was here. It was great to see them both. "You look good too, Dad," Dylan said to his father, as Jason helped load his mother's bags. Only Brad had ever been able to tell them apart. He had always sworn that they looked distinctly different. Pam had never been sure which one she was talking to, and had solved the problem by putting them in different colored sneakers when they were little, which they had learned to switch later on. But even now, as adults, it was hard to tell them apart. Jason was a quarter of an inch taller, but even that didn't show. They were full of interesting information and data, as they drove to the Liuwa Plain National Park near the Zambezi River, where they lived and worked. They explained sights as they saw them, named animals as they passed them, talked about tribes who lived in the bush along the road. What they were seeing was exactly what Brad had hoped, and it made him glad they had come. And he realized more than ever what an extraordinary experience it had been for the boys. He knew they would never forget it, and would be hard put to duplicate the experience once they got home. They were due back in July, although they'd been talking about spending a year in London, or maybe six months traveling in Europe, before they went to graduate school or got jobs at home. Pam was determined to pressure them into law school. And after what they were seeing, Brad was no longer sure she had a chance. They had seen a far broader world. The experience had been priceless for them. And neither of them had expressed an interest in the law, nor for working for her later on. It took them four hours to drive over narrow highways and rutted roads to the game preserve in the national park, and by the time they got there, Pam was beginning to look unnerved. |
| 1579 |
But he also knew she'd try. She was spoiled and loved her comfort, but when pressed, she was also capable of being a good sport. And she made the effort for the boys. Although she nearly fainted when she saw her first snake, and the boys warned her that there were flying bugs the size of her fist that would fly across the room at her at night. Just hearing about them made her want to scream, or pack up and go home. They spent their first night outdoors, sitting around a fire, listening to the sounds of the velvety African night. Brad had never seen anything like it in his life, and he loved it. And the next day, Brad went on a long drive with the boys, over sand roads, to Lukulu, a market town, and Pam stayed at the camp. She didn't want to venture too far. She had visions of their truck being rammed by a rhino or pounced on by a lion, or flipped over by a water buffalo. And she wasn't too far wrong. Some of those things had happened, but for the most part, the people on the preserve knew what they were doing, and by now so did her sons. Brad came back raving about everything they'd seen. And for the first week, the days seemed to fly by. The only thing he longed for was a phone so he could call Faith and tell her what he'd seen. All Pam wanted was a toilet and a shower. But she stopped complaining after the first few days. The boys also took them to Ngulwana, on the opposite side of the river from the park, where they had worked digging trenches, building houses, and restoring a disintegrating church. They were currently helping to build a medical office, where a doctor came once a month to treat the ailing and injured locals. The nearest hospital was two hours away in the dry season, in Lukulu, and it took twice as long in the rainy season, if one could get there at all. The only other option was to get there in a small plane. It was not a great place to get sick, Pam commented, and Brad agreed. But he was also impressed by how much work his sons had done for the locals. |
| 1580 |
A number of people waved and smiled in greeting as they walked by. And both Pam and Brad were enormously proud of them. By the second week, Brad had fallen in love with Africa itself, the people, the sounds, the smells, the warm nights, the incredible sunrises and sunsets, the light that was impossible to describe. He never had his camera out of his hands, and he suddenly understood why his sons loved being there. It was magical, and he would have loved to spend a year there himself. And Pam, for all her efforts at good sportsmanship, had eaten everything they gave her, learned to shower in the outdoor tent, still winced when she used the latrines, screamed when she saw the bugs, and much as she loved her sons, couldn't wait to go home. It just wasn't for her. And on the last night, she had a look of joyful relief. "Mom, you were a great sport," Jason congratulated her, and Dylan gave her a hug. It was Brad who was chagrined to leave. He had spent both weeks sleeping in their tent with them, going on drives with them at night, and getting up with them before dawn. He had seen kills, and stampedes, and a watering hole where sick and old elephants went to die. He had seen things he had only read about or dreamed. It had been a moment in his life he knew he would never forget, and had loved sharing with them. And it had meant a great deal to both boys. They had also had more to talk about and confide in him than they had had in years. They had told him, just as he suspected, that they had no interest in law school, but were afraid to tell Pam. Dylan was thinking about med school, and wanted to come back to work in third world countries with children suffering from tropical diseases, and Jason wanted to do some kind of public health work, on a grander scale, but didn't yet know what. In either case, they had years ahead of them in school, and wanted to get started soon, probably in another year, after they'd applied. But in both cases, law school was out of the question for them. |
| 1581 |
He waved, and then he was gone. And Faith cried all the way back to the city in the cab. They had done something terrible, she knew that. She had allowed him to cross the line of friendship, not only allowed him, but provoked him to. There was no doubt in her mind that it was her fault it had happened. And she knew that when he came back, they would have to take back everything they had said and done, and promise not to do it again, or they could never see each other again. It was one more grief to add to their worries about Jason. All she could do for him now was pray. She got out of the cab at St. Patrick's. It was eleven o'clock at night, and there were still people milling around, mostly tourists, as Faith stepped inside. She went straight to the altar of Saint Jude and lit a candle, and then she got on her knees, bowed her head, and cried. She had the rosary in her hand that Brad had given her for Christmas. It seemed a sacrilege now to be holding it, after the sin she knew she had just committed. He was a married man and they both knew he was going to stay that way. She knelt for an hour, praying for Jason, and for wisdom and courage for Dylan, and peace for Brad as he made his way to them. She left the church after midnight, and went home in a cab. She let herself into the house and walked up the stairs to her room, looking as though someone had died. She was devastated by everything that had happened, the terrible news, the worry, the shock she saw in Brad's eyes, and the terribly foolish thing she had done, which she knew was so wrong. No matter how much she loved him, she had to disappear from his life. She knew that now after praying. Saint Jude was the patron saint of impossible causes. She had no choice. She was dangerous for Brad. She stood in the darkness in her room for a moment and then turned a single light on, as Zoe came out of her room and stood across the hall, watching her. She hadn't seen her mother look like that since Alex had walked out on her months before. |
| 1582 |
No matter how much she hated third world countries, or Africa when she'd been there two months before, she should have been there. He didn't say anything to either of his sons, but Brad knew he would never forgive her for it. There was nothing she could have done, but she owed it to her boys to be there, and to Brad as well. And a day later, he used the same circuitous routing of radios and local phones to ask someone to call Faith in New York to tell her Jason would live, and to thank her for her prayers. Brad had no doubt that they had made a difference, and he was desperately sorry that he couldn't call her and talk to her himself, but there was no way he could while he was there. Three days later, a nurse told them that Jason's mother had gotten a message to them. She couldn't come, but was glad that all was well. She would see them when they got home. It was that message that made the difference to him. Unless she were in a coma herself, there was no acceptable explanation she could give for not being there. Brad never mentioned it to Dylan, but he knew that their marriage had died on that day. They had told Jason that their mom was tied up in San Francisco, and it was too complicated for her to get there, and he didn't question it, but Dylan could see on his father's face how he felt about it, and he tried to reassure him as best he could. "It would have been too hard on Mom here," Dylan said gently, and Brad nodded. He had nothing left to say. They had spent twenty five years together, and one always assumed that when the chips were down, the person you were married to would be there. Even if they didn't give much from day to day. But when they failed to stand up and be counted when it really mattered, you knew everything you had tried not to know all along. And Brad knew now. Not only wasn't Pam his wife anymore, she wasn't even his friend. It was a devastating revelation, and a disappointment so enormous in her as a human being that even if he could have called her, he would have had nothing to say. |
| 1583 |
The doctor estimated that Jason would be at the hospital for a month, and they provided two cots for Brad and Dylan. They sat with him for hours every day, and then went on walks in the cool of the evening. Brad took long walks by himself every day when the sun came up. He had never seen as beautiful a place as this one, and it was even more so because Jason hadn't died there, but nearly had, and had been reborn. Brad felt as though his own spirit had been reborn with him. He suddenly felt filled with hope and life and promise, the miracle had not only touched Jason, it had touched all three of them. And it was a bond and a time Brad knew they would never forget. And as he walked home from his long hikes every morning, he found himself not only thinking of his children, and thanking God for them, but he also thought of Faith. He only wished that she could be there with them to see the beauty of the place. She would have seen the splendor of it as he did. And she would have understood what it meant to him. They flew Jason back to Kalabo a month after he had gone to the hospital. He was tired and wan, and had lost a considerable amount of weight. He was still too weak to travel, but the doctor thought that after a few more weeks resting at the game preserve, and eating properly, he would be able to make the trip home. It was three weeks after they brought him back from the hospital that Jason said he felt well enough to make the trip. The headaches he had had for weeks had finally gone away as well. It was an emotional day when they finally left the game preserve, and started the long trip home. Brad had gone to the post office twice to try to call Faith, he had waited hours for an outside, international line, and had finally given up. There was no way to call. Nor had he communicated further with Pam. He had too much to say to her to call on a bad line from a remote African phone. As it had when he'd arrived, it took them two flights to get to London, and Brad had arranged for them to stay there for two days. |
| 1584 |
Jim Dawson was handsome from the day he was born. He was an only child, tall for his age, had a perfect physique, and was an exceptional athlete as he grew older, and the hub of his parents' world. They were both in their forties when he was born, and he was a blessing and surprise, after years of trying to have a child. They had given up hope, and then their perfect baby boy appeared. His mother looked at him adoringly as she held him in her arms. His father loved to play ball with him. He was the star of his Little League team, and as he grew older, the girls swooned over him in school. He had dark hair and velvety brown eyes and a pronounced cleft in his chin, like a movie star. He was captain of the football team in college, and no one was surprised when he dated the homecoming queen, a pretty girl whose family had moved to southern California from Atlanta in freshman year. She was petite and slim with hair and eyes as dark as his, and skin like Snow White. She was gentle and soft spoken and in awe of him. They got engaged the night of graduation and married on Christmas the same year. Jim had a job in an ad agency by then, and Christine spent the six months after graduation preparing for their wedding. She had gotten her bachelor's degree, but her only real interest during her four years in college was finding a husband and getting married. And they were a dazzling pair with their flawless all American good looks. They were a perfect complement to each other and reminded all who saw them of a couple on the cover of a magazine. Christine had wanted to model after they were married, but Jim wouldn't hear of it. He had a good job, and made a good salary, and he didn't want his wife to work. What would people think of him if she did? That he wasn't able to provide for her? He wanted her at home and waiting for him every night, which was what she did. And people who knew them said they were the best looking couple they had ever seen. There was never any question about who wore the pants in the family. |
| 1585 |
Jim made the rules, and Christine was comfortable that way. Her own mother had died when she was very young. And Jim's mother, whom Christine called Mother Dawson, sang her son's praises constantly. And Christine readily revered him just as his parents had. He was a good provider, a loving husband, fun to be with, a perfect athlete, and he rose steadily in importance in the ad agency. He was friendly and charming with people, as long as they admired him and didn't criticize him. But most people had no reason to. Jim was a personable young man, he made friends easily, and he put his wife on a pedestal and took good care of her. All he expected of her was to do as he said, worship and adore him, and let him run the show. Her father had had similar ideas, and she'd been perfectly brought up to be the devoted wife of a man like him. Their life was everything she had hoped for, and more. There were no unpleasant surprises with Jim, no strange behavior, no disappointments. He protected her and took care of her, and provided handsomely. And their relationship worked perfectly for both of them. Each knew their role in the relationship and played by the rules. He was the Adored, and she the Adorer. They were in no hurry to have children for the first few years, and might have waited longer if people hadn't begun to comment about why they didn't have them. It felt like criticism to Jim, or like the suggestion that maybe they couldn't have them, although they both enjoyed their independence without children to tie them down. Jim took her on weekend trips frequently, they went on fun vacations, and he took her out to dinner once or twice a week, although Christine was a good cook and had learned to make his favorite meals. Neither of them was suffering from the lack of children, although they agreed that they wanted them eventually. But five years after they got married, even Jim's parents were beginning to worry that they might be having the same difficulties that had delayed them from having a family for nearly twenty years. |
| 1586 |
They were twenty seven years old, and enjoying feeling free and unencumbered. But the constant inquiries finally got to him, and he told Christine that it was time to start a family. And as she always did, Christine agreed. Whatever Jim thought best seemed right to her too. Christine got pregnant immediately, which was faster than they expected. It was easier than they both had planned, they had assumed it might take six months or a year. And despite her mother in law's concerns, the pregnancy was easy for Christine. When she went into labor, Jim drove her to the hospital and opted not to be in the delivery room when the baby came, which seemed like the right plan to Christine too. She didn't want him to do anything that would make him ill at ease. He was hoping for a boy, which was her fondest wish too, in order to please him. It didn't even occur to either of them that the baby might be a girl, and they had confidently opted not to find out the baby's sex. As virile as he was, Jim expected his firstborn to be a son, and Christine decorated the nursery in blue. Both of them were absolutely sure it was a boy. The baby was in a breech position and had to be delivered by cesarean section, so Christine was still asleep from the anesthetic in the recovery room, when Jim heard the news. And when he saw the baby the nurse presented to him at the nursery window, for a minute, or longer, he thought the baby he was seeing had been switched. The baby had a perfectly round face with chubby cheeks that bore no resemblance to either of them, with a halo of white blond hair. And more shocking than her features or coloring, it was a girl. This was not the baby they had expected, and as she stared at him through the nursery window, all he could think of was that the infant looked like the elderly British monarch Queen Victoria. He said as much to one of the nurses, and she scolded him and said that his daughter was beautiful. Being unfamiliar with the grimaces of newborns, he disagreed. |
| 1587 |
And it was several hours before they brought her to Christine, who gazed at her in wonder as she held her and touched her little hands. She was tightly swaddled in a pink blanket. Christine had just been given a shot to keep her milk from coming in, since she had decided not to nurse. Jim didn't want her to, and she had no desire to either. She wanted to get her figure back as quickly as possible, since Jim had always liked her petite, lithe shape and didn't find her attractive while she was pregnant. She had been careful with her weight during the pregnancy. Like Jim, she found it hard to believe that this chubby white blond baby was theirs. She had long, straight sturdy legs like Jim's. But her features didn't look even remotely familiar to either of them. And Mother Dawson was quick to agree with Jim when she saw her, and said she looked like Jim's paternal grandmother, and said she hoped she didn't look like her later. She had been a round, heavyset woman for her entire life, who had been best known for her cooking and sewing skills and not her looks. By the day after her birth, the shock of her being a female had worn off a little, although Jim's friends at the office had teased him that he would have to try again for a son. And Christine was worried that he was angry at her about it, but he very sweetly reassured her that he was glad that she and the baby were healthy, and they'd make the best of it. The way he said it made Christine feel as though she had come in second best, and Mother Dawson endorsed that idea. It was no secret that Jim had wanted a son and not a daughter, almost as confirmation of his manhood and ability to father a son. And since it had never dawned on either of them that they might produce a daughter, they had no girls' names ready for the chubby blond baby that lay in Christine's arms. He had been joking about her looking like Queen Victoria, but they both agreed that they liked the name, and Jim took it one step further, and suggested Regina as a middle name. |
| 1588 |
Victoria Regina Dawson, for Queen Victoria. Victoria the Queen. The name seemed strangely apt as they looked at her, and Christine agreed. She wanted her husband to be happy with the choice of name at least, if not the sex. She still felt as though she had failed him by having a girl. But by the time they left the hospital five days later, he seemed to have forgiven her. Victoria was an easy, happy baby who was good natured and undemanding. She walked and talked early, and people always commented on what a sweet little girl she was. She remained very fair, and the white blond fuzz she'd had when she was born turned into a crown of blond ringlets. She had big blue eyes, and pale blond hair, and the creamy white complexion that went with it. Some people commented that she looked very English, and then Jim always commented that she'd been named for Queen Victoria, whom she looked like, and then laughed heartily. It became his own favorite joke about the baby, which he was more than willing to share, while Christine tittered demurely. She loved her daughter, but the love of her life had always been her husband, and that hadn't changed. Unlike some women who became totally focused on their children, the central focus of her world was first Jim, and then the baby. Christine was the perfect companion for a narcissist of Jim's proportions. She only had eyes for him. And although he still wanted a son to complete him, and toss a ball with, they were in no hurry to have a second child. Victoria fit easily into their life and caused few disruptions, and they were both afraid that two children, particularly if close together, would be hard to manage, so they were content to have only Victoria for now. Mother Dawson rubbed salt in Jim's wounds by saying it was too bad they hadn't had a son, because then they wouldn't have had to consider having a second child, since only children were always brighter. And of course her son was an only child. Victoria appeared to be extremely intelligent as she got older. |
| 1589 |
She hoped for its sake that the new baby hadn't inherited the same nose. But since the baby was an "accident," there seemed to be far more serious things to worry about than its nose. Her parents had never explained the accident to her, but she hadn't forgotten the conversation she'd overheard. It made Victoria all the more determined to dedicate herself to the new baby, and do whatever was needed to help with it. She hoped the damage from the accident it had experienced wasn't too great. Maybe it was just a broken arm, or a bump on the head. Christine's C section was planned this time, and Victoria's parents had explained to her that her mother would be in the hospital for a week, and she wouldn't be able to see her mother or the baby until they came home from the hospital. They said those were the rules, and she wondered if it was to give them time to fix whatever damage the baby had sustained in the mysterious event that no one seemed to want to discuss or explain. The day the baby was born, her father came home at six o'clock when Victoria's grandmother was preparing dinner for her. They looked at him expectantly, and his disappointment was evident when he told them it was a girl. And then he smiled and said the baby was beautiful and looked just like him and Christine this time. He seemed enormously relieved, even though it hadn't been a boy. And he said they were calling her Grace, because she was so pretty. Grandmother Dawson smiled too then, proud of her ability to guess the baby's sex. She had been sure it was a girl. Jim said she had dark hair, big brown eyes like both of them, the same white skin as her mother, and perfectly formed tiny pink lips. He said she was so pretty they could have used her for an ad for babies. Her beauty made up for her not being a boy. He made no mention of any injury to the baby, from the accident that Victoria had been worried about for the past eight months, and she was relieved too. She hoped the baby was okay, and she sounded very cute. |
| 1590 |
His friends thought he was very funny, and he had no qualms about who he made the butt of his jokes. He turned to Victoria with a wry grin, as she gazed lovingly at the baby. "I guess you were our little tester cake," he said, ruffling her hair affectionately. "This time we got the recipe just right," he commented happily, as Grandmother Dawson explained that a tester cake was what you made to check the combination of ingredients and the heat of the oven. It never came out right the first time, she said, so you threw the tester cake away and tried again. It made Victoria suddenly terrified that because Grace had come out so perfectly, maybe they would throw her away. But no one said anything about it, as her mother, grandmother, and new baby sister went upstairs. Victoria followed them with a look of awe. She stood at a discreet distance and watched everything they did. She wanted to learn how to do it all herself. She was sure her mother would let her, once her grandmother went home. She had asked before Grace came, and her mother said she would. They changed the baby into a tiny pink nightgown, wrapped her in a blanket, and Christine gave her the bottle of formula they'd given her at the hospital. And then she burped her and laid her down in the bassinet. It was the first chance Victoria had gotten to take a good long look at the new arrival. She really was the most beautiful baby Victoria had ever seen, but even if she hadn't been, even if she had had their great grandmother's nose, or looked like Queen Victoria too, she would have loved her anyway. She already did. Her beauty didn't matter to Victoria at all, only to her family. While her mother and grandmother were talking, Victoria cautiously stuck her finger into the bassinet right into the baby's hand, and the baby looked up at her, and curled her tiny fingers around Victoria's finger. It was the most exciting moment of Victoria's life so far, and she instantly felt the bond between the two of them, and knew it would only get stronger and last forever. |
| 1591 |
Watching the exchanges, and hearing about them afterward always made Victoria feel invisible. It was as though she didn't exist when the scouts talked to her mother. The only child they saw was Grace. Victoria didn't mind it, but sometimes she wondered what it would be like to be on TV or in a movie. It was fun that Grace was so pretty, and Victoria loved dressing her up, like a doll, with ribbons in her curly dark hair. She was a beautiful baby and turned into an equally lovely looking toddler. And Victoria nearly melted the first time her baby sister said her name. Grace chortled happily whenever she saw her, and was fiercely attached to her older sister. When Grace was two and Victoria was nine, their grandmother Dawson died, after a brief illness, which left Christine with no help with the baby except for what Victoria did to assist her. The only babysitter they had ever used was Jim's mother, so after her mother in law's passing, Christine had to find a babysitter they could rely on when they went out in the evenings. Thereafter there was a parade of teenage girls who came to use the phone, watch TV, and let Victoria take care of the baby, which both sisters preferred anyway. Victoria got more and more responsible as she got older, and Grace got more beautiful with each passing year. She had a sunny disposition and laughed and smiled constantly, mostly at the urging of her older sister, who was the only person in the family who could make her laugh through her tears or stop a tantrum. Christine was far less adept with her than her older daughter. Christine was only too happy to let her take care of Grace. And by then, her father still regularly teased her about being their "tester cake." Victoria knew exactly what that meant, that Grace was beautiful and she wasn't, and they had gotten it right the second time around. She had explained that to a friend once, who had looked horrified by the explanation, much more so than Victoria, who was used to the term by now. |
| 1592 |
Her father didn't hesitate to use it. Christine had objected to it once or twice, and Jim assured her that Victoria knew he was just teasing. But in fact Victoria believed him. She was convinced by then that she was the mistake, and Grace their ultimate achievement. That impression was reinforced by each person who admired Grace. Victoria's sense of being invisible became deeply entrenched. Once people had commented on how adorable and beautiful Gracie was, they had no idea what to say about Victoria, so they said nothing and ignored her. Victoria wasn't ugly, but she was plain. She had sweet, natural fair looks, and straight blond hair that her mother put in braids, as compared to Grace's halo of dark ringlets. Victoria's hair had gotten straight as she got older. She had big innocent blue eyes the color of a summer sky, but Grace and her parents' dark ones always seemed more exotic and more striking to her. And their eye color was all the same, as was their hair. Hers was different. And both her parents and Grace had thin frames, her father was tall, and her mother and the baby were delicate and fine boned and had small frames. Grace and her parents were a reflection of each other. Victoria was different. She had a square look to her, a bigger frame, and broad shoulders for a child. She looked healthy, with rosy cheeks and prominent cheekbones. The one remarkable feature about her was that she had long legs, like a young colt. Her legs always seemed too long and thin for her squat body, as her grandmother had put it. She had a short torso that made her legs seem even longer. Despite her wider frame, she was nonetheless quick and graceful. And even as a child, she was big for her age, not enough to be called fat, but there was nothing slight about her. Her father always made an issue that she was too heavy for him to pick her up, while he tossed Grace in the air like a feather. Christine had a tendency to be underweight even after her babies, and in great shape thanks to her trainer and exercise classes. |
| 1593 |
She explained that Grace had a different frame and was built like her, although Victoria sneaked her lollipops and candy, and Grace loved it. She would scream with delight when she saw a Tootsie Roll Pop emerge for her from Victoria's pocket. And even when Victoria only had one, she gave it to her sister. Victoria had never been popular in school, and her parents very seldom let her have friends over, so her social life was limited. Her mother said that two children making a mess of the house was enough for her to deal with. And she never liked any of Victoria's friends when she met them. She always found fault with them for one reason or another, so Victoria stopped asking to invite them. As a result, no one invited Victoria over after school, since she never reciprocated. And she wanted to get home to help with the baby. She had friends at school, but her friendships didn't extend past school hours. The drama of her early school years was being the only child in fourth grade who didn't get a valentine. She had come home in tears, and her mother told her not to be silly. Gracie had been her valentine, and the next year Victoria told herself she didn't care, and braced herself for disappointment. She actually got one that year from a girl who was as tall as she was. All the boys were shorter. The other girl was a beanpole, and actually much taller than Victoria, who was wider. And the next drama she faced was growing breasts when she was eleven. She did everything she could to hide them, and wore baggy sweatshirts over everything she owned, lumberjack shirts eventually, and everything two sizes larger. But they continued growing, much to Victoria's chagrin. And by seventh grade she had the body of a woman. She thought of her great grandmother often, with her wide hips and thick waist, large breasts and full figure. Victoria was praying she never got as big as her great grandmother had been. The only thing different about her were the long thin legs that never seemed to stop growing longer. |
| 1594 |
Her parents' friends always referred to her as a "big girl," and she was never sure what part of her they were referring to, her long legs, big breasts, or ever widening body. And before she could figure out which part of her they were looking at, they turned their attention to the elflike Gracie. Victoria felt like a monster beside her, or a giant. And with her height, and her womanly body, she looked much older than her years. Her art teacher in eighth grade called her Rubenesque, and she didn't dare ask him what it meant, and didn't want to know. She was sure it was just a more artistic way of calling her big, which was a term she had come to hate. She didn't want to be big. She wanted to be small, like her mother and sister. She was five feet seven when she stopped growing in eighth grade, which wasn't enormous, but it was taller than most of her female classmates, and all of the boys at that age. She felt like a freak. She was in seventh grade when Gracie started kindergarten, and she took her to her classroom. Her mother had dropped them both off at school, and Victoria had the pleasure of taking Grace to meet her teacher and watched her walk into the room with caution and turn to blow a kiss to her big sister. She watched over her all year at recreation, and took her home after afternoon day care. And the same was true in eighth grade, when Gracie was in first grade. But in the fall Victoria would be entering high school, at a different school, in another location, and she would no longer be there for Gracie, or see her if she walked past her classroom during the day. And she was going to miss her. And so was Gracie, who relied on her older sister and loved seeing her peek into her classroom throughout the day. Both girls cried on Victoria's last day in eighth grade, and Gracie said she didn't want to come back to school without Victoria in the fall. But Victoria said she had to. Eighth grade was the end of an era for Victoria, and one she had cherished. It always made her happy knowing Gracie was nearby. |
| 1595 |
The summer before Victoria entered high school she went on her first diet. She had seen an ad for an herbal tea in the back of a magazine, and sent away for it with her allowance. The ad said that it was guaranteed to make her lose ten pounds, and she wanted to enter high school looking thinner and more sophisticated than she had in middle school. With puberty and a richer figure, she had put on roughly ten pounds over what she was supposed to weigh, according to their doctor. The herbal tea worked better than expected and made her desperately ill for several weeks. Grace said she was green and looked really sick, and asked why she was drinking tea that smelled so bad. Her parents had no idea what was wrong with her, since she didn't tell them what she'd done. The evil brew had given her severe dysentery, and she didn't leave the house for several weeks, and said she had the flu. Her mother told her father that it was typical pre high school nerves. But in the end, just by making her so ill, the herbal tea caused her to lose eight pounds, and Victoria liked the way she looked as a result. The Dawsons lived on the border of Beverly Hills in a nice residential neighborhood. They had the house they'd lived in since before Victoria was born, and Jim was the head of the ad agency by then. He had a satisfying career, and Christine kept busy with her two girls. It seemed like the perfect family to them, and they didn't want more children. They were forty two years old, had been married for twenty years, and had a manageable life. They were happy they hadn't had more kids, and were pleased with the two they had. Jim liked to say that Grace was their beauty, and Victoria had the brains. There was room for both in the world. He wanted Victoria to go to a good college and have a meaningful career. "You'll need to rely on your brains," he assured her, as though she had nothing else to offer the world. "You'll need more than that," Christine had said. It worried her sometimes that Victoria was so smart. |
| 1596 |
She'd never had beer before, nor smoked, and she threw up when she went home. But no one noticed. Her parents were in bed, and Gracie was fast asleep in the next room. And Jake left the next day. They were going to visit his grandparents in Lake Tahoe before he started school. Victoria had no grandparents anymore, which she thought was a blessing sometimes, since she only had her parents to comment on her looks. Her mother thought she should cut her hair and start an exercise program in the fall. She wanted her to do gymnastics or ballet, without realizing how uncomfortable Victoria was about appearing in front of other girls in a leotard. Victoria would have died first. She'd rather keep the figure she had than lose it that way. It had been easier just making herself sick with the nasty herbal tea. It was boring for her in Montecito when Jake left. She wondered if she'd hear from him once he started school. For the rest of the time in Montecito, she played with Grace. Victoria didn't mind that her sister was seven years younger, she always had fun with her. And her parents always told their friends that the seven year age difference between them really worked. Victoria had never been jealous of her baby sister for a minute, and was a totally reliable babysitter now that she was fourteen. They left Gracie with her older sister whenever they went out, which they did with increasing frequency as the girls got older. They had one big scare during the trip, when Grace ventured too far out at the water's edge one afternoon, at low tide. Victoria had been with her and went back to their towel for a minute to get more sunscreen to put on her sister. And then the tide came in, and the current in the water got strong. A wave knocked Gracie over, and within an instant she disappeared as she was sucked out into the ocean and tossed under a wave. Victoria saw it happen and screamed as she raced to the water, dove into the wave, and came up spluttering with a grip on Grace's arm as another wave hit them both. |
| 1597 |
She had been in the water for too long before the tide began to turn. "She almost drowned!" her father shouted at her, shaking with fear and fury. He rarely got angry at his children, but he was shaken by the close call, as they all were. He never said a word about Victoria rushing in to get her, and pulling her out of the surf right before he arrived. He was too upset by what had almost happened, and Victoria was too. Grace had taken refuge in her mother's arms, who was holding her tight in the towel. Her dark ringlets were wet and plastered to her head. "I'm sorry, Daddy," Victoria said softly. He turned his back and walked away as her mother comforted her younger sister, and Victoria wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, Mom," she said softly, and Christine nodded and handed her a towel to cover herself up. The message in her gesture was clear. High school was easier than Victoria had expected in some ways. The classes were well organized, she liked most of the teachers, and the subjects were more interesting than they'd been in middle school. Academically, she loved the school, and was excited by the work. Socially, she felt like a fish out of water, and was shocked by the other girls when she saw them on the first day. They looked a lot racier than anyone she'd gone to school with so far. Some wore provocative clothes and looked older than their years. All the girls wore makeup, and many of them looked much too thin. Anorexia and bulemia had clearly entered their lives. Victoria felt like a moose on the first day, and all she wanted was to look "cool" like everyone else. She carefully observed the outfits that they favored, many of which would have looked terrible on her, although the miniskirts they wore would have looked great. Victoria had opted for jeans and a loose shirt to hide her shape. Her long blond hair was hanging down her back, her face looked freshly scrubbed, and she wore high top sneakers she and her mother had bought the day before. |
| 1598 |
The age difference between them was too great. Victoria put her in the backseat, and Grace reported her miseries to her mother, who was instantly sympathetic. Victoria couldn't help noticing, as she always did, that their mother had never been as tender with her as she was with Grace. Their relationship was different and simpler for her mother. The fact that Gracie looked like them made it easier for their parents to relate to her. Gracie was one of "them," and Victoria was always the stranger in their midst. Victoria wondered if Christine also hadn't known how to be a mother yet when she was born and had learned with Gracie, or maybe she just felt more in common with her. It was impossible to know, but whatever it was, Christine had always been more matter of fact with her, more critical and distant, and demanded more of her, just as her father did. And in his eyes, Gracie could do no wrong. Maybe they had both just softened with age. But her being a reflection of them seemed to be part of it. They'd been in their twenties when Victoria was born, and were in their forties now. Maybe that made a difference, or maybe they just didn't like her as much. Grace hadn't been named after an ugly queen, even as a joke. Her father asked her about school that night, and she reported on her classes, and mentioned the clubs again. He thought her choices were all good, particularly Latin, although he thought the ski club would be fun and a good way to meet boys. Her mother thought Latin sounded too brainy and she should join something more sociable, in order to make friends. They were both aware that Victoria had had very few friends in middle school. But in high school she could meet people, and by junior year she'd be driving and wouldn't need them to chauffeur her at all. They could hardly wait, and Victoria liked the idea too. She didn't want her father making sarcastic remarks about her to her friends, as he did whenever he gave them a ride somewhere, even if he thought his comments were funny. |
| 1599 |
Mike was a senior, and his parents were divorced, so his father had signed the permission slip. Victoria thought he was very grown up and worldly and fell madly in love. For the first time in her life, he made her feel pretty. He said he loved her looks. He was going to Southern Methodist University in the fall, and they spent a lot of time together, although her parents didn't approve. They thought he wasn't smart enough for her. Victoria didn't care. He liked her, and he made her happy. They spent a lot of time making out in his car, but she wouldn't go all the way. She was too scared to take that leap. She said she wasn't ready. And in April he dropped her for a girl who would. He took the new girl to senior prom, and Victoria sat home nursing a broken heart. He was the only boy who'd asked her out all year. She never had many dates or a lot of friends. And she spent the summer on the South Beach Diet. She was diligent about it and lost seven pounds. But as soon as she got off the diet, she gained it back plus three more pounds. She wanted to lose the weight for senior year, and her PE teacher had told her she was fifteen pounds overweight. She lost five pounds at the beginning of senior year, by eating smaller portions and fewer calories, and promised herself she'd lose more before graduation. And she would have if she hadn't gotten mono in November, had to stay home for three weeks, and ate ice cream because it made her throat feel better. The fates had conspired against her. She was the only girl in her class who gained eight pounds while she had mono. Her size was a battle she couldn't seem to win. But she was determined to beat it this time, and swam every day during Christmas vacation and for a month after. And she jogged around the track every morning before school. Her mother was proud of her when she lost ten pounds. She was determined to lose the other eight pounds, until her father looked at her one morning and asked her when she was going to start working out to lose some weight. |
| 1600 |
She wanted to go to college with people who cared about what they thought, like her. She didn't get into either of her first choice schools in New York, nor Boston University, which she would have liked, nor GW. Her choices in the end were Northwestern, New Hampshire, or Trinity. She liked Trinity a lot but wanted a bigger school, and there was good skiing in New Hampshire, but she chose Northwestern, which felt right to her. The greatest thing it had going for it was that it was far away, and it was a great school. Her parents said they were proud of her, although they were distressed that she was leaving California and couldn't understand why she would. They had no concept of how out of place and unwelcome they had made her feel for so long. Gracie was like their only child, and she felt like the family stray dog. She didn't even look like them, and she couldn't take it anymore. Maybe she'd come back to Los Angeles after school, but for now she knew she had to get away. She was one of the top three students in her class, and had been asked to give a speech after the valedictorian, which stunned the audience with the seriousness and value of what she said. She talked about how different she had felt all her life, how out of step, and how hard she had tried to conform. She said she had never been an athlete, nor wanted to be. She wasn't "cool," she wasn't popular, she didn't wear the same clothes as all the other girls during freshman year. She didn't wear makeup till sophomore year, and still didn't wear it every day. She had loved Latin class even though it made everyone think she was a geek. She went down the list of all the things that had made her different, without saying that she felt even more out of place in her own home. And then she thanked the school for helping her to be who she was, and find her way. She said that now they were all going out into a world where they would all be different, where no one would fit in, where they had to be themselves to succeed, and follow their own paths. |
| 1601 |
Victoria's summer at home before she started college was bittersweet in many ways. Her parents were nicer to her than they had been in years, although her father introduced her to a business associate as his tester cake. But he also said he was proud of her, more than once, which surprised Victoria, since she never really thought he was. And her mother seemed sad to see her go, although she never openly said it to Victoria. It made Victoria feel as though they had all missed the boat. Her childhood and high school years were over, and she wondered why they had wasted so much time and concentrated on all the wrong things: her looks, her friends or lack of them, her weight was their main focus, along with her resemblance to her great grandmother, whom no one knew or cared about, just because their noses were the same. Why did they care so much about the wrong things? Why hadn't they been closer to her, more loving, given her more support? And now there was no time left to build the bridge between them that should have existed all along and never had. They were strangers to each other, and she couldn't imagine it being any different later on. She was leaving home, and might never live with them again. She still wanted to move to New York after college, it was her dream. She would come home for holidays, see them on Christmas and Thanksgiving and when they visited her, if they did, and there was no time left to put in the bank the love they should have been saving all along. She thought they loved her, they were her parents, and she had lived with them for eighteen years, but her father had made fun of her all her life, and her mother had been disappointed that she wasn't prettier, complained that she was too smart, and told her men didn't like smart women. Her whole childhood with them had been a curse. And now that she was leaving, they said they were going to miss her. But when they said it, she couldn't help wondering why they hadn't paid more attention to her while she was there. |
| 1602 |
It was as though her leaving California for college were a rejection of him. They had wanted her to stay in L.A., or close to it, which wasn't what Victoria wanted or needed. After kissing them all again, Victoria went through security, and waved for as long as she could see them. They didn't leave the airport until she had disappeared from sight. The last she saw of her family was Gracie leaving the airport, walking between her parents. They all looked the same, with their dark hair and slim bodies. Her mother was holding Gracie's hand, and Victoria could see that her sister was still crying. She boarded the flight to Chicago, thinking about all of them, and as the plane took off, she looked out the window at the city she was fleeing, to find the tools she needed for a new life somewhere else. She didn't know where that would be, but the one thing she did know was that it couldn't be here, or with them. Victoria's years in college were exactly what she hoped they would be. The school was even better than she had dreamed or expected. It was big and sprawling, and the classes she took and did well at were her ticket to freedom. She wanted to acquire the skills she needed to have a job and a life someplace other than L.A. She missed Gracie, and sometimes even her parents, but when she thought of living with her parents, every fiber of her being told her that she could never live with them again. And she loved her frequent visits to Chicago and discovering everything she could about the city. It was lively and sophisticated, and she thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the brutally cold weather. She went home for Thanksgiving freshman year, and saw instantly that Grace had grown taller, and prettier, if that was even possible. Her mother had finally relented and let her do a commercial for Gap Kids. Grace's photograph was suddenly everywhere, and she could have had a career as a model, but her father wanted a better life for her. And he swore that he'd never let a child of his go to college so far from home again. |
| 1603 |
He didn't have much to say when she called, except that he hoped she'd come home soon, and then he passed the phone to her mother, who asked what she was doing and if she'd lost any weight. It was the question Victoria hated most because she hadn't. And then she dieted frantically for two weeks before she went home. And when she got back to L.A. for Christmas vacation, her mother noticed that she had lost a little weight. She had been working out at the gym at school, but she admitted that she hadn't had any dates. She was working too hard at school to even care. She told them she had decided to get a teaching degree, and her father instantly disapproved. It gave them a new topic to disagree on, and distracted them from her weight and lack of dates. "You'll never make decent money as a teacher. You should major in communications, and work in advertising or PR. I can get you a job." She knew he meant well, but it wasn't what she wanted to do. She liked the idea of teaching, and working with kids. She changed the subject and they talked about how cold it was in the Midwest she hadn't even been able to imagine it until she was there. It had been well below zero for the whole week before she came home. And she was enjoying going to hockey games. She wasn't crazy about her roommate, but she was determined to make the best of it. And she had met some people in her dorm. But mostly, she was trying to get accustomed to the school, and to being away from home. She said she missed decent food, and this time no one commented when she took three helpings of pot roast. And she was happy taking time off from going to the gym while she was home. She appreciated the weather in L.A. as she never had before. Her father gave her a new computer for Christmas, and her mother gave her a down coat. Gracie had made her a montage of photographs of them, starting when she was born, on a bulletin board to hang up in her dorm room. And when she left after Christmas, Victoria wasn't sure if she was coming home for spring break. |
| 1604 |
And she had gotten her weight back in control again by not eating any desserts or bread or pasta. It was a low carb diet that seemed to be working. It was heading in the right direction at least, and she hadn't eaten ice cream in a month. Her mother would have been proud of her. It had also occurred to her that while her mother complained about what she ate, she had always kept a hefty supply of ice cream in the freezer. And she had served all the fattening things Victoria liked to eat. She had always put temptation in Victoria's way. At least now she could only blame herself for what she ate, Victoria told herself. And she was trying to be diligent and sensible about it, without going on any crazy diets, or borrowing someone else's pills. She hadn't had time to go to Weight Watchers yet, but she had promised herself that she would walk to work every day in New York. She was going to be working on Park Avenue and East 53rd Street, and staying at a small residential hotel in Gramercy Park, which was a thirty block hike to work, a mile and a half. Three miles if she walked both ways. Victoria liked her summer job. The people at the law firm were nice to her. She was competent, responsible, and efficient. Mostly, she answered the phones, handed envelopes to messengers, or accepted them for the lawyers in the firm. She directed clients to attorneys' offices, took messages, and greeted people at the front desk. It was an easy but busy job, and most days she wound up staying late. And by the time she left, in the torrid summer heat, she was too tired to walk home, so she took the subway back to Gramercy Park. But she managed to walk to work on the days she wasn't late, at least some of the time. When it took longer than she'd planned to get dressed or do her hair, she'd have to take the subway to work, so she wouldn't be late. Victoria was considerably younger than most of the secretaries at the law firm, so she didn't make any friends. People were busy and didn't have time to socialize and chat. |
| 1605 |
She was planning to stick it out at Northwestern for the next three years, or finish sooner if she could by going to summer school, and then move to New York and find a job. She knew after living in the city for a month that this was where she wanted to work, without any doubt. Sometimes during her lunch hours she looked up lists of New York schools. She was determined to teach at one of the private schools. And nothing was going to sway her from her plan. When she finished her job at the law firm, she flew to L.A. for the last three weeks of her summer vacation, and Gracie threw herself into her sister's arms the minute she walked through the door. Victoria was surprised to see that the house looked smaller, her parents older, and Gracie suddenly looked more grown up than she had four months before. But she looked nothing like Victoria had looked at the same age, with her rapidly maturing body, full figure, and big breasts. Gracie was tiny like their mother, with the same lithe figure and narrow heart shaped face. But despite her skinny body, she still looked more mature. And on Victoria's first night back, Grace admitted that she had a crush on a boy. She had met him at the swim and tennis club that their mother took her to every day. He was fourteen. And Victoria was too embarrassed to admit to her or her parents that she hadn't had a date in over a year. When they pressed her about it repeatedly, thinking she was being coy, she finally invented a mythical boy she had gone out with at Northwestern. She said he was a hockey player and was studying to be an engineer. Her father informed her immediately that all engineers were bores. But at least they thought she had a date. She said he had spent the summer with his family in Maine. They seemed relieved to hear that she had gone out with someone, and she said she hadn't gone out with anyone in New York. But dating someone at school made her sound more normal than the reality of the nights she had spent studying alone in the dorm. |
| 1606 |
It was hard to live with the tension she exuded in the room. It was between Thanksgiving and Christmas that Victoria met the first boy who had interested her since she'd been there. He was in prelaw, in his junior year, and he was in an English lit class with her. He was a tall, good looking boy with freckles and red hair, from Louisville, Kentucky, and she loved to listen to his drawl when he talked. They were in a study group together, and he invited her out to coffee afterward. His father owned several race horses, and his mother lived in Paris. He was planning to spend Christmas with her there. He was fluent in French, and had lived in London and Hong Kong. Everything about him seemed exotic to Victoria, and he was a kind, gentle person. They talked about their families, and he said his life had been pretty upside down since his parents' divorce, and his mother constantly moved from one place to another around the world. She had married someone after his father and was divorced again. He thought Victoria's life sounded a lot more stable than his own, and it was, but she didn't consider her childhood a happy one either. She had been an outsider in her own home all her life. And he had been a newcomer wherever he was. He had gone to five schools after eighth grade. And his father had just married a twenty three year old girl. He was twenty one. He admitted to Victoria that his stepmother had come on to him, and he had almost slept with her. They had both been drunk, and by some miracle of good judgment, he had managed not to give in to temptation, but he was nervous about seeing her again. He had decided to spend Christmas with his mother in Paris instead, although she had a new French boyfriend he wasn't crazy about either. He was very funny about his stories, but there was something almost tragic about the tales he told about a lost boy caught between crazy, irresponsible parents. He said he was living proof that people with too much money screwed up their kids. |
| 1607 |
He had been seeing a shrink since he was twelve. His name was Beau, and despite some romantic moments and a little heavy petting on the night before she left, they hadn't slept with each other when she went to L.A. for Christmas. He promised to call her from Paris. And he seemed wonderfully romantic and exotic to her. She was fascinated by him. And this time when her parents asked who she was dating, she could say a junior in pre law. It would sound respectable to them, although she couldn't imagine her father or mother liking him. He was much too offbeat for them. Beau called her over the holidays and had gone to Gstaad with his mother and her friend. He sounded bored and a little lost. And he texted her constantly with things that made her laugh. Gracie wanted to know if he was handsome but said she didn't like red hair. And this time Victoria watched her diet. She passed on desserts even though her father expressed surprise when his "big girl" said no. It was impossible to shake his view of her as someone who ate all the wrong things and was always overweight. Victoria lost five pounds during her ten days in L.A. And she and Beau got back to Northwestern within hours of each other on the same day. She had thought of nothing but him over the holiday, and she wondered how long it would take for them to wind up in bed. She was glad that she had saved herself for him. Beau would be her first, and she could easily imagine him being gentle and sensual in bed. They were kissing and laughing and cuddling when he came to her dorm room, and he said he was so jet lagged that nothing happened that night. Nor for the next many weeks. They were with each other constantly, they studied in the library together, and since she no longer had a roommate, sometimes he fell asleep on the other bed. They spent a lot of time kissing and fondling, and he loved her breasts, but it never went past that point. He told her she should wear miniskirts because she had the best legs he had ever seen. |
| 1608 |
Victoria's last two years in college raced by. She took a summer job in New York again at the end of sophomore year. She was a receptionist in a modeling agency this time, and it was as wild as her previous job at the law firm had been sedate. And she had a great time. She befriended some of the models, who were the same age as she, and the people who did the bookings were fun to be with too. All of them thought she was crazy when she said she wanted to teach school, and she had to admit that working at a modeling agency was a lot more exciting. Two of the models invited her to live with them, and she gave up her dreary room at the hotel. And despite the parties they went to, the hours they kept, the clothes they wore, and the men they went out with, she was impressed by how hard they worked. The girls who were successful worked like dogs, and were diligent about the modeling jobs they did. They went crazy after hours, but the good ones were on time for every shoot, and worked tirelessly until the work was done, sometimes on twelve or fourteen hour shoots. It wasn't as much fun as it looked. And Victoria was always stunned by how thin they were. The two girls she lived with in Tribeca almost never ate. It made her feel guilty for all that she did, and she tried to follow their example, but she was starving by dinnertime. Her roommates either didn't eat at all or ate aggressively dietetic food, and very little of it. They seemed to exist on next to nothing, and had tried every kind of purge and colonic to keep their weight down. Victoria had a different constitution than they did. She couldn't survive on the tiny amounts they consumed. But she followed their more reasonable diet tips as best she could, avoiding carbs and eating much smaller portions, and she looked good when she went back to L.A. for a month before she went back to school. She had hated to leave New York, and had had a ball. The head of the agency had told her that if she ever wanted a job with them, they would hire her anytime. |
| 1609 |
So she concentrated on her studies, and eventually stopped seeing the physicist, after a few months. Victoria stayed at Northwestern for summer school at the end of junior year. She wanted to lighten her load for senior year and focus on student teaching. It was hard to believe how fast the time had gone. She only had one year left before she graduated, and she wanted to concentrate on getting a job in New York for the following year. She started sending out letters in the fall. She had a list of private schools where she was hoping to teach once she got her credentials. She knew the pay wasn't as good as it was in the public schools, but she thought it would be right for her. By Christmas she had sent out letters to nine schools. She was even willing to do substitute teaching at several schools, if she had to wait for a full time position to open up. The answers came back like gumballs out of a machine in January. She was turned down by eight schools. Only one school hadn't answered, and she wasn't optimistic when she hadn't heard from them by spring break. She was thinking about calling the modeling agency where she'd worked to see if she could work for them for a year, until a position opened up in one of the schools. It would be better pay anyway than teaching school, and maybe she could room with some of the models again. And then the last answer came. She sat staring at the envelope the way she had when her college acceptances came. She had opened them gingerly one by one, trying to guess what was in the envelope. And she thought it more than unlikely that she would be offered a job by this school. It was one of the more elite private schools in New York, and she couldn't imagine them hiring a teacher fresh out of college. She helped herself to a candy bar she had stashed in her desk, and came back to tear open the envelope. She unfolded the single page, and braced herself to be rejected again. Dear Miss Dawson, thank you for your inquiry, but we regret that at this time. |
| 1610 |
The school was expensive, had an excellent reputation, was coed, and its students were from among the elite in New York, with a handful of scholarship students who were lucky enough to qualify. Once accepted, the students had every possible academic and extracurricular opportunity. They got into the best colleges in the country, and it was considered one of the finest private high schools in New York. It was heavily endowed so their science and computer labs had state of the art equipment that competed with any college. Its language department was exceptional, offering Mandarin, Russian, and Japanese as well as all the European languages, and its English department was outstanding. Several of their students had become successful writers later on. And their teaching staff was exceptional as well, with degrees from important universities. And typical of most private schools, the teachers were severely underpaid. But the opportunity to work there was considered a real prize. Just getting an interview was a major coup for Victoria, and getting the job, even temporarily for a year, was beyond her wildest dreams. If she had to choose one school she would have given anything to teach at, this was it. She took a flight after her last class before the weekend, and arrived in New York late Friday night. It was snowing, all the flights had been delayed by several hours, and they closed the airport right after she landed; she was grateful they hadn't been rerouted somewhere else. And people outside the airport were fighting for cabs. She had booked a room at the hotel where she'd stayed before, in Gramercy Park. It was two A.M. when she finally got there, and they had saved a small ugly room for her, but the price was one she could afford. She rapidly got into her nightgown, without bothering to unpack, brushed her teeth, got into bed, and slept until noon the next day. When she woke up, the sun was shining brightly on two feet of snow, which had continued to fall throughout the night. |
| 1611 |
The city looked like a postcard. And children outside her window were being pulled on sleds by their mothers; others were having snowball fights, ducking for cover behind cars buried in snow that would take their owners hours or days to dig out of. Snowplows were attempting to clear the streets and spreading salt on the ground. Victoria thought it was a perfect winter day in New York, and fortunately had brought a pair of the snow boots she wore almost every day at Northwestern, so she was prepared. And at one o'clock she set off on foot toward the subway, which she had taken every day to work when she lived there. She got off at East 77th Street and walked east toward the river. She wanted to look at the school before she did anything else. It was a large, beautifully maintained building with several entrances, and could have been an embassy, or an important home of some kind. It had been recently remodeled and was in pristine condition. A discreet bronze plaque over the entrance said only "The Madison School." She knew that just under four hundred students were enrolled. A rooftop garden provided open air space during lunch and recreation. And they had recently built a state of the art gym for all sports activities in what had once been a parking lot across the street. The school offered every possible amenity and opportunity. It stood solid and silent on the snowy sunny afternoon, while a lone janitor cleared a path through the snow outside the school. Victoria smiled at him as she stood looking up at the school, and he returned the smile. She couldn't even imagine being lucky enough to work there in her favorite city in the world. As she stood looking at it, she was wearing the thick white down coat her mother had given her, and felt like a snowman herself. The coat was unflattering but warm. She felt like the Michelin Man or the Pillsbury Doughboy when she wore it, but it had served her well, and was the warmest coat she owned for the arctic temperatures at school. |
| 1612 |
She had already promised herself to lose weight by graduation, and particularly now if she got this job in New York. She didn't want to be at her biggest when she started her first teaching job. After endless discouraging searching and some truly upsetting tryons, she found a pair of gray slacks and a long dark blue blazer to wear with a pale blue turtleneck sweater the same color as her eyes. She bought a pair of high heeled boots that added a younger look to the outfit. It looked dignified, respectable, not too dressy, and just elegant enough to make her look serious about the job. It was the look she assumed would be worn by teachers at that school. And she was happy with the outfit, when she got back on the subway with her shopping bags and rode back downtown to her hotel. The streets were still snarled by snowplows, buried cars, and tall mounds of shoveled snow everywhere. The city was a mess. But Victoria was in great spirits with her purchases. She was going to wear a pair of small pearl earrings her mother had given her. And the well cut navy blazer hid a multitude of sins. The outfit looked young, professional, and trim. The morning of the interview Victoria woke up with a knot in her stomach. She washed and blow dried her hair, then brushed it into a sleek ponytail and tied it with a black satin ribbon. She dressed carefully, put on the big down coat, and went out into the February sunshine. The weather had warmed up and was turning the snow to slush with ice rivers in the gutters. She had to be careful not to get splashed with it by passing cars as she made her way to the subway. She thought of taking a cab, but she knew the subway was faster. And she reached the school ten minutes before her nine o'clock interview, in time to see hundreds of young people filtering into the school. Almost all were wearing jeans, and a few of the girls wore miniskirts and boots despite the cold weather. They were talking and laughing, with a wild assortment of hairdos and hair colors, carrying their books. |
| 1613 |
All Eric Walker needed to decide now was if she was the right teacher for their school. She seemed like a bright, sweet girl. And he was touched by how much she wanted the job. After he spent forty five minutes with her, Eric Walker passed her on to his assistant, and she gave Victoria a tour of the school. It was an impressive building with well kept classrooms, full of alert students using brand new, very expensive equipment. It was an atmosphere that any teacher would have given anything to teach in, and they all looked like bright, alert, interested, good kids to her. And then she met with the dean of students, who told her something about their student body, and the type of situations she'd face. They were the same as high school students anywhere, except with more money and opportunities, and in some cases very complicated family situations. But difficult home lives were not exclusive to the very rich, nor the poor. At the end of the second interview, they thanked her for coming, told her they were seeing several other candidates, and would let her know. And after thanking them too, Victoria then found herself out on the street, looking up at the school, praying she would get the job. She had no idea if she would, and they had been so pleasant to her that it was hard to tell if they were just very polite or enthused about her. She didn't know. She walked west all the way to Fifth Avenue, and then north five blocks, to the Metropolitan Museum, where she saw a new wing of the Egyptian exhibit, and then had lunch in the cafeteria alone, before treating herself to a cab back to her hotel. She sat in the backseat watching New York slide by and people swarm around like ants in the streets. All she could hope was that she would be part of it one day. She expected to hear back from Madison in a few weeks. And she realized that if she didn't get the job, she would have to start interviewing at other schools, in Chicago, and maybe even L.A., although the last thing she wanted to do was go home. |
| 1614 |
It was tough to resist, especially the blueberry pancakes for breakfast at six A.M. when she started work. Her dream of losing weight by graduation was fading fast. And it was depressing always being on a diet, some new exercise program, and spending life on a treadmill to atone for her sins. After killing herself at the gym all through April, and watching what she ate, she finally lost ten pounds. She was proud of herself. And she went to rent her cap and gown on the first of May. There was an endless line where they were handing them out, and when she finally got to the head of the line, the man assigning them looked at her to guess her correct size. "Big girl, huh?" he said with a broad grin, and she had to fight back tears. She didn't answer, and didn't comment when he handed her an extra large that she didn't need. But she was tall enough to wear it, so she didn't complain. It was huge on her at least. She was planning to wear a short red skirt, high heeled sandals, and a white blouse under it at graduation. The skirt was short, but no one would see it until she took the gown off. She loved the color, and her legs looked great. She packed up all her things and sent them home two days before graduation, the day before her parents arrived. Gracie was coming with them, of course. And she was more beautiful than ever when Victoria saw her, wearing a white T shirt and short shorts. She was fifteen now and, despite her diminutive size, looked eighteen. She could still do ads for children's clothes and often did. Victoria felt like an elephant standing next to her and her mother, but she loved Gracie anyway. The two sisters almost squeezed the air out of each other when they hugged, after they met her at the dorm. They took Victoria out for dinner at a really nice restaurant that night, where several of the other graduates were having dinner too. Victoria had asked about bringing a few of her friends along, but her father had said they'd rather have dinner alone with her. |
| 1615 |
One of them asked her out for dinner and a movie, but they didn't have much to say to each other. He had gone into real estate and was obsessed with money. He wasn't impressed with her choice of a teaching career either. The only one who seemed to admire it was her younger sister, who thought it was noble. Everyone else thought she was foolish and reminded her that she'd be poor forever. For Victoria, being at home for the summer was a chance to stock up on memories she would cherish forever. She and Gracie shared their dreams and fears and hopes, and their private peeves about their parents. Gracie thought they babied her too much, and she hated the way they bragged about her. Victoria's main regret was that they didn't. Their experiences in the same family were diametrically different. It was hard to believe they had the same parents. And although Gracie was the person responsible for making Victoria invisible to them and redundant, Victoria never held it against her, and she loved Grace for the little girl she was and had been, the baby who had come to her like an angel when she was seven. And for Grace the summer they shared after Victoria's graduation was a last chance to hang on to her big sister. They had breakfast together every morning. They laughed a lot. Victoria took Gracie out with her friends to the swim club. She played tennis with them, and they beat her every time, because they moved faster than she did. She helped Gracie shop for new clothes for school, and they decided what was hip and what wasn't. They read fashion magazines together and commented on the new styles. They went to Malibu and other beaches, and sometimes they just lay in the backyard and said nothing, knowing that they were close and loving every minute of it. It was an easy summer for Christine, since Victoria did everything for Gracie, which gave her all the free time she wanted not to be with her daughters, but to play bridge with her friends, which was still her favorite pastime. |
| 1616 |
She didn't want to waste anyone's time, nor her own. Her father was angry about it, and told her again that she was making all the wrong decisions about her future and would never amount to anything as a teacher. She was used to hearing things like that from him, and it didn't sway her. She was the child they had never been proud of and had either ignored or made fun of. She confessed to Gracie one day that summer that if she had the money, she would love to have a nose job, and maybe she would sometime. She said that she liked Gracie's nose, and wanted one like it, or a "cute" nose of her own. Gracie was touched when she said it, and she told Victoria that she was beautiful anyway, even with her own nose. She didn't need a new one. Gracie thought she was perfect just the way she was. It was the unconditional love that they had given each other all their lives and that Victoria thrived on, and so did Gracie. Their parents' love was always conditional, depending on how they looked and if their achievements were valid according to their parents' standards, and if they made their parents look good in the process. Gracie had basked in their praise all her life, because she was an accessory that enhanced them. And because Victoria was different and didn't fit in, she had been emotionally starved by them, but not by Gracie. Grace had always lavished love on her and worshipped Victoria in every way. And Victoria adored her, wanted to protect her sister, and didn't want her to turn out like her parents. She wished she could take Gracie with her. They both dreaded the day she would leave for New York. Grace helped Victoria pick new items for her wardrobe that would look appropriate to her students when she taught high school. She had stuck to her guns and her diet this time, and could just get into a size twelve by the beginning of August. It was tight, but it fit. She had dropped several pounds over the summer, although her father asked her regularly if she didn't want to lose some weight before she left for New York. |
| 1617 |
He didn't notice a single pound she lost; nor did her mother, who was always distressed about her daughter's size, no matter what it was. The label they had put on her as a child was stuck there forever, like a tattoo. She was a "big girl," which was their way of calling her a fat girl. She knew that if she weighed a hundred pounds and were disappearing, they would still see her as a "big girl." They were the mirror of her inadequacies and her failings, and never of her victories. The only victories they saw were Grace's. That was just the way they were. The family went to Lake Tahoe together for a week before Victoria had to leave. They had a good time. The house their father had rented for them was very pretty. And both girls water skied in the freezing lake, while their father steered the boat. The best part about her taking a teaching job, Gracie said, was that they would still be able to go on summer vacations together, and Victoria promised to have her come and visit in New York. She could even visit the school where she'd be teaching, and maybe sit in on one of her classes if they let her. She hoped they would. And finally the day arrived for Victoria to leave. It was a day that she and Grace had dreaded, for all the goodbyes they didn't want to say. They were both strangely silent on the way to the airport. They had stayed awake all the night before, and lay in one bed so they could talk. Victoria told Gracie she could move into her room, because she liked it better, but Gracie didn't want to take her room away. She wanted her to have a place to come home to. They stood hugging each other for a long time at the airport, as tears streamed down their cheeks. Despite their many assurances to each other over the summer, they both knew that it would never be the same again. Victoria was going to a grown up life in another city, and they had agreed that it was better for her. The one thing they both were certain would never change was how much they loved each other. |
| 1618 |
They all seemed to have their lives in perfect order. Over dinner, Harlan said that he had broken up with his partner six months before, and then moved into the apartment, and was taking a break from romance. He said he wasn't dating, and Victoria admitted that she wasn't either. None of her romances had ever worked out so far, and she didn't like her father's theory that it was because of her weight and looks. She felt as though she was cursed. Her father thought she wasn't pretty enough, and her mother thought she was too smart for most men and would put them off. She was either too ugly or too smart, but in any case, no one had fallen head over heels for her, and she hadn't either. All she'd had till then were what she would have qualified as crushes, except for the ill fated false start with Beau, and the brief affair with the physics major, and some dates that had gone nowhere. She was hoping her luck would improve in New York. And it had she had found a great apartment and three terrific roommates. She really liked them. The dinner they served was delicious. Bunny had made paella with fresh seafood in it, which seemed perfect on a hot summer day, and she had made sangria that they drank after the wine. She served cold gazpacho first, before the paella. And for dessert she produced half a gallon of "cookies and cream" ice cream, which was unfortunately one of Victoria's favorites, and once it was sitting on the table, she couldn't resist it. "This is like serving heroin to an addict," Victoria complained, helping herself to a full bowl as the carton was passed around the table. Before that, they had all cleaned their plates. The paella had been delicious. And so was the ice cream. "I love ice cream too," Harlan confessed, but didn't look it. He looked as though he hadn't eaten in ten years, and was six three, which allowed him a lot of leeway. But Victoria hadn't had ice cream in ages, so she decided to indulge and treat herself. They were celebrating, after all. |
| 1619 |
The topic this time was what I want to be when I grow up, and why. "I want you to put some serious thought into it. And I want to respect and admire you when I'm through reading. It's okay to make me laugh. Keep it light, unless you want to be an undertaker or embalmer. But short of that, I want to laugh." And then the second class left too. She had held her own with both groups. And she had met all her seniors now. They seemed like good kids and hadn't given her a hard time. But she knew they could if they wanted to, and she was very young. They didn't have any particular allegiance to her yet, but she knew it was too soon. She hoped they would in time. And she knew that the level of their respect depended on her. It was her job to make them care. Helen stayed and talked to her for a few minutes, and then they both packed up their things and left their classrooms. Victoria checked her mailbox on the way out, and then sat in the teachers' lounge poring over a stack of memos from the headmaster and the dean of students. There were several announcements, mostly about policy changes that impacted the school. She went to an English department meeting that afternoon, and when she left the building, it took her ten minutes to walk home. She loved living so close. She wanted to walk to work every day. When Victoria got to the apartment, everyone asked how her day had gone. They were all there. "It was actually terrific," Victoria said happily. And Gracie called her and asked her the same question an hour later, and she gave her the same answer. Essentially, it had gone really well, and she liked the kids. They might have been around the world with their parents, and had every lesson known to man, yet there was something innocent and endearing about them. And she wanted them to learn to think intelligently, use good judgment, and wind up with the life they wanted, whatever and wherever that was. Her job, as she understood it, in this school or any other, was to open the door into the world for them. |
| 1620 |
Her mother answered and asked how she was. Victoria said she was fine, and then her father got on the phone. "Ready to throw in the towel and come home?" he asked with a hearty laugh. She wouldn't have admitted it to him, but she almost was. She had felt completely inadequate in the classroom and like an utter failure. What he said jolted her back into reality. She wasn't about to give up. "Not yet, Dad," she said, trying to sound happier than she felt. And then Gracie got on the phone, and Victoria almost burst into tears. She really missed her and was suddenly lonely in the empty apartment in a new city with no friends. They talked for a long time. Gracie told her what she was doing in school, they chatted about her teachers and her classes, and there was a new boy she said she liked. He was a junior. There was always a new boy in Gracie's life, and never one in her sister's. Victoria hadn't felt this miserable in a long time, and she was feeling sorry for herself. But she didn't say anything to Gracie about what a mess the week had been. After they hung up, Victoria took out the vanilla ice cream, opened it, walked into her room, turned on the TV, and got into her bed with her clothes on. She put on a movie channel, and finished the ice cream as she watched a movie, and then felt guilty when she looked at the empty ice cream carton next to her bed. It had been her dinner. And she could almost feel her hips growing as she lay there. She was utterly disgusted with herself. She put her pajamas on shortly after, got back in bed, and pulled the covers over her head. She didn't wake up until the next morning. To atone for her sins of the night before, she went for a long walk in Central Park on Saturday, and jogged partway around the reservoir. The weather was gorgeous, and she noticed couples strolling all around her, and she felt sad not to have a man in her life. Looking around, she felt as though everyone else did, and she was the odd person out, and always had been. |
| 1621 |
But Victoria looked like she could handle it if she kept the kids in control. "Are you going to the lounge?" she asked Helen hopefully. "I've got another class. I'll catch you later." Victoria nodded, and walked down the hall to the lounge. It was deserted. Everyone had gone to lunch, and she was trying not to. She had brought an apple in her briefcase and had vowed to be good. She sat munching it as she read the papers. And once again, they were surprisingly good. She had some very bright students. She just hoped she was bright enough to teach them and hold their interest for the entire year. She was feeling very unsure of herself. Now that she was faced with a classroom full of real people, this was much harder than she had anticipated, and it was going to take more than just discipline to keep them in line. Helen had given her some helpful hints, and Carla Bernini had set up the syllabus before going on maternity leave, but Victoria knew that she had to infuse her classes with life and excitement in order to keep the kids hooked. And she was scared to death that she wasn't good enough to do it and would fail. She wanted to be good at it more than anything. She didn't care how little the job paid, this was her vocation, and she wanted to be a great teacher, the kind kids remembered for years. She had no idea if she could do it, but she was trying her best. And this was only the beginning. The school year had just started. For the next two weeks, Victoria fought to keep her students' attention. She confiscated cell phones and Black Berrys, she gave them tough assignments, and one day when her sophomore class was too restless, she took them for a walk around the neighborhood, and made them write about it. She tried to come up with every creative idea she could, and to get to know every one of her students in all four classes, and she began to get the feeling after two months that some of them liked her. She racked her brain on the weekends searching for ideas for them, new books to read, and new projects. |
| 1622 |
Victoria's senior students were tense in January. They had two weeks after vacation to finish their college applications, and many of them hadn't done it, and needed help. She stayed after school every day to advise them on their essays, and they were grateful for her excellent guidance and advice. It brought her closer to the students she worked with, and some of them talked about their hopes and plans, their families, their lives at home, their dreams. Even Becki Adams asked for help, and several of the boys. A few of them admitted that they needed scholarships, but most of the kids at Madison had no worries about money. And all of them were relieved when they finished their applications and mailed them off. They wouldn't hear back until March or April, and now all they had to do was finish the school year without flunking out or getting into trouble. On the last two days in January, Victoria attended an education conference at the Javits Center with several other teachers. There were a number of panels they could sign up for, group discussions, and lectures by well known educators. She found it very interesting, and was grateful the school had let her participate. She had just left a lecture on early identification and warning signs of adolescent suicidality, by a child psychiatrist, when she collided with a man who wasn't looking where he was going and nearly knocked her down. He apologized profusely and helped her pick up the pamphlets and brochures that he had knocked out of her hand, and when he stood up, she was startled by how handsome he was. "Sorry, I didn't mean to knock you down," he said pleasantly with a dazzling smile. It was hard not to stare at him, and she noticed several other women looking at him too. "Great lecture, wasn't it?" he said with a friendly smile. The lecture had opened a whole new line of thought for her. She had never worried that any of her students might be suicidal or secretly troubled, but she realized now that it was a real concern. |
| 1623 |
It seemed obvious to them. And her mother sounded no better, from what Victoria said about her. Harlan hated the stories she told about her parents and her childhood, and the emotional abuse she had endured for years. They hadn't abused her with fists, but with words. "I'll think about it," she said softly, and put it out of her head as soon as she could. The thought of going to a therapist was really upsetting to her. And it didn't surprise either of them that without thinking, she helped herself to a bowl of ice cream after dinner, although neither of them was eating dessert. Neither of them insisted about the shrink, and Harlan didn't bring it up again. And before the summer, Victoria lined up a summer job for June and July so she didn't have to go home. She took a job for very little pay tutoring underprivileged kids at a shelter where they lived while waiting to go into foster care. It sounded depressing to Harlan when she told him, but she was excited about it. She was starting there the day after Madison closed for the summer. Gracie had a summer job that year too. It was her first one, at sixteen, and she'd be working at the desk of the swim and tennis club they belonged to. She was thrilled about it, and their parents sounded pleased. They thought Victoria's job sounded unpleasant, and her mother told her to wash her hands a lot or she might catch a disease from the kids she tutored. She thanked her for the advice and was annoyed that the job she was doing didn't impress them, nor did her work as a teacher, but Gracie working at the desk in a tennis club was cause for celebration and endless praise. It didn't make her angry at Gracie, only at them. Before she started work, Gracie was coming to visit Victoria in New York. This time Gracie came alone without their parents, and they had even more fun than they had had in March. She kept herself busy in the daytime, going to galleries and museums and going shopping, and Victoria took her out to movies and restaurants at night. |
| 1624 |
They even went to a Broadway play. And as usual Victoria was planning to go home in August. It was the longest time she spent with them now every year. But this time she only intended to stay for two weeks, which was more than long enough for her. And once there, as usual, her father criticized her frequently about her job, and her mother nagged her constantly about her weight, which had gone up again after a brief dip in the spring. Before she left New York, Victoria had gone on a cabbage diet, which helped her lose weight. The diet was miserable, but it worked, and then a short time afterward she gained all the weight back again. It was a battle she just couldn't seem to win. It was discouraging. When she got back to New York, she was disheartened by the things her parents had said, and the weight she had put back on, and she thought about Harlan's suggestion that she see a shrink. And in a dark mood one day right before school started, she called a name he had given her. It was a woman he had met, and he said that a friend of his had gone to her and liked her a lot. Before Victoria could change her mind, she called her and made an appointment for the following week. And she agonized about it as soon as she did. It seemed like a crazy thing to do, and she thought about canceling, but didn't have the courage to do that either. She felt stuck. And she ate half a cheesecake alone in the kitchen the night before she went. What if the woman discovered that she was crazy, or that her parents were right about her and she was a total failure as a human being? What kept her from canceling the appointment was the hope that they were wrong. When Victoria went to the appointment with the psychiatrist, she was literally shaking, and had felt sick to her stomach all day. She couldn't remember why she had made the appointment and wished she hadn't, and her mouth was so dry when she sat down that she felt like her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Dr. Watson looked sensible and pleasant. |
| 1625 |
It was the portrait of a textbook narcissist and his enabling wife, who had been unthinkably cruel to their oldest child, rejecting and ridiculing her all her life, for not being an appropriate accessory to them. And her younger sister had fit the bill for them perfectly. The only surprise was that Victoria had never hated her little sister, but loved her as much as she did. It was proof of her loving nature and generous heart. She took pleasure in how beautiful Grace was. And she had accepted the horrible things her parents had said about her as gospel. She had been shackled by their cruelty all her life. Victoria was embarrassed by some of the things she had said, but they were all true, and had the ring of truth to the psychiatrist as well. She didn't doubt them for a minute. And then she glanced at a clock just beyond Victoria's shoulder and asked her if she would like to come back the following week. And before she could stop herself, Victoria nodded and then said that she would have to come in the afternoon after school since she was a teacher, which the psychiatrist said was fine. She gave her an appointment and handed her a card with the time written on it, and smiled. "I think we did some good work today, Victoria. I hope you think so too." "We did?" She looked surprised. She had been entirely open and honest with her. And she felt suddenly disloyal to her parents for the things she had said. But she hadn't lied. They had said all those things to her over the years. Maybe they hadn't meant them to be as cruel as they sounded. And what if they did? What did that mean, about her and about them? It was a mystery to her now, which would have to wait another week to be solved, until she met with the shrink again. But she didn't feel crazy when she left, as she had feared. She felt saner than she ever had, and painfully lucid about her parents. Dr. Watson escorted her out, and when Victoria stepped out into the sunlight, she felt dazed for a minute and blinded by the light. |
| 1626 |
For Victoria's second year at the Madison School, she got a very respectable raise. It wasn't an amount that impressed her father, but it gave her a little more leeway in how she lived. And now she only taught seniors, which was her favorite group anyway. Juniors were much more intense and stressed out, and sophomores were immature and harder to direct. They were still babies in many ways, testing their limits and often rude. Seniors were in the home stretch, and had begun to acquire a certain poise and sense of humor about life. And they were enjoying their last year at home as kids. It made them much more fun to be with. Nostalgia began to set in during their last months in high school. Victoria enjoyed being part of it and sharing their final year with them. They were almost cooked. Carla Bernini came back to school after her year long maternity leave and was impressed by all that Victoria had accomplished with her students, and had a deep respect for her, however young. And they became good friends. She brought her baby to school once in a while to visit, and Victoria thought he was really cute. He was a bouncing happy baby, who reminded her of Grace at the same age. And she was continuing to see Dr. Watson at her office once a week. She thought it was making subtle changes in how she looked at life, saw herself, and viewed her lifelong experiences with her parents. They had been toxic and hurtful to her all her life. She was beginning to face that now. And she had taken some positive steps since she had started therapy. She was dieting again and had joined a gym. Sometimes the sessions of remembering the things her parents had done and said left her so raw that all she could do was come home and drown herself in comfort foods. Ice cream was always her drug of choice, and sometimes her best friend. But the next day she would eat very little and spend extra time at the gym to atone for her sins. Dr. Watson had recommended a nutritionist who'd given Victoria good advice about planning her meals. |
| 1627 |
Most of all she enjoyed her job and the kids she taught. She was learning a lot, about teaching, and about life. And she had more confidence in herself since starting to see the shrink, even if she hadn't conquered her eating issues yet. She hoped she would one day, even if she knew she would never look like Gracie or her mother. Since working with the shrink, she was happier with herself. She was in a good place when school started, and a new chemistry teacher came on board to replace one who had retired. He seemed like a good guy, and had pleasant looks. He wasn't movie star handsome, but he had a gentle, kind manner, and was friendly to teachers and kids. Everybody liked him, and he had made a real effort to get to know them all. He sat down next to Victoria in the teachers' lounge one day. She was eating a salad from a nearby deli, and trying to correct the last of some papers she wanted to return to the students that day. She still had some spare time before her next class, when he unwrapped a sub sandwich at the table, sitting next to her. She couldn't help noticing that it smelled delicious, and she felt like a rabbit eating her salad. She had sprinkled the lettuce leaves with lemon, instead of the generous portion of ranch dressing she would have preferred. She was trying to be good, and had an appointment with her shrink the next day. "Hi, I don't think we've met. I'm Jack Bailey," he introduced himself between bites of the sandwich. He had salt and pepper hair, although he was in his early thirties, and a beard, all of which gave him a mature appearance to the kids. He was easy to take seriously, and Victoria smiled at him and introduced herself as she munched her lettuce. "I know who you are," he said, smiling at her. "Every senior in this school loves you. You're a tough act to follow when they come to me after your class. They have so much more fun with you. I don't know how you come up with some of your ideas. You're a star here." It was a nice thing to say, and she was pleased. |
| 1628 |
She felt like a shapeless, sexless, totally undesirable object. And it was going to take hard work and dedication to turn that around. It was why she was here. To change the image her parents had given her of herself. And she said she was willing to do whatever it took, even if the process was painful for her. Living with her own sense of defeat was worse. It had been her parents' legacy to her, to make her feel unlovable, because they didn't love her. It had started the day she was born. She had twenty three years of their negative messages about her to cancel out now, one by one. And finally she was ready to face it. Victoria felt a little discouraged after the session. It was hard digging through her past at times, pulling all those ugly memories out into the open and looking long and hard at them. She was still feeling down about it when she got home. She hated remembering those things, and all the times her father had hurt her feelings and her mother had turned a deaf ear and blind eye and never come to her defense. Her own mother. The only one who ever had was Gracie. And what did that say about her? That her own mother didn't love her? Nor her father. And the only one who could was a child, who didn't know any better. It told her that no intelligent adult could love her, not even her parents. And she had to learn to remind herself now that it was a flaw in their psychological makeup, not her own. She turned on her computer when she got home and checked her e mail. She had one from Gracie, telling her what was happening at school, and about a drama with a new boy she had a crush on. At sixteen she had more boys circling her at one time than Victoria had had in a lifetime, even if they were just kids. The voice on her computer said she had mail as she finished reading Gracie's message with a grin. And then she switched over to see who it was. She didn't recognize the e mail address at first, and as she read it again, it clicked for her immediately: Jack Bailey. |
| 1629 |
When they finished their meal, he said, "I like a woman who has a healthy appetite," and told her that the last girl he had gone out with was anorexic, and it had driven him crazy. She never ate, and was apparently severely neurotic in other ways. He didn't see anything wrong with Victoria enjoying her food. They both liked the play, and talked about it all the way back to her place on the subway. It was depressing, but beautifully acted and well written. She'd had a really great evening with him, and she thanked him as they stood outside her building in the warm night air. She didn't invite him to come upstairs at the end of the evening, it was too soon. But it definitely felt like a date to her. Jack looked happy too and said he'd like to go out with her again. She thanked him, and he hugged her, and there was a spring in her step and a smile on her face when she walked into the empty apartment. For a minute she was sorry she hadn't invited him upstairs for a drink, but decided it was better this way. And much to her surprise, he called her the next day. He said there was an art show downtown that he was going to and wanted to know if she'd like to join him. She did, they met downtown, and had dinner together again. By the time she got back to school on Monday morning, they had had two dates, and she couldn't wait to tell her shrink. It felt like a real victory to her, a huge compliment, and they seemed to be compatible in many ways. They ran into each other in the teachers' lounge at lunchtime, and she appreciated that he was discreet and didn't refer to seeing her on the weekend. She didn't want the whole school knowing that they'd gone out with each other outside school, especially for a proper "date." He was casual and friendly, but nothing more, and then he called her that night to invite her out on Friday for dinner and a movie. She was really excited when she told her roommates about it over dinner in the kitchen. "It sounds like we have a live one here," Harlan said, grinning at her. |
| 1630 |
John was a terrific cook, but she stopped herself. She really wanted to lose some weight, and she had good reason to do it now. She had a date! Their movie date on Friday was as much fun as the other two had been. And they met again on Sunday, for a walk in the park, and he held hands with her as they strolled along. They bought ice cream from a man with a hand truck rolling through the park, but she forced herself to throw it away before she finished. She had lost two pounds that week, and had been doing sit ups every night in front of the TV. Even her shrink was excited about her budding romance, although Victoria hadn't slept with him yet. He hadn't tried, and she didn't want to do that too soon. She wanted to be sure how she felt about him before she did, and that they had something real between them. She didn't just want sex. She wanted a relationship, and Jack was beginning to seem like the perfect candidate for it, after four dates. They went back to her apartment on Sunday afternoon, and he met Bunny and Harlan, and was very nice to both of them. And they both liked him. October was the most exciting, hopeful month she'd had in years as she and Jack continued to see each other every weekend, and on the third weekend they went out, he kissed her. They talked about it, and both agreed that they wanted to wait a little while before they took the relationship to another level. They both wanted to be cautious and mature and get to know each other better before they took a major leap. It made her feel safe and comfortable with him, and not pushed beyond her limits. He was respectful of her, and every time they saw each other, they got closer and had a wonderful time. Victoria's shrink fully approved. Victoria had told him a little about her parents, though not a great deal. She hadn't told him about the tester cake remark, or being named after Queen Victoria, but she did say that they had never praised her, and were critical of her choice of career. "We have that in common," Jack said to her. |
| 1631 |
And in early November things were heating up between them. They had been dating for just over a month, seeing each other once or twice a weekend, and Victoria could sense that they were going to sleep with each other soon. They were working up to it. She felt totally at ease with him, and was falling in love. He was a terrific guy, straightforward, honest, intelligent, warm, funny. He was everything she had ever dreamed of in a man, and as Gracie would have said, she thought he was cute. She had told her younger sister all about him, and she was thrilled, although Victoria had said nothing to her parents, and had warned Gracie not to either. She didn't want to deal with their negative comments, or their predictions of doom. It was still inconceivable to them that any man would fall in love with her. But she could tell that Jack thought she was pretty, and the warmth they shared in their relationship made Victoria bloom like a garden in spring. She looked relaxed, more sure of herself, and constantly happy. Dr. Watson was concerned she didn't want her self esteem to come from a man, rather than be generated from within. But Jack was certainly helping how she felt about herself. And she had dropped ten pounds, by watching her portions and what she ate. She remembered the nutritionist's warning not to skip meals, and to eat healthy food. This time there were no crash diets, no herbal teas, no purges. She was just happy, and everything else fell into place accordingly. They were both talking about their plans to go home for Thanksgiving, and were considering coming back to New York during the weekend, so they could spend part of the holiday together. She was thinking about it one evening, when she walked into the kitchen and saw John and Harlan deep in thought and earnest conversation. They both looked unhappy, and she quickly found an excuse to leave the kitchen. She didn't want to intrude. They seemed as though they had a problem. And Harlan stopped her just before she went back to her room with a cup of tea. |
| 1632 |
But she would also have liked to see her little sister get away from their parents' stifling influence. They hovered over her, and her father was a powerful force in her life, and tried to form her every opinion. Victoria had never been able to tolerate it, but Gracie bought into a lot of it, their lifestyle, their opinions, their politics, their philosophies about life. There was much she agreed with and even admired about them. But Gracie had had a very different set of parents than Victoria did. Gracie had parents who worshipped and adored her, and supported her every move and decision. That was heady stuff. And she had no reason to rebel against them, or even separate from them. She did everything their father thought she should. He was her idol. And Victoria had had parents who ignored her, ridiculed her, and never approved of a single move she made. Victoria had had good reason to move far away. And Gracie had just as many compelling reasons to stay close to home. It was incredible to realize how different their experiences and lives had been with the same parents. It was like night and day, positive and negative. Sometimes Victoria had to remind herself of how much easier Grace's life had been, and how much kinder they had been to her, to explain to herself why Gracie didn't want to separate from them. It had been a big decision for Gracie to live in the dorm rather than stay at home. That felt like a major move to her, although it seemed like a tiny one to her older sister and not big enough. Victoria still believed that they were toxic people, and her father a narcissist, and she would have liked to see her sister get more breathing space from their parents, but she didn't want it. In fact, Gracie would have fought to stay close to them. Victoria's graduation gift to her was a big one. She was careful with her money, and saved whatever she could. She wasn't extravagant despite living in New York. And she offered to take Gracie to Europe as a graduation present. |
| 1633 |
Gracie had a million plans of her own before she started college in late August. Victoria realized, as Gracie did, that now things were going to change for all of them. She had grown up, Victoria lived far away. Their parents had a chance to be more independent and do things on their own. They would all get together for holidays, but in between they all had their own lives to lead. Except for Victoria, who had a job, but not a life. She was still trying to carve one out for herself. At twenty five, she still felt as though she had a long way to go. She wondered sometimes if she'd ever get there, and had started referring to herself jokingly as Gracie's spinster sister. It felt at times as though that was going to be her lot in life. Gracie, on the other hand, had a dozen boys chasing after her at all times, some of whom she liked, some of whom she didn't, and one or two of whom she was always crazy about and couldn't decide between the two. Finding boys had never been her problem. And Victoria was proving her parents right at every turn. She wasn't pretty enough to find a man, according to her father, and much too fat to attract one. And according to her mother, she was too intelligent to keep one. Either way, she had no one. They left for Paris the day after school closed for Victoria in New York. Gracie flew to New York with two suitcases filled with summer clothes, and the girls left for the airport early the next morning. Victoria had one suitcase, and she checked their luggage in at the airport, while Gracie talked to her friends on her cell phone. Victoria felt a little like a tour guide on a high school trip, but she was really looking forward to traveling with her sister. They boarded the plane in high spirits, and Gracie was still texting frantically when the flight attendant told her to turn off her phone. Victoria was holding on to their passports. Sometimes she felt more like Gracie's mother than her sister. They talked, ate, slept, and watched two movies on the six hour flight to Paris. |
| 1634 |
They were indeed the family that had donated the hall of the same name. Harry had graduated from business school the year before, and he was working for his father in an investment banking firm. He was solid as a rock, her father liked to say, and a very good catch. He was with them along with half a dozen of her friends when they went to lunch after graduation, and Victoria noticed them talking conspiratorially at the other end of the table, and then he kissed her and she smiled. Victoria liked Harry, although she thought him a little too controlling, and she wished her younger sister had been more adventurous while she was in college. She had been with Harry constantly. She had left the dorms in junior year to live in an apartment with him off campus, and they were still living together now. Victoria thought she was too young to be so settled so early and limited to one boy. And he reminded her a little of her father, which made her nervous too. Harry had opinions about everything, and Gracie endorsed all of them, with no differences of her own. Victoria didn't want her turning into their mother one day. A shadow of her husband, put on earth to enhance him and make him feel good about himself. What about her? But there was no denying that Gracie was happy with Harry. And Victoria had been shocked when her parents made no objection to the two of them living together. She was sure they wouldn't have done the same for her. And when she had mentioned it to her father, he told her not to be so uptight and old fashioned, but part of that was because Harry's family had so much money. Victoria was sure that they wouldn't have been as easygoing if Harry Wilkes were poor. She had said as much to Helen, and Harlan and John, whenever she talked to them about it. She worried about Gracie a lot. She was always fearful that Gracie had been brainwashed by their parents into pursuing all the wrong ideals. The luncheon celebration had started late after graduation and went on until four in the afternoon. |
| 1635 |
Harlan was still working at the Costume Institute, and John was teaching at the same school in the Bronx. And she had stopped seeing Dr. Watson two years before. There was nothing more to say to her. They had covered the same territory many times, and they agreed. There were no mysteries left to discover. Her parents had given her a raw deal and poured all their love into her sister, and had never had any for her, even before Gracie was born. In plain talk, she'd been screwed, but she loved her sister dearly anyway. And she had very little feeling for her parents, neither anger nor affection. They were selfish, self centered people who should never have had children at all, or not her anyway. Gracie suited them. She didn't. And Victoria was doing fine in spite of it. Victoria felt that Dr. Watson had helped her a great deal. She still had the same parents, and a problem with her weight, but she was dealing with both more successfully than before. She still hadn't found the man of her dreams and maybe she never would, but she loved her job, she was still teaching seniors, and her weight still fluctuated up and down. Her eating habits depended on the weather, her job, the state of her love life or lack of it, or her mood. At the moment she was heavier than she liked. She hadn't had a date in about a year, but she always insisted that her weight had nothing to do with her love life and the two weren't related. Harlan was always vocal about disagreeing with her, and pointed out that she gained weight, and ate more, when she was lonely and miserable. They had put a treadmill in the living room, and a rowing machine, both of which she had contributed to, and she never used them. Harlan and John always did. Victoria was going back to New York the morning after Gracie's graduation, and she had dinner with her parents at home that night. It was a sacrifice she made at least once in every trip. Her father was talking about retiring early in a few years. Her mother was still a fanatical bridge player. |
| 1636 |
For twenty nine years she had believed her parents, that she was ugly, fat, and doomed to failure because she was unlovable. And she suddenly realized that just because they said it, or thought so, didn't mean that it was true. She was bound and determined now to shed the shackles they had put on her. All she wanted now was to be free. She signed up at Weight Watchers the next day, and came home with instructions and a scale for food. And she enrolled at a new gym the day after. They had beautiful machines, a weight room, a dance studio, a sauna, and a pool. Victoria went there every day. She jogged around the reservoir every morning. She followed her diet diligently, and went in to be weighed once a week. She talked to Gracie nearly every day about the wedding, and her mother more than she wanted to. It was all they thought about now. Victoria called it Wedding Fever. She had lost nine pounds by the first day of school, and she felt good. She was in shape. She still had a long way to go. She had reached a plateau, but she was determined not to get discouraged. She'd been there before. Many times. But this time she was not going to let go, and she was seeing her shrink regularly. They were talking about her parents, her hopes for her sister, and they were finally talking about what she wanted for herself. She had never done that before. Her students felt the difference in her too. She was stronger and more sure of herself. Helen and Carla told her they were proud of her. Victoria was annoyed that her sister wasn't working and hadn't since graduation. She wasn't even looking for a job now that she was engaged, which Victoria didn't think was good for her, or her self esteem. She said she had no time, but Victoria knew there was more to life than just planning a wedding, and being married to a wealthy man. Her shrink told her it wasn't her problem, and to concentrate on herself, so she was. But her concern for her sister troubled her too. She only lost two pounds in September. |
| 1637 |
She had a list of stores she wanted to get to. Victoria had been at school all day and felt like a mess. She'd had to get there early for a department meeting. But she got ready in five minutes, and they left to go downtown. It was hard not to be distracted by the giant rock on her finger. "Aren't you afraid you might get hit on the head wearing that thing?" She still worried about her. She would always be her baby sister, no different than the day she'd walked her into first grade. "No one thinks it's real," Gracie said nonchalantly as they got out of the cab at Bergdorf's. They went upstairs to the wedding department and started looking at gowns. They had a dozen of them hanging on racks and spread out around them as Gracie looked around and shook her head. None of them looked right to her, although Victoria thought they were gorgeous. Gracie shifted gears then and asked to see bridesmaids' dresses. She had a list of designers and colors that she wanted to check out. And they brought everything they had to her. It was going to be a formal evening wedding. Harry was going to wear white tie, and the groomsmen black tie. And so far she was thinking of peach, pale blue, or champagne for the bridesmaids, all of them colors that Victoria could wear. She was so fair and had such pale skin that there were some colors she just couldn't get away with, like red, for instance, but Gracie assured her that she would never put her bridesmaids in red. She looked like a little general marshaling her troops as the saleswomen brought her things. Gracie was in full control, and planning what appeared to be a major national event, like a rock concert or a world's fair or a presidential campaign. This was her finest hour, and she was going to be the star of the show. Victoria couldn't help wondering how her mother was dealing with it. It was a little overwhelming at close range, and their father was sparing no expense. He wanted the Wilkeses to be impressed, and his favorite daughter to be proud. |
| 1638 |
As usual, she was being informed that Gracie deserved a wedding fit for a princess, but if she ever married, which her father considered unlikely, she'd better plan on eloping, because they weren't giving her a wedding. How nice. And how clear. Welcome to second class citizenship, again. The family was going first class, and she had to go steerage. They were always singling her out to be different and "lesser than" everyone else, or a failure. She wondered why they didn't just put up a sign on the door to her room, "We don't love you." Her parents said it every way they could, and for a minute she was sorry she had come home. She could have had Thanksgiving with Harlan and John at her apartment. They were having friends over that day, and she was sure she'd have been more welcome than she was here. She couldn't have felt less welcome and less loved after what her father had just said. She didn't mention the wedding again. It was becoming a sore subject with her, even if it was the only thing her sister ever thought of now. And when Harry arrived at noon, it got worse. Everyone got nervous and started running around. Her father served champagne instead of wine. Her mother was anxious about the turkey. Victoria was helping in the kitchen, and Harry and Gracie went outside and were whispering and giggling, while her parents made fools of themselves. And once they got to the table, her father and Harry talked politics. Harry told them what was wrong with the country and what should be done to fix it, and her father agreed. Every time Gracie started to say something, Harry cut her off, or finished the sentence for her. She had no voice and no opinions, and none were allowed about anything but the wedding. It was no wonder she talked about it all the time, it was the only thing Harry would let her talk about. Victoria had always found him annoying while they were dating, but he was insufferable now and pompous beyond belief. Between Harry and her father, she wanted to scream. |
| 1639 |
She explained the procedure to her and how much it cost. Victoria was impressed by how reasonable it was. She could actually afford it, and Dr. Schwartz said that she'd be pretty bruised for about a week, and then it would start to fade. She could cover it with makeup when she went back to school. She had an opening on her surgical calendar the day after Christmas, and Victoria looked at her for a long moment and then grinned. "I'll take it. Let's do it. I want a new nose." She hadn't been as excited about anything in years. The doctor showed her computer printouts of possible noses for her, after taking a photograph of her profile and full face. Victoria said, after looking at all of them, that she wanted a variation of her sister's nose, so she'd look like part of the family. And the doctor suggested a modification of it to suit Victoria's face. Victoria said she would drop off a photograph of her sister the following week, after she went through some photographs she had at home. She had always thought that Gracie had a gorgeous nose, unlike hers, which made her look like a Cabbage Patch Doll, she said, and the doctor laughed. She assured her that it was a fine nose, but they could do better. With the help of the computer, she showed her several possibilities, and Victoria liked them all. Anything seemed better to her than the nose she had. When Victoria left her office, she felt as if she were walking on air. The nose she had hated all her life, and that her father had made fun of, was about to go. So long, nose. She told Harlan and John about it as soon as she got home. They were stunned that she had already made the decision and had an appointment to get it done. The only problem, she explained, was that she'd need someone to pick her up at the hospital after the surgery. She looked at them hopefully, and John said he'd be there, since he'd be on vacation too. She had discussed liposuction with the surgeon too, which sometimes seemed like an easier option than all her dieting, and a quick fix. |
| 1640 |
It was bitter cold outside, but she didn't want to get out of the routine. She was being very good, and using the treadmill at home too. The doctor had told her that she wouldn't be able to exercise at first after surgery, so she wanted to do all she could beforehand. She didn't want to get out of shape while she was nursing her nose. It was starting to snow when she got to the gym, and it looked like Christmas around the city. People had their trees up, and she was planning to get one with Harlan and John that weekend. They were having friends over to help them decorate it. And Victoria was thinking about it as she rode one of the Exercycles, and she noticed that the man on the one next to her was exceptionally rugged and good looking, and he was talking to a beautiful girl on his other side. Victoria stared at them for a few minutes, mesmerized. They were an extremely handsome couple, they looked like they got along very well, and they laughed a lot. For a lonely moment, she couldn't help envying them the relationship they obviously shared. She was wearing her iPod so she couldn't hear what they were saying, but their faces as they looked at each other were warm and loving, and watching them tore at her heart. She couldn't even imagine having a man who looked like that in her life. The man exercising next to her had piercing blue eyes and dark hair, and a square jaw and chin with a deep cleft in it. He had broad shoulders and long legs, and she noticed that he had nice hands. She was embarrassed when he turned and smiled at her. He had sensed her staring at him, so she looked away. And then she noticed him looking at her again, and admiring her legs when she got off the bike. She was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, and he was wearing a T shirt and shorts. And she thought that their relationship must be very secure for the woman he was with not to get upset when he looked at her like that. She seemed not to be bothered at all. Victoria had smiled at him, and then left the gym to go home. |
| 1641 |
On Christmas night, Victoria was extremely nervous about what was going to happen the next day. They had given her pre op instructions. She couldn't eat or drink after midnight, couldn't take aspirin. She had never had surgery before and didn't know what to expect, other than a nose that she loved at the end of it, or at least not one that she hated as much as she had her present one all her life. She couldn't wait for the change. She knew it wouldn't transform her and suddenly make her beautiful, but she knew she would feel different, and that a major irritant that had embarrassed her for years would be altered. She kept looking in the mirror and couldn't wait for it to be altered. She already felt different. She was shedding the things that had made her unhappy, or trying to, and she was proud of herself for not going home for Christmas, as she had every year. Thanksgiving had just been too awful. And the Christmas she spent in New York was easy and warm at least, with her roommates. It was sad, but her parents were just too hard for her to be around. Their overt, covert, and subliminal message was always the same: "We don't love you." For years she had tried to turn that around, and she couldn't. Now she no longer wanted to try. It was her first step toward health. And the rhinoplasty was another. It had deep psychological meaning for her. She wasn't condemned to be ugly and ridiculed by them forever. She was taking control of her life. Victoria got up early and walked around the apartment nervously before she left. The tree was sitting in a corner of the apartment, and she wondered how she'd feel when she got home. Not too bad, she hoped. She hoped she wouldn't be in terrible pain or feel sick. And she was scared to death when she took a cab to the hospital at six A.M. Had it been for anything else, she might have backed out and canceled. She was terrified when she walked through the double doors into the same day surgery unit. And from then on it was like being sucked into a well oiled machine. |
| 1642 |
She didn't regret the surgery for a minute, and when she saw the result unveiled, she was thrilled, despite the bruising, and slight swelling. The doctor pointed out where the swelling was and where she could expect improvement, but all things considered, it looked great, and Victoria let out a squeal of delight. The surgeon had done a fantastic job. And the patient was ecstatic. She said she already felt like a new person. The only shocking thing, and Victoria wasn't surprised, since she had been told to expect it, was the extent of the bruising, which was severe. She had two huge black eyes, and bluish discoloration that went down most of her face. But the doctor assured her that it would go away soon, was normal, and she could start covering it with makeup in a few days. She said she'd be quite presentable by the time she went back to school in another week. And it would continue to improve after that as the swelling went down and the bruising disappeared. It would continue to look even better over several months. She put a Band Aid over the bridge of Victoria's nose and sent her home. She said she could go back to normal activity, within reason. No sky diving, water polo, or touch football, she teased her. No contact sports. She told her to be reasonable and not do anything where she might hit her nose, and when Victoria inquired, she said that she could go to the gym, but again be sensible about it and not overdo. No jogging, no strenuous exercise, no swimming, no extreme workouts, which Victoria didn't want to do anyway. It had been freezing outside all week. And the doctor added "no sex," which unfortunately wasn't an issue for her at the moment. Victoria was so happy with the result that she bought a big Caesar salad on the way home, and ate it in the kitchen. She had lost a few pounds from not eating much while she was sleeping her way through her recovery, and the pain pills had killed her appetite. She hadn't even eaten ice cream, and just to be on the safe side, Harlan had thrown it away again. |
| 1643 |
Despite the workout clothes, he looked well heeled, had a good haircut, was well spoken, polished, polite, and was wearing an expensive gold watch. She looked like a bum, and always went to the gym that way, and hadn't had a manicure in over a week. It was the one luxury she always indulged in, but she hadn't gone since the surgery. She didn't want to scare anyone, explain her bandages, and she wasn't going out anyway. Now here she was next to the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen, and she hadn't combed her hair and didn't even have nail polish on. Their bikes stopped at almost the same time, and they both got off. He said he was going to the steam room, and with a warm smile he stuck out his hand. "I'm Collin White, by the way." "Victoria Dawson." They shook hands, and after a few inane words, she picked up her things and left, and he headed to the steam room, and stopped to chat with a man he knew along the way. Victoria was still thinking about him when she walked home. She felt good after some exercise at the gym, and he'd been nice to talk to. She hoped she would see him again. Her doctor was right, and by the time she went back to school, she could cover most of what was left of the bruising with makeup. There was a faint shadow still around her eyes, but she looked pretty good, and the swelling had come down a lot around her nose. Not all the way, but close. And she loved her new nose. She felt like she had a whole new face. She couldn't wait to see her parents in June and watch their reaction, if they noticed. The difference seemed enormous to her. She had just taught her last class of the day, after helping half a dozen students with the college essays they hadn't finished and were now panicked about, when three of the girls were lingering in the classroom, talking. One of them was the student who had had the breast reduction over Christmas, and the same threesome who had discussed it before. They were best friends. They went everywhere together at school. "How did it go?" Victoria asked cautiously. |
| 1644 |
They went to a fish restaurant in Brooklyn and had fresh lobster wearing big paper bibs. The restaurant was noisy and fun, and they enjoyed each other. Their conversations were just as meaty as before, and they both felt comfortable talking about themselves and who they really were, and exposing themselves to each other. They started meeting at the gym in the evenings and talking about their day as they rode the bikes. They were totally at ease. He always hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, but it had gone no further and she was fine with that, and liked it. For their third date, he took her to the ballet because she said she enjoyed it. They went to an exhibit at the Met on a Sunday, and brunch after. He took her to the opening of a Broadway play. She was having a ball with him, and Collin was very creative about where he took her. It was always well thought out and something he thought she'd enjoy. And after their night at the theater, he looked uncomfortable for the first time when he asked her to dinner. He warned her that it was an evening she might not like, and not likely to be exciting, but he wanted to ask her anyway. "My parents are coming to town. I'd like you to meet them. But they're not a lot of fun. They're just not happy people, and they'll talk about my brother all night. But it would mean a lot to me if you met them. What do you think?" "I think they've got to be a lot better than mine," she said gently. She was touched and flattered that he wanted her to meet them. And when she did, they were everything he had said and worse. They were good looking, aristocratic people, and they were intelligent. But his mother looked depressed, and his father looked broken by life and the son he had lost. His shoulders drooped, and their faces and lives were colorless. It was as though they didn't even see Collin, and only the ghost of his brother. All subjects led back to him, and all mention of what Collin was doing led to an unfavorable comparison to his brother. |
| 1645 |
Collin couldn't win. In their own way they were as bad as her parents, and just as depressing. She wanted to put her arms around Collin and kiss the hurt away after they dropped his parents off at their hotel, but he kissed her instead. It was the first time he had, and everything she felt for him poured out of her, all the compassion and sympathy and love. She wanted to heal all the old hurts he had suffered, and the loneliness of his parents' rejection of him. They talked for a long time afterward about how hurtful it was for him, and he was grateful for her support. John and Harlan had already gone to bed when Victoria and Collin went back to her apartment and they talked and kissed for several hours. She disliked his parents almost as much as she did her own, although his had an excuse and hers didn't. Hers just didn't like her. His were mourning their son. But either way they had been unkind and unloving and rejecting to the point of being cruel, and in both cases had convinced their own children that they were unlovable. And both of them would carry the scars of it forever, as so many people did. To Victoria, it seemed like one of the worst crimes perpetrated by parents, to convince your own child not only that you didn't love them, but that they were unworthy of it, and no one else would ever love them either. It had been the curse of her life, and of Collin's too. And that night they managed to give each other the love, comfort, and approval that they deserved and had needed for so long. It had been a meaningful evening for both of them. Very much so. And she was no longer telling Harlan everything that happened on their dates. She was developing an allegiance to Collin, which seemed right. And he felt the same way about her. He would only tell his sister so much whenever she called. He wanted to protect Victoria too, and the budding relationship they shared. They were both respectful and discreet. The next dinner they shared after his parents' visit was an important one for both of them. |
| 1646 |
It wasn't her idea of a fun trip. She went to visit Amy Green and her baby before she left. He was adorable and tiny, and Amy looked happy. She was nursing him, and was going to pump when she went back to school. It was only for a few weeks before summer vacation. Justin was there too, and looked like a proud papa as he held the baby while Amy chatted with Victoria. She had brought them a little blue sweater and booties, and Amy put them on him like a little doll. It was odd watching these two young kids as parents now. Babies having babies, but they both seemed mature and responsible with their son, and her mother was always hovering nearby to help them. It was an ideal situation for Amy and Justin, and had given her mother new life after the divorce. It looked like a blessing for all. The next day Victoria flew to Las Vegas after school. She had promised to call Collin, and he knew how she was dreading the trip. She was sure Gracie's friends would drink a lot, play, gamble, go crazy, and pick up boys, since none of them were married. She felt like a chaperone on one of her senior school trips. They were a bunch of twenty two and twenty three year olds prepared to go wild. And she felt like the old lady in the group, about to turn thirty. The one nice thing about the trip was that Victoria got to see her sister, and Gracie threw herself into her arms when she arrived. She checked out Victoria's new nose and said she liked it. The girls had started drinking before she got there, and some of them had already played the slot machines and won a little money. They all went out to dinner, and afterward they wandered through the casino, which was a strange, artificially lit world, full of bright lights, no windows, excited people, money changing hands, and girls in sexy costumes passing out free drinks. Some of it was wasted on the girls, but they loved the atmosphere and had already discovered that there was good shopping in all the hotels, particularly theirs, and lots of single men roaming around the casino and hotel. |
| 1647 |
Harlan said he wasn't surprised. He had been expecting something like that, or an announcement of their engagement, he said with a mischievous look at Collin, who just laughed and smiled at Victoria. They hadn't talked about it yet, but it had crossed his mind. His sister had said the same thing, and she wanted to meet Victoria that summer. There was time. There was no need for them to do anything in a hurry. They were enjoying what they had. They had both waited a lifetime for it, and were savoring every moment. And his sister had just met someone too. Collin hadn't met him yet, but he sounded perfect for her. He was a widowed doctor with two young kids, and his sister said they were really cute. Five and seven. Life had a way of working out. The lid for every pot theory seemed to work, if you waited long enough and were patient. Victoria was now a firm believer in it. They agreed to start looking for an apartment together after her sister's wedding, when she was no longer in a cast and on crutches and could get around. He had a lull between trials, and she'd be out of school then. She could hardly wait. Victoria got her cast taken off three days after school closed for the summer. The leg felt a little weak and wobbly, but she had to do physical therapy and exercise, and they said that would strengthen it. And in the meantime, she had to be on her feet for the wedding. She could put her full weight on her leg, but it didn't feel strong. And she couldn't overdo at the gym yet. She had to do therapy first. She didn't say anything to anyone, but the day she got the cast off, she walked into her bathroom and weighed herself, and as soon as she did, she sat down on the edge of the tub and burst into tears. She had been careful, but not totally. There had been some pasta on bad nights when her leg hurt and she needed comfort food, a couple of pizzas, the occasional ice cream, cheese and crackers, and there had been mashed potatoes and some delicious meat loaf Harlan had brought home from the deli. |
| 1648 |
On the morning of the wedding, the house was bustling with excitement and activity from the moment everyone got up. There was breakfast laid out in the kitchen so people could help themselves. Collin and Victoria took theirs out to the garden so they didn't get in anyone's way. Gracie was having a manicure and pedicure in her room. The hairdresser came to do all the women in the house. All Victoria wanted was a simple French twist, so she went first. The wedding was set for seven o'clock that night, but people came and went all day. All the bridesmaids were there from lunchtime on, and Victoria couldn't get near her sister, so she left them alone, and did whatever she could to help her mother. But everything seemed in surprisingly good control. And Gracie's wedding gown was laid out in her mother's room. Her father had been relegated to the guest room to dress, and everyone seemed to have something to do. There were a million phone calls and deliveries, and Collin volunteered to man the doors and phones. Victoria's father disappeared for a while, and then came back, but he never said a word to Victoria all day, nor to Collin. He had gotten a dose of his own medicine the night before, and Victoria was glad. It was about time. And Collin had done it well, with style and finesse. With his protection, her father would think twice before attacking her again. And by five o'clock the countdown had begun. The hairdresser did Gracie's hair. All the bridesmaids had been done. And at six o'clock they all slipped into their dresses. Victoria took a deep breath and put hers on, and one of the bridesmaids zipped it up, while another one held it closed, and Victoria held her breath. She didn't look in the mirror. She could feel how it looked. She could hardly breathe, even with the weight she'd lost, and her breasts were tightly compressed and poured out of the strapless dress. It was excruciatingly tight, and the zipper almost didn't close. And she knew just how ugly it looked on her, but she really didn't care. |
| 1649 |
Collin loved her, and if it wasn't the best dress for her, it wasn't important. She had found brown satin shoes to match and slipped them on. The heels were high, and she suddenly looked like a very tall woman. But a good looking woman. She felt like she had come into her own in the last year, not just because of Collin, but the efforts she'd made to free herself of the past and the damage it had done. Collin had happened because she was ready for him. She had made the changes, and he had arrived the changes weren't because of him. She felt sure of herself suddenly even in the dress that didn't suit her. She looked beautiful, and shone from within. She put on a little more blush, and the color of the dress didn't look quite so bad with her pale skin. She went in to her sister, and her mother was just slipping the elaborate white lace gown over Gracie's head. Her mother was dressed in a dark beige taffeta gown with a jacket, and she looked elegant and demure. She was still a beautiful woman. Sometimes Victoria forgot that. And the minute the enormous white lace dress fell over Gracie's tiny body, she looked like a princess. She was wearing her engagement ring that looked like a headlight, and the diamond earrings Harry had given her. And his mother had given her a string of large pearls with a diamond clasp as a wedding gift. She seemed much too young to be wearing all that jewelry, and Victoria was reminded of when they played dress up when they were children, but Gracie looked lovely. She was the perfect bride, and when her father walked in a few minutes later, he started to cry. He was overwhelmed by the vision of her in her wedding gown. She had always been his baby. And she always would be. And she was Victoria's baby too. Gracie looked around the room at her family, and she was about to cry too, but her mother warned her not to ruin her makeup. Gracie felt as though she were leaving them all forever and setting out in the world, on unfamiliar waters. It was a scary feeling, especially for such a young girl. |
| 1650 |
Sometimes you just couldn't figure it out beforehand, no matter how hard you tried. Collin sat next to Victoria at the reception, at a long table with all the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Victoria made her speech, and everyone applauded. She and Collin danced all night. Harry and Gracie cut the cake. And Victoria even danced with her father once. He looked dignified and handsome in his dinner jacket and black tie. And for once he made no ugly comments about her they just danced as he spun her around the floor, and then he turned her over to Collin again. It was a beautiful wedding. And Gracie was an exquisite bride. And much to Victoria's relief, for tonight at least, and maybe forever if they were lucky, Gracie and Harry looked happy. There was no way of knowing if it would last, for them or anyone. All you could do was your best. She was dancing with Collin when they announced that Gracie was going to throw the bouquet, and asked all the single women to assemble on the dance floor. Grace stood on a chair, waiting to do it, and all the single women started to approach. Victoria's mother glided past Victoria as she was about to join them and gave her a reproving look. "Let them have it, dear, they're all younger than you are. They'll all get married one day. You don't even know if you ever will." In a single sentence, she had dismissed Collin as a real possibility, and told her that not only was she likely to be a spinster but she really didn't deserve the bouquet. She was undeserving again, and unlikely to be loved since they never had. Victoria could feel herself shrink back to the edge of the crowd, as Gracie tried to wave her forward, but her mother's message had been a powerful one. Collin had seen her mother say something to her, and the look on her face afterward, but he was too far from her now to have heard what was said. Whatever it was, he could tell that it had devastated her, and he could see her collapse inwardly, as she stood with her arms down, as Gracie got ready to toss the bouquet. |
| 1651 |
He spent most of her childhood years away, on dangerous assignments in war zones. And she loved not only his photographs, but listening to his stories. As a child, she dreamed of a life like his one day. And her dreams came true when she herself began freelancing for papers at home while she was in the Peace Corps. Her assignments took her into the hills, and brought her face to face with everything from bandits to guerrillas. She never thought of the risks she took. Danger meant nothing to her, in fact she loved it. She loved the people, the sights, the smells, the sheer joy of what she was doing, and the sense of freedom she had while she did it. Even after they finished their stint with the Peace Corps, and Doug went back to the States, she stayed in Central and South America for several months, and then went on to do stories in Africa and Asia. And she managed to hit all the hot spots. Whenever there was trouble somewhere, for a while at least, India was in it, taking pictures. It was in her soul, and in her blood, in a way that it had never been in Doug's. For him, it had been something exciting to do for a time before he settled down to "real life." For India, it was real life, and what she really wanted. She had lived with an insurgent army in Guatemala for two months, and had come up with fantastic photographs, reminiscent of her father's. They had won her not only praise internationally, but several prizes, for her coverage, her insight, and her courage. When she looked back on those days later on, she realized she had been someone different then, a person she thought of sometimes now, and wondered what had happened to her. Where had that woman gone, that wild free spirit filled with passion? India still acknowledged her, yet she also realized she no longer knew her. Her life was so different now, she was no longer that person. She wondered sometimes, in her dark room, late at night, how she could be satisfied with a life so far removed from the one she had once been so in love with. |
| 1652 |
She knew that a life much like her father's was out there for her, maybe even a Pulitzer like his one day, but she knew the dangers too. It had ultimately cost him his life, and to some extent his marriage. He had never really had a life he cared about beyond the moments when he risked everything for the perfect shot, with bombs exploding all around him. And Doug was reminding her that if she wanted him, and any kind of normalcy, she was going to have to make a choice sooner or later, and give up what she was doing. At twenty six, she married Doug, and worked for The New York Times for two years, taking photographs for them locally, but Doug was anxious to have children. And when Jessica was born shortly before India turned twenty nine, she gave up her job at The Times, moved to Connecticut, and closed the door on her old life forever. It was the deal she had agreed to. Doug had made it very clear to her when they got married that once they had children, she had to give up her career. And she had agreed to do it. She thought that by then she'd be ready. But she had to admit, when she left the Times and turned her attention to full time motherhood, it was harder than she expected. At first, she really missed working. In the end, she only looked back once or twice with regret, but eventually she didn't even have time for that. With four children in five years, she could barely keep her head above water or take time out to reload her camera. Driving, diapers, teething, nursing, fevers, play groups, and one pregnancy after another. The two people she saw most were her obstetrician and her pediatrician, and of course the other women she saw daily, whose lives were identical to hers, and revolved only around their children. Some of them had given up careers as well, or were willing to put their adult lives on hold until their children were a little older, just as she had. They were doctors, lawyers, writers, nurses, artists, architects, all of whom had given up their careers to tend to their children. |
| 1653 |
It was the life she had chosen, a decision she had made, a deal she had lived up to. And she wouldn't have wanted to leave her children every day to continue working. She still did the occasional rare story close to home, if she had time for it, once every few years, but she really didn't have time to do it more often, as she had long since explained to her agent. What she hadn't known, or fully understood before Jessica was born, was just how far from her old life it would take her. Compared to the life she had once led, taking photographs of guerrillas in Nicaragua, and dying children in Bangladesh, or floods in Tanzania, she had had no idea just how different this would be, or how different she would become once she did it. She knew she had to close the door on those early chapters of her life, and she had, no matter how many prizes she had won, or how exciting it had been, or how good she was at it. In her mind, and Doug's especially, giving it up was the price she had had to pay for having children. There was just no other way to do it. Some of the women she knew could juggle work at home, a couple of her friends were still lawyers and went into the city two or three days a week, just to keep their hand in. Others were artists and worked at home, some of the writers struggled with stories between the midnight and four A.M. feedings, but eventually gave it up, because they were too exhausted to do it. But for India, it was impossible. There was no way to continue her career, as she had once known it. She kept in touch with her agent and had done local stories from time to time, but covering garden shows in Greenwich had no meaning for her. And Doug didn't even like her doing that much. Instead, she used her camera as a kind of mothering tool, constantly making visual records of her children's early years, or taking photographs of her friends' children, or for the school, or just playing with it as she did now, watching Sam and his friends play soccer. There was no other way to do this. |
| 1654 |
And what they had said they wanted. And she had lived up to her end of the bargain, but her camera was always in her hand, at her eye, or slung over her shoulder. She could never imagine a life without it. Once in a while, she mused about working again once the kids grew up, maybe in another five years when Sam was in high school. But that was inconceivable to her just now. He was only nine, Aimee was eleven, Jason was twelve, and Jessica fourteen. Her life was a constant merry go round of activities between them, after school sports and barbecues and Little League and piano lessons. The only way to do it all was if you never stopped, never thought of yourself, and never sat down for five minutes. The only respite she had from it was when they went to Cape Cod in the summer. Doug spent three weeks there with them every year, and the rest of the time he commuted on weekends. They all loved their Cape Cod vacations. She took terrific photographs at the Cape every year, and got a little time for herself. She had a darkroom in the house, just as she did in Westport. And at the Cape she could spend hours in it while the kids visited with friends, or hung out on the beach, or played volleyball or tennis. She was less of a chauffeur at the Cape, the kids could ride their bikes everywhere and it gave her more free time, especially in the last two years, since Sam was a little older. He was growing up. The only thing she wondered from time to time was how grown up she was. Sometimes she felt guilty about the books she never had time to read, the politics she had lost interest in. It felt sometimes as though the world beyond was moving on without her. She had no sense anymore of growth or evolution, it was more a question of treading water, cooking dinner, driving kids and getting from one school year to another. But there was nothing about her life that made her feel that she had grown in recent years. India's life had been virtually the same for the last fourteen years, since Jessica was born. |
| 1655 |
It was a life of service, sacrifice, and commitment. But the end result was tangible, she could see it. She had healthy, happy children. They lived in a safe, familiar little world that revolved entirely around them. Nothing unsavory or unsafe or unpleasant ever intruded on them, and the worst thing that ever happened to them was an argument with a neighbor's child, or a trauma over lost homework. They had no concept of the loneliness she had felt as a child, with one constantly absent parent. They were unfailingly ministered to and cared for. And their father came home every night for dinner. That was especially important to India, as she knew only too well what it was like not to have that. India's children lived in a different universe from the children she had photographed two decades before, starving in Africa, or jeopardized in unimaginable ways in underdeveloped countries, where their very survival was in question daily, fleeing from their enemies, or lost to natural aggressors like illness, floods, and famine. Her children would never know a life like theirs, and she was grateful for it. India watched her younger son pull himself from the pile of little boys who had cascaded on top of him as he scored a goal, and wave at his mother. India smiled, the camera clicked again, and she walked slowly back to the bench where some of the other mothers were sitting, chatting with each other. None of them were watching the game, they were too busy talking. This was so routine to them that they rarely watched, and seldom saw what their children were doing. The women were just there, like the bench they were sitting on, part of the scenery or the equipment. One of them, Gail Jones, looked up as India approached, and smiled when she saw her. They were old friends, and as India pulled a fresh roll of film out of her pocket, Gail made room for India to sit down. There were finally leaves on the trees again, and everyone was in good spirits. Gail was smiling up at her, as she held a cardboard cup with cappuccino in it. |
| 1656 |
Her camera could wait another five or ten years, but even then she knew she wouldn't leave Doug to go trekking halfway around the world to find adventure. You couldn't have both. She had figured that out years before. She had made a choice, and she still thought it was a good one. And she knew that Doug appreciated what she was doing. "What's for dinner?" Jason asked, shouting over the frantic barking of the dog and the clamoring of his siblings. He was on the track team at school, and starving. "Paper napkins and ice cream, if you guys don't get out of the kitchen and give me five minutes' peace," India shouted over the din, as he grabbed an apple and a bag of potato chips and headed to his room to do his homework. He was a good kid, a sweet boy. He worked hard at school, got good grades, did well in sports, looked just like Doug, and had never given them any trouble. He had started discovering girls the year before, but his greatest foray into that realm had been a series of timid phone calls. He was far easier to deal with than his fourteen year old sister, Jessica, who India always said was going to be a labor lawyer. She was the family spokesperson for the downtrodden, and rarely hesitated to lock horns with her mother. In fact, she loved it. "Out!" India shooed them all out from underfoot, put the dog outside, and opened the refrigerator with a pensive expression. They'd already had hamburgers twice this week, and meat loaf once. Even she had to admit that she was lacking inspiration. By this point in the school year, she couldn't think up any more creative dinners. It was time for barbecues and hot dogs and ribs, and time on the beach on the Cape. She settled on two frozen chickens, and stuck them in the microwave to defrost them, as she pulled out a dozen ears of corn and began to clean them. She was sitting at the kitchen table, thinking about what Gail had said that afternoon, sifting it as she did sometimes, trying to decide for herself if she had any regrets about her lost career. |
| 1657 |
Besides, it was a moot point anyway, she told her self, there was no way she could have continued traveling around the world as a journalist, or even working locally, and still have done the right thing for her children. She owed this to them. And if Gail found her boring as a result, so be it. At least Doug didn't. She smiled, thinking of him, as she put the corn in a pot of water and set it on the stove, and then took the chickens out of the microwave, put butter and spices on them, and put them in the oven. All she had to do now was put some rice on the stove, make a salad, and presto magic, dinner. She had gotten good at it over the years. Not fine cuisine, but fast and simple and healthy. She didn't have time to make them gourmet meals with everything else she did. They were lucky she didn't take them to the drive thru at McDonald's. She was just putting dinner on the table when Doug walked in, looking slightly harried. Barring a crisis at the office, he usually came home promptly at seven. Door to door, it was a twelve hour day for him, or slightly longer, but he was a good sport about the commute, and he kissed the air somewhere near her head, as he set down his briefcase and helped himself to a Coke from the refrigerator, and then looked over and smiled at her. She was happy to see him. "How was your day?" she asked, wiping her hands on a towel. There were wisps of wheat colored hair framing her face, and she never thought much about what she looked like. She was lucky, she didn't have to. She had clean, healthy, classic looks, and the braid she wore suited her. Her skin was good, and she looked about thirty five instead of forty three, with a long, slim figure that looked well in shirts and turtlenecks and jeans, which was the uniform she wore daily. Doug set down the Coke and loosened his tie as he answered. "Not bad. Nothing exciting. I had a meeting with a new client." His business life had been uneventful for the most part, and when he had problems, he shared them with her. |
| 1658 |
But they always enjoyed their meals together. The children talked about their day, their friends, their activities, while complaining intermittently about teachers and the amount of homework they'd been given. And Aimee blew the whistle on the news that a new boy had called Jessica three times that afternoon, and he sounded really old, like maybe even a senior, and Jessica looked daggers at her. And for most of the meal, Jason provided them with entertainment. He was the family clown, and made editorial comments on everything. Aimee helped her clean up afterward, and Sam went to bed early, exhausted by his soccer game and the two goals he'd scored. Doug was reading some papers from the office by the time India finally joined him in their bedroom. "The natives seem to be keeping you busier than usual tonight," he commented, glancing up from the report he was reading. There was a staid, solid quality that India had loved about him right from the beginning. He was tall and lean and lanky, with athletic good looks, and a boyish face. At forty five, he was still very handsome, and looked like a college football hero. He had dark hair and brown eyes, and was given to tweeds and gray suits for work, and corduroy pants and Shetland sweaters on weekends. And in a quiet, wholesome way, India had always found him very attractive, even if Gail did think he was boring. And in many ways, he was the ideal husband for her. He was solid and reliable and unflappable, generally, and fairly reasonable in the demands he made of her. She sat down in a big, comfortable chair across from him, and tucked her legs under her, trying to remember, just for an instant, the boy she had met in the Peace Corps. He was not so very different from the man she sat across from now, but there had been a glimmer of mischief in his eyes then that had enchanted her at the time, when she was young and filled with dreams of daring and glory. He was no longer mischievous, but he was decent and reliable, and someone she knew she could count on. |
| 1659 |
As she cleaned up the kitchen, after she got back from dropping Jessica off, she wondered if he was sorry. She was sure he would say something that night. It was unlike him not to. Maybe he'd had a bad day at the office the day before, or was just feeling feisty and wanted to provoke her. But he had seemed very calm when he'd spoken to her. It upset her to think he had so little regard for everything she'd done before they were married. He had never been quite that insensitive about it, or quite as blatantly outspoken. The phone rang just as she put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher, and she was going to go to her darkroom to develop the pictures she'd taken the day before at soccer. She had promised the captain of the team that she would get them to him quickly. She answered on the fourth ring, and wondered if it would be Doug, calling to tell her he was sorry. They were planning to go out to dinner that night, at a fancy little French restaurant, and it would be a much nicer evening if he would at least acknowledge that he had been wrong to make her career sound so unimportant and make her feel so lousy. "Hello?" She was smiling when she answered, sure now that it was he, but the voice on the other end was not Doug's. It was her agent. Raoul Lopez. He was very well known in photojournalism and photography, and at the top of his field. The agency, though not Raoul, had previously represented her father. "How's the Mother of the Year? Still taking pictures of kids on Santa's lap to give to their mommies?" She had volunteered at a children's shelter the previous year to do just that, and Raoul had not been overly amused by it. For years now, he had been telling her she was wasting her talents. And once every couple of years, she did something for him that gave him hope she might one day come back to the real world. She had done a fabulous story three years before, on abused children in Harlem. She had done it in the daytime while her own kids were in school, and managed not to miss a single car pool. |
| 1660 |
She'd been having a good time with Dan Lewison, and hated to leave him now, particularly knowing that it was the kind of relationship that would survive neither time nor distance. By the time she got back, he would have moved on with his life, and begun to settle into his new routine, and would have connected undoubtedly with the flock of hungry divorcees waiting to devour him. And all Gail had to offer him was the occasional clandestine afternoon in a motel, and there were plenty of others waiting to do that. She had no illusions about their importance to each other. And just listening to her talk about it depressed India still further. She wished her a good trip, and told her to call when she got back. Maybe she and the kids could come up to the Cape for a few days later in the summer while Jeff was working. And Gail said she'd love that. It was late that afternoon when they got to the house in Harwich, and India got out and stretched her legs, and looked at the clear expanse of blue ocean with a feeling of relief. Being here was just what she needed. It was a lovely place, a comfortable old Victorian house, and she always found it blissfully peaceful. They had friends with summerhouses nearby, some from Boston, others from New York, and India was always happy to see them. Although this year, she wanted to spend a few days by herself, with the children. She needed some time to think, and regroup, and recover from the blow of what she'd felt ever since their fateful dinner. For the first time in fourteen years, once they'd settled into the house, she didn't even want to call Doug. She just couldn't. He called that night to make sure they'd arrived. He spoke to the children, and then India. "Is everything all right?" he asked, and India assured him that everything was fine. The house had been cleaned by a service that week, and was in good order. No leaks, no broken screens or damage from the winter. She reported it all to him, and he seemed satisfied with what she told him. |
| 1661 |
She had been for the past few weeks, but he had never noticed either her fatigue or her depression. "It's a long drive, but we're all fine." Both children and caretaker were alive and well, as was the Labrador retriever. "I wish I were there with all of you, instead of here with all my clients," he said, and sounded as though he meant it. "You'll be here soon," she said sympathetically, anxious to get off the phone. She had nothing to say to him at the moment. She felt sapped of all her energy. She had nothing to offer him right now, in light of what he'd said to her, and he didn't seem to understand that. "We'll call you," she said easily, and a moment later they hung up. As usual, he didn't tell her that he loved her. It didn't matter anyway. It was apparently a word that, at this point in their lives, meant very little to him. She went back to the children after that, and helped them make their beds, since the cleaning service hadn't done it. And once they were all in bed, she slipped quietly into her darkroom. She hadn't been in it in nearly a year, but she found everything in the same meticulous order she had left it. And when she turned the light on, she saw the wall of some of her father's favorite pictures. There was one she had put up there of Doug too, and she stood and stared at it for a long moment. He had a handsome, familiar face that she knew better than any face in the world, except her children's, but she had known his for longer. And as she looked into his eyes in the photograph she saw all the coldness she had discovered there in the past three weeks, and everything that was missing in them. She wondered why she hadn't seen it sooner. Had she wanted to believe there was something else there? That he still loved her as he had in their youth? That he was still in love with her, as she had believed he was, until he told her how unimportant love was in a marriage? She could hear the words again as though he had just said them to her... what you need is companionship. |
| 1662 |
She wondered now if this was really all he wanted. It was so much less than she wanted from him. She turned away then to look at a photograph of her father. He had been tall and thin, and looked like Doug in a way, but there was laughter in his eyes as he looked at you, something happy and excited and amused about his entire demeanor. He had had a funny little tilt to his head when he talked to you, and she could imagine him being in love at any age. He had been so young when he died, only forty two, and yet he seemed so much more alive in the photograph than Doug did. There had been something so vibrant about him. She knew her mother had suffered from his absences, and their life had been difficult for her, but she also knew how much her mother had loved him, and how much he had loved her. And how angry her mother had been at him for dying. And India could remember as though it were yesterday how devastated she had been when her mother had told her what had happened. She couldn't imagine a world without her father in it somewhere. It was hard to believe he had been gone for twenty eight years now, it seemed like an entire lifetime to her. There were her photographs framed on the walls of the darkroom too, and she looked them over carefully for a moment as she stood there. They were good, very good, and captured a feeling and emotion that was almost like looking into a painting. She saw the ravaged faces of hungry children there, and a child sitting alone on a rock holding a doll, crying, while an entire village in Kenya burned behind her. There were faces of old men, and injured soldiers, and a woman laughing with sheer joy as she held her newborn baby. India had helped deliver it, and she still remembered that moment. It had been in a tiny hut somewhere outside Quito when she was in the Peace Corps. They were fragments of her life, frozen in time, and framed, so she could look at them forever. It was still hard for her to believe that all of that was gone from her life now. |
| 1663 |
The kids were already up, and helping themselves to cereal when she walked in. She was wearing a T shirt, shorts, and sandals, with her hair piled up on her head, held by two old tortoise shell pins, and she was unaware of it, but she looked very pretty. "What's everybody doing today?" she asked as she put a pot of coffee on. It seemed silly to do it just for herself, but she loved sitting on the deck, with a cup of coffee and reading, glancing up occasionally to look at the ocean. It was one of her favorite Cape Cod pastimes. "I'm going over to see the Boardmans," Jessica was quick to say. They had three older teenage sons, and a daughter her own age. Jessica had grown up with them, and loved them, and the boys were of particular interest to her now that two of them were in high school, and the third one was a freshman in college. Jason had a friend down the street too, and had called him and made plans the night before to spend the day with him. Aimee wanted to go swimming at a friend's, and India promised to call and arrange it as soon as she had a cup of coffee, and Sam wanted to walk down the beach with her, and Crockett, the Labrador retriever. It sounded like a good plan to her, and she promised to walk with him a little later. In the meantime, he was happy playing with the toys he had left there the year before, and he was anxious to get his bike out. By ten o'clock they were all on their way, and she and Sam walked down the steps to the beach, with the dog just behind them. Sam had brought a ball, and he kept throwing it for the dog, who fetched it devotedly, even when Sam threw it in the water. And India walked along happily, watching them, with her camera slung over her shoulder. After nearly thirty years of carrying it, it seemed like part of her body. Her children couldn't imagine seeing her without it. They had walked almost a mile down the beach before they saw anyone they knew. It was still early in the season and people were only just beginning to arrive for the summer. |
| 1664 |
She felt completely at ease about their independent movements. It was one of the things she liked most about being at the Cape. It was a safe community of people she knew and trusted. There were virtually no strangers, and hardly ever summer renters. The people who owned houses here loved it too much to go anywhere else. It was one of the reasons Doug never wanted to go to Europe, and in some ways she couldn't blame him, although she longed to travel with him and the children. And when Sam came home that night she told him about the sailboat arriving in the morning. "They promised to call us as soon as it gets here." "I hope they don't forget," Sam said, looking worried, as she tucked him into bed, and kissed him goodnight, and promised him she was sure they wouldn't forget to call them. The others came home shortly after that. She made lemonade and popcorn for them, and they sat on the deck chatting and laughing, until finally one by one they went off to bed. Doug didn't call that night, and she didn't call him either. It was a relief to have some time to herself, and after the kids were asleep, she disappeared into her darkroom. It was late when she finally went back to her bedroom, and she looked out at the full moon over the ocean. There were a million stars in the sky. It was a perfect night, in a place she loved, and for a moment she missed Doug. Maybe it would have been nice after all if he'd been there, despite their recent differences, and his depressing outlook on marriage. She didn't want to be a "reliable companion" to him, she hated the thought of it. She wanted to be the woman he loved, and still dreamed of. And it was hard to believe even now that he thought so little of that. Maybe he hadn't really meant what he said that night, she told herself hopefully, as she looked at the night sky, and began to get sleepy. He couldn't have meant it... could he? Was it all as cut and dried to him as he had said? She wanted to be so much more than a reliable caretaker for his children. |
| 1665 |
He was a man of many facets and contrasts. He obviously lived a life of luxury, but somehow managed to combine it with a life filled with danger and excitement. And she also knew of his many victories on Wall Street. He had a reputation for integrity and success that had made him a legend. "I gave up the airlifts a few years ago. My wife had serious objections to it. She thought it was too dangerous, and she said she had no pressing desire to become a widow yet." "That was probably sensible of her." "We never lost a plane or a pilot," he said confidently, "but I didn't want to upset her. I still arrange funding for the project, but I don't fly the missions myself anymore. We flew a number of missions into Bosnia, to help the children while things were rough there. And of course Rwanda." Everything about him seemed both admirable and impressive, and she was fascinated by him. Just talking to him, she wanted to reach for her camera and take his picture, but she knew she couldn't. He had already been kind enough to Sam, and she didn't want to annoy him. He chatted with some of the other guests then, and half an hour later, he walked them all into the dining room, where there was an impeccably set table, covered with exquisite china and crystal and embroidered linens. He ran his boat like a fine hotel, or a beautifully run home. Every minute detail had been seen to with perfection. His hospitality was apparently as extraordinary as his sailing. India was surprised to find herself at Paul's right at lunch, and honored by the place he'd given her. And it enabled them to engage in a considerable amount of conversation. He was fascinating to talk to. He had an extensive knowledge of the world and the arts, a passion for politics, and a lot of strong opinions and interesting views. And at the same time, he had a gentleness, a kindness, and a wisdom that endeared him to her. And more than once, he had her laughing at stories he told on himself. He had a sense of mischief as well, and a wicked sense of humor. |
| 1666 |
There was something quiet and magnetic about her that drew her to him, and every time he watched her talk to Sam, something about the warmth of their exchange, and her gentleness with the child, touched him deeply. There were a lot of positive things he could have said about his wife, but nurturing had never been her strong suit, and gentle was not a word he would have used to describe her. She was exciting and passionate and opinionated and powerful and glamorous and brilliant. But she and India seemed as though they had been born on different planets and lived in different worlds. There was a softness to India, and a subtle sensuality, coupled with a sharp mind and mischievous wit, which he found inordinately attractive. And her straightforwardness and honesty were refreshing to him. His dealings with Serena were always fascinatingly convoluted. But that was Serena. And most of all, she loved to provoke him. India appeared to be a far more peaceful person, although she certainly did not appear to be "weak." And she was thoughtful before she answered his question about missing her work. "Yes, I do miss it. The funny thing is, I didn't for a very long time. I was too busy to even think about it. But lately, as the kids are starting to grow up, I feel a real void in my life where my work was. I don't know what just yet, but I think I need something to fill it other than children." It was that that Doug had absolutely refused to hear when she tried to talk to him about it. He just brushed her off, and her feelings on the subject, dismissing it entirely. And it was the first time she had actually translated her thoughts into words and told someone else about how she felt. "I don't see why you couldn't go back now, maybe on slightly tamer assignments," Paul suggested reasonably. It was more or less what he had told his wife. She could do one movie a year, and a book every two or three years. She didn't have to do two movies a year, four television shows, and a six book contract to complete in three years. |
| 1667 |
The truth was she didn't. And she was still having conflicting feelings about him ever since their discussions before she left Westport. But somehow, she got the impression he'd forgotten all about it. He had never fully understood how deeply he had upset her, or how devastated she had felt when he talked about what he expected of their marriage. Sometimes she felt as though she didn't know who she was now, his friend, his housekeeper, his "reliable companion." She didn't want to be any of those, she wanted to be his lover. And she realized now that she wasn't. She felt like a hired hand, a slave, a convenience, an object he took for granted. Like a vehicle he had used to transport his children. She felt no more important to him than the station wagon they had used to get there. It was an empty feeling and it put a distance between them she had never felt before. "I'll call you tomorrow," he said impersonally. "Good night, India." She waited for him to say that he loved her, or missed her, but he didn't. And she wondered, as she hung up, if this was how Gail had arrived at the place where she had been for several years now. Feeling used and bored and empty and unloved. So much so that she had to meet other men in hotels in order to feel better. It was a destination India never wanted to arrive at. She would do anything before she started meeting men in motels, or sleeping with other women's husbands. That was not what she had come this far for. But what had she come for, she asked herself as she walked into the darkroom, lost in her own thoughts. She took out her chemicals and began developing her film as she mused over her conversation with her husband, and then as she looked at the photographs developing in the tubs, she saw him. Paul. Smiling up at her. Laughing with Sam. Ducking his head in the dinghy, against the horizon looking incredibly handsome. It was an endless string of striking portraits of him, and told the tale of a magical afternoon between a man and a boy. |
| 1668 |
It was the portrait of a hero, and she stood for a long time, looking at the pictures, thinking about him, and Serena. He had used such an odd combination of words to describe her. In some ways she sounded terrifying, in others fatally enticing. She could sense easily that he was in love with her, intrigued by her, and he claimed he was happy with her. And yet, everything he said had told India instinctively that she was anything but easy. But what they seemed to share appeared to suggest excitement. It made her wonder once again what she had with Doug. What did it all mean? And more importantly, what were the essential components of a good marriage? She no longer understood them. The ingredients she thought were necessary she'd been told were unimportant, and the things Paul said about Serena, about her being difficult, obstinate, challenging, aggressive at times, seemed to make him love her. As India thought about it, she decided that deciphering relationships and what made them work was momentarily beyond her. She no longer had the answers she had been so sure of not very long ago. She hung the pictures up to dry, and left her darkroom to check on the children. Sam had fallen asleep, on the couch, watching a video, and the others were playing tag outside the house, in the dark by flashlight, and Jessica and a friend, one of the Boardman boys, were eating cold pizza in the kitchen. Everything seemed to be in order. All was well in her safe little world. She carried Sam to bed, and managed to undress him without waking him up. He was exhausted after all the fresh air and excitement he'd had on the Sea Star. And as she looked down at him, she thought of Paul and the pictures she'd taken of him. But then she had an even stranger thought, as she turned off the light and walked slowly back to her bedroom. She wondered suddenly what it would be like to be doing this alone, if she and Doug were no longer married. How different would it be? She did it all now. She cared for the children, she was here alone. |
| 1669 |
Would she feel more alone than she did now, knowing that she was just a tool to him, a convenience? What would happen to her if she lost him? Years before, she had worried about it, when the kids were small and she felt she couldn't live for an hour without him. But that had been when she thought he was in love with her. But now that she realized he wasn't in love, and felt no need to be, what would it really mean now to be without him? She felt guilty for even thinking of it, as though she had waved a magic wand and "disappeared" him. Just thinking about it was a form of treason. But no one knew what she was thinking. She would never have dared put the thoughts into words, not to anyone, not even Gail. And certainly not to Doug. She lay on her bed for a while, and picked up a book finally, but she found she couldn't read it. All she could hear were her own questions echoing through her head, and there were a thousand of them. And louder than all of them was the one she feared most. What did their marriage mean to her now? Now that she knew what Doug was thinking. It changed everything, like the subtle turn of a dial that changed the music from sweet melody to endless static that hurt one's eardrums. And she could no longer pretend to herself that what she heard was music. It wasn't. Hadn't been for weeks. Maybe longer than that. Maybe it never had been. That was the worst thought. Or had it been something very sweet, and had they lost it? She considered that possibility the most likely. Maybe it happened to everyone in the end. Eventually, you lost the magic... and wound up bitter or angry, or like Gail, trying to empty an ocean of loneliness with a teacup. It seemed hopeless to her. She gave up on the book eventually, and went out to the deck to check on the children playing tag, and found they had settled down in the living room finally, and were talking quietly with the television on in the background. And all she could do was stand there, staring up at the stars and wondering what would happen to her life now. |
| 1670 |
More laundry, more meals until they left for college, and then waiting for them to come home for vacations. And what would happen to her and Doug then? What would they say to each other? Suddenly, it all sounded so lonely, and so empty. That was all she felt now. Empty. Broken. Cheated. And yet she had to go on, like a piece of machinery, cranking away, producing whatever it was meant to, until it broke down completely. It didn't seem too hopeful, or too appealing. And as she thought of it, she looked out over the ocean, and saw it. The Sea Star, in all her glory, with all the lights lit in the main saloon and the cabins, with red lights twinkling on the mast, as they went for a night sail. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, and it looked like the perfect escape. A kind of magic carpet, to wherever you wanted it to take you. She could see why Paul sailed all over the world. What better way to explore new places? It was like taking your house with you, your own safe little world that went everywhere with you. At the moment, India couldn't imagine anything better, and for just an instant, she would have loved to hide there, and she thought Paul Ward was lucky to have it. The boat looked so lovely as it sailed past her. She was sorry that Sam was asleep and couldn't see it, but at least he'd be back on board in the morning, and she knew how much he was looking forward to it. She got all the kids into bed by eleven, and turned out her own lights shortly after. And in the morning, she got Sam up at seven thirty. He was on his feet almost before she touched him, anxious to get started. She had already showered and dressed. She was wearing a sky blue T shirt and white jeans, and pale blue espadrilles Gail had bought for her in France the previous summer, and her hair was braided and clean and tidy, as she walked into the kitchen to make breakfast. She had promised to leave blueberry muffins and fruit salad for the others, and there were four boxes of cereal for them. |
| 1671 |
She said she did her best writing after midnight. "I'd like that," India said quietly. She would have loved to see him again, and meet his wife. She would have liked a lot of things, most of them both impossible and unimportant. This was the first time she had felt this way about any man since meeting Doug twenty years before, when they were in the Peace Corps. But this time, her feelings traveled in the guise of friendship. "Take care of yourself, and Sam," he said, in a voice that was suddenly husky. He felt oddly protective of her, and the child, and didn't know why. Maybe it was just as well Serena was coming. She had called him from L.A. to herald her arrival only that morning. "I'll call you." She thanked him for calling then, and a moment later, after they hung up, she sat staring at the phone in silence. It was odd to think that he was so nearby, in his own World, comfortably tucked in to his life on the Sea Star. It was a lifetime away from her own. In truth, although they had had a sympathy of souls, their lives had nothing in common, no shared borders. Meeting him at all had been an accident of sorts, a happenstance of destiny that could just as easily have never happened. But for her sake, and Sam's, she was glad that she had met him. She lay in bed quietly that night, thinking of him, remembering the day they had shared, the conversations about her life, and what he thought she should do with it, and she couldn't help wondering if she would ever have the courage to do what he suggested. Just telling Doug she wanted to go back to work would cause a hurricane in their marriage. She took a long walk down the beach the next day, thinking of all of it, with the dog at her heels, wondering what to do now. It would be easiest, it seemed, to retreat back into the life she'd led for fourteen years. But she was no longer entirely sure that she could do that. It would be like going back into the womb again, an impossibility no matter how much goodwill she applied to it. |
| 1672 |
If he didn't at least give her credit for it, why bother? The next day was the Fourth of July. The kids slept late, and that afternoon, they went, as they always did, to the Parkers. The barbecue was in full swing, and all their neighbors were there. There were huge kegs of beer, and a long buffet table covered with the food the caterer had made this year. Nothing was burned, and it all looked delicious. All of India's children were there, and she was talking to an old friend, when suddenly she saw Paul walk in, in white jeans, and a crisp blue shirt, with a tall, striking woman with long dark hair and a spectacular figure. She was wearing big gold hoop earrings, and India thought she had never seen anyone as beautiful as she watched her laughing. It was Serena. She was every bit as glamorous and poised and magnetic as India had thought she would be. Just watching her make her way through the crowd was mesmerizing. She was wearing a short white skirt, a white halter top, a gold necklace, and high heeled white sandals. She looked right out of a magazine from Paris. And she had a kind of sexy elegance about her. As she approached, India could see that she was wearing a huge diamond ring, like an ice cube, on her left hand, and she stopped and said something to Paul, and he laughed. He looked happy to be with her. She was a woman you couldn't ignore or forget about, or lose in a crowd. Everyone seemed to turn and look at her, and some knew who she was. India watched her kiss Jenny and Dick, and she accepted a glass of white wine without even acknowledging the server. She looked as though she was totally accustomed to a life of luxury and service. And as though sensing India watching her, Serena turned slowly in the crowd and looked right at her. Paul leaned over to say something to her then, and she nodded, and they made their way slowly toward her. She couldn't help wondering what Paul had said to her, how much he had told her... I met this poor pathetic unhappy woman, who lives in Westport. |
| 1673 |
The children were out, spending final moments with their friends. There was always a kind of frenzy about the end of the vacation. Usually, they gave a barbecue, but they had decided not to this year. That in itself was a statement of sorts, but India didn't question Doug's decision when he said he didn't want to do it. Neither did she. She was tired of the pretense that everything was all right between them. For the first time in seventeen years, it wasn't. The angry seeds that had been sown in June had grown into a tree whose branches had begun to choke them. And India didn't know whether to chop it down, or hope it would wither on its own. The solution to the problem was still a mystery to her. "What do you mean?" Doug pretended not to know what she was talking about, but it was hard to ignore the unfriendly atmosphere between them, and she wanted to do something about it before they went home, and it poisoned their daily routine. It was bad enough to have sacrificed the summer to it, but a line had to be drawn somewhere before it was too late. "It's been a pretty lousy summer, wouldn't you say?" India said, looking across the kitchen table at him. They had just had lunch, and neither of them had said a word to each other. "We've both been busy. Some years are like that," he said vaguely, but they both knew it was a lie. No year had ever been like this between them, and she hoped it would never be like this again. "You've been busy, and we've both been upset and angry. I'd like to know where things stand. We can't go on like this forever. Something's got to ease up, or we'll both go nuts." It was just too lonely, never speaking to each other, never touching, each of them trapped on separate islands with no boat, no bridge to join them. She had never felt as alone as this in her entire life. She felt abandoned by him, deserted. He felt she had betrayed him, by saying the things she had, pressing him about going back to work, and asking him to give more than he ever had. |
| 1674 |
She arrived at Eighty fifth Street and Park Avenue five minutes before the service, and the church was jammed to the rafters. There were men in dark suits, and expensively dressed women. The entire literary community was there, she learned afterward, but she didn't recognize them. People from Hollywood had come too, and many of their friends. Every pew was filled, and there were people standing along the side aisles as the service began with a Bach sonata. It was all very proper and beautifully done, and extremely moving. And after Serena's agent, her publisher, and a friend from Hollywood spoke, Paul Ward made his way to the altar, and gave a eulogy to his wife that had everyone sobbing. It was dignified, and respectful of her many accomplishments and enormous success, but then he talked about Serena Smith, the woman. He made them laugh and cry, and think about what her life had been about, and when he wished her farewell, there wasn't a dry eye in the church. He had somehow managed to get through it, but he was sobbing as he returned to his seat in the front pew, and India could see his shoulders shake as she watched him, and ached to reach out a hand of comfort to him. He was the first to leave the church after the service, and no one stopped him as he disappeared into a limousine, still crying. And a moment later, India saw a younger man, whom she assumed to be his son, join him. He looked just like him. There was no receiving line, and everyone was so upset, most of them disbanded very quickly and disappeared into the rain, as India watched the limousine that carried Paul drive away, and hailed a taxi. She had never taken her eyes off him during the entire service, and she was quite sure he had never seen her. But she had only gone there out of respect for both of them, and to give support to Paul. And maybe Doug was right, she could have done as much by thinking of him at home in her living room in Westport, but she had wanted to be here, and she was glad she had come. |
| 1675 |
But he had called, though not often. He had called her in September again, and twice in October so far. He always called at odd hours, usually when she was home alone, around dinnertime for him, and when he correctly assumed Doug would be at the office. He never said anything inappropriate, and so far he had always sounded desperately lonely. He had even sounded a little drunk once, but Serena hadn't even been gone for two months, and India knew better than anyone how hard it was for him. The boat had been in Yugoslavia the last time he had called her, and he didn't sound as though he was having much fun, but he wasn't ready to come home yet either. He never said anything about seeing her, or about when he'd be back, though she wondered if he would return to the States around the holidays to see his son and grandchildren. Or maybe that would just be too painful. He had told her before that he and Serena had usually gone skiing in Switzerland for Christmas, and he had already vowed never to go to Saint Moritz again. He never wanted to see again the places he had been with her, never wanted to tread the same paths, or remember the dreams he had shared with her. "That rules out a lot of places," India had teased him, and he had laughed a little. He was having a very hard time readjusting. He always asked how things were going for her, and she was honest with him. She had made her peace with her situation, although she was no longer very happy. But she still refused to try rocking the boat again. She was satisfied, she claimed, taking pictures of her children, and Paul scolded her for it. He thought she should allow herself to be braver, but she wasn't. She was very different from Serena. But he seemed to love talking to her, and derived a lot of comfort from it. India never asked what he was going to do next, if he was going to go back to work, she never asked him for anything, or pressed him in any way. She was just there when he called, with her soothing voice and gentle ways, and it was exactly what he wanted. |
| 1676 |
She still was, but not enough to turn down the assignment. He had finally pushed her too far. "I love you, Doug," she said simply, as she walked out of the room. She did love him, but she wondered if he loved her. He didn't answer her, and she walked down the stairs with her camera equipment neatly packed in a bag over her shoulder. The bag had been her father's. And she picked up her suitcase and went out to the shuttle waiting to take her to the airport. It was a short ride, they stopped to pick several people up, and for the first time in years she felt independent. It was the first time she had gone anywhere without her children, and the feeling of freedom was overwhelming. After she checked in at the airport, she walked around the terminal and bought some magazines, and then she called Raoul to see if he had any last instructions. He told her he'd fax her if he had any new information about the second story, but other than that, he had nothing. And then she boarded the plane, and headed for London. She was due in at nine o'clock that night, and she was going to be picked up and taken to a ball the Queen was giving for the couple in the Painted Hall at the Royal Naval Academy in Greenwich. She had brought a long velvet skirt, a velvet blouse, and a string of pearls, and she was going to change in the limousine on the way in from the airport. It was more than a little different from her old assignments, but she could hardly wait to get there. She read and slept on the flight, and ate a little dinner, and she looked out the window for a while, thinking about the children she had left, who had been the boundaries of her life for so long. She knew she'd miss them, but she knew that they'd be fine for the short time she'd be gone. And then she thought about Doug, and the things he had said to her, the power he had wielded over her for so long, and the reasons he'd done it. It seemed so unfair, and so unnecessary, and now when she thought about it, she wasn't angry, but sad. |
| 1677 |
She took a couple of quick shots of the outside, and hurried inside to the party. And as she came up the steps, she looked up and saw the extraordinary paintings all around and on the ceiling. It was a cross between Versailles and the Sistine Chapel. And there were at least four hundred people dancing, and almost the moment she walked in, she began shooting. It was easy to spot her subjects. Prince Charles, the queens of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. She recognized all of them, as well as the President of France, several Crown Princes, and then she saw Queen Elizabeth in the distance, surrounded by guards, and chatting easily with the Prime Minister, and the President and the First Lady. She had had to show her pass when she entered, but she slipped it into her pocket after that, and spent the next four hours gliding discreetly from one group to the other. And at two A.M., when the party broke up, she knew she had gotten what she'd come for. It was the same warm feeling she'd had years before when she knew she got her story, although this time her subjects couldn't have been more different. The Queen had left hours before, and the rest of the illustrious guests filed out decorously, saying what an extraordinary party it had been, and some of them went to see the chapel. India took the last of her roll of film there, and then climbed into her car, and headed back to the city. They had gotten her a small room at Claridge's, which had been one of the promised perks of the job, and as she walked into the lobby with her camera, and her bag, she suddenly realized she was exhausted. It was two thirty in the morning there, which was only eight thirty in the evening for her, but she had been working for hours, traveling and covering her story. It felt just like the old days, although her work clothes then hadn't included velvet skirts and evening shoes. She had worn combat boots and camouflage, but she knew that she would remember the sights she had seen that night forever. |
| 1678 |
He was Australian, and not nearly as sympathetic as John O'Malley, although he had a dry sense of humor as he commented on the party. He said they'd worked together years before, in Beijing, but she no longer remembered, and he didn't look familiar. By the time they left the pub, O'Malley was pretty well oiled, and she had to get back to Claridge's to change again before she went on to the next party. She was grateful it was the last one before the wedding. It was held in someone's home, a spectacular affair on Saint James's Place, with liveried footmen, a ballroom, and chandeliers that blazed with candles. And when she got home at midnight, she called the children. They were just sitting down to dinner. She spoke to each of them, and they sounded fine. They said that they'd had fun in Greenwich the day before, and they missed her, and on Saturday their father was taking them skating. But when India asked to say hello to him, he told the children to say he was busy. He was cooking dinner. He could have come to the phone easily, she always did while she was cooking. And the phone had a long cord, which would have reached. But she got the message; he had told her he had nothing more to say to her, and apparently he meant it. She felt a little lonely when she hung up, after talking to them, and she decided to call Paul. She thought he might still be up, and he was, and she told him all about the party. It was nice being able to speak to him at any hour, and to tell him what she was doing. They talked for a long time, and Paul knew the people who gave the party. He seemed to know everyone who was there, and he was amused at her descriptions. It had been an interesting evening, filled with aristocratic and distinguished people. She could see why they had decided not to just send a staffer, and was flattered that they had offered it to her instead. "What time is the wedding tomorrow?" he asked finally with a yawn. He was getting sleepy, and the sea had been a little rough that night. |
| 1679 |
She had to go back for the next few days, to wrap it up. But she said she'd be through by Thursday. And then she was flying back to New York on Friday. He had almost wanted to ask her if she wanted to fly to Sicily to meet him on the boat for a couple of days, but he knew she couldn't. And he wasn't sure yet if he was ready to see her. In fact, he was almost sure he wasn't. But he would have, if it would have helped her to forget the story. It was certainly a universe apart from the wedding. They stayed on the phone with each other for a long time, and the sun came up over London as they talked. He felt as though he were there with her, and she was glad she had him to talk to. Doug would never have understood what she was feeling. Finally, he told her to get into a hot bath, try and get some sleep, and call him later. And after they spoke, he walked out on deck and looked out to sea, thinking of her. She was so different from Serena in every way, and yet there was something so innately powerful about her, something so clean and strong and wonderful that it terrified him. He had no idea what would become of them, or what he was doing. And he didn't even want to think about it. All he knew was that he needed to talk to her, more and more frequently. He couldn't imagine not talking to her every day now. And India was thinking exactly the same thing as she lay in the bathtub, and wondered where it was going. And what was she going to do when she got back to Westport? She couldn't call him constantly. Doug would see it on the bill, and wonder what she was doing. She had no idea what she was doing with Paul, or why. And yet she knew she needed him now. He was like a drug she had become addicted to, without realizing how it had happened. But it had. They needed each other. More than either of them was willing to admit, or knew. But little by little, over time, and from a great distance, they were moving slowly toward each other. And then what, she asked herself, as she closed her eyes. |
| 1680 |
In the end, there were thirty nine children involved, and most of them were in hospitals and shelters and foster homes. Only one, who had been kidnapped two years before, had been returned to her parents. The others had all been abandoned, or sold, or given away, or even bartered. They were truly the lost children, and India couldn't imagine, after what they'd been through, how they would ever recover. Every night she poured out the horror stories she'd seen to Paul, and that led to talk of other things, their values, their fears, their childhoods. Like hers, his parents were both gone, and he was an only child. His father had been a moderate success, but in most ways nothing like him. Paul had been driven to succeed, by demons of his own, to achieve in excess of everyone around him. And when India talked of her father and his work, it was obvious to Paul that she thought him a hero. But she was also well aware of what his constant absences had cost her. They had never been a real family, because he was always gone, which made her own family life now seem all that much more important. It was the hold that Doug had on her, she now realized, and why she didn't want to lose him. It was why she did everything he said, and followed all his orders, met all his expectations. She didn't want her children to have a life without their father. And although her own mother had worked, her job had never been important to her. It was her father who had been the central figure of their life, and whose absence, when he died, had nearly destroyed them. But she also recognized that the strain his lifestyle and his work had put on them had challenged her parents' marriage. Her mother had never thought him quite the hero that she did, and a lot of the time she was very angry at him. And India knew that his long absences had caused her mother a lot of heartache. It was why she was so nervous now about following in his footsteps, and why she had allowed Doug to force her to abandon a life, and a career, that meant so much to her. |
| 1681 |
But just as her father had never been able to give up the drug of his work, and the passion he had for it, although she herself had sublimated it for so long, she had come back to it, and discovered all too easily in the past few days, how much she loved it. And she knew, as she took photographs of the children's ravaged faces and eyes and lives, that somehow she was making a difference. In exposing their pain to the world, through her camera and her own eyes, she was making sure that it could not so easily happen again. She was making people feel the agony of those children. It was precisely what her father had done with his work, and why he had won the Pulitzer. He deserved it. It was her last night in London. She had finally finished the story, and she was leaving in the morning. She hadn't seen Paul while she'd been there, but in a way, she felt as though they'd spent the week together. They had discovered things about each other she had never said before, or dreamed about herself, or remotely guessed about him. He had been astonishingly open with her, about his dreams, his most private thoughts, and his years with Serena. And the portrait he painted of her taught India a great deal, not only about her, but about Paul, and what his needs were. Serena had been powerful in so many ways, she had pushed and driven him further toward his immense success, and supported him when he had doubts about it. She had been a driving force, always right behind him. But she had rarely leaned on him herself, was leery of needing him too much, and although she'd been his closest friend, she was afraid of being too close to him or anyone, though Paul didn't seem to mind it. They had been partners, but she had never nurtured him or anyone the way India did with everyone around her. Paul had discovered in his new friend a never ending source of warmth and tenderness and comfort. And the gentle hand she held out to him was one he trusted. In every possible way, the two women couldn't have been more different. |
| 1682 |
She kept trying to tell him to take Serena with him, the good parts of her, the memories, the joys, the wit, the wisdom, the excitement they had shared, the happiness she'd given him. But he had not yet found a way to do that. And in the meantime, with India, he could find a warm place to hide, a hand to hold, and a gentle soul to give him comfort. In the past week alone, he had come to need her more than he would have admitted. And the thought of not being able to call her whenever he wanted to now was beginning to upset him. And knowing she was in enemy territory, he was going to be worried about her. But the enemy he feared for her was, in fact, her husband. And Paul was nothing. A voice on the phone. A man she had met a few times the previous summer. He was in no way prepared to be more than that to her. But whatever it was they had, or had found together, he wanted. "I'll call you at lunchtime every day," he promised. But that left a void over the weekends. "I'll call you on the weekends," she said, feeling faintly guilty. "Maybe I can get to a pay phone, when I take Sam to soccer or something." There was something sneaky about it that disturbed her. But she didn't want her calls to him via the Satcom on their phone bill. And innocent as it was, she knew she couldn't explain this to her husband. It was the first secret pact she had made with anyone, the first clandestine thing she'd ever done, and yet when she questioned herself about it, she knew that it was different than Gail meeting men in motels. This was different. They talked longer than usual that night, and they both sounded lonely when they finally ended the conversation. She felt as though she had spent her last evening in London with him. The inspectors she had worked with all week had invited her out, but she said she was too tired to go, and she was. She was happy staying in her hotel room and talking to Paul on the phone. And she was surprised the next morning when he called just before she left the hotel. |
| 1683 |
And just looking at them made it feel as though she had never left them. It made London seem like a dream, and the stories she'd covered unreal, and her friendship with Paul nonexistent. This was her life, her reality, her existence. And the moment they saw her, Aimee let out a squeal, and Jason and Sam both ran toward her, as Jessica waved to her with a broad grin while holding the phone and chatting to one of her buddies. And suddenly she had her arms full of children, and she realized how much she'd missed them. Her life had seemed so grown up for a week, so independent, so free, and it had been exciting. But this was even better. "Wow! I missed you guys!" she said as she held them close to her, and then they broke free, and told her all at once what had happened all week. Sam had scored the winning goal at soccer, twice, Aimee had lost two more teeth, Jason had had his braces off, and according to them, Jessica had a new boyfriend. It was business as usual as she listened to them, and after ten minutes of celebrating her return, everyone went upstairs to do homework, call friends, or watch TV. By six o'clock it was as though she had never left them. She took her suitcase upstairs and sat on the bed, looking around her bedroom. Nothing had changed. It was the same safe little world, and her children had survived her absence. So had she. In an odd way, it made the trip seem completely unreal, and like a figment of her imagination. The only time it became a reality was when she saw Doug's face when he came home at seven. He looked like a storm cloud, and he barely managed to say hello to her before they sat down to dinner. The babysitter had stayed to help her, and had left before Doug came in. They were having steak and mashed potatoes and string beans, and even the kitchen looked tidy, as India went to kiss him. She was still wearing her traveling clothes, black wool pants and a warm sweater so she wouldn't be cold on the plane. And he turned away as she tried to kiss him. |
| 1684 |
She was married to a man who didn't seem to care about her, and calling a man thousands of miles away from a phone booth, and worried about how he was sleeping. In a weird, inexplicable way, it was like being married to two men, and having a real relationship with neither. "I'll talk to you soon," she said, as plumes of frosty steam curled into the frigid air in the phone booth. "Thanks for calling," he said warmly. They both hung up and stood rooted to the spot for a long moment, she thinking of what she was doing now, going to these lengths to speak to him, and he encouraging her to do it. And as they both walked away from their phones, they were equally confused, and equally happy to have spoken to each other. When she got back to Westport, everyone was waiting for her to start dinner, and they were arguing over what movie to go to. Doug was working on some papers he'd brought home, and didn't say a word to her, or ask her where she'd gone to. And looking at him, as he sat down to dinner next to her, she felt a shiver of guilt run through her. How would she have liked it, she asked herself, if Doug was calling women from pay phones? But it wasn't like that, she reassured herself. Paul was a friend, a confidant, a mentor. And the real issue, she realized, was not what Paul was providing in her life, but what Doug wasn't. In the end, after grousing about it, Doug decided to come to the movies with them, and they went to one of those huge complexes, which showed nine different movies, and he and the boys went to something suitably violent, while she and the girls saw the latest Julia Roberts movie. And when they got home, everyone was happy and in good spirits. All in all, despite the strain between her and Doug, it was a passably good weekend, as good as it ever was now. In order to survive the loneliness of her life, India found she had to apply different standards. As long as they didn't have any major fights, and he didn't threaten to leave her, it qualified as a decent weekend. |
| 1685 |
She had been making him miserable for the last six months, and he was sick and tired of it. As far as he was concerned, she had broken every contract she had ever made with him when they married. "I've had it up to here with your bullshit," he said, as he pulled a suitcase out of the top of his closet, threw it on the bed, and started throwing things in it. He wasn't even looking at what he was packing, he was just throwing in handfuls of ties, loose socks, and whatever underwear he found in his drawers without caring what it looked like. "Are you divorcing me?" she asked miserably. It was a hell of a time of year to do it. But there never was a good one. "I don't know yet," he said, as he snapped his suitcase shut. "I'm going to stay in a hotel in the city. At least I won't have to do that goddamn commute every day, and then come home to listen to you bitch about your career and how unfair I'm being to you. Why did you even bother to get married?" With a handful of words he had cast aside the years she had devoted tirelessly to him and their children. With a single gesture he was willing to throw away seventeen years of their marriage. But she had no idea what to do now to stop him, or change things. She just couldn't give up everything to please him. In the end, it would do just as much harm as what he was doing now. And she didn't entirely disagree with him. The last six months had been a nightmare. He stomped down the stairs and out the front door without saying a word to her, or the children watching TV in the living room. And he slammed the door as hard as he could behind him. India looked out the window and saw him drive away, and she could see it had started snowing. Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she picked up the magazine he had left on the floor. She sat down heavily in a chair, and looked at it, and realized as she did, that it was the best thing she'd ever done, and made the Harlem child abuse story look like a fairy tale in comparison. This one was brutal. |
| 1686 |
But he had certainly made himself clear to her. He would not be at the end of the tunnel for her. He didn't want to be there. It was a taste of reality for her, and left her few illusions. It was not what she had been hoping for, whether she had faced it or not, but it was honest. Paul was always honest with her. They talked for a little while longer, and finally she knew she had to go home. She was frozen to the bone by then anyway, and it had not been a happy conversation. And with tears in her eyes, she wished him a Merry Christmas. "You too, India..." he said sadly. "I hope next year is better for both of us. We both deserve it." And then, for no sane reason she could fathom given what he'd said to her, she wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she didn't. That would have been crazy. But it was something they both needed, and had too little of, except from each other. The words remained unsaid, but the gifts they had given each other, of time and caring and tenderness, spoke for themselves, whether or not they heard them, or chose to. She went back home after her call, with a heavy heart. He had told her what she had been wondering for months, and didn't want to hear, but at least she couldn't fool herself now about what might happen someday, or what she meant to him. It was precisely what she had told herself it was, nothing more than an extraordinary friendship. She could not use him as a safety net into which to leap from her burning marriage. And in her heart of hearts, she knew he was right not to be that. She and Doug went to midnight mass, as they always did, and took all four children with them. And when they got home, she put the last presents under the tree, while Sam put out cookies for Santa, and carrots and salt for the reindeer. The others were good sports about leaving him his illusions. And in the morning, there were squeals of delight as they opened their gifts. She had chosen them carefully and spent a lot of time on it, and even Doug was pleased with what she gave him. |
| 1687 |
As scary as it was for her, and it had been, in a funny way, she knew it was what she wanted. And if nothing else, she had freedom. She had all the responsibility of the children, but she knew she could organize it so she could take some local assignments. Raoul sent her on one in Washington in February. It was an interview with the First Lady. It wasn't as exciting as a war zone, but it was close to home, and it kept her hand in. And then she did another story about a coal mine in Kentucky. She had no time for any social life but by then, Doug had an apartment, and according to Gail, who had heard it on the grapevine, a girlfriend. He hadn't wasted much time, and had started seeing her a month after he left home. She was divorced and had two kids, and lived in Greenwich. She had never worked, talked too much, had great legs, and was very pretty. Three of Gail's friends knew her and made a point to tell her everything so it would get back to India. They thought she should have the information. Paul still called her every day, and he was finally beginning to sound better. He still had bad dreams, but he had regained his sense of humor, and he was starting to talk about business. And although he wouldn't admit it, India suspected that he missed it. Serena had been gone for six months by then, and although India knew he still missed her desperately, he was starting to tell some of the funnier stories about her, about the outrageous things she'd done, the people she had insulted brilliantly, and the vendettas she had engaged in. They painted her in a less saintly light than the things he had said about her before that. And it indicated he hadn't entirely lost his perspective about her. But what also showed, each time they spoke, was how much he still loved her. He had been a huge support to India once Doug was gone, and he always said she was better off, and when she was down, he had trouble seeing why she missed him. The fact that she had been married to Doug for longer than he had known his wife, somehow escaped him. |
| 1688 |
There was a light rain falling, and the traffic was bad, and it seemed to take forever. But she had given herself plenty of time for delays, and when she parked the car in the garage, she still had half an hour to spare before Paul got there. She wandered around the terminal, looked at the shops, and checked herself in the mirror. She had worn a gray pantsuit and high heels, and she was carrying a trenchcoat. She had thought of wearing something more glamorous for him, like her black suit, but in the end, she decided it was silly. They were just friends, and they knew each other so well by now, she would have felt foolish trying to look seductive or sexy. She had worn her hair in a French twist, which was her one concession to dressing up for him, and makeup. But now as she stood waiting for him, she began to wonder what he expected of her, and why he had asked her to meet him. She wondered if he was afraid to come back to New York, to face his memories there, and she suspected that he would be. It wouldn't be easy for him, even after all this time, especially going back to their apartment. He had hidden in a cocoon for the past six months, cloistered on the Sea Star, and holding her hand, for whatever comfort she could provide, from the distance. But whatever his reason for calling her, she was happy to be there. She checked her watch repeatedly, and looked up at the board, to see if he'd arrived, wondering if he'd be delayed. And finally the notice to his flight was changed, and told her that he'd landed. But she knew it would still be a while. He had to go through Customs. It seemed interminable to her, standing there, waiting for him. It was another half hour before passengers began to dribble out, fat grandmothers, and men in jeans, two fashion models carrying their portfolios, and a vast array of ordinary people and young children. She wasn't sure if they were from his flight, but finally she began to hear a flood of English accents, and knew this had to be the flight from London. |
| 1689 |
It was so good to see him. "I'm sorry I don't have anything to feed you, India." "I'm not hungry, I just thought you were," and then she glanced at her watch. "You must be exhausted." "I'm holding up. It's nice being with you." He wasn't happy thinking about being alone in the apartment with his memories, and all the reminders of Serena. He knew that all her clothes were still in her dressing room, and he dreaded seeing them. He hadn't asked anyone to do anything about them. And later, he would have to walk through all of it to get to his own closets. He cringed inwardly, knowing what he'd see there, her slippers and her dressing gown, and her handbags and dresses, all arranged in neat rows by color and designer. She had been incredibly organized and obsessive about everything, even her wardrobe. "Tell me when you need to go back to Westport." He didn't want her on the road too late. It was dangerous driving back alone, he knew, but he didn't want her to leave either. After all these months of talking to her, he wanted to be close to her, but he wasn't sure how to say it. And it seemed wrong here to even put an arm around her. She interpreted his correctness as a sign of the fraternal quality of their friendship, but he had no idea how to change that. They talked about the children then, and his board meeting the next day. He explained what it was about, and told her something more about his business. And he asked her if she'd heard anything lately from Raoul. She hadn't mentioned him in a while, and he hadn't called her for any more assignments, which she said was just as well, since she didn't want to leave the children at the moment. The divorce was still too fresh a concept for them, and she wanted to be around to make sure they made the adjustment. They talked for a long time, as they always did, and then finally he looked at his watch, and told her that he thought she should go, so she wasn't on the road too late. It was already after midnight, and she wouldn't be home till one in the morning. |
| 1690 |
He kissed her again, and he held her with such strength that she felt breathless. And then without a word, he stood up and walked her slowly to his bedroom, and then stopped in the doorway. "I'll do whatever you want," he said with a look of sorrow in his eyes. He knew that with that single gesture, he was leaving one life and entering another, if that was what she wanted. He loved her more than he had ever thought possible, and he knew it with perfect clarity at that moment. "If you want to go back to Westport, it's all right... I'll understand." But she shook her head as she looked at him. She didn't want to go anywhere now without him. Like him, she had known this for a long time. She had fought it valiantly, she had been there for him, and called him from ice cold phone booths. But now that was all behind them. "I love you, Paul," she said softly. He turned the lights out then, and laid her on the bed, and lay next to her, holding her and touching her, and reveling in all her warmth and softness and glory. He peeled the black suit away, and everything he found beneath it, and they clung to each other with a hunger neither of them had realized they had for each other. And when she lay naked next to him, he looked down at her with all the love and tenderness he felt for her. "You're so beautiful, India," he whispered, as she reached up to him with the smile he had remembered for so long and the arms he had been starving for, and gently she brought him to her. They met and held and danced in the skies, as together they found what they had been looking for, in the arms of someone whom they not only loved, but who loved them. It was everything neither of them had had before, and only discovered now, with each other. It was like being born again, for both of them, as they clung to life and hope and the dreams they each had forgotten, and long since ceased to believe in. And as she moaned softly in his arms, he brought her to places she had never known, and had only dimly realized she longed for. |
| 1691 |
He just said he'd call him if he didn't go away for the weekend. But Sean knew instantly what that meant. And when he went home to his wife, racked with morning sickness and looking green, he told her his father had lost his marbles. But to her credit, she had the same reaction as her father in law, and told her husband not to be so stuffy. His father had a perfect right to do what he wanted, and Sean told her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business. But the dreams Paul had that night were far worse than anything Sean could have wished on him. He dreamt of Serena all night, and airplanes exploding in midair. Twice he woke and heard her screaming at him about what he'd done, and then he heard her sobbing because he'd been unfaithful to her. And Paul felt ninety when he woke up in the morning. And one thing Sean had said had stuck in his mind like a cactus. What if India got pregnant? The thought of it made him nauseous. And when she called him in the office that afternoon and left the message that she'd be at the hotel to meet him at five thirty, he had his secretary call back to say he'd be there. But the moment he saw her, he forgot his nightmares and Sean's warnings. The instant he kissed her, he melted. They wound up in bed before dinnertime, and finally sent for room service at midnight. She was the most bewitching woman he'd ever known, and in spite of how many children she had, he knew he loved her. Worse than that. He was crazy about her. And the weekend they spent together was pure magic. They walked in Central Park and held hands, went to the Metropolitan, and the movies. They saw a love story that ended badly, and they both cried. They bought books together, and read, and listened to music. They loved all the same things, and she talked with great anticipation about their cruise together on the Sea Star. She shared all her dreams with him, and her fears, as she had on the phone, and by Sunday afternoon, he hated the idea of her leaving, but she had to pick up the children after dinner. |
| 1692 |
And Sunday night was worse than Thursday had been. He dreamed that he lay in Serena's arms all night, and she begged him not to let her die, she wanted to stay with him forever. He woke up at three A.M. and sobbed for an hour, racked with guilt over what he was doing. He never went back to sleep, and in the morning he knew he should never have survived her. He couldn't bear to live through it. And when he called India, she sounded so sweet, and she was obviously concerned about him. He felt like a dead man himself when he left the hotel for the office. He had promised to go to Westport that night, but at six o'clock he called her and told her he couldn't. He just couldn't face her. He needed another night to himself, just to think about Serena, and what he was doing. He thought he'd probably feel better in the morning, and India had promised to drive into the city. She had a sitter who could stay overnight, and she had told the children she was visiting a sick friend, and had to stay over with her. But how often could she do that? And when she got to the hotel that night, Paul was waiting for her. He looked gray, and India was instantly worried. She asked him what he'd eaten, and if he had a fever, and he told her calmly that he didn't. "You don't look well, sweetheart," she said gently. And he felt like a serial killer. After the months they'd shared on the phone, he knew her too well, knew how she thought and what she felt, and everything that she believed in. She believed in hope and dreams and honesty and loyalty and all the best of human emotions. She also believed in happy endings, and this one wasn't. It couldn't be. He had realized in the two days he hadn't spent with her that he was still in love with Serena, and felt sure now that he always would be. He sat down next to India on the couch and looked at her, and she felt her heart sliding slowly to her feet. All he could see was the golden hair, the huge blue eyes growing bigger by the minute, and her face getting so pale it scared him. |
| 1693 |
The stitches on her head had left a scar that followed the edge of her hairline alongside her left temple for several inches. Within three weeks of the accident, it was still bright red, but they promised that within six months no one would see it, and it could have been worse. Much worse. She could have been brain damaged or dead, and she had been very lucky. There had been a plastic surgeon on duty in the trauma unit that night, and he had stitched her head up for her. He was pleased with his handiwork when he checked her three weeks later. And the broken arm only took four weeks, and was her left arm, so she wasn't totally handicapped by it. The injury that gave her the most trouble was the whiplash, and she was still wearing a collar for it when Raoul called her in April. He had a story for her in the city. A magazine was doing a story of the victim of a rape. It promised to be a sensational trial, and they needed photographs of it. She hesitated for two days, and then decided to take the story. She needed the distraction, and when India met her, she liked the woman. She was twenty five years old and had been a famous fashion model, but the rapist had slashed her face and ended her career on a grassy knoll on a night in Central Park, where he had taken her at gunpoint when she got out of a cab on Fifth Avenue. The story took two days, and the only thing she didn't like about it was that they met at the Carlyle, and it reminded her of Paul, but other than that it went very well. And the pictures made a big splash when they were published a week later. She hadn't heard from Paul in a month by then, and she hadn't called him. She had no idea where he was, and she tried not to think about it. She still felt like she was in a daze a month after he had left her. It had been like getting everything she'd ever dreamed of, and then losing it. The only difference was that the model was visibly destroyed. The scars that India carried with her now were just as deep, but could not be seen. |
| 1694 |
But she knew that, with Doug there, they'd be fine. Tanya had even called to tell her she'd take over her car pools, and it made India realize for the first time that she was probably going to stick around. It was strange to realize that Doug's life had moved on so completely. The waters had closed over her, but she didn't object to Tanya as much as her children did. They said that she was "creepy," and talked to them like babies, and wore too much makeup and perfume. But from India's perspective, it could have been a lot worse. He could have wound up with some twenty two year old bimbo who hated the kids, and at least Tanya didn't. She seemed to be a good sport about them. They were moving in the day she left, and she had everything ready for them. Lists, and instructions, a week's worth of food in the refrigerator and the freezer. She would have frozen some microwave dinners too, but Doug had told her that Tanya loved to cook, and wouldn't mind cooking for the children. And when the children left for school, India kissed all of them after making breakfast, and reminded them to be good. She had left emergency numbers, in case they needed them, but she had warned everyone that she would be hard to reach. The field hospital had a radio of some kind, and messages to her would have to be relayed through there. More than anything, she knew it would be hard on the kids not to talk to her. And on her as well. But at least she knew they were in good hands, and thanks to Doug and Tanya, they could stay home, and not have their lives disrupted. She called Gail before she left, and asked her to keep an eye on things, and Gail wished her luck. As much as she hated to see her go, she knew it would do her good. It was only since she'd gotten the assignment in Africa that she had begun to look like herself again. It had been two months since Paul had left her. And ever since then, India had looked dead. And for all intents and purposes, she was, and felt it. Gail hoped that somehow the trip would bring her back. |
| 1695 |
She would be so busy, and so far away, and so much at the opposite end of the world, that she wouldn't have anything to remind her of him. India started the first leg of the trip with a noon flight to London. She was spending the night at an airport hotel there, and then flying on to Kampala, in Uganda, the next day. From there she had to take a small plane to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and after that, she had to drive to Cyangugu, at the southern end of Lake Kivu, in a jeep through the bush. She left in blue jeans and hiking boots, with a down jacket, her old camera bag slung over her shoulder, and everything she was taking in one small tote bag. And as she left the house, she stopped for a minute, looked around, patted the dog, and prayed silently that everything would be all right till she got back. "Take care of them for me," she said to Crockett, as he looked at her and wagged his tail. And then, with a small smile of anticipation she walked out to the shuttle waiting to take her to the airport. As it turned out, the trip was endless. And the last two legs of the trip were even worse than Raoul had said. The small plane from Kigali to Cyangugu was a tiny egg crate that only carried two passengers, and there was hardly room for her one small bag. It bumped along terrifyingly, barely scraping over the top of the trees, and they landed in a clearing between some scrawny bushes. But the scenery was incredible, and she had already started shooting before they touched ground. The jeep they had promised her turned out to be an old Russian truck, and God only knew where they had found it, but it was obvious to her after half an hour, that wherever they had found it, it had been abandoned by its previous owners because it no longer worked. And the half hour drive turned out to be two and a half. They had to stop every half hour to fix the truck, or push other stalled vehicles out of die mud. She was becoming an expert with spark plugs and a jerry can by the time they were halfway there. |
| 1696 |
He said he loved it and explained a lot to her about the tribes in the area, mainly Hutu and Tutsi, and where the children had come from who were in the field hospital where they worked. "It'll make a hell of a story," he assured her. He was a good looking young guy, and it depressed her to realize he was probably half her age. In this part of the world, you had to be young to be willing to put up with the hardships. At forty four, she was practically an old lady compared to the other people on the team. But she was only staying for three weeks. "Where do you get your supplies from?" she asked, as they bumped along. It was long after dark by then, but both he and the driver had assured her it was safe. The only thing they had to worry about, they said, was the occasional elephant or tiger. But they were both carrying guns, and had promised they were good shots. "We get our supplies from anywhere we can," he said, answering her question, as they rattled along in the darkness. "Hopefully not the same place you got the truck." He laughed and told her they got a lot of supplies airlifted in from foreign countries. And some aid from the Red Cross. It was two o'clock in the morning when they arrived, and they took her straight to her tent. It was tiny and airless, and looked like ancient war surplus from an underdeveloped country, but by then she didn't care. They gave her a sleeping bag and a cot, and suggested she sleep with her shoes on, in case elephants or rhinos passed through the camp, and she had to move fast. And they warned her that there were snakes. "Great," she said. But this was Africa, not London, and she was so tired, she would have slept standing up. She was woken by sounds of movement in the camp the next morning, and as she came out of the tent, still in the same clothes she wore the night before, with uncombed hair and teeth that needed brushing, she saw the field hospital up ahead. It was a huge Quonset hut that a group of Australians had built two years before. |
| 1697 |
And everyone seemed to be moving around with a purpose. She felt like a sloth standing there trying to get her bearings, still half asleep. "Nice trip?" an Englishwoman asked her crisply with a bright smile, and told her where the loo was. There was a mess tent behind the hospital, and after India brushed her teeth and washed her face and whatever else she could reach, she combed her hair and braided it, and headed there. It was a glorious morning, and it was already hot. She had left her down jacket in the tent, and she was starving. There was an odd mixture of African food for the natives, and an unappetizing assortment of frozen food and powdered eggs for everyone else. Most people opted for a piece of fruit, and all she really needed was coffee, and then she was going to look up the list of people she had to see to get her story started. She was finishing her second cup of coffee, with a piece of dry toast, when a group of men walked in, with the New Zealander she had met the night before, and someone said they were pilots. She was looking at the back of one of them with interest. There was something vaguely familiar about him. But he was wearing a flight jacket and a baseball cap, and she couldn't see his face. And it didn't matter anyway. She didn't know anyone here. She wondered if it was someone she knew from her old days of trekking around the world. Even that was unlikely. Most of the people she had known had either retired, moved on, or been killed. There weren't too many other options in her line of work, and most people didn't keep doing this kind of thing forever. There were too many risks attached to it, and most sane people were only too happy to trade it eventually for an office and a desk. She was still looking at them, when the New Zealander waved to her, and started walking toward her. And as he did, the three pilots followed. One of them was short and heavyset. The second one was black. And as she stared at him and gasped, she saw that the third one was Paul. |
| 1698 |
He had preferred to close the door in her face, not to call her, or let her call him. And she had no intention of ever calling him again. But for the next three weeks, in whatever way she had to, she would be his friend. She held out her hand to shake his, but Paul refused, and kept his hand in his pocket. "I'll see what I can do" was all he said, and then he stood up and walked away. He wasn't angry at her, but he still felt very badly, and seeing her only made it worse. He had also missed her desperately each and every day. And now, seeing her reopened all the same wounds. But he still belonged to Serena and he knew it. But he also knew that there was a lot of wisdom, and generosity of spirit, in what India had said. And now he had to absorb it, and decide how he felt about it. India already knew what she felt about him. And if they could no longer be lovers, for now, at least, she was willing to be his friend. "Are you two arch enemies from a past life?" Ian asked her later that evening, as they walked back to their tents. "Sort of," she said, it was easier than saying they had been lovers, even if only for a few days. "We'll get over it. There's no better place to do it than here." But as she lay in her sleeping bag that night, on the narrow cot that felt like it was going to collapse every time she moved or breathed, all she could think about was him. She had taken a lot of great photographs that day, and gathered good background information, but the thought that kept running through her mind was that Paul didn't even want to be her friend. He couldn't even give her that much. It was yet another blow to add to the rest. But she had done her part, and it had cost her dearly. Every time she had looked at him, or spoken to him, all she wanted to do was cry. And she did that finally, alone and in silence, as she lay in her tent sobbing. The next day he went to Kinshasa for two days, and it was easier for her not to see him at the camp, and she concentrated on her work. |
| 1699 |
It was a beautiful night, and the sounds of Africa were all around them. Rwanda had its own special sights and smells. There were blossoms everywhere, and their heavy perfume was something India knew she would always remember. And there was always the smell of charcoal fires mixed with food in the camp. They slipped into the party quietly, and Paul went to talk to some friends, and then chatted with his two pilots. He felt better that he had gotten her out, she had a right to some fun too, but he didn't want to crowd her. He felt as though he owed her something now, and even if there was no way he could repay it, he felt better being friendly at least. India talked to the nurses for a long time, gathering more information for her article, and she was one of the last to leave the party. Paul watched her go, but he made no attempt to follow her. He was just glad she looked like she'd had a good time. He had a lot to drink, but he was still sober when he went back to the tent he shared with the other pilots. There was no luxury for any of them here. It was about as bare bones as it could get, even more so than her life in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. But she found it very comforting, and good for the soul, and it was so familiar to her. The next day India was busy photographing some newly arrived orphans, and when she tried to talk to them in the little bit of Kinyarwanda dialect she'd learned, all of them laughed at her, and she laughed with them. She was slowly beginning to regain her sense of humor. She was busy all week, and on Sunday there were religious services in a nearby church that Belgian missionaries had built, and India attended with some of the others. And that afternoon, Ian, the New Zealander, invited her to go for a ride in the jeep, to show her the surrounding territory, so she could take more pictures. She hadn't run into Paul all day, and Ian told her he'd gone to the market in Cyangugu. At least they had a little space from each other, which was rare here. |
| 1700 |
But he'd been out of work for so long, he had decided to use up his savings to come here, and do something for humanity for a change. Like so many others, he had been there for two years. And India knew he was dating one of the nurses. There were no secrets in camp. In many ways, it was just like the Peace Corps, only considerably more grown up. They were flying an old military plane Paul and his friends had bought them. And they took it off the ground easily as India sat in a jump seat behind them, shooting constantly with her camera. There were herds of rhinos on the hills beneath them, and she could see banana plantations forever. She was totally intent on what she was doing, and wished she could hang out of the plane to get better shots. Paul flew as low as he could without her asking, but she knew he was doing it for her. She also knew he took a long route for better pictures and she thanked him as they finally came in for a landing at Bujumbura. The market was swarming with people, and she got some wonderful photographs, although they didn't really relate to her story. But they were background at least, and there was always a chance she could use them. She wasn't taking any chances. She shot everything she could get. And when Paul and Randy went to pick up supplies, she took photographs of them loading the plane, with the help of several Hutu in their native dress. Finally they were ready to leave but first they sat at the edge of the airstrip and ate some fruit they bought in the market. And every now and then an armadillo lumbered past. She grabbed her camera a couple of times, and got the shot. But after a while, even she got blase about what they saw. "It's incredible here, isn't it?" Randy said with a wide smile. He was a handsome guy and he looked more like a movie star than a director. But there was nothing arrogant about him. And it was obvious he liked India tremendously. By chance, he had read her piece on abuse in Harlem, and the one she'd done in London on childhood prostitution. |
| 1701 |
But she knew that despite what no longer existed between them anymore, she was going to miss him. "I'll call you sometime, if I ever get back to civilization." There was no threat to him anymore, and no promise either. "I'd like that." And then he took her in his arms and held her for a few final seconds. There was a lot he would have liked to say to her, but he didn't know how. More than anything, he wanted to thank her, and he wasn't even sure why. Maybe just for knowing who he was, and letting him be that person. They had somehow managed to find a kind of unconditional acceptance of each other. There were tears in her eyes as she boarded the plane, and he stood on the tarmac and watched her for a long time. And then he stood there and watched the plane, as it took off, circled the airfield once, and headed slowly back to where she had come from. He got back in his own plane then, and flew back to Cyangugu, and he had an odd feeling of peace as he thought about her. She didn't frighten him anymore, she didn't make him run away, and his feelings for her now, whatever they were, didn't even make him feel guilty. He just loved her, as a friend, a mother, a sister. He knew he would miss the laughter he had shared with her, and the mischief in her eyes, and the raw outrage she expressed when she thought he had said something stupid. She was no longer hurt or angry at him or afraid of him. She wasn't desperate for him to love her anymore, nor did she expect anything from him. She wasn't desperate for anything. She was a bird sailing through her own skies, and thinking of her that way made him feel strangely happy. And it was only when he got back to camp, and everyone was saying how much they would miss her, that he felt the full force of her absence. It hit him harder than he'd expected. He walked past her tent later that day, and felt a physical ache as he realized he wouldn't see her. Suddenly, the distractions she had provided seemed more important than he'd realized. |
| 1702 |
And he sounded happy. He had added a P.S. telling her he was still looking for a guy in a slicker for her, and she had smiled when she read it. It was odd looking back a year, to when she had met him on his yacht, and she and Sam had sailed on it. It had been the beginning of a dream for her, but at least she no longer felt it had ended in a nightmare. She still felt sad remembering what she'd felt for him, but the scars on her heart were beginning to fade, like the scar on her head she'd gotten the night he left her. She had learned that you couldn't hang on to sorrow forever. She called Raoul at the end of July, hoping to land an assignment for the time when the kids stayed at the Cape with Doug in August. But so far, Raoul had nothing. The oddest thing of all was remembering that only a year before, she and Doug had still been together, and doing constant battle. It seemed to her now as though they had been apart forever. It made her pensive to realize how lives changed, and how different things were. A year before, she had been married to Doug, begging him to let her work again, and Serena had still been alive. So much had changed in a year for both of them. So many lives had come and gone, and unexpectedly touched them. She wondered sometimes if Paul thought about the same things as she did. How things had changed in a year for both of them. Sam had taken sailing lessons in July, and loved them, and she had signed him up for a second session in August. He still talked with awe about the Sea Star. And to India, that part of her life seemed like a dream now. The weather had been good that year too, right up until the end of July, and then suddenly it changed and they had a cold spell. It rained for two days, and got so chilly, she had to force the children to wear sweaters, which they hated. They stayed inside and watched videos, and she took all of them, and half a dozen of their friends, to the movies. It was harder finding things for them to do in bad weather. |
| 1703 |
Hurricane Barbara was due in two days, and judging by the weather maps, they were directly on its path of promised destruction. The first one of the year so far, Hurricane Adam, had struck the Carolinas two weeks before and caused untold damage. And she hoped that this one wouldn't do the same to them. And despite her reassurance to the children, she was actually a little worried. Doug called them, concerned, and gave her some helpful instructions. But basically, there wasn't much they could do. If it started to look too dangerous, and they were told to evacuate, she was going to drive them back to Westport. But India was still waiting to hear if it was going to veer away and change its course just enough to spare them. She hoped so. And in the last hours of the hurricane watch, she got her wish. Hurricane Barbara shifted just enough to unleash an incredible storm on them, but the eye of the storm was heading now toward Newport, Rhode Island. But in spite of that, the winds still managed to tear off their screens, destroy their trees, and do enough damage to the roof to cause a leak in the kitchen. She was putting buckets under it and rushing around checking windows two days before the end of her stint in the house, when she heard the phone ring. She never answered it anymore, it was always for the children. But they were all out, and she picked it up finally with a look of irritation. There was no one on the line. She would have thought it was a prank, except for the fact that they had been having trouble with the phone lines all morning. It rang again, and did the same thing, and she was sure that either some of the phone lines were down, or they were about to lose their power. And then, when she picked it up a third time, she heard a crackling on the line, and there was so much static she couldn't hear the voice on the other end clearly. All she could hear were intermittent words that meant nothing. And there was no way she could recognize the caller, or even determine if it was a man or a woman. |
| 1704 |
And as she began running toward the yacht club, through the wind, she knew that she was crazy to think it, or hope it, or believe it... He wouldn't do this, yet she knew he had as the boat stayed on a steady course, in spite of the heavy seas that fought her. She saw him pass the rocks on the point, and as the boat continued to battle the wind and waves, India watched it. Maybe he wasn't even on board, she told herself, so she wouldn't be disappointed. Maybe it was another boat, and not the Sea Star. Or maybe he was as foolish as she was, to believe in something they had once had and lost, and at times she still dreamed of. She wanted it to be him now, wanted him to be there, more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. She wanted it to be Paul who had called her. And when she reached the yacht club finally, she was breathless. She ran out to the point, and stood there watching, waiting for him. Boats were bobbing violently at anchor, and a few of the owners had come down to secure them. She could see them working feverishly, and as she looked out to sea again, her breath caught as she saw him. He was standing on the deck in his foul weather gear, and there were two men with him. They were close enough to see now. She assumed the men with him were crew members, and they seemed to be moving with great speed, as he pointed to things and worked with them. But there was no doubt in her mind now it was Paul. She recognized him easily, and as she watched, he suddenly turned toward her. They were very near now, and attempting a complicated maneuver to bring them safely into the harbor. She stood as still as she could in the wind, her eyes never leaving him, and he waved at her. And as she squinted against the storm, she saw him smiling, and she lifted her arm and waved in answer. He was standing on deck, waving back at her, and in spite of her raincoat, she was soaked to the skin. But she didn't care. She didn't care if he disappointed her again, she just wanted to know now. |
| 1705 |
And that irked him. More than that, it pained him. It was the cause for the lines beside his eyes, the sorrow one saw deep within him. It wasn't enough that he wrought miracles almost daily. He wanted more than that, better odds, he wanted to save them all, and there was no way he could. "Yes, Doctor." The nurse nodded quickly. "She just went up." "Was she ready?" That was the other thing about him and the nurse marveled at the question. She knew instantly what he meant by "ready"; not the I.V. in the patient's arm, or the mild sedative administered before she left her room to be wheeled to surgery. He was questioning what she was thinking, feeling, who had spoken to her, who went with her. He wanted each of them to know what they were facing, how hard the team would work, how much they cared, how desperately they would all try to save each life. He wanted each patient to be ready to enter the battle with him. "If they don't believe they have a fighting chance when they go in there, we've lost them right from the beginning," the nurse had heard him tell his students, and he meant it. He fought with every fiber of his being, and it cost him, but it was worth it. The results he'd gotten in the past five years were amazing, with few exceptions. Exceptions which mattered deeply to Peter Hallam. Everything did. He was remarkable and intense and brilliant... and so goddamn handsome, the nurse reminded herself with a smile as he hurried past her to a small elevator in the corridor behind her. It sped up one floor and deposited him outside the operating rooms where he and his team performed bypasses and transplants and occasionally more ordinary cardiac surgery, but not often. Most of the time, Peter Hallam and his team did the big stuff, as they would tonight. Sally Block was a twenty two year old girl who had lived most of her adult life as an invalid, crippled by rheumatic fever as a child, and she had suffered through multiple valve replacements and a decade of medication. |
| 1706 |
There was a bright whiteness to them, reminiscent of interrogation rooms in B movies. Outside their intense beam, the studio was drafty and chill, but directly beneath their intense gaze, one could almost feel one's skin grow taut from the heat and glare. It was as though everything in the room focused on the object of the spotlight's beam, all points came together as one, intensifying moment by moment, as even the people in the room seemed drawn to its center, a narrow ledge, a shallow stage, an unimpressive Formica desk, and a bright blue backdrop with a single logo on it. But it wasn't the logo that caught the eye, it was the empty chair, throne like, waiting for its king or queen. Hovering about were technicians, cameramen, a makeup man, a hairdresser, two assistant producers, a stage manager, the curious, the important, the necessary, and the hangers on, all of them standing ever nearer to the empty stage, the barren desk, on which shone the all revealing spotlight's beam. "Five minutes!" It was a familiar call, an ordinary scene, yet in its own remote way, the evening news had an element of "show biz" to it. There was that faint aura of circus and magic and stardom beneath the white lights. A mist of power and mystery enveloping them all, the heart beating just a shade faster at the sound of the words, "Five minutes!", then "Three!", then "Two!" The same words that would have rung out in a backstage corridor on Broadway, or in London, as some grande dame of the stage emerged. Nothing here was quite so glamorous, the crew standing by in running shoes and jeans, and yet, always that magic, the whispers, the waiting, and Melanie Adams sensed it herself as she stepped briskly onto the stage. As always, her entrance was timed to perfection. She had exactly one hundred seconds to go before they went on the air. One hundred seconds to glance at her notes again, watch the director's face to see if there was any last minute thing she should know, and count quietly to herself just to calm down. |
| 1707 |
Her parents wanted her to fight back, but she didn't think that she could. She was too hurt by what he'd done, and too overwhelmed at the prospect of being alone for the birth of her child... which then turned out to be two. Her parents had helped her for a while, and then she had gone out on her own, struggled to find a job, and done everything she could from secretarial work to door to door sales for a vitamin firm. At last she had wound up as a receptionist for a television network, and eventually she had wound up in a pool of secretaries typing up pieces for the news. The twins had thrived through it all, though Mel's climb hadn't been easy or quick, but day after day, typing what other people wrote, she knew what she wanted to do. The political pieces were the ones that interested her most, reminiscent of her college days before her whole life had changed. And what she wanted was to become a writer for the news. She applied countless times for the job, and eventually understood that it wouldn't happen for her in New York. She went first to Buffalo, then Chicago, and at last back to New York, finally getting work as a writer for the news. Until a major strike, when suddenly management looked at her and someone jerked a thumb toward the set. She was horrified, but she had no choice. It was either do what they said, or get her ass canned, and she couldn't afford that. She had two little girls to support, their father had never contributed ten cents and had gone on his merry way, leaving Mel to cope alone. And she had. But all she wanted was enough for them, she had no dreams of glory, no aching desire to deliver the stories she wrote herself, and yet suddenly there she was, on TV, and the funny thing was, it felt good. They farmed her out to Philadelphia after that, and back to Chicago again for a while, Washington, D.C., and at last home. In their estimation, she had been properly groomed, and they weren't far wrong. She was damn good. Powerful and interesting, and strong, and beautiful to watch on the air. |
| 1708 |
He wanted to give the child time to settle in without disruption, and he had agreed to meet Mel in the cafeteria at seven o'clock the following morning. He would brief her then on Pattie Lou's condition, and how they planned to treat her. She was welcome to bring a notepad and a tape recorder, but there was to be no camera crew at that meeting. The official interview would come later. But Mel found that she was grateful for the reprieve from the medical tension, and she went to her hotel and called the twins in New York, showered, changed, and walked the area around her hotel in the balmy spring air, her mind constantly returning to Peter Hall am. She was desperately curious to meet him, and at six the next morning, she rose swiftly, and drove her rented car to Center City. Melanie's heels clicked rhythmically on the tiled floor as she turned left down an endless hall, and passed two maintenance men dragging wet mops behind them. They watched her back recede into the distance with an appreciative glance, until she stopped outside the cafeteria, read the sign, and pushed open the double doors. Her nostrils were assailed with the rich aroma of fresh coffee. And as she looked around the brightly lit room, she was surprised at how many people there were at that hour of the morning. There were tables of nurses having coffee and breakfast between shifts, residents taking a break, interns finishing a long night with a hot meal or a sandwich, and one or two civilians sitting bleakly at tables on the sidelines, undoubtedly people who had been up all night watching for news of critically ill relatives or friends. There was one woman crying softly and dabbing at her eyes with a hankie as a younger woman dried her own tears and tried to console her. It was an odd scene of contrasts, the silent fatigue of the young doctors, the mirth and chatter of the nurses, the sorrow and tension of people visiting patients, and behind it all the clatter of trays, and steaming water being splashed on dirty dishes in efficient machines. |
| 1709 |
Again and again, Melanie heard the names of the drugs given to heart transplant patients to allay rejection of the new heart. And she began to make a few notes herself, of questions she wanted to ask him when he had time, about the risks of these drugs, their effects on the patients' personalities and minds. Suddenly she saw Peter Hallam get up, and begin to walk quickly down the hall. She followed him a few steps, and then stopped, unsure of whether or not he wanted her with him, and as though sensing her indecision, he suddenly turned to her with a wave. "Come on." He waved to a stack of white coats on a narrow stainless steel cart and indicated to her to grab one, which she did on the run, and caught up with him as she struggled to put it on. He had his arms full of charts, two residents and a nurse were following respectfully behind. Peter Hallam's day had begun. He smiled once at Mel and pushed open the first door, which revealed an elderly man. He had had a quadruple bypass two weeks before and said that he felt like a boy again. He didn't look much like a boy, he still looked tired and pale and a little wan, but after they left his room, Peter assured her that he was going to be fine, and they moved on to the next room, where suddenly Melanie felt a tug at her heart. She found herself staring down into the face of a little boy. He had a congenital heart and lung disease, and nothing surgical had been done for him yet. He wheezed horribly and was the size of a five or six year old child, but a glance at his chart told Mel that he was ten. They had been contemplating a heart lung transplant on him, but thus far, there had been so few done that they felt it was too soon to attempt it on such a young child, and intermediary measures were being taken to keep him alive. Melanie watched as Peter sat down in a chair next to his bed and talked at great length to him. More than once, Melanie had to fight back tears, and she turned so the boy wouldn't see her damp eyes. |
| 1710 |
She made her way to a bank of pay phones then, and waved at Pearl, crying and laughing in an adjoining booth. She got the camera crew set up for an interview with Pearl at one o'clock. They could do it in a corner of the hospital lobby, so she wouldn't have to be far from Pattie Lou. Mel looked at her watch, and mentally worked it all out. At two o'clock they would go over to the complex where Peter's offices were, and set up for the interview with him. She didn't expect any problem with the interviews, and she began to think about going home to the twins the following night. It had been a good story, and she would have only been gone for three days, though it felt more like three weeks. She went downstairs to wait for the crew. They arrived promptly and interviewed a deeply grateful and highly emotional Pearl Jones. The interview went very well, sketched out beforehand by Mel as she gobbled a sandwich and gulped a cup of tea. And at two o'clock they moved on, and were ready for Peter promptly at three. The office where he sat for the interview was lined with medical books on two walls, and paneled in a warm rose colored wood. He sat behind a massive desk, and spoke earnestly to Mel about the pitfalls of what he did, the dangers, the realistic fears, and the hope they were offering people as well. He was candid about both the risks and the odds, but since the people they did transplants on had no other hope anyway, the risks almost always seemed worthwhile, and the odds were better than none at all. "And what about the people who choose not to take that chance?" She spoke in a soft voice, hoping that the question wasn't too personal and wouldn't cause him too much pain. He spoke softly too. "They die." There was a moment's pause and he went back to talking specifically about Pattie Lou. He drew diagrams to explain what had been done, and he seemed very much in command as he described the surgery to both the camera and Mel. It was five o'clock when they finally stopped, and Peter seemed relieved. |
| 1711 |
The hall floors were done in a pale beige travertine, with matching console tables at either end, and a beautiful French brass chandelier. And here there was another smaller but equally formal sitting room done in soft blues. There were velvets and silks, and a marble fireplace, and wall sconces and a crystal chandelier, pale blue silk drapes with pale yellow and blue trim, tied back with narrow brass arms that allowed one a view of the pool. Beyond it was a little office done in dusty pinks, but Peter frowned as they passed that room and Melanie instantly sensed that it was unused. Not only that, but that it had been Anne's. And beyond that was a handsome library done in dark greens, which was obviously Peter's sitting room. There were walls and walls of books, a small mountain of chaos on the desk, and on one wall an oil portrait of Anne, and double French doors leading into their bedroom, which Peter now slept in alone. It was all done in beige silk, with French commodes, a beautiful chaise longue, and the same rich curtains and sconces and another beautiful chandelier. But there was something about the place that made one want to take off one's clothes and dance around, and defy the formality of it all. It was almost too much, no matter how beautiful it was, and the more Melanie saw, the more she felt that it just didn't look like him. They took another staircase upstairs then, and on this floor everything was brightly colored and fun, and the open doors showed three large, sunny children's rooms. The floor of Matt's was littered with toys, and Mark's half closed door showed total chaos within, and the third door was ajar and all Mel could see was a huge white canopied bed, and a woman's back as she lay on her side on the floor near the bed. At the sound of their footsteps in the hall, she turned and stood up, whispering something into the phone and then hung up. Melanie was astonished at how tall and grown up she looked. If this was his middle child, it was difficult to believe that she was not yet fourteen. |
| 1712 |
In fact, just about everything was different about their two homes, from their maids to their decor, to their kids, and yet she felt as though she had a great deal in common with him. It was funny how differently they lived. "Would you care for some iced tea?" She looked disapprovingly at their beers, and Mel felt like a wayward child. "No, thank you very much." She smiled again, to no avail, and with a curt nod, Hilda Hahn disappeared to her own domain behind the swinging doors that led to the kitchen and breakfast room, pantry, and her small apartment in the rear. She was extremely comfortable here. When Mrs. Hallam had built the house she had promised Hilda her own suite of rooms, and that was what she had now. Mrs. Hallam had been a fine woman, she always said, and would say so again, many times, and did later on in plain hearing of Mel, before she brought the dinner in. And Melanie had noticed Pam's eyes seem to glaze over as Hilda mentioned her mother's name. It was as though they were all still fighting to recuperate and it had been almost two years. One almost wanted to put away the pictures for them, pack them up, and move them to another house. They were all still so devoted to her, as though they were waiting for her to come home, and it made you want to tell them that she never would. They had to get on with their lives, every one of them. The two boys seemed better adjusted to their mother's death. Matthew had been so young when she died that his memories of her were already dim, and he climbed willingly into Mel's lap after they had a swim, and she told him about the twins. Like Pam, he was fascinated by the idea of twins and wanted to know what they looked like. And Mark seemed like a bright easygoing boy of seventeen; there was a look of greater wisdom in his eyes than his years would suggest, and yet he seemed happy as he chatted with both Peter and Mel. He only got annoyed when Pam arrived and complained that his friends were still hanging around the pool. |
| 1713 |
It wasn't right that she should think so much about him. What was he to her after all? An interesting man, the subject of an interview, nothing more, no matter how appealing he was. She tried to fill her mind with thoughts of Val and Jess, and suddenly he would crop up. She was still thinking of him as she threw her suitcase into the back of a cab and headed for the airport at eight o'clock that night, and suddenly in her mind's eye, she saw a crystal clear vision of Pam, a troubled, brokenhearted, lonely little girl. "Shit." She muttered out loud, and the driver glanced at her. "Something wrong?" She had to laugh at herself, and shook her head. "Sorry. I was thinking of something else." He nodded, nonplussed. He had heard it all before anyway, as long as she gave him a decent tip, that was all he cared about, and she did. That was good enough for him. Once there, she checked her bag at the curb, she went in and checked in, bought three magazines, and sat down near the gate to wait for her flight. It was already nine o'clock, and in twenty minutes they would board. She looked around and realized that the flight would be full, but as usual, she would be traveling first class, so it probably wouldn't be too bad. And she flipped through the magazines waiting for the flight to be called, keeping one ear alert to the flight number. It was the last flight of the day headed for New York, familiarly termed "the red eye," because that was how one would arrive at six o'clock the next morning, red eyed and exhausted, but at least one didn't lose an entire day flying. And as she listened, she suddenly started. She thought that she had heard her name, but decided that she had been mistaken. They called the flight, and she waited for the first crush of passengers to get on board, and then picked up the briefcase and handbag she was carrying and got on line with her ticket and her boarding pass in her hand, and again she heard her name. But this time she was certain it was not her imagination. |
| 1714 |
But Mel was vehement about following the rules, she was grateful that Peter let them be there at all and she didn't want to abuse the privilege. And, at last, wheeled into the room on a stretcher with the side rails up, Marie appeared. Her eyes were closed, and she looked deathly pale. She didn't stir at all, until Peter walked in, in mask and gown, and spoke to her. He didn't even seem to see Mel then, although he glanced once at the camera crew, and seemed satisfied at where they stood. And then everything got under way, as Mel watched in fascination. Peter constantly glanced at the monitors and gave a constant series of orders to his team. They moved in total unison like an intricate ballet of hands, with instruments being passed to him from an enormous tray. Melanie looked away when they made the first incision, but after that she was drawn to the intensity of the scene, and hour after hour she stood by and watched, praying silently for Marie's life, as they worked endlessly to replace her dying heart with the new one of the young woman who had died only hours before. It was fascinating to watch as they lifted the old one from her chest and placed it on a tray, and Melanie didn't even gasp as she watched them lower the new one into the cavity they had left, valves and arteries and veins were hooked up as the hands moved ceaselessly over the woman's chest; Melanie held her breath, then suddenly the monitors came to life again, and the sound of the monitored heartbeat leapt into the room like a drum in everyone's ears, and the cardiac team gave a cheer. It was truly amazing. The heart so lifeless since the death of its donor sprang to life again in Marie's body. The surgery went on for another two hours after that, and at last the final incision was closed, and Peter stood back, his back and chest drenched, his arms sore from the precise work, and he watched carefully as they slowly pushed her bed from the room again, into a nearby cubicle where she would be watched for several hours. |
| 1715 |
Then at last, feeling drained, she closed the book and lay her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. The stewardess had offered her cocktails, wine, or champagne several times, but she had declined. She wanted to be left alone with her own thoughts, and after a while she drifted off to sleep for the last few hours of the flight. The trip from west to east always went too quickly to get much rest, with tail winds pushing the plane along, they made it to New York easily in just under five hours. She woke again with the sound of the landing announcement in her ears, and a stewardess touching her arm, asking her to fasten her seat belt before they would land. "Thank you." She looked up at the stewardess sleepily and stifled a yawn, as she fastened her seat belt and then opened her bag to take out a comb. She felt as though she had been wearing the same clothes for days, and wondered again if she would find her suitcase waiting for her in New York. It seemed aeons since she had almost gotten on the plane in L.A. some thirty hours before, and been stopped by Peter's call. And then her mind drifted back to him again. His face seemed to come alive before her again as she closed her eyes, and then forced herself to open them again as she felt the plane land on the runway in New York. She was home. And she had a mountain of work to do for the news and on the film she had done of him and Pattie Lou, and she had lots to do with the girls as well. She had her own life to lead, and yet there was the oddest feeling of regret to be back. She wished she could have stayed longer in L.A., but there was no need, and she could never have explained it to the network in New York. She found her bag waiting for her in the special services area of baggage claim, picked it up, walked outside and hailed a cab, and headed for New York City at full speed. There was no traffic at all at six thirty in the morning, and the sun shot darts of gold across the sky, which was reflected on the windows of the skyscrapers that lined the view. |
| 1716 |
As she left the house, she glanced at her watch, and saw that it was eleven o'clock. Peter would be in surgery by then. And suddenly she had an overwhelming urge to call the hospital and inquire about Marie, but she had to retreat back into her professional life now. She couldn't take on all their problems as though they were her own, Marie's heart, Peter's kids, Pam's empty, lonely life, little Matthew with the big blue eyes... suddenly she found herself longing for them again. And pushing them determinedly from her head, she hailed a cab and sailed downtown, looking at the city that she loved, as people scurried into Bloomingdale's and down into the ground to catch the subway, hailed cabs, or rushed in and out of skyscrapers on their way to work. It was like being part of a movie just being there, and she felt buoyant and alive, even with almost no sleep, as she walked into the newsroom with a happy smile. "What's with you?" The story editor growled at her as he rushed past, carrying two cans of film. "I'm happy to be back." He shook his head, muttering, as he disappeared. "Fool." She found a stack of mail on her desk, memos, summaries of major news items she'd missed while she was gone, and went out into the hall to watch the Teletypes coming in for a while. There had been an earthquake in Brazil, a flood in Italy that had killed a hundred and sixty four people, the President was going down to the Bahamas for a long weekend to fish. The news of the day didn't look overwhelmingly bad or good, and when her secretary came to tell her that there was a call for her, she went back into her office and picked up the phone without sitting down, and answered absentmindedly, glancing at the memos on her desk. "Adams here." There was a moment's pause, as though she'd thrown someone off with the brusque words, and she heard a long distance purr. But she didn't even have time to wonder who it was. "Is this a bad time?" She recognized the voice instantly and sat down, surprised to hear from him. |
| 1717 |
She was met again by a police escort there, and she decided to go to Center City before going to her hotel and sleeping for a few hours. She would have to go to work at seven o'clock the next morning, and it was already four o'clock in the morning in L.A. But when she reached Center City, there was no further news, and she got to her hotel just before five A.M. She figured that she could sleep for an hour or so before reporting for work. She was just going to have to drink a lot of black coffee, and she requested a wake up from the hotel operator so she wouldn't oversleep. They had booked her into a hotel where she had never stayed, but it was close to Center City. And suddenly she realized how strange it was that she was back in L.A. again so soon, and wondered if she would have time to see Peter. Maybe when it was all over. Unless, of course, the President died. She might have to fly back simultaneously with Air Force One to attend the funeral in Washington, in which case she would never see him. But she hoped for the President's sake that wouldn't happen. And she desperately wanted to see Peter in the next few days. She wondered if he'd known she was there. She woke up instantly when the operator called, all her senses alert, although her limbs ached and she felt as though she hadn't slept at all. But she would have to operate on black coffee and nervous energy and stay on her feet somehow. She had done it before, and she knew she could do it this time. Dressing quickly in a dark gray dress, and high heeled black shoes, she was out of the hotel and in the police car at six thirty and at the hospital ten minutes later, to get the latest details and go on the air. It was already almost ten o'clock in New York by then and the eastern portion of the country had been hungry for news for hours. She saw the camera crew she had used before in the fray along with at least fifty other cameramen and two dozen reporters. They were camping out in the lobby and a hospital spokesman was giving them bulletins every half hour. |
| 1718 |
The President was doing well, but the First Lady was obviously extremely worried. His condition was stable, but it was difficult to predict what might happen in the air. Nonetheless, he wanted to go back to Washington, and his physicians had approved the plan. Mel completed the interview and waited in the hallway, until forty five minutes later when the President appeared on a stretcher. He waved his arm to the nurses and technicians lining the hall, and he smiled gamely and murmured greetings, but he still looked deathly pale, was heavily bandaged and there was an intravenous tube running into his arm. There were a fleet of Secret Servicemen surrounding the gurney, interspersed with doctors and nurses who would be returning to Washington with him. Mel fell into step at a respectful distance, and took another elevator to the lobby, where she joined up with the handful of other select reporters flying east on Air Force One. A separate limousine had been reserved for them, and she stepped into it with one glance back over her shoulder at Center City. She would have liked to have left a message at the desk for Peter before she left, but there was neither the opportunity nor the time, and a moment later they sped away toward the airport. "How'd he look to you?" The reporter next to her asked briefly, checking some notes while lighting a cigarette with one hand. They were a relaxed group of pros, but nonetheless there was a faint hint of electricity and tension in the air. It had been an endless week for them all, and it would be good to get home and unwind. Most of them were returning to their home base as soon as they reached Washington, and the network had already booked a seat to New York for Mel at ten o'clock that night. She would be picked up at La Guardia at eleven and taken home. In a way, she felt as though she were returning from another planet. But she was not at all sure she wanted to go home now, as her mind lingered on Peter's words, and his face, and his lips the night before. |
| 1719 |
She was closing the house in New York for the summer, and her two large suitcases were already in the hall, along with all three tennis rackets, two large straw hats belonging to the girls, Mel was wearing hers, and Raquel's small green vinyl suitcase. She came with them every year for six weeks, and took the last two weeks off and returned to New York alone for her vacation. "Come on, you guys! We have to be at the airport in half an hour!" But they were only going to La Guardia, so she knew that they would make it. There was a wonderful upbeat feeling to their departure every year and she always felt like a young girl again as they left for Martha's Vineyard. She had signed off on the news the night before and she and Grant had gone out for a drink after his show to celebrate her temporary release, and things had been relaxed between them, but he could see in her eyes that she was still confused, and lately she had been tired and nervous. She had worked long hours at the station, finished the piece on heart surgery in California, and done two major interviews and a feature before she left, so they'd have them to use during the summer. She was, as always, conscientious about her work, and lately it seemed to be taking more of a toll than it had before, but Grant had suspected that it was because of the emotional whirl she was in, although he still knew none of the details. And in fact, Peter was still calling her every day, and Melanie still had no idea what would ever come of it, if anything. And lately, she'd even been worrying about her contract which had to be renewed in October. There were a lot of political changes at the station, and there was talk of a new owner, and God only knew what that would mean. But Grant reassured her when they went out that she had absolutely nothing to worry about, and Peter said the same when she confessed her concern to him. But nonetheless it had been on her mind, and now all of it could be packed up and put away for two months. |
| 1720 |
And on Tuesday morning, Mel took the ferry back, and flew from Boston to New York. She reached the house at four o'clock in the afternoon, which gave her plenty of time to air the place out, and then turn the air conditioning on, go around the corner to buy fresh flowers and whatever groceries they might need, and then come back and get ready to meet him. His plane wasn't due in until nine, and she left for the airport at seven thirty to be cautious, which was just as well, because the traffic was heavy and cars were overheating left and right and it was eight forty five when they got there. She had just enough time to check the gate at which he would arrive and then hurry out there, and then stand tapping her foot nervously for the next half hour, as they were fifteen minutes late. And at nine fifteen exactly, the big silver bird drew up to the gate, and passengers began deplaning. She stood watching intently as the people poured off, with California tans, and straw hats, and bare golden legs, and silk shirts open to the waist with gold chains, and then suddenly she saw a man who looked nothing like any of them in a beige linen suit and a blue shirt and navy tie, his hair only slightly bleached from the sun, and his face tan. But there was a serious air about him, as he walked toward Mel and looked down at her where she stood, and then without further ado he bent to kiss her. They stood there for what seemed like a very long time as people eddied around them like a river cascading past rocks, and then he looked at her and smiled. "Hello." "How was the flight?" "Not nearly as nice as this." He grinned, and with that they walked hand in hand to pick up his baggage, and then went to hail a cab. But time and time again they stopped to kiss as they made their way out of the airport, and Mel wondered how she had ever survived without him. "You look wonderful, Mel." She had a deep tan which set off her green eyes and copper hair and she had worn a white silk dress with a flower in her hair and white high heeled sandals. |
| 1721 |
Fresh flowers on the desk and near his bed, a silver thermos filled with ice water, stacks of thick towels next to the tub, and the lights were on invitingly as they came up the stairs. She had put him in Jessica's room, because Jessie was neater, and it was easier to make him comfortable there. "This is absolutely lovely." He sat down at the desk and looked around with delight, and then at Mel again. "You have such a loving touch." She thought the same of him, although it wasn't as apparent in his home, which still bore the chill trace of Anne, but as he reached out to her now there was such a gentle look in his eyes. She walked slowly toward him and he took her hand from where he sat. "I'm so happy to see you again, Mel." And then he pulled her down on his lap and kissed her again, and she was still breathless when they went back downstairs. They sat at the kitchen table and talked for hours, as they had for weeks now on the phone, and it was almost two o'clock when they finally went back up and said good night outside Mel's room with another endless kiss, and then with a smile and a wave he disappeared up the stairs to her daughter's room. And Mel went into her own room, as she thought of every word he had said to her that night, and before, and she realized again how happy she was with him. He just put himself out there and held out a hand to her. As she brushed her teeth and took off her dress, she couldn't stop thinking of him and she slid into her bed, glad that he had stayed at the house. Apparently, they could handle it with ease, and she liked hearing him walking around upstairs. With the time difference he wasn't tired yet, and the odd thing was that neither was she. All she could do was lie there and think of him, and it seemed hours later when she heard him padding softly down the stairs and past her room. She listened and heard the kitchen door close, and with a grin she got out of bed and followed him down. He was sitting at the kitchen table eating a ham and cheese sandwich and drinking a beer. |
| 1722 |
When Mel left the house that night, she simply got in the car and drove, with no set plan of where to go, no one she wanted to see. All she wanted to do was get away, from her house, her job, their kids, and him. And for the first fifty miles, all she thought of was where she was leaving from, not where she was going to. But after that, she began to relax, and suddenly after almost two hours, she stopped for gas, and grinned to herself. She had never done anything quite as outrageous in her life, as she had done in walking out on him. But she couldn't take anymore. Everyone was pushing her, and it was time she thought of herself instead of all of them. Even as far as this baby was concerned. She didn't have to do a damn thing she didn't want to do. She didn't even have to live in that house if she didn't want to. Hell, she made a million bucks a year, she could buy her own goddamn house, she told herself. She didn't have to live with Anne's ghost, if she didn't want to, and she already knew that she did not. And as she began driving again, with a full tank of gas, she began thinking of all the changes she had made in her life in the last six months, and how few changes had been required of Peter. He still worked in the same place, with the same people who respected his work, slept in the same bed he had slept in for a number of years. His children hadn't been moved out of their home. He even had the same housekeeper. The only thing that had changed for him was the face he kissed before he left the house for work, and maybe he didn't even notice that. And as Mel pulled into Santa Barbara, she began to steam again, and she was glad she'd left. She was only sorry she hadn't done it before, but who had time, between driving Pam to her shrink, trying to pacify the twins, keep a remote eye on Mark, and play Mommy to Matthew, and hold Peter's hand when his transplant patients died, not to mention doing interviews, specials, and the six o'clock news every night, it was a wonder she had time to dress and comb her hair. |
| 1723 |
Everyone was dying to attack their food. Peter had already carved the turkey, and Pam had cooked her favorite recipe for candied yams. The twins had helped with the rest, and everyone was in a festive mood, including Mel, who claimed she had no room for anything. The baby felt huge now. Peter had teased her for the past two months that it was twins again, but the doctor swore that it was not. He could only hear one heart this time, and despite her age, she had opted not to have the amniotic fluid test, so they had no idea what the baby was. But whatever it was, it was large. It was due in another two days, and most of all, Mel was grateful to have Thanksgiving with them. She had been worried that she would be in the hospital by then. And although they had a new housekeeper, she had wanted the day off, so Mel had cooked the dinner herself. "Seconds anyone?" Peter looked around with a contented smile. His latest transplant patient was doing well. And they had moved into the new house three weeks before. They could still smell fresh paint all around them, but they didn't seem to mind. Everything looked beautiful and fresh, and each of them had their own rooms, even the new baby whose room was already filled with toys they all had bought. Matthew had contributed a teddy bear and an old set of cowboy guns, and without saying a word to Mel, Pam had knitted a little dress for the baby to wear home from the hospital. She had been desperately nervous about doing it right, and the entire family knew about the project except Mel, who cried when she opened the gift on her last day at work, when she came home, feeling the letdown of her last Friday night news for a while. It had taken them all almost a year to settle down, and in some ways they never would. She would always be dashing off to cover the news, and Peter would be gone at two A.M. to try to repair another damaged heart. But there was something different between them all now. It was a stronger bond than had been there before. |
| 1724 |
It was almost true. But not quite. She, and those who wanted to be critical, could tell the difference. The shining dark red hair that used to hang down her back in sheets of coppery brilliance had faded to a reddish brown now. She wore it to her shoulders and there were more than a few threads of silver, which bothered the children more than they did Sarah. The bright blue eyes were the same, they were a dark, vibrant blue, and the creamy skin was still fine and for the most part unlined, but there were tiny traces of time here and there, but Oliver only said that they gave her face more expression. She was a pretty woman, and she had been a pretty girl, long and lean, with a good figure and graceful hands, and a sense of humor that danced in her eyes. It was that that he had loved about her from the first. Her laughter and her fire, and her courage, and her rabid determination to stick by what she believed in. There were those who thought her difficult when she was young, but not Ollie. Never Ollie. He liked the way she thought, and the things she said, and the way she said them. They had a relationship built on mutual respect and caring, and they had a very good time in bed. They always had, and they still did. Sometimes he even thought that after twenty years it was better. And it was, in some ways. They knew each other perfectly, like satin smooth wood that had been touched and caressed and traveled a thousand times by loving hands and the tenderness of true belonging. It had taken him exactly two years to convince her to marry him after her SoHo days, and at twenty three she had become Mrs. Oliver Watson. Balking all the way, and in typical fashion, she had refused to have a traditional wedding. They had been married in the garden of his parents' Pound Ridge home, and her parents and her younger sister had come from Chicago. Sarah had worn a bright red dress and a big picture hat, and she looked more like a young girl in a painting than a bride, but they had both been happy. |
| 1725 |
But Oliver was thrilled. He wanted four kids, he had always said so, and even if it stretched their budget just then, he was willing to face it. He was doing well, advancing rapidly in the firm, and even if they had been starving, he wouldn't have let her get an abortion. He just wouldn't. It was their baby. Theirs. And long before the baby came, he loved it. Benjamin Watson arrived with a shock of bright red hair, and a look of astonishment in his bright eyes, exactly nine months and three days after his parents' wedding. He looked anxious to discover the world, cried a lot, and looked almost exactly like his mother, much to Oliver's delight, who was thrilled to have a son, and particularly one who looked like Sarah. Benjamin grew like a weed, and had more than Sarah's looks. He had her determination, her stubbornness, and her fiery temper. And there were days when she thought she would strangle the child before Oliver got home to soothe them. Within minutes of his arrival on the scene, he had the baby cooing happily, laughing, playing peekaboo, and he walked around the house, carrying him in his arms, while Sarah collapsed in a chair with a sigh and a glass of wine, wondering how she was going to survive it. Motherhood was definitely not her strong suit, and the apartment was so small, it was driving her crazy. When the weather was bad, as it often was that year, they couldn't get out at all, and the baby's screams seemed to echo off the walls until she thought she would go crazy. Oliver wanted to move them out of town somewhere to a home of their own, but that dream was still a long way off, they couldn't afford it. Sarah offered to get a job, but whenever they tried to figure it out, it seemed pointless, whatever she might have earned would have gone to pay a sitter, leaving them with no more money than they had before. The only ourpose it would serve would be to get her out of the house, and although it appealed to Sarah, Oliver thought that it was important for her to be with the baby. |
| 1726 |
Suddenly she could go out, to libraries, to meet friends, to art galleries and museums, and her disposition improved immeasurably. She even started to enjoy Benjamin, and once or twice she took him to the museum with her. And Oliver knew that although she wouldn't admit it to him, she was beginning to look forward to their second baby. Melissa was born when Benjamin was two, and Oliver started thinking seriously about moving his family to the country. They looked at houses in Connecticut almost every weekend, and finally decided they just couldn't afford them. They tried Long Island, West chester, and it seemed as though every weekend they were riding to look at houses. Pound Ridge, Rye, Bronxville, Katonah, and then finally, after a year, they found just what they wanted in Purchase. It was an old farmhouse that hadn't been lived in in twenty years, and it needed an enormous amount of work. It was part of an estate, and they got it for a song in probate. A song that still cost them dearly to sing, but scraping and saving and doing most of the work themselves, they turned it into a remarkably pretty place within a year, and they were both proud of it. "But this does not mean I'm going to have more children, Oliver Watson!" As far as she was concerned, it was enough of a sacrifice that she was living in the suburbs. She had sworn that she would never do that when they were dating. But even she had to admit that it made more sense. The apartment on Second Avenue had been impossible to manage, and everything else they'd looked at in town seemed tiny and was ridiculously expensive. Here the children had their own rooms. There was a huge but cozy living room with a fireplace, a library they lovingly filled with books, a cozy kitchen with two brick walls, heavy wooden beams overhead, and an old fashioned stove that Sarah insisted on restoring and keeping. It had huge bay windows that looked over what she magically turned into a garden, and she could watch the children playing outside when she was cooking. |
| 1727 |
With their move to the country, she had lost the Irish girl, and it was just as well, because for the moment they couldn't afford her. Benjamin was three by then anyway, and he was in school every morning, and two years later Melissa was in school too, and Sarah told herself she would go back to writing. But somehow there was no time anymore. She always had things to do. She was doing volunteer work at the local hospital, working one day a week at the children's school, running errands, doing car pools, keeping the house clean, ironing Ollie's shirts, and working in the garden. It was a hell of a switch for the once assistant editor of the Crimson. But the funny thing was, she didn't mind it. Once they left New York, it was as though a part of her got left behind there, the part of her that had still been fighting marriage and motherhood. Suddenly, she seemed a part of the peaceful little world around her. She met other women with children the same age, there were couples they played tennis and bridge with on the weekends, her volunteer work seemed to be constantly more demanding, and the thrashing and fighting she had done was all but forgotten. And along with all of that went her writing. She didn't even miss it anymore. All she wanted was what she had, a happy, busy little life with her husband and children. Benjamin's screaming babyhood began to fade into distant memory and he turned into a sweet sunny child, who not only had her looks but seemed to share all her interests and passions and values. He was like a little sponge, soaking up everything she was, and in many ways, he was like a mirror of Sarah. Oliver saw it and laughed, and although Sarah seldom admitted it to anyone, in some ways it flattered and amused her. He was so much like her. Melissa was a sweet child too, she was easier than Benjamin had been, and in some ways she was more like her father. She had an easy smile, and a happy attitude about life. And she didn't seem to want much from either of them. |
| 1728 |
Oliver was tall and graceful and athletic looking, with thick, straight blond hair that had been the envy of every mother when he was a child, and every girl when he was in college. And although Sarah seldom acknowledged it to him, because she didn't want to bloat his ego beyond something she could cope with, more than once she had heard it said that Oliver Watson was the best looking man in Purchase. For six months of the year, he had a deep tan, and his green eyes seemed to dance with mischief and laughter. And yet he was unaware of his good looks, which made him all the more attractive. "Do you think they'll have more children, George?" Phyllis often wondered but would never have dared to ask her son, much less Sarah. "I don't know, darling. I think they have a full life as it is. And these days, you can never be too sure of what's going to happen. Oliver is in an insecure business. Advertising is nothing like banking when I was a young man. You can't count on anything anymore. It's probably wiser for them not to." George Watson had been talking that way for the past year. He had lived long enough to watch many of his investments, once so sound, begin to shrink and dwindle. The cost of living was astonishingly high, and he and Phyllis had to be careful. They had a pretty little house in Westchester they had bought fifteen years before, around the time when Oliver was in college. They knew that he'd never be coming home again for any great length of time, and it seemed foolish to continue hanging on to their rambling old house in New London. But George worried about their finances constantly now. It wasn't that they were destitute by any means, but if they both lived another twenty five years, which at fifty nine and sixty two they still could, and he hoped they did, it could stretch their savings beyond their limit. He had just retired from the bank and was getting a decent pension. And he had made numerous wise investments over the years, but still... you could never be too careful. |
| 1729 |
She scheduled the abortion twice, and even made the mistake of calling her sister in Grosse Pointe, which turned into an even bigger fight when her sister told her she thought she was indecent, immoral, and more than likely crazy. It went on for weeks, and in the end, they were both drained, damaged, disillusioned, but somehow they managed to piece it all back together and Sarah did not have the abortion. But Oliver agreed that after this one, she could have her tubes tied. He thought it was an unfortunate choice, but he also realized that neither of them could survive another attack like this one on the very foundations of their marriage, and Sarah assured him that under no circumstances was she going to be having another surprise baby when she was forty. The baby came on Election Day, with Oliver standing in the delivery room, encouraging Sarah, who told him she hated him every time she had a contraction, and she had assured Ollie almost hourly for the past eight months that she was never going to give a damn about this baby. He told her he would love it for both of them, and the children were thrilled at the prospect. Benjamin was eight by then and intrigued and excited by the whole thing, and to Melissa, at six, it was like having a live doll to play with. Only Sarah had remained unenthusiastic about the impending arrival. And as the baby's head appeared, Oliver watched in wonder as Samuel Watson made his way into the world, with a loud cry and a look of amazement at his father. They handed the baby to Oliver first and he gently gave him to Sarah, who lay with tears streaming down her cheeks, remembering all the ugly things she had said about this baby. He had black hair and Ollie's green eyes, and creamy skin, and a look in his eyes that somehow foretold great wisdom and great humor. He was the kind of baby you fell in love with the moment you saw him, and as fervently as she had resisted him, Sarah fell as ardently in love with him from the instant she held him. |
| 1730 |
He was just simply a very delicious baby, and everyone was crazy about him right from the first, Ollie, Sarah, his brother and sister, his grandparents. He was terrific, and he proved Ollie right, although he was gracious enough never to say it but they both knew. Ollie had been right, and they were both grateful that Sarah had had him. Everything about him was easy and lovable and fun, and he never became the burden Sarah had feared he would be. To make matters easier, Ollie had hired a housekeeper for her, a local woman who'd worked for a bishop for fifteen years and wanted to find a household with a little life and fun. She loved Melissa and Benjamin, and like everyone else, she fell in love with Sam the minute she saw him. He had round cherub cheeks and a smile to match, and fat little arms and legs that begged you to squeeze and hold and kiss him. And more often than not Agnes, his benevolent guardian, and Sarah, his adoring mother, found themselves each kissing one chubby cheek as the three noses met and they laughed and Sam squealed with amusement. Agnes was exactly what Sarah had needed, she only wished she had had her when Benjamin was screaming the walls down on Second Avenue with colic, but they couldn't have afforded her then anyway. Now everything was different. And as Ollie had predicted, it was all surprisingly easy. Sarah didn't have to make breakfast anymore. She didn't have to make dinner anymore. She didn't vacuum or clean or do laundry. They had a cleaning woman twice a week, and the miraculous Agnes. She was happy living in a tiny little room they built onto what had once been a deck, outside the guest room, which was now the baby's bedroom. And day and night, he was surrounded by his sister checking up on him, his brother bringing him baseball mitts and footballs, Sarah, Oliver, and Agnes. And amazingly, he did not become a spoiled brat, but instead, he was a remarkably pleasant child, who remained the joy of the house, and brought sunshine into everyone's life around him. |
| 1731 |
She used to worry that he'd get fat, but there seemed to be no fear of that, he was a bottomless pit, and if it hadn't been for the broad shoulders, he would have looked like the proverbial beanpole. The restaurant was lovely when they arrived, cozy, quaint, with French Provincial decor and a fire roaring in a fireplace. The food was good, and Oliver ordered an excellent California Chardonnay. They both relaxed and Sarah listened as he told her about the promotion and the raise. It was strange listening to him now. For years, she had lived vicariously through him, and now suddenly she had her own life. It was like listening to someone else. She was pleased for him, but his success was no longer a shared accomplishment, It was his alone. She knew that now. And as they finished their meal, he sat back and looked at her, sensing that something had changed, but not sure what it was. He usually read her well, but not tonight. There was something distant and sad about the way she looked at him, and he suddenly felt a finger of fear touch his heart. What if she were having an affair? Even a passing one... one of those suburban wives' involvements with the insurance man, or the orthodontist, or one of their friends. He couldn't believe it of her. She had always been so loyal to him, it was the way she was, straight arrow and sure and honest, it was part of what he loved so much about her. It couldn't be that. And he had never cheated on her. But he just couldn't figure out what was going on with her, and as he ordered champagne and dessert, he looked at her in the candlelight and thought she had never looked lovelier or younger. At forty one, she was better looking than most women at thirty. The dark red hair still shone, her figure was great, her waistline almost as trim as it had been before their babies. "What's bothering you, sweetheart?" His voice was a caress as he reached out and took her hand. He was a good man, a decent one, she knew that, and she also knew how much he loved her. |
| 1732 |
The days before Christmas seemed to crawl past, and Oliver almost hated to come home now. He alternated between hating her and loving her more than he ever had before, and trying to think of ways to change her mind. But the decision had been made now. They talked about it constantly, late at night, when the children were in bed, and he saw a brutal stubbornness in Sarah that he had thought she had given up years before. But in her mind, she was fighting for her life now. She promised that nothing would change, that she would come home every Friday night, that she loved him as she had before, yet they both knew she was kidding herself. She would have papers to write, exams to study for, there was no way she could commute, and coming home to bury herself in her books would only frustrate him and the children. Things had to change when she went back to school. It was inevitable, whether she wanted to face it or not. He tried to convince her to go to a different school, somewhere closer to home, even Columbia would be better than going all the way back to Harvard. But she was determined to go back there. He wondered at times if it was to recapture her youth, to turn the clock back to a simpler time, and yet he liked their life so much better now. And he could never understand how she would be able to leave the children. They still knew nothing of their mother's plans. The older ones sensed a certain tension in the air, and Melissa asked her more than once if she and Dad had had a fight, but Sarah just brushed them off with a carefree air. She was determined not to spoil Christmas for them, and she knew her announcement was going to upset them. She had decided to tell them the day after Christmas and Ollie agreed because he thought he could still change her mind. They went to Melissa's play and then decorated the Christmas tree in what seemed like perfect harmony, singing carols, making jokes, while Oliver and Benjamin struggled with the lights, and Sam ate the popcorn faster than Melissa and Sarah could string it. |
| 1733 |
It was Christmas Eve before he sat down alone with her, in front of a roaring fire in the library, and faced her soberly and asked her not to go through with her plans. He had already decided that if he had to, he was going to beg her. "You just can't do this to them." He had lost ten pounds in two weeks, and the strain in the air was killing both of them, but Sarah was adamant. She had written to accept the week before, and she was leaving in two weeks to find a place to stay in Boston. Her classes started on the fifteenth of January. All that remained was to get through Christmas, pack her things, and tell the children. "Ollie, let's not go through this again." He wanted to jump up and shake her. But she was withdrawn from him, as though she couldn't bear facing the pain she knew she had caused him. The children had hung their stockings near the tree, and late that night, he and Sarah brought the presents down. She and Agnes had been wrapping them for weeks. She had gone all out this year, almost as though it were their final Christmas. Ollie had bought her an emerald ring at Van Cleef the week before, it was beautiful and something he knew she had always wanted. It was a plain band set with small diamond baguettes, and in the center a beautifully cut square emerald. He wanted to give it to her that night, but suddenly it seemed more like a bribe than a gift, and he was sorry he had bought it. When they went to bed that night, Sarah set the alarm for six. She wanted to get up early to stuff the turkey. Agnes would be up early to do most of the work anyway, but Sarah wanted to do the turkey her self, another final gift to them, and it was a family tradition. She lay in bed, after they turned out the lights, thinking quietly, and listening to Ollie breathe. She knew he was awake, and could imagine only too easily what he was thinking. He had been beside himself for the past two weeks. They had argued, cried, talked, discussed, and still she knew she was doing the right thing, for herself anyway. |
| 1734 |
And Benjamin even entered a downhill race before they went home, but whenever he wasn't skiing, he was calling friends, as though they alone held the solution to all his problems. Only Mel remained withdrawn, skiing halfheartedly and avoiding the rest of them. She was the only female in their midst now, and Oliver tried to boost her spirits repeatedly, but she wouldn't even let him get near her. She seemed to have nothing to say to them, the only one she ever spoke to was Sam, and even with him she was painfully quiet. Oliver kept busy with all of them, renting skis and boots for them, loading and unloading the car, organizing meals, tucking Sam into bed, keeping an eye on Mel, making sure everyone was properly dressed, and by eight o'clock at night he was exhausted. He could barely get through their evening meal, and at night he fell into bed with Sam. He had decided to share a room with him, in case the child was too lonely. And Sam wet the bed twice, which kept Oliver busy even at night, changing sheets, turning the mattress around, and finding fresh blankets. It was obvious that Sam was deeply distressed, as they all were, but Ollie had his hands so full with them that he hardly had time to think of Sarah. It was only at night, as he lay in bed, that he could feel the ache in his heart, and when he woke in the morning, the pain of the memory of her struck him with the weight of a mountain. It was a little bit as though she had died, and it was only on the third day they were in Vermont that Ollie even brought her name up. He said something about "Mom," and their heads spun around, each of them wearing the clear evidence of their pain, and he was instantly sorry he had said it. It was New Year's Day when they drove back, and they were all in better spirits, and looked incredibly healthy. It was when they got home that it hit them again. The house was too quiet, the dog was asleep, and even Aggie was out. And Oliver realized that they had all secretly hoped that Sarah would be waiting for them, but she wasn't. |
| 1735 |
The first weeks without her were hard. And it seepied as though every morning breakfast was a disaster. The eggs were never quite right, the orange juice was too pulpy, the toast too dark or too light, and even Ollie's coffee tasted different to him. It was ridiculous, he knew. Aggie had been cooking for them for ten years, and they loved her, but they had grown used to Sarah's breakfasts. Sam seemed to whine all the time, more than once Ollie saw him kick the dog, Mel remained sullen throughout, and Benjamin no longer graced them with his presence. Instead he flew out the door, insisting that he never ate breakfast. And suddenly Oliver always seemed to be arguing with them. Mel wanted to go out both weekend nights, Benjamin was still coming home too late during the week, but claiming that he was studying with friends, and Sam was restless at night and always wound up in Ollie's bed, which was comforting at first, but after a while got on his nerves. The peaceful family they had been had vanished. Sarah eventually called when she got her phone, two weeks later than promised, and she still hadn't come home to see them. She thought it was too soon, and now all their conversations were brief and bitter. And she seemed almost afraid of the kids, as though she couldn't bring herself to comfort them. She was keeping up the pretense that she would come home to them one day, smarter, better educated, and successful. But Ollie knew better. Overnight the marriage he had cherished for eighteen years had wound up in the trash. And it affected the way he saw everything, the house, the kids, their friends, even his clients at the office. He was angry at everyone, at her of course, and himself as well, secretly convinced, as Mel still was, that he had done something wrong, and it was his fault. Their friends called and invited him out, word had gotten around slowly, once Aggie started driving Sarah's car pool. But he didn't want to see anyone. They were curious, and gossipy, and just too damn nosy. |
| 1736 |
But Ollie could barely keep his own life afloat. It was hard enough coping with the children. He thought of taking all of them to a shrink, but when he called Sam's teacher to talk about it, she insisted that everything they were feeling was normal. It was understandable that Sam was difficult and argumentative and whiny, his grades were suffering in school, and so were Mel's. And it was obvious that she still blamed her father for her mother's absence. The school psychologist said that was healthy too. She needed someone to blame it on, other than herself, and he was a convenient scapegoat. And it was equally normal that Benjamin would seek refuge with his friends, to escape the home that was now so different without her. It would all blow over in time, the experts said, they'd all adjust, but there were times when Ollie wondered if he would survive it. He came home exhausted every night, drained by the day at work, to find the house disrupted, the children unhappy and fighting. His dinners were no longer edible, wrapped in tinfoil and kept in the oven too long. And when Sarah called, he wanted to throw the phone at the wall and scream. He didn't want to hear about her classes or why she wasn't coming home again this weekend. He wanted her to come back and sleep with him, love him, cook for him, and take charge of their children. Aggie was great, but what she could offer them fell far short of all the little special things provided by their mother. He was sitting in his office one afternoon, staring out the window, at the rain and sleet that were typical of late January in New York, and wondering if she ever would come back. Right then, he'd have settled for a weekend. She'd been gone a month by then, and he was so lonely, he almost thought he couldn't stand it. "There's a happy face... can I come in?" It was Daphne Hutchinson, an assistant vice president of the firm, he'd known her for four years, and they were currently working together on a presentation for a new client. |
| 1737 |
It was going to be a lonely weekend for him, while she and the children had their happy reunion. He could have let them go alone, but he didn't want to. He wanted to be with them, particularly afterward, for the trip home. He also knew in his heart of hearts that he wanted to be near her. He was also particularly worried about Sam, and moderately so about the others. Benjamin was unenthusiastic about going, he was going to miss a game, but Oliver told him he thought he should go. Mel was excited to go, and Sam was ecstatic. But he wondered how they would all feel after they saw her. The flight to Boston had a festive air, as Oliver sat quietly across the aisle from them, and when they drove to her address on Brattle Street, he was incredibly nervous. He had told her he would drop them off, and when she opened the door, he thought his heart would stop when he saw her. She looked as lovely as she had before, only more so. Her hair was loose and longer, and her jeans clung to her in a way that made Ollie ache, but he tried to maintain his composure in front of the children. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, hugged the children, and took them inside to the lunch she had waiting for them as Oliver drove off in the cab, aching for her with every ounce of his body. She lived in a small apartment, with a comfortable living room and a tiny bedroom, and behind it a shaggy garden, and as the children slurped soup, gobbled their food, and stared happily at her, everyone talked at once with the relief of releasing long pent up fears and emotions. Sam stayed glued to her, and even Benjamin looked more relaxed than he had in a long time. Everyone looked happy, except Oliver, alone in his hotel room. It had finally happened, she had turned him away. She didn't love him anymore. And the reality of it almost killed him. He cried as he remembered the past and walked for hours on the Harvard campus. He went to all the places they had gone to years before, and realized as he walked back to his hotel that he was still crying. |
| 1738 |
She knew them all well, and Oliver could still smell her perfume on the boy as he hugged him. It made his heart ache just to smell it and think of her. And then, as Sam climbed over him, bumping his overnight bag across their legs, Oliver glanced up, and saw her standing in the doorway. She was waving to them, and for an instant, he wanted to jump out of the cab and run back and hold her and take her back with them. Maybe he could still bring her to her senses, and if not, at least he could touch her and feel her and smell her. But he forced himself to look away, and in a hoarse voice told the driver to head for the airport. He glanced back in spite of himself as they drove away, and she looked pretty and young as she continued to wave from the doorway, and suddenly, as he watched her, he felt Melissa slip something into his hand. It was a little white silk pouch, and when he opened it, he saw the emerald ring he had given Sarah for Christmas. There was a little note that asked him to save it for Melissa. And that too was a powerful statement. It had been a brutal weekend for him, and he slipped the pouch in his pocket without saying a word, his jaw hard, his eyes cold, as he looked out the window. Oliver said nothing for a long time, and just listened as the children rattled on, about the dinner she'd cooked, and the popcorn, and how much they'd liked the apartment. Even Sam seemed more at ease now. And it was obvious it had done him a world of good to see their mother. They all looked well groomed, and Sam's hair was combed just the way Oliver liked it. And it was painful for him just seeing them that way, so obviously fresh from her hands, as though newly born, and only just then sprung from her. He didn't want to hear about how wonderful it had been, how great she looked, how cute the garden was, or how hard her courses. He only wanted to hear how desperately she missed all of them, and most of all him, how soon she was coming back, how much she hated Boston, and that she'd been wrong to go there. |
| 1739 |
It was the only thing he could do, and it would be hard on the kids at first, but it might be just what the doctor ordered for all of them. Oliver sent them all to Sarah for their school holiday, and although Benjamin refused to go at first, Oliver forced him. He threatened him in every possible way, until the boy finally left with the others. And miraculously, during the week the kids were gone, Oliver spoke to four different schools, and found one very good one that was willing to take him. He was going to move them all to New York as soon as he could, rent an apartment, and put them in new schools. It would get Benjamin away from the girl, and whatever friends were distracting him, and it would mean Oliver could be home every night by six o'clock in the evening. It was what Daphne had suggested two months before, and he had said he would never do, or at least not for several years, but now it was an idea born of desperation. Both schools involved agreed to the plan, and the one in Purchase even agreed to let him graduate with his class if he did well in New York for the remaining two months of school, passed all his exams, and agreed to go to summer school back in Purchase. It was perfect. Without further ado, Mel was accepted by an exclusive Upper East Side girls' school, and Collegiate agreed to take Sam. They were all excellent moves, albeit a little hasty. And in the last two days before they came home, Oliver pounded the pavements with Daphne, and came up with a very attractive apartment, a year's sublet from a banker who was moving to Paris with his wife and kids. It had four good sized bedrooms and a pleasant view, an elevator man, a doorman, a big elaborate kitchen, and behind it a very respectable room for Agnes to live. It was going to cost him a fortune, but as far as Oliver was concerned it was worth it. In ten days, he had made all his moves. All that remained now was to break the news to the children when they got home from their vacation with their mother. |
| 1740 |
And Mel was crazy about her new school, spending time with Daphne whenever she could, going to Bloomingdale's, and calling everyone she knew at home to report each new development in her glamorous new life in the city. And best of all, Oliver managed to get home before dinner every night, and spend the kind of time with the kids that he wanted to. Mel was still on the phone most of the time, but she knew he was there. And he and Sam had hours to talk and read and play games, and with the warmer weather in early May, they sometimes went to the park to play ball after they ate dinner. It was the perfect life. Except for Benjamin, whom Ollie missed constantly, and worried about most of the time. He had lost two people now, although he made a point of seeing the boy every week when they went home to Purchase for the weekends. He wanted him to come over and have dinner with them, but Ben was working at night, and it almost broke his father's heart when he stopped in to see him at the restaurant, working as a busboy for a tiny salary. He renewed his offer to let him stay at the house, much as he disliked the idea of his living alone, and he begged him to go back to school. But Benjamin wouldn't leave Sandra now. And when Ollie glimpsed her one Saturday afternoon, he was shocked. She looked more than five months pregnant, and Oliver wondered if the baby was really his son's. He asked Benjamin as much when he had the chance, but the boy only looked hurt and insisted that it was his baby. He said he was sure of it. And Oliver didn't want to press him. The hardest blow of all came when the college letters began rolling in. Oliver would find them at the house on the weekend. Benjamin still wanted to get his mail there. The school had never notified them that Benjamin had dropped out, and he had been accepted by all except Duke. He could have gone to Harvard, or Princeton, or Yale, and instead he was scraping other people's food off plates in a restaurant, and at eighteen he was going to be a father. |
| 1741 |
It was just as difficult going home late to the kids at night, but it didn't seem quite as bad in the summer. They swam in the pool when he got home, and the kids went to bed later than they did in the winter. They celebrated the Fourth of July with a few friends and a barbecue, and in two weeks, Mel and Sam were joining Sarah for the rest of the summer. She was taking them to France, to travel there for a month with Jean Pierre. She had called to tell him that, and he decided to let her. The kids were old enough to understand. Mel was sixteen and Sam almost ten, and they were excited about going. George even came to the barbecue, and brought Margaret Porter, the pleasant neighbor they had all met before. She was an attractive woman with gray hair and a lively mind. She had been a nurse in her youth, and her late husband had been a doctor, and she seemed to take good care of Ollie's father. She made a point of seeing that he sat down when he should, without making an issue of it, brought him his food, and joked amiably with him and their friends and George seemed to like it. He talked about Phyllis a lot, and Ollie knew he still felt guilty about the accident that had ultimately killed her. But he seemed to be recovering. They all were, in their own way, from the blows of the past year. Even Ollie felt more himself now. He had filed for divorce in June, and at Daphne's constant urging, he had gone on a date, which had proven to be a disaster. He had gone out with a creative type from another agency, and afterward insisted the girl was a kook. She had wanted him to try cocaine, and her favorite sport was women's wrestling. Daphne had teased him about it a lot, but at least it was a beginning. Benjamin and Sandra also came to the barbecue, and by then she was seven months pregnant. Ollie felt sorry for her, she wasn't bright, and her childish face looked ridiculous on the huge body. She talked about the baby a lot, and for a moment Ollie was terrified, wondering if they were going to get married too. |
| 1742 |
He had had several postcards from the kids since they left, but they never called, and he was never quite sure where they were. It made him nervous from time to time, but Sarah had only said that they would stay with relatives of Jean Pierre's in France, and youth hostels in the other countries where they traveled. It was certainly going to be a different experience for them, but it might be good for them too. And he trusted her to take good care of them. She was their mother, after all, and he had always trusted her. But now, with all of them gone, he was stunned at how much he missed them. It was almost a physical pain when he went home at night to the empty apartment. He had given Aggie the summer off, and hired a weekly cleaning service to take care of the apartment. The house in Purchase was closed, and the dog was staying with his father. It was company for him at least. And when Oliver took the train up to see him one Sunday afternoon, he was touched to find his father lovingly tending his late wife's garden. He had always hated gardening, but now it was vital to him to maintain the roses that had meant so much to her. "Are you doing all right, Dad?" "I'm fine. It's awfully quiet here, especially with you and the children gone. Margaret and I go out to dinner from time to time, but I have a lot of work to do, to get your mother's estate in order." The tax work he had to do for probate seemed to keep him busy, and she had had some stocks that he wanted to transfer now to Ollie's children. Ollie felt sad after he'd spent the afternoon with him, and he went back on the train that night feeling pensive. His car was in the shop, and it was odd riding home on the train instead of driving. He took a seat in the parlor car, and picked up the book he had brought with him, and it was several stops before the seat next to him was occupied. He glanced up and saw a young woman with long dark hair and a deep tan slide into place beside him. "Sorry," she apologized, as she bumped him with her bag. |
| 1743 |
She had gone to East Hampton instead, which bothered Ollie, but he couldn't convince her to come. She just said it wasn't her scene, kids and dogs and barbecues, and she didn't want to intrude on them. But the truth was that it bored her. He hadn't seen her all week, and he was going crazy without her, but she was working late and so was he. The kids were home, and he was waiting for them to settle down again, which she seemed to think wasn't important. Benjamin and Sandra came to the barbecue, though, and this time the girl looked truly pathetic. Her face was bloated to twice its size, she could barely walk, she was so large, and it was hard to believe she had ever been pretty. Benjamin looked thin and pale, in comparison, and he was feeling the load of his two jobs, and Sandra did nothing but complain, and sometimes he thought he would go crazy. His father handed him a beer, after Mel took Sandra into the house to lie down for a while, and Oliver looked at Benjamin carefully, wondering when he was going to admit he couldn't hack it anymore, or if he was going to let it kill him. "How's it going, Son?" "Okay, I guess. I'm going to have to get another job pretty soon. They're closing the gas station down, and letting me go in a few weeks. And the restaurant doesn't pay enough. But I've got some pretty good leads, and after the baby's born, Sandra says she'll go back to work pretty quickly." He tried to sound hopeful, but it was obvious to his father that he was getting seriously discouraged, and who wouldn't have? At the age of eighteen, to be expecting a child, supporting a seventeen year old pseudo wife, and working two jobs, was hardly anyone's idea of a happy life, least of all his father's. "Are you going to let me help you out before it kills us both, or are you going to be stubborn?" The boy smiled, looking older and wiser than he had before. He had learned a lot in the last few months, but none of it easy or fun, and seeing him like this was a weight on his father's heart. |
| 1744 |
The house was exactly what the children had drearned it would be. It was perfect for them, and Oliver was thrilled. In a matter of weeks, they had settled in, and all three of them were thriving. Even Agnes was in ecstasy over their new home, and after foraging around the local shops, she found everything she wanted. Mel loved her school, and Sam invited two new friends to their pool to swim over Thanksgiving weekend. Only the holiday seemed a little strange for them, without Benjamin, or their grandfather, and they were a long way from Sarah too. They were going to spend the Christmas holidays with her. And it seemed amazing to them they had only been there a month, when they packed their things to leave to join her in Boston for their Christmas vacation. Oliver drove them to the airport, and much as he knew he would miss them over the holidays, he was grateful to have a few weeks to work late at the office. He needed the time to dig into all the projects that had been waiting for him when he arrived. And the one person he really missed was Daphne. He missed her good eye, her bright mind, her clear judgment, and creative solutions to his office problems. More than once, he called her for advice, and express mailed papers to her to see what she thought of his ideas for new campaigns, and presentations to new clients, He wished they had sent her to Los Angeles too, but he also knew she would never have gone. Her relationship with the man in New York was too important to her. She would rather have given up her job than the married man she had given up her life for thirteen years before. The next few weeks flew by, and it was Christrhas almost before they knew it. The children decorated the Christmas tree before they left, and they exchanged gifts with their father, before flying off to spend Christmas with Sarah. And suddenly as he returned to the empty house the day they left, he realized that it was going to be his first Christmas alone, the first one without them, and without Sarah. |
| 1745 |
And she laughed and said it reminded her of Nebraska. There were rough hewn floors, beam ceilings, and huge fireplaces, one at each end of the room, and in front of them huge, overstuffed couches. The kitchen was almost as big as the living room, with another fireplace and a cozy table set for two. And there was a Christmas tree blinking brightly in the corner. And upstairs there were two handsome bedrooms, one which was obviously hers, done in pink and flowered chintzes. The other a cheerful yellow guest room, where her parents stayed when they came, which she said wasn't often enough. It didn't have one tenth the sophistication of Megan's penthouse in New York, but it had ten times the warmth, and he loved it. She had chilled a bottle of white wine for him, and the turkey was roasting happily in the oven. She had made chestnut puree, mashed potatoes and yams, there were tiny peas, cranberry jelly, and lots of stuffing. And when they sat down to eat, it was a royal feast, which reminded him in a comfortable way of the Christmases he had shared at home with Sarah and, long before, his parents. He had expected to eat a pastrami sandwich in his office, or stop at Hamburger Hamlet on the way home. He had never expected this, or to be with Charlotte Sampson. It was as though she had fallen into his arms, like a gift from heaven. And as he sat down at the table, he put a small gift on the table for her. He had been so touched by her invitations that he had wanted to get her something nice for Christmas. And he had stopped at Cartier the day before to buy her a simple gold bangle. And she was deeply moved by it, and embarrassed that she hadn't gotten him a present. "This is my gift, silly girl. A Christmas dinner right out of a fairy tale." She looked pleased that it meant so much to him, and they chatted and laughed, and after dinner he used his credit card and called the kids at Sarah's. It was odd speaking to them, and not being there, but they sounded as though they were having fun. |
| 1746 |
So much so, he almost didn't miss the children. He was going to drop her off when they got back, but when they got to her place, she suddenly looked at him strangely. "I know this may sound weird to you, Oliver, but it's so lonely going home alone on Christmas Eve. Would you like to spend the night in my guest room?" They had met only two days before, and he had just shared Christmas with her, and now she was inviting him into her home, as a guest, not with the lust that Megan had shown, but with kindness and warmth and respect, and he suddenly wanted to stay more than anything in the world. He wanted to be with her, for tonight, for a week, for a year, maybe even for a lifetime. "I'd love that, Charlie." He leaned over and kissed her then, but it was a chaste, gentle kiss, and they walked into her house hand in hand, as she led him upstairs and turned the bed down. The room had a bathroom of its own, and she kept nightclothes and a robe for friends who stayed, and fussed over him like a mother hen, and then finally left him alone with a warm smile and a "Merry Christmas." And he lay in her guest room bed for a long, long time, thinking of her and wanting to go to her, but he knew it wouldn't be fair to take advantage of her kindness now, and he lay there like a child wishing he could climb into bed with his mother, but not quite daring. And when he awoke the next day, he could smell pancakes and sausages and hot coffee. He brushed his teeth with the new toothbrush she had left, shaved, and went downstairs in the robe, curious to see what she was up to. "Merry Christmas, Oliver!" she called as he came through the kitchen door, and he smiled, watching her work, and two minutes later, she had a sumptuous breakfast ready. There were all the things he had smelled, and more, bacon, eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, and coffee. "Merry Christmas, Charlie. You may never get me out of here if you keep feeding me like this. This is some hotel you run." She laughed happily at him. |
| 1747 |
He had gotten a part time job by then, in the bookstore on campus, and he intended to keep the job, so he could help make the monthly payments for Alex. He had driven down to Bakersfield again, and things appeared to be the same, although Sandra was out that time, but her mother was there, drinking beer, and the baby looked happy, and Benjamin played with him for an hour, and then drove back. And this time, he didn't mention the visit to his father. He had a feeling that Oliver thought he was still too involved with the child, but he knew just as clearly that it was something he had to do, that no matter how many other children he had one day, Alex would always be his first, and an important part of his life. And he intended to stay very much in the picture. And Sandra's mother didn't seem to mind, she was very pleased with the payments that arrived punctually every month. Alex was the best thing that ever happened to her. Sandra sure knew what she was doing when she got knocked up by Benjamin Watson. The Watsons may not have been rich, but they were comfortable enough, and she knew from a little research she'd done back East that the kid's father made a hell of a good living. And then a few weeks later, she read a little item in a gossip column that really intrigued her. The old man was going out with Charlotte Sampson. It didn't mean much now, but one day, if they stopped paying their dues, a little blackmail might even be in order. But that was the farthest thing from Ollie's mind, as the romance flourished, and they spent more and more time with each other, much to his children's delight. And finally in late April, he got up the courage to ask her. They were having another one of their quiet, intimate dinners at Chianti, and he didn't surprise her with a ring, or ask her on bended knee. He waited until they had finished eating, and then looked at her nervously, and she giggled at him. She wasn't sure, but she thought she knew what was coming. "How was the office today?" she teased, and he almost groaned. |
| 1748 |
They arrived at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, and Charlotte looked deceptively calm as she stepped out of the car and took Ollie's arm, with Mel and Benjamin just behind them. It was the most exciting night of the children's lives, and Ollie could feel the tension too. Charlotte's palms were damp, and as the paparazzi flocked, he could feel her gently tremble. And once they took their seats in the auditorium the cameras focused in on them constantly. Dozens of stars came over to talk to them once they'd sat down, and finally the ceremony got under way with the usual assortment of lesser awards to begin with. It seemed to take hours to get to the more important ones, and by then, Sam was yawning and half asleep at home, and Alex was sound asleep in Aggie's arms, but in Pasadena, all was electricity and tension. They called out the nominees for the best show, and Mel and Benjamin let out a yell when it was hers. Both producers ran down the aisle while their wives cried, and Charlotte grinned from ear to ear as she clung tightly to Ollie. She was pleased for the producers and insisted to herself that she didn't need more than to be on a winning show, and turned her attention to the awards for best actor. A good friend of hers won on a rival show, and she was thrilled for him. And then the big moment came. At last it was her turn. And she could hardly bear it. All her life she had told herself that fame wasn't important, and yet it was. She had worked so hard for this, and whether she won or not, in her heart of hearts, she knew she had earned it. The cameras zoomed in on her again and again, as she held Ollie's hand, and he silently prayed for her. For her sake, he wanted her to win. The other actresses' names were called too, and then a long, long pause, while someone asked for "The envelope please," and then like a bolt of lightning through his heart he heard her name, and she stared at him, and she put a hand over her mouth, unable to believe she'd actually won this time. |
| 1749 |
They had just celebrated their twenty fourth anniversary in March. It was hard to believe sometimes how the years had flown by and how full they had been. Megan, their eldest, had graduated from Vassar the year before, and at twenty three, she had recently taken a job in L.A. She was interested in all aspects of film and had landed a job as a production assistant with a movie studio in Hollywood. She was barely more than a gofer, as she admitted openly, but she was thrilled with just being there, and wanted to be a producer one day. William, their son, had just turned eighteen, and was graduating in June. He was going to UC Berkeley in the fall. It was hard to believe that their kids were grown. It seemed only minutes before that she had been changing diapers and carpooling, taking Meg to ballet, and Wim to hockey games. And in three months he'd be gone. He was due in Berkeley the week before the Labor Day weekend. Paris made sure that the table had been set properly. The caterers were reliable and had a good eye. They knew her kitchen well. She and Peter liked to entertain, and Paris used them frequently. They enjoyed their social life and over the years they had collected an eclectic assortment of interesting friends. She set the flowers that she had arranged herself on the table. She had cut a profusion of multicolored peonies, the tablecloth was immaculate, and the crystal and silver gleamed. Peter probably wouldn't notice, especially if he was tired when he got home, but what he sensed more than saw was the kind of home she provided him with. Paris was impeccable about details. She created an atmosphere of warmth and elegance that people flourished in. She did it not only for him and their friends but for herself as well. Peter provided handsomely for her too. He'd been generous with her and the children. He had been very successful over the years. He was a partner in a lucrative law firm, specializing in corporate accounts, and at fifty one, he was the managing partner. |
| 1750 |
Unlike some of her friends, whose marriages had shown signs of strain over the years, or even ruptured entirely, Paris was still in love with him. He was kinder, gentler, more considerate, in fact he was more sophisticated and seasoned, and even better looking than he had been when they got married. And he always said the same about her. Paris was slim and lithe and athletic. Once the children were older and she had more free time, she played tennis almost every day, and was in terrific shape. She wore her straight blond hair long, and most of the time wore it pulled back in a braid. She had classic Grace Kelly good looks, and green eyes. Her figure was noteworthy, her laughter easy, and her sense of humor quick to ignite, much to the delight of her friends. She used to love playing practical jokes, which never failed to amuse her children. Peter was far quieter by nature, and always had been. By the time he came home at night after a long day and the commute on the train, more often than not, he was too tired to do much more than listen to her, and make the occasional comment. He came to life more on the weekends, but even then he was quiet and somewhat reserved. And in the last year he had been consumed with work. This was, in fact, the first dinner party they had given in three months. He had worked late every Friday night, and gone back into town some Saturdays, to clear things off his desk, or meet with clients. But Paris was always patient about it. She made few demands on him, and had a profound respect for his diligence about his work. It was what made him so good at what he did, and so highly admired in business and legal circles. She couldn't fault him for being conscientious, although she missed spending more time with him. Particularly now, with Meg gone for the past six months, and Wim busy with his own life and friends in the final weeks of his senior year. Peter's heavy workload in recent months reminded her yet again that she was going to have to find something to occupy her time in September. |
| 1751 |
She took a shower and dressed after checking the table and cruising through the kitchen to check on the caterers, and everything seemed in good order. They were having five couples for dinner, all of them good friends. She was looking forward to it, and hoped Peter would get home in time to unwind before the guests arrived. She was thinking of him, when Wim stuck his head in her bedroom door while she was getting dressed. He wanted to tell her his plans, a house rule she rigidly enforced even at his age. She wanted to know where her children were at all times, and with whom. Paris was the consummate responsible mother and devoted wife. Everything in her life was in perfect order, and relatively good control. "I'm going over to the Johnsons' with Matt," Wim said, glancing at her, as she pulled up the side zipper of a white lace skirt. She was already wearing a strapless tube top to match, and high heeled silver sandals. "Are you staying there, or going somewhere else afterward?" She smiled at him. He was a handsome boy, and looked like his father. Wim had been six foot three by the time he reached fifteen, and had grown another inch since. He had his father's dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes, and he smiled as he looked at his mother. Wim thought she always looked pretty, when she got dressed up, and he watched as she wound her long blond hair into a bun as they talked. He always thought his mother had a simple elegance about her, and he was as proud of her as she was of him. He was not only a good student, but had been a star athlete all through high school. "Are you going to a party tonight?" Paris asked wisely. For the past month at least, if not two, the seniors had been kicking up their heels, and Wim was always in the thick of things. Girls were crazy about him, and drawn to him like a magnet, although he had been going out with the same girl since Christmas, and Paris liked her. She was a nice girl from a wholesome family in Greenwich. Her mother was a teacher, and her father a doctor. |
| 1752 |
The negotiations were complete, and he started to back out of her room, as she headed toward him with a purposeful look. "Not so fast... I want a hug." He smiled at her then, looking like a big goofy kid, and more a boy than the nearly grown man he was. And he obliged her with a hug, as she leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Have fun tonight, and drive carefully, please." He was a good driver, and a responsible boy, but she worried anyway. So far at least there had been no drunken incidents, and the few times he had had something to drink at parties, he had left his car and driven home with friends. He also knew that if things got out of hand, he could call his parents. They had established that agreement years before. If he ever got drunk, he could call them, and there would be an "amnesty." But under no condition, in those circumstances, did they want him to drive home. She heard Wim go out and the front door close moments after they had exchanged the hug. And Paris was just coming down the stairs herself, as Peter walked in, with his briefcase in his hand, looking exhausted. It struck her as she looked at him how much he looked like Wim. It was like seeing the same person thirty three years later, and noticing that made her smile warmly at him. "Hi, sweetheart," she said as she went to Peter, and gave him a hug and a kiss, but he was so tired, he scarcely responded. She didn't mention how wiped out he looked, she didn't want to make him feel worse. But she knew he had been working on a merger for the past month, and the hours had been rough. The deal wasn't going well for his clients, at least not so far, and she knew he was trying to turn it around. "How was your day?" she asked as she took his briefcase out of his hand and set it down on the hall chair. She was sorry suddenly that she had planned the dinner party. There had been no way of knowing, when she did, how busy he would be at work at the moment. She had booked the caterer two months before, knowing how busy they would be later. |
| 1753 |
He looked relieved. He didn't drink much, but at times like these, knowing he had a long evening ahead of him, it sometimes helped him forget the stresses of the day. It had been a long week, and he looked it. "Thanks," he said, taking the glass from her, and taking a sip, before he wandered into the living room and sat down. Everything around him was impeccable and in perfect order. The room was full of handsome English antiques they had bought together over the years, in London and New York. Both of them had lost their parents young, and Paris had used some of her modest inheritance to buy things for the house. And Peter had helped her with it as well. They had some lovely pieces, which their friends always admired. It was a particularly nice house to entertain in. There was a large comfortable dining room, a big living room, a small den, and a library that Peter used as an office on weekends. And upstairs there were four big spacious bedrooms. They used the fourth one as a guest room, although they had hoped for a long time to use it as a room for a third baby, but it had never happened. She had never gotten pregnant after the first two, and although they'd talked about it, neither of them wanted to go through the stress of infertility treatments, and had been content with the two children they had. Fate had tailored their family perfectly for them. Paris sat down on the couch, and snuggled up close to him. But tonight he was too tired to respond. Usually, he put an arm around her shoulders, and she realized as she looked at him, that he was showing signs of considerable strain. He was due for a check up sometime soon, and she was going to remind him of it once the worst of the merger was done. They had lost several friends in the past few years to sudden heart attacks. At fifty one, and in good health, he wasn't at high risk for that, but you never knew. And she wanted to take good care of him. She had every intention of keeping him around for another forty or fifty years. |
| 1754 |
The last twenty four had been very good, for both of them. "Is the merger giving you a tough time?" she asked sympathetically. Sitting next to him, she could feel how tense he was. He nodded, as he sipped his wine, and for once didn't volunteer any details. He was too tired to go into it with her, or so she assumed. She didn't want to ask if there was anything else bothering him, it seemed obvious to her that it was the merger. And she hoped that once in the midst of their friends at dinner, he would forget about it and relax. He always did. Although he never initiated their social life, he enjoyed the plans she made for them, and the people she invited. She no longer even consulted him about it. She had a good sense of who he liked and who he didn't, and invited accordingly. She wanted him to have a good time too, and he liked not being responsible for their plans. She did a good job of being what he called their social director. Peter just sat peacefully on the couch for a few minutes, and she sat quietly beside him, glad to have him home. She wondered if he was going to have to work that weekend, or go back into the city to see clients, as he had for several months on the weekends, but she didn't want to ask. If he did have to go in to the office, she would find something to keep her busy. He looked better, as he stood up, smiled at her, and walked slowly upstairs, as she followed. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" she asked as he lay down on their bed, and set the glass down on his bedside table. He was so exhausted, he had decided to lie down after all before their dinner. "I'm fine," he said, and closed his eyes. And with that, she left him alone to rest for a minute, and went back downstairs to check how things were going in the kitchen. Everything was in order, and she went out to sit on the patio for a minute, smiling to herself. She loved her husband, her children, her house, their friends. She loved everything about all of it, and there was nothing she would have changed. |
| 1755 |
The three women had spent years going to the same school and sports events, and Natalie had alternated with Paris for ten years, driving their daughters to ballet. Her daughter had taken it more seriously than Meg, and was dancing professionally now in Cleveland. All three were at the end of their years of motherhood, and depressed about it, and were talking about it when Peter walked in. Natalie commented quietly to Paris how tired he looked, and Virginia, the mother of the boy graduating with Wim, agreed. "He's been working on a merger, and it's been really rough on him," Paris said sympathetically, and Virginia nodded. Her husband had been working on it too, but he looked a lot more relaxed than Peter did. But he also wasn't the managing partner of the firm, which put even more of a burden on Peter. He hadn't looked this tired and stressed in years. The rest of the guests arrived minutes after Peter did, and by the time they sat down to dinner, everyone seemed to be having a good time. The table looked beautiful, and there were candles everywhere. And in the soft glow of the candlelight, Peter looked better to Paris when he sat down at the head of the table, and chatted with the women she had placed next to him. He knew both well, and enjoyed their company, although he seemed quieter than usual throughout the dinner. He no longer seemed so much tired as subdued. When the guests finally left at midnight, he took his blazer off and loosened his tie, and seemed relieved. "Did you have an okay time, sweetheart?" Paris asked, looking worried. The table had been just big enough, with twelve people seated at it, that she couldn't really hear what had gone on at his end. She had enjoyed talking to the men she sat next to about business matters, as she often did. Their male friends liked that about her. She was intelligent and well informed, and enjoyed talking about more than just her kids, unlike some of the women they knew, although Virginia and Natalie were intelligent too. |
| 1756 |
Paris wanted it to be rainy and gloomy outside, as she turned over in bed and remembered what had happened the night before. And as soon as she did, she began to cry and looked over to find Peter, but he was already in the bathroom, shaving. And she put on a bathrobe and went downstairs to make coffee for both of them. She felt as though she had been trapped in some surreal tragic movie the night before, and maybe if she talked to him coherently in the bright light of day, everything would change. But she needed coffee first. As though she had been beaten, every inch of her ached. She hadn't bothered to comb her hair or brush her teeth, and her carefully applied makeup from the night before was streaked below her eyes and on her face. Wim looked up in surprise as she walked in. He was eating toast and drinking orange juice, and he frowned when he saw his mother. He had never seen her look that way before, and wondered if she'd had too much to drink at the party and was hung over, or maybe she was sick. "You okay, Mom?" "I'm fine. Just tired," she said, pouring a glass of orange juice for his father, maybe for the last time ever, with the same sense of unreality she had had the night before. Maybe this was just a bad patch they were going through. It had to be that. He couldn't mean he wanted a divorce, could he? She was suddenly reminded of a friend who had lost her husband to a heart attack on the tennis court the year before. She had said that for the first six months after he died, she kept expecting him to walk through the door and laugh at her, and tell her it was all a joke and he was just kidding. Paris fully expected Peter to recant everything he had said the night before. Rachel and her sons would then vanish politely into the mists, and she and Peter would go on with their life as before. It was temporary insanity, that was all, but when Peter walked into the kitchen fully dressed and looking grim, she knew it wasn't a joke after all. Wim noticed how serious he looked too. |
| 1757 |
He told her that Peter wanted to file the papers soon, and get the show on the road quickly. And as he said it, she had been overwhelmed by a wave of panic. It was like free falling out of a plane without a parachute. The only way she could explain the feeling was terror. "I'll call you when I feel better." In the end, they left a bouquet of flowers, a note, and some magazines on her doorstep. They didn't want to intrude, but they were worried about her. They had never known a marriage as seemingly solid as the Armstrongs' to come apart at the seams as quickly. It was shocking. But they all knew it happened. Like death. Sometimes after a long illness, and sometimes with no warning. But always just as final. They all agreed that it had been a rotten thing for Peter to do to her, and none of them were anxious to meet Rachel. It was going to exclude him from the group that had been his friends for years, but Jim assured his wife it didn't seem to matter to him. He had a beautiful young woman on his arm, and a new life. He suspected that Peter wouldn't look back, or think twice about what he was doing. All Peter wanted now was Rachel. And all their friends could think about was Paris. It was a month before Paris came out of seclusion finally, in time for Wim's graduation. Virginia saw her there, and nearly cried when she did. She was thin and pale, impeccably dressed as always, in a white linen dress and coat, her hair in a French twist, with pearls at her ears and around her neck, and dark glasses to conceal dark circles and the ravages of the past month. The hardest of all for her was seeing Peter there, she hadn't seen him since the morning he had left her. He had had her served with papers three weeks before, and she just stood there and sobbed, in her nightgown, when she took them. But there was no sign of her distress when she saw him. She stood tall and proud and poised, said hello to him, and walked away to stand with a handful of people she knew, and left him to congratulate his son. |
| 1758 |
After twenty four years of marriage, he almost felt like a stranger to her now. And the worst of it was that she was aching to see him again, almost like a drug she needed to survive. After three months, and all he had done in leaving her, she was still in love with him, and hoping that some miracle would occur and he'd come back. The only person she'd been able to admit that to was Anne Smythe, who told her it wasn't unusual to feel that way, and that one day, she'd be able to let go, and ready to move on, but apparently not yet. The flight took just over five hours, and they took a cab to the Ritz Carlton, where Paris had reserved two rooms, for Wim and herself. And she took Wim out to dinner in Chinatown that night. They had a nice time together, as they always did, and when they got back to the hotel, they called Meg. Paris was flying down to see her in two days, after she got Wim settled in his dorm. She assumed it would take two days, and she was in no rush to leave him there. What she really dreaded now was going home. She had rented a small van to take his belongings across the bridge to the university, and the following morning they left the hotel by ten, and followed all the instructions they'd been given to sign in. And as soon as they got there, Wim took control. He gave his mother the slip of paper with his dorm address, told her he'd meet her there in two hours, and set off on foot. It took her a full half hour just to find the address. The UC Berkeley campus was huge. She walked around for a little while, and then sat on a rock in the sunshine outside the dorm, waiting for him. It was pleasant just sitting there. The weather was warm, the sun was hot, and it was at least fifteen degrees warmer than it had been in San Francisco an hour before. And as she sat there, enjoying the sun on her face, she saw a familiar figure in the distance, a slow rolling gait she had seen a million times before, and would have recognized with her eyes closed, just from the pounding of her heart. |
| 1759 |
Paris had suspected for months that the hotel room he was keeping was only a front, for the chil dren's sake, and the proprieties prior to the divorce. She didn't ask him if he was happy to be nearly divorced. The divorce was going to be final between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which would add a new dimension to the holidays for her this year. "It was nice of you to come out," she said politely, feeling an ache in her heart just being this close to him, and having to engage in small talk with him, which seemed so absurd. "It means a lot to Wim." "I thought it might, that's why I came. I hope you don't mind that I'm here." She looked up at him, and he was more handsome than ever. She had to brace herself just to look at him. It was still nearly impossible to believe how totally and suddenly and irreversibly he had rejected her. It was the single greatest blow of her life. She couldn't even imagine recovering from it, or daring to care about someone again. All she could imagine was loving him, and hurting like this, for the rest of her life. "I think we both have to get used to doing things like this," she said practically, trying to sound healthier than she felt. "There are going to be a lot of events that are important to the kids, and we've got to be able to manage it for them." Although this was in very close quarters, and over several days, which made it harder for her, particularly on unfamiliar turf. She couldn't go home to safe, familiar surroundings afterward to lick her wounds. All she could do was go back to a hotel, which wasn't the same. He nodded, in silent agreement with her, and all she could feel was the future stretching forever in front of them. A future in which he had Rachel, and she was alone. He sat on a bench in silence for a while, as she sat quietly on the rock, both of them wishing that Wim would hurry up. And finally, Peter looked at her again. He seemed to be growing increasingly uncomfortable, and whenever she glanced at him, she could almost see him squirm. |
| 1760 |
He arrived like a burst of summer wind, hot and perspiring and out of breath. For an instant, Paris was sorry he had come when he had, and then just as quickly, she was relieved. She had heard all she needed to know. Peter was firm in his decision, and only sorry for her. She didn't want his pity but his heart. The conversation could only have gone downhill from there. It was easier to focus on Wim, and from then on, they were both busy carrying his belongings upstairs. Once they got into the room, Paris stationed herself in the area of Wim's bed, to unpack what they brought up, and Peter and Wim lugged boxes and bags, a trunk, a small stereo, his computer, and his bicycle up three flights of stairs. They had rented a microwave and a tiny refrigerator from the school. He had everything he'd need, and it was four o'clock before everything was set up. Two of his roommates had arrived by then, and the third appeared just as they left. They all looked like healthy, young, wholesome boys. Two were from California, and the third was from Hong Kong. And they seemed a good mix. Wim had promised to have dinner with Peter that night, and he said he'd be back at six, and then turned to Paris as they walked slowly down the stairs. They both looked tired, it had been a long day, and emotional in every way. She was not only watching her youngest child fly the nest, and helping him do it as she lovingly made his bed and put his clothes away, but she was setting Peter free at the same time, or trying to. It was a reminder of her double loss. Triple, when she thought of Meg. All the people she counted on and loved were now gone from her daily life, and Peter far more than that. He was gone for good. He turned to her as they reached the main hall, which was graced with a huge bulletin board covered with fliers and messages, and posters of concerts and sports events. It was the essence of college life. "Would you like to join us for dinner tonight?" Peter asked generously, as she shook her head. |
| 1761 |
He was anxious to see them too, but had understood that they wanted to be with their mother on Thanksgiving, and hadn't pressed the point with them. Wim and Meg both looked very nice when they caught the five o'clock train into the city on Friday afternoon. It was snowing, and neither of them wanted to drive. He was taking them to Le Cirque for dinner, which seemed very festive and generous of him. They were both looking forward to it. Meg was wearing a little black dress of her mother's, and Wim had decided to wear a suit, and looked suddenly older than his years. He seemed to have matured noticeably in the three months since he'd left for school. And Paris was undeniably proud of him. Peter was waiting for them at the entrance to the restaurant in a pin striped suit, and Meg thought he looked very handsome, and said as much to him. He was pleased, and happy to spend an evening with them. He had invited them both to stay at the hotel with him, and had reserved rooms for each of them. And on Saturday morning, they were planning to go home to Greenwich. They were both returning to the West Coast on Sunday morning. And on Saturday night, they were both planning to see their friends. It was hard now, with separate parents to satisfy, to fit it all in, although both of them had seen friends the night before, after Thanksgiving dinner, as well. Paris was just grateful to have them sleeping there, she didn't expect to monopolize their time, nor did Peter. And they were glad to come into the city. There were already Christmas trees everywhere, and with the snow falling, there was a festive air and it looked like a Christmas card scene. Peter seemed a little tense to Meg at first, as though he didn't know what to say to her, and he seemed a little more at ease with Wim. He had never been an easy conversationalist, and he had always counted on their mother to keep the conversational ball rolling. Without her, things were a little stiffer. But eventually, after a glass of wine, he seemed to loosen up. |
| 1762 |
Wim had a month's vacation, but he was going skiing in Vermont with friends after Peter's wedding. All Paris wanted to do now was get through the holidays. If she was still alive and on her feet on New Year's Day, she figured she'd be ahead of the game. The one thing Paris had agreed to do, other than going to the party she was dreading, was to baby herself as much as she could. Anne said it was important to nurture herself, rest, sleep, get some exercise, even a massage would do her good. And two days later, like a sign from providence, a woman she had known in her carpool days ran into her at the grocery store, and handed her the business card of a massage and aromatherapist she said she'd tried, and said was fabulous. Paris felt foolish taking it, but it couldn't do any harm, she told herself. And Anne was right, she had to do something for her own peace and sanity, especially if she was going to continue to refuse to take antidepressants, which she was determined to do. She wanted to get "well" and happy again on her own, for some reason that was important to her, although she didn't think there was anything wrong with other people taking medication. She just didn't want it herself. So massage seemed like a wholesome alternative, and when she got home that afternoon, she called the name on the card. The voice at the other end of the line was somewhat ethereal, and there was Indian music playing in the background, which Paris found irritating, but she was determined to keep an open mind. The woman's name was Karma Applebaum, and Paris forced herself not to laugh as she wrote it down. The massage therapist said she would come to the house, she had her own table, and she said she would bring her aromatherapy oils as well. The gods were with them apparently, because Karma said she had had a cancellation providentially just that night. Paris hesitated for a beat when Karma offered to come at nine o'clock, and then decided what the hell. She had nothing to lose, and she thought she might sleep better. |
| 1763 |
And Karma ran her hands above her, chanting something unintelligible with her own eyes closed. It only took five minutes, mercifully, and then she was done. But the smell in the room was so overpowering that Paris couldn't imagine how she would ever be able to sleep there again. "Thank you so much," she said as she hopped off the table, and Karma warned her not to bathe or shower until the morning. It would be too great a shock, both for her demons and for her. But Paris knew there was no way she would lie in her bed all night, covered in oil. It took Karma another half hour to wrap up, she charged one hundred dollars, which was reasonable at least, and by midnight she was gone. Paris walked back into her bedroom after letting her out, and all she could do was laugh. Some of it had been relaxing, but most of it had been ridiculously absurd. And she had nodded dutifully when Karma warned her that she'd have to have a high colonic and clean her system out before she came back again, or the therapy would never work. Paris was still smiling to herself as she walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and dropped her robe, and then she saw her back in the mirror. There were round symmetrical bruises all over it, from the cupping. It was terrifying looking, and given the deep purplish red colors of the marks, it was easy to guess that the result of the "cupping" would be deep blue by the next day. It was terrifying to see, and it looked every bit as painful as it had been while the woman did it. Whatever it had done to her demons, it had made a mess of Paris's back. And when she checked again in the morning, her worst fears were confirmed. She looked as though she had been severely abused during the night, and there were two red burn marks on her shoulders from the hot rocks. And the room it had all happened in smelled like someone had died. But if nothing else, it had made Paris laugh. That was something at least. And what did it matter anyway? There was no one to see her back. |
| 1764 |
She hadn't seen Natalie since Thanksgiving. It sounded easy and agreeable, so she accepted. And when she told Anne about it, she was pleased. "Good for you. I hope it'll be fun," she said, sounding sincere, and Paris said that she didn't really care. But as she was getting dressed that night, for the first time in months, she realized that she was looking forward to seeing her friends. Maybe Anne was right, and she was ready. Natalie had told her that there wouldn't be more than a dozen people, which seemed comfortable to Paris. She wasn't in the mood for fancy affairs. And Natalie had said that Virginia and Jim would be there too. She put on a pair of velvet slacks and a cashmere sweater, and did her hair in a bun for the first time in months. And she was about to put on high heels when she saw that it was snowing. In the end, she stuck them in her coat pockets and put on boots. And as she looked out the window right before she left, she realized that she was going to have to shovel snow out of her driveway to get out. She thought about calling the Morrisons to hitch a ride with them, but didn't want to be a nuisance. If she was going to go out alone, she had to get used to taking care of herself. She put on a heavy coat, with a hood, donned mittens, and went outside with a shovel. It took her twenty minutes to get the snow out of the driveway, and the ice off her windshield, and she was twenty minutes late by the time she left for dinner. But only four of the guests were there when she got to Natalie and Fred's. The other guests had had the same problem too. It was turning out to be a heavier snowfall than expected. And when Fred found out she'd driven herself, he told her if she had called, they would have been happy to come and get her. But she laughed, and felt surprisingly independent. By the time the last of the guests arrived, she realized that she was the only single person there, which was more or less what she had expected. They had invited four couples, and Paris. |
| 1765 |
But he had only met him twice in the office. All he knew was that he was divorced, had three kids, and was, according to his own reports, a fantastic skier. It seemed enough to inspire Fred to invite him. They didn't know anyone else single, and Fred had assured Natalie he was intelligent and decent looking, didn't mishandle their account, and said he didn't have a girlfriend. By the time they went in to dinner, he had told a series of lewd jokes, most of which were inappropriate in mixed company, and some of which were actually funny. Even Paris laughed heartily at one of them, but when he sat down next to her at the dinner table, he stepped up the volume. He had had two more scotches by then, and he was starting to slur before he got to the soup course. "Christ, don't you hate soup at a dinner party?" he said to her, more loudly than he was aware of. "I always get it all over myself, used to get it on my tie, that's why I don't wear them." And she could only assume that he didn't want to get it on his blazer either, since he tucked his napkin into his turtleneck, and asked Fred where the wine was. "Must be a dry state here. You still in AA, Fred? Where's the wine, boy?" Fred hastened to pour him the first glass, while Natalie looked as though she wanted to kill him. She was all too aware of how fragile Paris had been, and the fact that this was the first time she had gone out to dinner. She had wanted to be subtle about introducing her to this man. And he was about as subtle as a flood in a farmhouse, and considerably less attractive. He had a habit of taking his glasses on and off, and in doing so, messed up his hair. The drunker he got, the wilder he looked, and the lewder his jokes got. He had mentioned every possible body part by the end of the first course, every possible sexual position by the end of the second, and by the time dessert came, he was pounding the table and laughing so loudly at his own jokes that Paris couldn't keep a straight face when she looked across the table at Virginia. |
| 1766 |
For the next four days, Paris felt as though she saw every house in town. She saw four apartments, and decided in short order that an apartment wasn't what she wanted. After years in a fairly substantial house, with plenty of room to roam around, she wasn't ready for an apartment. In the end she narrowed it down to two houses she liked. One was a large stone house in Pacific Heights reminiscent of the house in Greenwich, and the other was a quaint Victorian with a mother in law apartment on Vallejo Street in Cow Hollow. It had the advantage of being close to the water, had a view of the bay, and the Golden Gate, and what she liked most about it was that Wim could use the mother in law apartment whenever he wanted, and still feel as though he had a certain amount of independence from her. He could even bring his friends there. It was perfect. The price was right, and the owners were willing to rent it. And she was an ideal tenant. She was solvent and a responsible adult. The whole place had been freshly painted and looked cheerful, clean, and bright. There were beautiful hardwood floors, and the main part of the house had three bedrooms, one on the top floor with a spectacular view, and two just below it, which she could use for Meg, and whoever else came to visit, or they could just stand empty. There was a pleasant country kitchen, and the living room looked out on a small, well manicured garden. Everything was on a smaller scale than she was used to, but she liked that about it. She was going to have to pick and choose among her furniture, and send the rest to storage. And the realtor told her that he could rent furniture for her until her own arrived. They settled it in one afternoon. She signed the lease, and the realtor dropped off the keys to her that night at the Ritz Carlton. She had paid the first and last months' rent, and a sizable security deposit. All she had to do now was rent the Greenwich house, but even if that took a while, there was no reason for her to wait around in Greenwich. |
| 1767 |
It had taken her eight months to get here, but she had. She drove him back to Berkeley that night, and the next morning she flew back to Greenwich. Her seatmate this time was a very old woman who said she was going to see her son, and slept from takeoff to touchdown. And Paris felt as though she'd been gone for months when she walked into the house in Greenwich. She had accomplished a lot in a short time. She called Natalie and Virginia the next morning, and told them what had happened. Both of them were shocked, and saddened by her news. They hated to see her go, but said they were happy for her if that was what she wanted. She didn't tell Natalie that her dinner party had done it. She had already called a realtor, and they were starting to show the house that weekend. They told her it might take a while to rent it. It was a dead time of year, as people were more likely to rent, move, or buy in spring or summer. She had already called movers, and was planning to start packing over the weekend. She had a lot of decisions to make over what to take with her, and what to put in storage. And Virginia called her later that morning. She had told Jim the news, and they wanted to give her a farewell party. And Natalie made the same offer the next morning. By the weekend, at least four people had called and said they wanted to see her before she left, and wanted to have her for dinner. Suddenly people weren't feeling sorry for her, they were excited about what she was doing, though sorry to see her go, and she loved it. It was as though she had finally managed to turn the ship around by deciding to move to California. It never dawned on her that the change in attitude and outlook was more on her part than anyone else's. But overnight the whole atmosphere of her life had changed. And much to her amazement, by Sunday afternoon, the house had been rented. They were only the second people who had seen it, and the first ones called an hour later, and were severely disappointed that it was gone. |
| 1768 |
As she glanced around, she could see that the decor was very high end, and there was a narrow marble staircase to the upper floors at the back of the room. "It started out as one. But it's actually a lot more now. The man who owns it is an artist and a genius. He does all the best parties in town, from soup to nuts. He provides the music, caterers, decides on the theme, or works with his clients to create the atmosphere they want, from small dinner parties to weddings for eight hundred. He's pretty much cornered the market on entertaining in San Francisco. The flowers are just the tip of the iceberg now, so to speak. He does parties all over the state, and around the country sometimes." "Very impressive," Paris said quietly, as the woman reached into a bookcase behind her and pulled out three huge leather bound albums. There were at least two dozen more on the shelves. "Want to take a look? These are just a few of the parties he did last year. They're pretty fabulous." If the flowers in the window were any indication of his work, Paris was sure they were. And as she sat down to thumb through the books out of curiosity, she was enormously impressed. The homes he worked in were spectacular, the settings more elegant than any she'd ever seen. Mansions, gardens, beautifully manicured grounds on large estates with tents specially designed to accommodate the guests in fabrics she would never have thought of using. The weddings she saw in the book were exquisite. And there were a handful of small dinner parties he had photographed that were any hostess's dream. There were hand painted gourds on the table in one for a Halloween party, a profusion of brown orchids in another, with tiny Chinese vases holding little sprigs of herbs, and a fifties party with so many funny decorations on the table that she smiled as she turned to the last page, and finally handed the books back, with a look of awe. "Very, very impressive." And she meant it. She wished she had had the imagination to do something like that in Greenwich. |
| 1769 |
And she noticed with embarrassment that her hands were shaking when she rang the bell. She was wearing a trim black suit, and high heeled black shoes, her hair was neatly pulled back in a bun, and she had small diamond studs at her ears. She felt a little overdressed, but she wanted him to see that she would look proper at parties, and this was an interview after all. She hadn't wanted to underdress or overdress, and she was carrying a small black classic Chanel shoulder bag that Peter had given her for Christmas several years before. She had so little occasion to wear it in Greenwich that it looked brand new. She wondered if she should be carrying a briefcase, but she didn't own one. All she had to offer him was her brain, her energy, her time, and her organizational skills. She hoped it was enough for him. A buzzer sounded, and when she pushed the door, it opened, and revealed a short flight of marble stairs leading upward, just like the staircase in the shop. The house was beautifully done. She heard voices on the floor above, and followed them, and found herself in an elegant hallway, with original modern art by well known artists, and ahead of her was a large wood paneled room lined with books, and in it were seated a strikingly handsome blond man in his mid to late thirties in a black turtleneck and black slacks, and a young woman who was so pregnant, Paris almost smiled thinking of Agnes Gooch in Auntie Mame. She got out of the chair with difficulty, and came to greet Paris in the hall and lead her into the room. "You must be Paris, what a terrific name. I'm Jane. And this is Bixby Mason. We've been expecting you." He was already looking Paris over with eyes that felt like X rays as he checked her out. She could feel him taking in everything, from her hair and earrings to the Chanel bag and the high heeled shoes she had worn, but he seemed to approve, and smiled as he asked her to sit down. "Great suit," he said, as he reached behind him and grabbed a phone that was ringing. |
| 1770 |
People loved coming to his parties. He had arranged for a dance band afterward, and some of the furniture had been cleared out of the living room to accommodate it. And as Jane and Paris stood by, a truck arrived with a baby grand piano. There was not a single thing he did by half measures. Bix arrived himself about half an hour later, and he stayed until nearly dinnertime. By the time he left, everything was set up and in perfect order. He had pulled and tugged and tucked and tweaked the flowers himself, and at the last minute he changed one of the silver bowls they were in because he didn't like it. But one thing was certain, the evening would be one that all the guests would remember. Jane ran home herself then to put a black cocktail dress on, and she was planning to be back before the first guest arrived. She liked to be on hand to be sure that everything went smoothly. With small dinner parties, she usually stayed until the guests sat down, with larger more complicated ones, she stayed until they were dancing after dinner. It made for long workdays and longer evenings. She had told Paris she didn't have to be there that night, but Paris had insisted that she wanted to join her, and see how she coordinated the evening. When caterers were used, she kept an eye on them, and made sure the service was impeccable. She made sure the guests were greeted properly when they arrived, their escort cards were handed to them, the musicians were at their stations, the flowers still looked right, and the valet parkers knew what they were doing with the cars. There was not a single detail overlooked by Bixby Mason or any of his employees. And when press coverage was appropriate, they wrote the releases. Paris drove home as quickly as she could, and ran a bath, as she pulled a short black dress out of her closet, and let her hair down to brush it. She hadn't stopped since nine o'clock that morning. And this was only the beginning. She dialed Meg quickly as she foraged for something to eat. |
| 1771 |
And the guy was a big spender obviously, and something about him was beginning to suggest to Meg that he was too smooth. Unless he was madly in love with her mother and had never done this before, he sounded like a playboy of some kind to her. But as long as her mother could handle it, if she could, maybe it would be okay. Meg was no longer so sure. Chandler appeared at Paris's door at five minutes to seven in an impeccably cut tuxedo that had been made for him in London, and he looked better than any movie star, and Paris looked terrific too. The white evening gown clung to her just enough, but not too much, and her figure looked spectacular. She had worn a little more makeup than usual, and she had rhinestone sticks in her chignon, and diamonds at her ears. As they left the hotel, she wore a white mink jacket over her dress. And as she walked, Chandler could just barely see high heeled silver sandals with rhinestone buckles. She looked exquisite, and he was obviously proud to have her on his arm as they walked into the Beverly Hills Hotel. The entire hotel had been taken over by his record business friend Walter Frye, who, Paris discovered as they walked in, was easily the most important man in the music business. As they entered, it seemed as if two hundred photographers took their picture. "You look beautiful, Paris," Chandler whispered to her, as he patted her hand tucked into his arm, and they glided by the photographers. Allison Jones was just ahead of them, and she was nominated for four Grammys, the previous year's major winner, Wanda Bird, was bringing up the rear. They were both Walter's discoveries, and incredible singers. Allison was twenty two years old, and was wearing a cream lace dress that barely covered her figure, and left little to the imagination. It was a dazzling evening. There were eight hundred people in the room, among them every major name in the music business, singers, producers, power brokers of all kinds, and the photographers who were wending their way among them were going crazy. |
| 1772 |
It wasn't exactly cheerful dinner conversation, and they didn't want to share it with their children. Sally and his son always told Jim he had to stop talking about their mother, particularly to strangers. He did it often. She'd been gone for nearly two years now. And to Jim, it seemed like minutes. "We're just talking about our children," Paris said blithely, covering for him, and herself. Sally's brother was a year older than Wim, and was at Harvard. "What rotten kids you are and how much we hate you," Paris teased, with a conspiratorial look at Sally's father, for which he was grateful. He had liked talking to her, more than he'd expected. He had been as reluctant as she to come to dinner, and he had done everything he could to dissuade his daughter. But now that he was here, he was delighted he hadn't succeeded. Both girls were very stubborn, and loved their parents. They talked about their respective Fourth of July plans then. Sally and her husband were going away for the weekend, probably their last one alone before the baby came. Jim said he was in a sailboat race with friends, and Paris said she would be working, on two holiday picnics. Jim thought her job sounded like great fun, although he admitted that personally he wasn't fond of parties. He seemed like a quiet, somewhat withdrawn person, but it was hard to tell if that was from circumstance or nature. He admitted to Paris that he had been depressed since being widowed. But he also had to admit that once he was out, he felt better. The girls kissed each other good bye when they left, and Jim asked Paris quietly in a discreet aside if he could call her. He seemed very old fashioned, and very formal, and she hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. If nothing else, maybe she could help him. She wasn't physically attracted to him, but he obviously needed someone to talk to, and he wasn't unattractive. His circuits just seemed to be disconnected at the moment, and she wondered if he was on some kind of medication. |
| 1773 |
She was afraid of their single room now, with the huge king size bed and the cozy fireplace. There was something sexy and subtle about the room, and she would have had a good time there, minus Phyllis. But she had already joined them, and was settling in as Paris unpacked. He told Paris all about the final anniversary, where they'd gone, what they'd done, what they'd eaten. It was as though he did it to protect himself from his feelings for Paris. Phyllis was the shield he was using against his own emotions. His guilt was stronger than his libido. He poured Paris a glass of champagne, and drank three himself before they went to dinner. And when they got back, he lit the fire, and turned to Paris, just as two and a half years before, he had turned to Phyllis. He could still see it, although for once he didn't say it. But Phyllis's presence was palpable in the room. "Tired?" he asked quietly, and she nodded. In fact, she wasn't. She was extremely nervous. And it was hard to tell how he felt. He had seemed nostalgic and quiet all evening. Maybe he was getting ready to let Phyllis go, Paris hoped. Maybe this was going to be the epiphany he needed. She was praying it would be. It was time. Paris put on the simple white satin nightgown she had brought, which dropped easily over her lithe figure, and clung to it enticingly as she emerged from the bathroom. He was already in bed, wearing crisp linen pajamas. His hair was combed, and he had shaved for her. She felt like a bride and groom on a wedding night, fraught with all the same tensions as old fashioned couples who had never slept with each other. And she was beginning to wonder if they should have made less of a fuss of it, and just climbed into bed one night at her house. But they were here now, and there was no turning back. And as she got into bed and he turned off the light, he kissed her, and all the passion they had felt for each other suddenly rushed to the surface. He was instantly aroused and so was she, and they seemed to be starving for each other. |
| 1774 |
More and more lately, she had been thinking that she would be alone forever, and she'd love to adopt a baby. But she hadn't said anything to anyone about it, not even Meg, and surely not Bix. He would have had the vapors if she told him. And she didn't know if it was something real she wanted to pursue, or a pipe dream she had to cheat Father Time and delude herself that she was still young. Starting out with a baby at this point would be a major challenge, and she wasn't ready to do more than think about it yet. But the idea had crossed her mind. And the following week she felt as though she had almost been psychic, when the subject of babies came up again. But it came up very differently this time. Meg called her to tell her that Rachel was pregnant, and expecting a baby in May. She was six weeks pregnant, and Meg admitted to her mother that Peter was thrilled. And when Paris hung up the phone, she sat staring into space for a long time, digesting it. There was no question now. He was really gone. His life was enmeshed with Rachel's forever. And she felt it almost like a physical blow to her heart and soul. Much to her surprise, Wim called her the next day to tell her how angry he was about Peter and Rachel's baby. He thought it was a terrible idea, and that his father was a complete fool, and too old. Meg was a little more moderate about it, but she wasn't happy either. They both seemed to feel threatened by it, which surprised Paris at their age, since they were both out in the world and had spread their wings, and they would hardly see their father's new child. But it also told them that Rachel was there for good, and important to him. And even if only out of loyalty to their mother, neither of them was crazy about her. She seemed to devour their father's energies and attention, and had him wrapped around her two little boys, who never saw their own father. Meg said he was thinking of adopting them. The landscape of their family had certainly changed in the last year and a half. |
| 1775 |
He was convinced it was a perfect match. Paris nodded and said nothing, and the next morning Bix picked her up at nine fifteen. The writer they were seeing, Malcolm Ford, lived only a few blocks from her. And when they got to his address, Paris had to admit the house was impressive. It was a solid brick residence on upper Broadway, on what was referred to as the Gold Coast. All the biggest bucks in the city were there. But there was nothing showy about him when he opened the door. He had salt and pepper hair and steel blue eyes, and he was wearing an old Irish sweater and jeans, and as they walked through the house, it was handsome but unpretentious. They settled into a library that was lined with first editions and rare books, and there were stacks of more current books on the floor. He went over the details for his mother's party calmly. He wanted something elegant and nice, but not too showy. And since he didn't have a wife, he had hired them. His mother was turning ninety, and Bix knew Malcolm was sixty. He had a very distinguished look, and he chatted with them for quite a while. Paris told him she'd read his books and enjoyed them very much, and he seemed pleased. There was a nice photo of his late wife on the desk, but he didn't talk about her. There was an equally nice one of his last girlfriend too, who was also a well known writer. And he mentioned that he had a house in England. But everything about him seemed normal and human, and surprisingly low key considering how successful he was. He didn't drive a Ferrari or have a plane, and he said he went to Sonoma on weekends, but admitted that his place there was a mess, and he liked it that way. He had absolutely everything going for him, including looks and money, and as they left his house after the meeting, Bix looked at her victoriously. He had found a gem for her, and he knew it, but the expression on Paris's face was blank. "Was I right?" he asked her in the car, grinning happily as he drove her to the office. |
| 1776 |
She wondered if it was like that between Richard and Meg. But this was ridiculous. Jean Pierre was fifteen years younger than she. And he was only there for a minute. It was fine to drive around with him for a day, playing tourist, but she couldn't think of him as a romantic possibility. And he probably wouldn't come back anyway. He kissed her on both cheeks, and hopped out of the car, and she waved as she drove away. When she glanced in the rearview mirror, he was standing outside the hotel, watching her. And all that night, she was haunted by him. All she could think about were the things they had talked about, and the expressive look on his face. And the French words he had taught her seemed to dance in her head. She was still feeling dazed the next day, as though she had taken a drug and was hung over. Being with him was some kind of strange aphrodisiac she couldn't have explained to anyone. He was such a powerful presence, in an almost sexual way. She could suddenly understand for the first time in her life why older women had affairs with younger men. But that wasn't going to happen to her. She and Bix worked on a number of projects, and she was aware of a sense of malaise all day, as though some part of her were causing her body to be too big for her skin. She felt raw and uncomfortable all day. And it was crazy, but she actually missed him. She was determined not to give in to it, and she didn't call him on the cell phone he had rented, although he had given her the number. She went to bed early that night, and worked hard again the next day. She felt better by Wednesday, and Meg called that night about their Thanksgiving plans. They were going to be with their father that year, and with her for Christmas. She never asked Meg how Rachel was doing with her pregnancy, because she didn't want to know. She had never asked if Peter was happy about it, if it was an accident, or planned. She couldn't bear to think of any of it, and Meg very discreetly never volunteered anything her mother didn't ask. |
| 1777 |
They were crazy about each other. As she drove up in front of her house that night, Jean Pierre was sitting on the steps again, looking very relaxed, eating an apple, and reading a magazine. The van was in her driveway. And he looked up with pleasure the minute he saw her. She had known him at that point for exactly eight days, and she knew more about him than many people she had known for years. But it still didn't justify the attraction she felt for him. What was happening between them was all about chemistry and hormones and pheromones. It was totally out of their control, except that Paris was trying to do everything she could to keep a harness and muzzle on her feelings. "I don't have much in the fridge," she said as they walked into the house together. And before she could say another word, he took her handbag and briefcase from her and set them down. He closed the front door with his foot, and kissed her so passionately it took her breath away. She had to fight to catch her breath when he stopped. She had never been kissed like that in her entire life, not even by him the night before. "I am going crazy, Paris," he said desperately, and then kissed her again, and as he did, he took off her coat and dropped it on the floor, and then her blouse, and her bra, and she did nothing to stop him. She didn't want to. All she wanted was what he was doing. And as he continued undressing her, she began undressing him. She unbuttoned his shirt, undid his belt buckle, and unzipped his trousers. And within seconds, they were both standing naked, and glued to each other in the front hall. And without a word, he swept her into his powerful young arms, and carried her up the steps to her bedroom, as though he had done it a thousand times before. He deposited her on her bed, and looked at her for a long moment, and then gave a soft almost animal moan, as he began kissing her everywhere, and touching her, and making her writhe with pleasure, and she turned to return the favor to him. |
| 1778 |
He had understood instantly what it was. She only looked that way when her children talked about their father, and it hurt his feelings sometimes. To him, it meant that she didn't love him as much as he loved her. But it was more complicated than that. It was about history and memories and hearts that were forever intertwined, from her point of view at least, no matter what the legal papers said. She had tried to explain it to him once, and he had been upset for two days. He viewed her feelings about Peter as a disloyalty to him, and no amount of explaining changed that. She had learned that the words were better left unsaid. He didn't seem to understand what the loss of her marriage had meant to her. Maybe he was too young. He hadn't lost enough yet himself. There were times when, in spite of his warmth and charm, she felt the difference in their ages. He saw life as a young person, and preferred to live only in the moment. He hated to think about the future or make plans. He was entirely spontaneous, and did whatever felt good at the time, with no regard for consequences, which sometimes irked her. He had called his son on Christmas Day, but he admitted that the child was almost a stranger to him, and he didn't feel the loss. He had never spent time with him from the first. And had never allowed himself to love him, which seemed wrong to Paris. She felt Jean Pierre owed him more than that, but Jean Pierre didn't. He felt he owed him nothing, and it made him furious that he had to send money to support him. He hated the boy's mother, and said so. He and his ex wife had married to give the child a name, and had divorced shortly after that. He had had no great emotional investment in the mother or the child. They had both been a burden to him, one he tried to ignore. So he avoided the boy, which seemed sad to Paris, and irresponsible. He had no other father than Jean Pierre, but Jean Pierre resisted any emotions about him, because he had been manipulated by the boy's mother. |
| 1779 |
Paris always felt, when they talked about it, that his responsibilities to the child should have transcended his feelings about the mother, but they didn't. He had shut them both out years before. And ultimately it was the child's loss, which bothered Paris. But they saw it differently, and probably always would. She had stopped talking to him about it, because they argued over it, which upset her. She felt he owed the child more than he was giving, and she thought his attitude about it was selfish. But perhaps it was only young. There were other things they saw differently too. He had a more casual work ethic than she, and the people he liked were younger, which made her uncomfortable. She preferred hanging out with people closer to her own age. And the people he brought home from the magazine were in their twenties and made her feel ancient. And one of the important topics they disagreed about was marriage. Jean Pierre talked a lot about it. Paris never did. She avoided it discreetly. There were times when she actually thought about it, and wondered if it could ever work with him long term, but there were subtle hints, to her, that it couldn't, that it would be too big a stretch. The people he liked, his boyishness, which translated to juvenile to her at times. And although he wasn't a socialist, he had very definite political ideas that were far more liberal than hers. He thought riches of any kind were offensive. He detested all things bourgeois. He hated old fashioned ideas, and traditions and obligations that seemed pointless to him. He was very avant garde and free in his thinking. He believed in high taxes, for the good of the people. And he detested anything elitist with a passion. The parties she and Bix organized always irritated him, because he thought the people were so pretentious. And they were, some of them, but she and Bix loved them, for the most part. And elitism was the essence of their business. Some of his ideas she knew were because he was French. |
| 1780 |
And each time she'd spoken to him, she'd felt shaken, and had to catch her breath afterward, but she knew it would be very different being able to set the phone down and walk away, than having to face him on Meg's wedding day. Paris had been dreading seeing him again. She hadn't in two years, since they'd settled Wim in Berkeley, and she had hardly spoken to him since. Now she had to face not only him but Rachel, her children, and their baby. Her stomach and her heart were in knots over it. She was so busy with Meg the day of the wedding that she almost didn't have time to think of it, and when she saw Peter finally, he was waiting for his daughter in the back of the church. Richard was secluded in a separate room, with the best man, so he wouldn't see his bride before the ceremony. Meg wanted to do everything according to tradition, and she looked like a fairy princess in the gown Bix had designed for her, with a vast ephemeral cloud of veil, a tiny pearl tiara, and the white lace dress with the seemingly endless train. It was everything Paris had wanted for her. An unforgettably beautiful day, marrying a man who loved her just as much as she loved him. Paris had long since stopped worrying about the difference in their ages, she agreed that Richard was the perfect man for Meg. And as she walked into the back of the church to check on the last details, she saw Peter standing quietly by himself, waiting for Meg. She was downstairs with her bridesmaids, having a last nervous giggle with the girls as they settled her veil over her face and wished her well. She was anxiously clutching an enormous bouquet of lily of the valley and the tiniest white orchids. Bix had had the lily of the valley flown in from Paris especially for her. As Paris entered the room, she saw Peter standing there, and they said nothing to each other, just stood there. It was impossible not to think of their own wedding day twenty six years before. She had never thought it would be this way when their children married. |
| 1781 |
And for a moment, he even forgot that they were there for Meg. Like Paris, all he could think of suddenly was their own wedding day, and how everything had gone awry since then. He was happy with Rachel, and he loved their baby, but seeing Paris seemed to sweep the present away. He felt transported backward into time, and when he hugged her, she could sense in him and herself, everything they had once felt for each other. She pulled away and looked up at him. "You look very handsome." He always had. She had always loved him, and always would. "Wait till you see our daughter." But it wasn't Meg who filled his heart now, it was Paris, and everything they had once shared, and lost since then. He didn't know what to say. He knew there was no way he could ever make up to her for all he'd done to her. It was so different knowing that at a distance than seeing her face to face again. He hadn't been prepared for the flood of emotions and regrets that would overwhelm him when he looked into her eyes. He could see there that she had forgiven him. But the worst of it, he realized, was that he no longer knew if he could forgive himself. It was far harder to do while looking at her. She was so elegant and so dignified, so vulnerable and so proud. Just feeling her stand next to him, his heart went out to her, and he had no idea what to say. He only hoped that one day life made it up to her. And he knew from what his children said that thus far at least it had not. "They'll be ready in a few minutes," she warned him, and then left the room again. Wim took his mother to her seat in the first pew, and she saw that Rachel was sitting directly behind her with her two boys, and she tried not to stiffen, but wished they had put her a few rows farther back at least. Paris turned to face forward, and Wim took his seat next to her, and an instant later the organist began playing the music that she knew meant the wedding was about to start, and the first of Meg's bridesmaids glided slowly down the aisle. |
| 1782 |
And as she looked into Richard's eyes, there was such joy on her face that Paris thought her heart would burst and she could feel tears fill her eyes. Peter caught Paris's eye as he came back down the aisle toward her, and there was so much tenderness in his expression that she wanted to reach out and touch his hand. But she knew she couldn't. He slipped quietly into the pew behind her, beside his new wife, and Paris had to steel herself not to cry harder. The single gesture and the reality of where he was sitting summed up the entire situation, and Wim looked down at her to make sure she was all right, just as his sister would have. Meg had warned him that morning to be extra nice to Mom, because the wedding would be hard on her, Meg knew, and Wim had understood. And as they sat down again, he patted his mother's hand, and Paris smiled up at him through her tears. Paris knew she was lucky. He was a good boy, and a loving son. And after the ceremony was over, Paris and Peter stood at the entrance to the church with the bride and groom, the matron of honor and the best man, and they formed a receiving line as people came past to greet and congratulate them. For a fraction of an instant, it felt like being married again, and then Paris looked across the vestibule through the crowd, and saw Rachel watching her. There was a strange look of apology on her face, and not the mask of victory Paris had feared would be there. The two women nodded discreetly to each other, so that no one else could see, and Paris nodded as though to tell her she forgave her. There had been no way of stopping Peter from what he wanted, and Paris knew it. And in some ways it was more about him than either of the women. And Paris was able to accept now that losing him was what was meant to be. A lesson of some mammoth proportion, a loss she had to experience of nearly everything she loved and believed in except her children. It was one of life's enormous cruelties, yet somewhere in it she knew there would be a gift one day. |
| 1783 |
She had not found it yet, but she knew it was there, waiting for her to discover it, and when she did, she would be free. And until then she was struggling to find it, and still growing stronger every day. Rachel had been part of the journey, and Peter, and even Bix, and Jean Pierre. And one day Paris knew that she would discover why it had happened to her. But in the meantime, this woman Peter had left her for seemed insignificant suddenly. Paris envied her less for him than for the baby they now shared. Someone handed the baby to Rachel as Paris watched them, and she was mesmerized, and saw her holding the little girl close to her. She was only four months old, and she was everything Paris wanted now. It was all that was left to her. If a man was not going to love her, then perhaps another child would one day, in addition to those she had. She had said nothing to her children, but this was what she hungered for now, it was the path she was taking, or would soon, she hoped. And then she turned away from Rachel to greet the rest of their guests, and Meg and Richard were standing only a few feet away. Paris had never seen a happier couple in her life. Her new son in law embraced her, looking far older than his mother in law, and he thanked her profusely for everything she'd done for them, and for being so supportive of their marriage. He was grateful to her, and enormously fond of her now. "I'll always be here for you, Paris," he whispered as he hugged her, and she believed him. She and Richard were friends now, more than just being related by marriage, and she knew he would take wonderful care of Meg. She was a very lucky girl, and she deserved it. Paris knew she'd be a good wife to Richard, and a loving mother to his children. It was wonderful to see them embark on their journey, and to share in it. She wished them an abundance of happiness for the rest of their lives, and hopefully never grief. All her prayers, as Meg's mother, were that life would be kind to them. |
| 1784 |
The wedding party left for the club a short time later, and they spent an hour posing for photographs while the guests had cocktails and laughed and chatted, and Bix wove expertly through the crowd, greeting people, meeting friends, introducing some guests to others, and keeping an eye on all the details. All three hundred guests had been seated according to careful seating charts, and there were two long tables with escort cards on them, which Paris had checked herself at the crack of dawn that morning. Two young women were handing them out as guests arrived. Paris and Peter were at separate tables, and were seated as far apart as correctly possible, and Bix and Steven were sitting with her, along with a handful of her friends. There had been three gaps at her table, because she wasn't close to that many people, even after being in San Francisco for nearly two years, but she worked so hard for Bix she had no time to cultivate friendships, except with clients for a brief time until their events were completed. So they had put Richard's business partner at her table, and the matron of honor's parents, whom Paris knew from Greenwich, which made a nice group for her. Natalie and Virginia had come out for the wedding, and Paris had scarcely had time to see them. They were leaving in the morning, so she still wouldn't, but Meg had wanted them at other tables with a large group of Peter's friends who had come out from Greenwich, so socially it was kind of a lost day. There were too many other things for Paris to do than to sit and catch up on gossip with her friends. By the time they sat down to dinner, she was breathless. She had said hello to all three hundred people, solved a minor crisis that Bix was unaware of, between a photographer and one of the catering staff, and she introduced herself to the man she knew was Richard's partner, as she slipped off the pink taffeta coat, and caught her breath. "I'm sorry to be such an inattentive seatmate," she apologized with a smile, as he helped her with the evening coat. |
| 1785 |
And a little while later they all left the tables, talked to friends, moved around, and the young people danced for hours. It was three o'clock in the morning when Paris and Bix left the wedding. Peter and Rachel had left hours before, and hadn't even stayed to watch Meg toss the bouquet. Rachel wanted to go to the hotel to nurse the baby, and the boys were exhausted. So Peter went with her, although he would have liked to stay, and have a few moments' conversation with Paris, if only to thank her, but it never happened. And Paris was relieved it hadn't. She had nothing left to say to him. There was too much water under the bridge now, and he didn't need to thank her. They had done it for their daughter. All Paris wanted was healing, and she was getting there. There were scars, she knew, but she could live with them. She was at peace now. It had taken a long time. And Meg had done a silly thing when she'd tossed the bouquet. She had insisted that her mother get out on the dance floor with the single women. Bix had made her a special, smaller bouquet just for tossing, so Meg could preserve her real one. He did it for all brides. He thought it a terrible waste to let a magnificent bouquet go home with a stranger. And the smaller ones were easier for brides to throw at the single women. Meg had refused to move an inch till her mother was out there. And Paris felt ridiculous standing among girls half her age, or even slightly older, who were leaping and jumping to catch hope, in the form of an ancient tradition. It was a hope Paris no longer cherished, nor even wanted. And she had raised her hands halfheartedly and looked away as the bouquet flew at her and hit her in the chest like a football. Her daughter had taken careful aim and hurled it at her. Paris's first instinct was to let it drop and let someone else get it, and then as though a force beyond herself took over by simple reflex, she reached up and grabbed it before it fell. She thought it might be bad luck for Meg if she let that happen. |
| 1786 |
She had told Bix pointedly that he'd make a great friend, and that was all either of them wanted. They were on the same page about that. "I do have a hot date. I'm meeting a birth mother in San Leandro." Paris looked anxious and excited and hopeful all at once. "You hang out in the nicest places," Bix teased. With traffic, it took her an hour and a half to get there, but she had allowed enough time, and walked into the coffee shop minutes before the birth mother. She was a tired looking blonde who looked as though she was ready to drop with exhaustion. But she was pretty, and gentle and bright when Paris talked to her. She'd had a year of community college, and wanted to go to nursing school one day. But for now, she was going to have to do whatever she could to support her children. Her husband sounded like a real bastard. And all this woman wanted to do was get on a plane after she had the baby, and go east to get away. She said her sister would send her little girl to her when she thought she could handle it. But she was frantic about trying to support her kids now, and she knew that they would all drown, if she had a fifth one. Her husband had recently lost his job, and he couldn't pay support. And every penny he had, he was spending on the other woman. Paris wanted to put her in the car and drive away with her, with the rest of her children. But she knew she couldn't. That wasn't what she was there for. They were there to talk about the baby that was due in two weeks. Paris talked about her own family, and Meg and Wim, her house, her life, her job. But just as Alice had predicted, the birth mother wanted to know very little about her. All she wanted to know was that Paris was willing to take the baby. It was she who wanted Paris to approve of her, not the reverse, and get her out of the mess she was in, so she could get on her feet as quickly as possible, and help her other children. Giving someone the baby she was carrying was going to allow this girl to survive and take care of her other kids. |
| 1787 |
She thought about them as she lay in bed that night, praying that Steven would get better, and live for a very long time. She knew how much they loved each other, and how unusual a relationship like theirs was. She didn't want anything bad to happen to them. Life was always so challenging, and so full of wicked, unexpected turns in the road. She had discovered that herself two and a half years before. She fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed about the baby. She dreamed that she was having it and Amy was standing next to her, holding her hand, and as soon as the baby came, someone took it away, and in the dream Paris was screaming. And as she woke up with a start, she realized that that was what she was going to do to Amy. Amy was going to work so hard to have the baby, and then Paris was going to take the baby away. Her heart went out to her as she lay in bed and thought about it. Things seemed to be so hard for everyone. Bix, Steven, Amy... and in the midst of it there was innocence, and hope, and love. The baby seemed to personify all the good things in life, all the joy that came with a new life. And it was interesting that even in the midst of sorrow, there was always some small ray of light. And hope to make it all worthwhile. The next morning Paris rushed out, as she had intended to, to buy everything she needed. She went to a fancy little baby store to buy a bassinet and a changing table, some adorable furniture, with pink bows and butterflies painted on it. And she bought little dresses and hats and booties and sweaters, and a layette fit for a princess. And then she went to three more stores to buy all the practical things. Her station wagon was so full, she could hardly see to drive it, and she got back just in time to unload the car, and put all of it in the guest room upstairs. She was going to put the baby in the bassinet in her own room. But she was going to put everything she needed in the guest room next to hers. She was planning to spend the rest of the weekend organizing it. |
| 1788 |
But she knew that babies came when they wanted to, witness Jane's, which she'd almost had to deliver herself. At least she wouldn't have to do that this time. "Do you ever think about just taking some time off for a while?" Andrew asked her casually, and she smiled to herself, thinking of what she had planned. "Not for very long. I'm actually planning to take some time off after the holidays, but no more than a month. That's a long time for me." "I'd love to take a year off one of these days, and take an apartment in Paris or London, and just roam around Europe for a while. Maybe take a villa in Tuscany, or even Provence. It sounds like heaven to me. I keep telling Richard I'm going to do it, and he threatens to have a nervous breakdown every time I suggest it. His actors drive him crazy enough. I don't think he wants my writers on his neck too." The agency was a huge success, so it wasn't surprising that they had a vast number of difficult personalities to deal with. It was the nature of their work, just as parties and hostesses and brides and their mothers and hysterical caterers were the nature of what she did with Bix. It was obvious that they both enjoyed their work. They talked about their children then, and inevitably their marriages to a minor extent. Although he was sorry that his marriage didn't work out, he didn't seem to have an ax to grind about his ex wife, which was something of a relief. Paris was so tired of all the people who hated their ex spouses, the energy they put into it ended up being draining for everyone else. And although she would always be sad about Peter, she wished him well. Whether she had wanted it that way or not, they had both moved on. It had seemed to take her forever, but she was there at last. She had just poured him a cup of coffee, since he said he was going to be up most of the night after he went back to his writer, when her cell phone rang. It was sitting in the charger in the kitchen where they were eating, so she leaned over and picked it up. |
| 1789 |
The graphs on the paper tape looked like a major earthquake. "Wow! Those are big ones," Paris said as the nurse showed her how to read it. She changed into hospital pajamas then, so she'd be ready for the delivery room, and took Amy's hand in hers. There was no one else with her. Her husband had been at the neighbor's when she left for the hospital in a taxi, and she had dropped off the boys at a friend's. It was a lonely way to have a baby. But at least Paris was there. And she had had the presence of mind to bring the papers she needed to have the baby released to her. And the hospital had been notified by Alice Harper about the adoption. Everything was in order. All they needed now was the baby. Amy was doing her best to have it. And her body was cooperating nicely. The nurse said she was dilated to ten, an hour after Paris got there. From their point of view, it was going fine, but poor Amy was writhing in agony as she lay there, and she was determined to do it without medication. Paris didn't argue with her, although she herself had had an epidural and much preferred it to natural childbirth. But Amy insisted it was better for the baby. Maybe she felt it was her final gift to her. They seemed to stay in the same place for a while. The doctor came in to check her, which hurt Amy more, and this time she screamed, and a few minutes later they rolled her down to the delivery room, and she started pushing. Paris was holding both her hands and trying to help her breathe, and after a while a nurse suggested that Paris get behind her and hold her in an upright position. It was uncomfortable for Paris, but it seemed to help Amy as she kept pushing, but the baby was going nowhere. They continued pushing, with no visible results for more than two hours, and Amy was screaming all the time now. Paris wished there were something more useful she could do for her, but she kept talking to her, and encouraging her, and all of a sudden Amy gave a hideous howl, and the doctor said the baby was finally coming. |
| 1790 |
The sun blinded him in an instant, and he saw only a flash of light and smelled the flowers, as a bee hummed lazily past him, and the pastor said her name. Faye Price Thayer. There was a muffled popping sound to his left and the lightning of a camera exploded in his eyes, as the woman beside him pressed his arm. He looked down at her, his eyes adjusting to the light again, and suddenly he remembered. Everything he had forgotten was reflected in his daughter's eyes. The younger woman looked so much like her, yet how different they were. There would never be another woman like Faye Thayer. They all knew that, and he knew it best of all. He looked at the pretty blonde beside him, remembering it all, and longing silently for Faye. His daughter stood tall and sedate. She was plainer than Faye had been. Her smooth blond hair was pulled tightly into a knot, and beside her stood a serious looking man, who touched her arm often. They were on their own now, all of them, each one different, separate, yet part of a larger whole, part of Faye... and of him as well. Was she truly gone? It seemed impossible, as tears rolled solemnly down his cheeks and a dozen photographers leapt forward to record his pain, to put on front pages around the world. The grieving widower of Faye Price Thayer. He was hers now, in death, as he had been hers in life. They were all hers. All of them. The daughters, the son, the co workers, the friends, and they were all there to honor the memory of the woman who would never come again. The family stood beside him in the front row. His daughter Vanessa, her bespectacled young man, and beside him, Vanessa's twin, Valerie, with hair of flame, a golden face, a perfect black silk dress which clung to her breathtakingly, her success stamped on her unmistakably, and beside her an equally dazzling man. They made such a beautiful pair one had to stare at them, and it pleased Ward to see how much Val looked like Faye. He had never noticed it quite so much before, but he saw it now. |
| 1791 |
At twenty three years of age, Faye Price was already a legend in Hollywood. She had made her first movie at nineteen, and from there had rushed headlong into success. She was beautiful, striking, and so damn good at what she did. She had a voice that ranged from molten lava to melted gold, hair that shimmered like a golden sunset, green eyes like emeralds in an ivory face. But it wasn't the features, or the voice, or the texture of the skin on her long narrow frame that belied the softly rounded hips and full breasts, it was the warmth that lit her from within, the brilliance that exploded in her eyes, the laughter in her voice when she wasn't singing that enthralled the world. She was a woman, in the best and purest meaning of the word. She was someone men wanted to cling to, women wanted to stare at, children loved to look up to. She was the stuff of which dream princesses were made. From a small town in Pennsylvania, she had made her way to New York after graduating from high school, and had become a model. Within six months she was making more than any girl in town. The photographers all loved her, her face was on the cover of every major magazine in the country, but secretly she admitted to her friends that she was bored. There was so little to it, she insisted, all she had to do was stand there. She tried to explain it, and the other girls looked at her as though she were mad. But two men recognized what she was. The man who later became her agent, and Sam Warman, the producer, who knew a gold mine when he saw one. He had seen her pictures on the magazine covers and he thought she was pretty, but it was only when he met her that he realized how fabulous she was. The way she moved, the way she looked into his eyes when she talked to him, her voice, and he knew instantly that this one wasn't looking to get laid. She wasn't looking for a damn thing, not outside herself, at any rate, Sam instinctively suspected. And everything Abe, her agent, said about her was true. |
| 1792 |
What did she know about it, Ward Thayer thought to himself as he first looked at her. But after all these hours at her side, he had begun to see her differently. She cared. She cared a lot. He read it in her eyes. Watching her meet the men's eyes, totally oblivious of her own charms, reaching out only to them with something they had never felt before made you care about her as well. There was a kind of warmth and compassion about her that in turn enhanced her already incredible sexual appeal. There were a thousand things the young lieutenant wanted to say to her as the night wore on, but it was only after she had finished her rounds that she seemed to notice him at all. She turned to him with a tired smile, and for an instant he wanted to reach out and touch her hand, almost to see if she was real. He almost wanted to comfort her. She had had a long, hard night. But then again, they had had a long, hard year... two years. "Do you suppose your CO. will ever forgive me for not making it to dinner with him tonight?" She smiled tiredly. "He may be heartbroken, but he'll live." In fact, the lieutenant knew that an hour or two before, the CO. had been called into a meeting with two generals who had arrived by helicopter for a secret meeting with the CO. that night. He would have had to leave Faye anyway. "I think hell be very grateful for what you did for the men." "It means a lot to me," she spoke gently as she sat down on a large white rock in the warm night air and looked up at him after their last stop. There was something so magical in her eyes, and there was a strange tug in his gut as he looked down at her. It almost hurt to look at her, she brought up feelings that he had wanted to leave behind him in the States. There was no room for that here, no time, no one to share the feelings with. Here there was only killing and misery and loss, and anger sometimes, but the gentler emotions were too painful now, and he looked away from her as she stared at the back of his head. |
| 1793 |
But he didn't apologize to her when he looked back into the lovely face. "Thank God." She wanted to kiss him for all that they both felt, but she smiled, and waited for him to quietly open the large handsome brass gates which he kept shined to perfection at all times. "Thank you, Bob." "Goodnight, Miss Price." He would come up to the house later for dinner in the kitchen with her butler and maid, but Faye wouldn't see him again until she drove out again the next day. And if she chose to stay at home, she wouldn't see him at all. He only worked in the daytime, and at night, her butler, Arthur, drove for her, and would open the gate himself with his key. Most of the time, Faye preferred to drive herself. She had bought a beautiful Lincoln Continental with a convertible top, in a deep shade of blue, and she was perfectly content to drive around Los Angeles herself. Except at night when Arthur drove her out in the Rolls. It had seemed a shocking thing to buy at first, and she had almost been too embarrassed to admit it was hers, but it was such a beautiful machine that she hadn't been able to resist. And there was still a certain excitement as she stepped into it, the rich smell of leather everywhere, the thick gray carpeting beneath her feet. Even the wood in the magnificent car was totally unique, and finally she had decided what the hell. At twenty five, her success no longer embarrassed her as it once had. She had a right to it, "more or less," she teased herself, and she wasn't hurting anyone. She had no one else to spend her money on, and she was making so damn much of it. It was hard to know what to do with it all. She had invested some, on her agent's advice, but the rest just sat there and waited to get spent, and she was far less extravagant than most of the stars of her day. Most of them were wearing emeralds and diamonds to the floor, buying tiaras they couldn't afford, to parade around in at openings of other people'sfilms, sable coats and ermine and chinchillas. |
| 1794 |
It brought tears to her eyes as she thought of it, and she turned to look out into the perfectly tended garden and the pool house beyond. How difficult to imagine the holocaust that had existed over there, the countries that had been destroyed, the people who had died. She wondered, as she often had, if Ward was among them. She had never heard from him, but over the years, he had never quite left her mind. And thinking of him often made her feel guilty that she hadn't gone on tour again, but there had never been time. There never was. Not lately. Not after her parents' deaths, and the constant demands of her career. She turned back to her desk now, glancing through a stack of mail from her agent, and assorted bills, trying to force the faces of the past from her mind, but there was so little in her present to occupy her thoughts, other than work. She had had a serious involvement with a director twice her age the year before, and she realized at the end of it that she had been more in love with his work than she was with him. She loved hearing about what he did, but after a while there wasn't much excitement left, and they had finally drifted apart, and there had been no one serious in her life since. She wasn't given to the usual Hollywood affairs, and she had never gotten involved with anyone unless she truly cared about him. She kept to herself most of the time, and avoided publicity as much as she could. For a major star, she led a remarkably quiet life, but she insisted to her friend and agent, Abe, when he scolded her for "hiding" too much of the time, that she couldn't work as hard as she did unless she did stay home, to study and prepare for her roles, and that was just exactly what she was planning to do in the next five weeks, no matter how much Abe nagged her to get out, be seen, and have some fun with her colleagues. Instead, she had promised to go up to San Francisco to visit a friend for a few days, an elderly actress, now retired, whom she had befriended at the beginning of her career. |
| 1795 |
And on the way home she was planning to stop and see friends in Pebble Beach. After that, she had agreed to a weekend with the Hearsts at their vast country estate, complete with wild animals and a zoo, and after that she was coming home to rest and relax and study and read. She liked nothing better than lying around her own pool, soaking in the sun, smelling the flowers, listening to the bees. She closed her eyes now, just thinking of it, and never heard Arthur walk softly into the room. She heard him clear his throat some distance from her and opened her eyes. One never heard Arthur come in. For a man of his size and years, he walked with catlike grace, and now he stood before her, some eight or ten feet beyond her desk, in his tailcoat and striped pants, wing collar, and carefully starched shirt and tie, holding a silver tray, bearing a single cup of tea. She had bought the china in Limoges herself and was especially fond of it. It was pure white, with a tiny blue flower here and there, as though put there almost as an afterthought, and she saw as Arthur set the cup down on her desk with one of the white linen napkins she had bought in New York, made in Italy before the war, that Elizabeth had sent in some cookies today as well. Normally, Faye wouldn't have indulged, but she had five weeks before the next picture after all, so why not? She smiled up at Arthur, and he bowed; and silently left the room, as she looked around at the things she loved, the shelves lined with books, both old and new, some even very rare, the vases filled with flowers, the sculptures she had begun to buy a few years before, the beautiful Aubusson rug in dusty pinks and pale blues with scattered flowers all over it, the English furniture she had selected so carefully, the silver pieces that Arthur polished till they shone, and beyond her study she could see the lovely French crystal chandelier that hung in the hall, the dining room with its English table and Chippendale chairs and another chandelier beyond. |
| 1796 |
Here, her bedroom was done entirely in mirrors and white silks, like the kind of fantasies she had had as a little girl, enamoured by the movies. There was a white fox bedspread on her bed, fur pillows on the couch, a white fur throw on the chaise longue, and a white marble fireplace identical to the one in her mirrored dressing room. Her bathroom was all done in white marble and white tile. And there was another small sitting room, which she often used late at night when she was studying a script, or writing a letter to a friend. And that was all of it. A tiny, perfect gem. Just the right size for her. There were servants' quarters behind the kitchen on the main floor, and a huge garage with an apartment over it, where Bob, the gatekeeper, lived. Extensive gardens, a good sized swimming pool with a small pool house and a bar, and dressing room for her friends. She had everything she wanted here, a world unto itself, she often said. She almost hated to go anywhere anymore, and she was almost sorry she had promised to go to San Francisco the following week to visit her old friend. But once she was there, she had a good time with her. The woman, Harriet Fielding, had been a famous actress on the Broadway stage years before, and Faye had enormous respect for her. Harriet had taught her a great deal, and Faye talked to her about her new role now. There was no doubt, it would be challenging. The leading man was said to be difficult, and a prima donna of the worst sort, everyone said. Faye had never worked with him before and wasn't looking forward to it. She hoped she hadn't made a mistake accepting the role, but Harriet insisted that she had not. The part had more meat to it, and required more expertise, than anything Faye had ever done before. "That's exactly what frightens me!" She laughed with her old friend as they looked out across the Bay. "What if I fall flat on my face?" It was like having a mother again, being able to talk to her, although Harriet was very different than her own mother had been. |
| 1797 |
For some reason she herself didn't understand, she felt lonelier than she had in years. She found herself missing Harriet, her old home in Pennsylvania, her parents. For the first time in years, she felt as though there were something missing in her life, though she couldn't imagine what. She tried to tell herself that she was just nervous about the new part, but it was more than that. There was no man in her life just then, hadn't been in a long time, and Harriet was right, it was too bad she never did settle down, but with whom? She couldn't imagine a single face that appealed to her at the moment, there was no one she was anxious to see when she got home, and the revels at the Hearsts' estate seemed emptier than ever. There were dozens of guests, and as always, lots of amusing entertainers, but there suddenly seemed to be no substance to the life she led, or the people she knew and met. The only thing that made any sense was her work, and the two people she cared about most, Harriet Fielding, who lived five hundred miles away, and her agent, Abe Abramson. In the end, after smiling interminably for days on end, it was a relief to head for Los Angeles. And when she arrived, she let herself in with her key and walked upstairs into the white splendor of her own bedroom, feeling happier than she had in weeks. It was wonderful to be home. It looked better to her than the Hearsts' grand estate, and she lay across the white fox throw with a happy grin, kicking off her shoes, staring up at the pretty little chandelier, and thinking with excitement of her new role. She felt good again. So what if there was no man in her life? She had her work, and it made her very, very happy. For the next month, she studied night and day, learning every line in the script, hers and everyone else's as well. She tried out different nuances, spent entire days walking the grounds of her home, talking to herself, trying it out, becoming the woman that she was to play. In the movie, she would be driven mad by the man she had married. |
| 1798 |
She would prove it in the end, retrieve the child, and finally kill him. But even that final act of violence and vengeance was desperately important to Faye. Would the audience lose sympathy with her then? Would they love her more? Would they care? Would she win their hearts? It meant everything to her. And on the morning that filming was to begin, Faye was at the studio right on time, the script in a red alligator briefcase she always carried with her, her own makeup case made to match, a suitcase filled with a few things she always liked to have on the set, and she moved into her dressing room in a quiet businesslike way that was a delight to some, and enraged those who could not compete with her. Above all, and beyond anything, Faye Price was a professional, and she was also a perfectionist. But she demanded nothing from anyone that she didn't demand from herself first. A maid from the studio was assigned to take care of Faye, her clothes, and her dressing room. Some brought their own help, but Faye could never imagine Elizabeth here, and she always left her at home. The women provided by the studio did just as well. This time they assigned a pleasant black woman to her, who had worked with her before. She was extremely capable, and Faye had enjoyed her comments and remarks before. The woman was sharp and had been working around the studio for years, and some of the stories she told made Faye laugh until she cried. So this morning, they were happy to meet again. She hung up all of Faye's own clothes, put her makeup out, did not touch the briefcase because she had made that mistake before and remembered that Faye didn't like anyone else handling her script. She served her coffee with exactly the right dose of milk, and at seven in the morning, when the hairdresser arrived to do Faye's hair, she brought her one soft boiled egg and a single slice of toast. She was known for working miracles on the set, and taking exquisite care of "her stars," but Faye never took advantage of it, and Pearl liked that. |
| 1799 |
At exactly five minutes to eight, Faye was downstairs in her study waiting for Ward. She was wearing the white silk dress, and the matching gray coat was tossed over the back of a chair. She paced nervously once or twice, regretting again that she hadn't arranged to meet him elsewhere, but it had been such a shock, his turning up on the set like that, after their brief meeting in Guadalcanal two years before. How strange life was. Here he was again, and she was having dinner with him, her heart was pounding, and she had to admit, she was excited about it. He was a very attractive man and there was something a little mysterious about him. The doorbell broke into her reverie and as Arthur went to answer it, Faye took a deep breath and tried to steady herself, and then suddenly she was looking into the deep sapphire eyes again, and she felt an exhilaration she hadn't felt in years. It was like riding a roller coaster just looking at him. She tried to sound cool as she offered him a drink, and noticed how well he looked in civilian clothes. He wore a simple pinstriped gray suit but it molded his shoulders to perfection, and he seemed even taller than he had before. She still felt a little strange being here with him, this soldier from a war that was finally over. But it was a nice gesture after all, and if they had nothing in common, she wouldn't have to see him again. She was still impressed with the fact that he had bribed his way into the studio to see her, and there was a definite charm about the man. But she had felt that long before when she had met him in Guadalcanal. "Please sit down." The silence between them was awkward and she was struggling for something to say to him when she saw him smile. He was looking around with obvious pleasure, and he seemed to notice all the little details of the room, the small sculptures, the Aubusson rug, he even stood up to glance at the collection of rare books she had bought at auction long since, and she noticed a sparkle in his eye. |
| 1800 |
And at twenty eight, he had no intention of starting. He was having too much fun, he always had had, and now his life with Faye was sheer perfection. "Where do you want to go tonight for dinner?" "I don't know..." She hated to admit it, but she loved the corny exotic decor of the Cocoanut Grove with its palm trees and the projections of white ships passing each other in the distance. It always made her feel as though they had sailed away, and the palm trees reminded her faintly of Guadalcanal, where she had first met Ward. "The Grove again, or are you too tired of it?" He laughed again, and called the majordomo downstairs to have him make a reservation. They had hired an army of new people to care for their house. In the end, Ward had decided not to move into his parents' old mansion after all. Instead, he had bought Faye a fabulous new estate that had belonged to a silent movie queen. It had grounds that could almost be called a park, a lake with swans, several lovely fountains, long walks, and a house that looked like a French chateau. They could easily have the ten children here that he always threatened he wanted. They had filled it with Faye's pretty antiques from her own house, which had sold almost the day she put it up for sale, and they had taken the pieces they liked best from his parents' place, and the rest they had bought together, at auctions and antiques stores in Beverly Hills. The new house was already almost fully furnished. And Ward was talking about putting his parents' house on the market. It was too big and dark and old fashioned for their taste and there was no point keeping it any longer. His lawyers had always urged him to keep it for a while, lest when he married one day he would want it, and he was sentimental about it anyway, but it was obvious they would never live in it now. And his lawyers were anxious for him to get rid of it. They wanted him to reinvest the money in something that would bring in more income for him and his bride, although Ward wasn't too concerned about it. |
| 1801 |
She hadn't even wanted to walk in the gardens with him that afternoon, and when he told her about the miniature pony he had bought, even that hadn't gotten her out. "I'm just too damn tired to move." And that night, she insisted that she was too tired to even eat dinner. She had gone straight to bed at four in the afternoon, and now at two in the morning she was still there, looking like a giant pink silk balloon with marabou feathers around her collar. "Want some champagne, sweetheart? It might help you sleep." She shook her head, her back hurt, and she had been feeling queasy for the past several hours. On top of everything she thought she might be coming down with the flu. "I don't think anything will help me sleep anymore." One thing might have, she suggested lasciviously a moment later, but that was forbidden them. "You'll probably be pregnant again before you leave the hospital. I don't think I'll be able to keep my hands off you for more than an hour after the baby's born." She laughed at the thought. "At least it's something to look forward to." She looked doleful for the first time in nine months, and he kissed her gently and went to turn off the lights, but as he did he heard a sharp cry from the bed, and turned in surprise to see her face contorted by pain and then suddenly the pain was gone, and they both looked at each other in amazement. "What was that?" "I'm not sure." She had read a couple of books, but she was still hazy about how to be absolutely certain when labor began. And everyone had warned her that in the last few weeks there would be endless false starts and false alarms, so they both knew that this wasn't likely to be "it." But the pain had certainly been sharp, and Ward decided to leave the lights on and see if it happened again. But twenty minutes later, when it hadn't, and he went to turn the light off again, she gave another sharp cry, and this time she seemed to writhe in their bed and he noticed a film of perspiration on her face when he approached her. |
| 1802 |
They weren't identical technically, but they might just as well have been they looked so much alike. They called the oldest one Vanessa, and she looked incredibly like Faye. The same green eyes, the same blond hair, the same tiny perfect features, yet she was the quiet one. It was the younger twin who screamed the loudest whenever she wanted to eat, who smiled first. The same tiny perfect face and huge green eyes, but Valerie had fiery red hair, right from birth, and a personality to match. "My God, where did she get that?" Ward looked shocked as her red hair began to grow, but as she grew older, her hair, like the rest of her, grew more and more beautiful. She was a startlingly pretty little girl and people often stared at her. At times, Faye worried that Valerie eclipsed her twin. Vanessa was so much quieter, and she seemed to accept living in the shadow of the twin sister she adored. Vanessa was a pretty child too, but quieter, more ethereal, she was happy looking at her picture books, or watching Valerie torment the boys. Lionel was always particularly patient with her, and Greg would grab fistfuls of the bright red hair. It taught Valerie the art of self defense at an early age, if nothing else. But on the whole, the children had a good time with each other, and people said they were the prettiest lot anyone had ever seen. Two beautiful little girls, toddling around the grounds of the estate, playing with the miniature pony their father had bought several years before, and the two boys cavorting all around, climbing trees, and reducing their beautiful little silk shirts to shreds with glee. They all enjoyed the carousel now, the pony rides, all the treats their father had bought for them. And he adored playing with them. At thirty two, he seemed hardly more than a boy himself, and Faye was content with her family. Four children seemed perfect to both of them. She didn't want any more, and Ward was content to stop at four, although he teased her sometimes about still wanting ten. |
| 1803 |
She had her hands full as it was, and she liked spending time with all of them. They went on wonderful vacations, Ward had bought a house in Palm Springs the year before, and they spent part of every winter there. Faye loved going to New York with him to visit friends. They had a good life, in all possible ways, far, far, from the poverty of her early life, and the loneliness of his childhood years. Eventually, he had confided everything to her. He had led the life of a "poor little rich boy" as a child. He had had everything materially, but his parents were never around. His father had been working all the time, his mother had been constantly involved with various committees as a volunteer, and in between they had taken extensive trips, but always leaving Ward behind. As a result he had sworn that he would never do the same thing to his own family. He and Faye took all four children everywhere, on weekends in Palm Springs, on trips, even to Mexico. They enjoyed their company and the children flourished with the attention lavished on them. Each in their own way, Lionel had an inclination to be quiet, perceptive, serious, and close to Faye. His seriousness unnerved Ward at times, he was less rough and tumble than Greg, who played football for hours on the lawn with Ward. Greg was more like he himself had been as a child, happy go lucky, athletic, carefree... or more as he would have been, had he had the same amount of attention lavished on him. And Valerie only grew more beautiful. She was the most demanding of the four, the most aware of her own charms, and because of that, Vanessa seemed to demand nothing at all. Valerie took her dolls, her toys, her favorite clothes, and Vanessa didn't even seem to notice it. She was happy to give anything up for her twin. She cared about other things, the look in her mother's eyes, a warm word from Ward, a trip to the zoo, holding Lionel's hand, and her own secret life of dreams, as she glanced through a picture book or stared up at the sky as she lay beneath a tree. |
| 1804 |
In fact, she was so tiny and delicate that Ward refused to take her in his arms, but he seemed pleased with her. He bought Faye an enormous emerald pendant this time, but somehow he seemed less excited than he had before, and Faye told herself that she could hardly expect him to hire a brass band for their fifth child. But still, she was disappointed that he didn't seem more pleased. But within days, she knew exactly why. The lawyers didn't even try to talk to Ward this time. They talked to her, feeling it was high time she knew what was going on... Seven years after the end of the war, Thayer Shipyard hadn't seen a profit in almost four years. It had been running in the red for years, despite all their pleading with Ward to pay some attention to it, cut down the scale of operations, and face what was happening. They wanted him to go to work in the office at the yard, as his father had. And he had flatly refused. Instead, he had ignored their pleas and not only allowed the shipyard to run itself into the ground, but he had bankrupted the estate as well. He had insisted that he wasn't going to ruin his life by working night and day. He wanted to be with his family. And now there was nothing left, hadn't been in almost two years. And suddenly, as she sat in shocked silence listening to them, Faye looked back remembering when he had begun to seem preoccupied, concerned, drinking more, but he had never admitted anything to her. And for the past two years, without saying a word to her, he had been running on "empty." There was no money left at all, there were only monumental debts which he had accumulated with their extravagant lifestyle. Faye Price Thayer sat listening to what they had to say, her face pale, features taut, a frown between her eyes, and she looked as though she were in shock. In a way she was. She almost staggered out of the room when they left her. And when Ward came home later that afternoon, he found her sitting upright in a chair in the library, silently waiting for him. |
| 1805 |
But he had to, they had no choice, and she was going to help him make it. The only thing she was not willing to give up was him. At the end of two hours, the lawyers stood up and shook their hands, but Ward's face looked grim. He seemed to have aged ten years in the past two hours, and he hardly spoke a word as they drove home in the Duesenberg. He almost had tears in his eyes realizing that it might be the last time they went out in it. And as they walked in the door, the baby nurse was waiting for them. Little Anne had a fever. The nurse was sure that she had caught cold from Val and she was concerned. With a distracted look, Faye went to the phone and called the doctor for her, but she didn't take the baby from her arms, and when she offered the baby to her later on, Faye waved her away with a distracted look and uncharacteristically brusque words. "I don't have time." She had other things on her mind. "Other things" being the demise of their current way of life. The prospect of what she had in store for her was exhausting just to think about. But it had to be done, and she was the one who was going to have to do it all. Ward couldn't cope with it. She would have to do everything, and he was grateful to her when she began tackling it the next day. She called all the real estate agents in town and made appointments for them to come to see the house. She called the attorneys again, made appointments with several antiques dealers, and began to make lists of what they would keep and what they would sell. Ward watched her stupefied as she sat at her desk at noon the next day, businesslike, matter of fact, a frown on her face, and he shook his head, unnerved by it all. She looked up at him, still wearing a frown, but it wasn't meant for him. "What are you doing today?" "Having lunch at the club." That was another thing that would have to go, all his club memberships, but she didn't say anything to him now. She merely nodded her head, and a moment later he left the room. |
| 1806 |
Her hands shook for half an hour after he had left, but she went on packing their things. And three weeks later, they sold the house. It was a somber day for them, but it was the only way out. They got less than they had hoped for it, but the buyers knew that they were desperate, and it didn't show as well as it once had. The gardeners were all gone and the grounds were already a little run down, the disappearance of the carousel had left some ugly scars. All the really fine furniture was gone, the huge rooms looked barren without the chandeliers or drapes. They got a quarter of a million dollars for the place from a well known actor and his wife. He wasn't particularly pleasant to Faye, and they never even met Ward. They just strutted around the house, and made comments to their real estate man, as though Faye weren't there. The offer came in the next day, and it took a week of negotiation just to get them up as high as they did. And Burford, Gentry, and Faye all pressed Ward to agree to it. They insisted that he had no choice, and finally in desperation, he agreed with them, signed the offer himself, and then locked himself into his study with two bottles of champagne and a fifth of gin. He sat there staring at the photographs of his parents on the wall, and crying silently, thinking of his father's life and the life that now faced him. Faye didn't even see him until late that night when he finally came upstairs. She didn't dare speak to him as he came into the room. She just watched his face, and she wanted to cry just looking at him. It was the end of his whole way of life, and suddenly she was frightened for him, wondering if he could survive the change. She had been poor before, although admittedly not in a very long time, but she still remembered the realities of it. And it wasn't as terrifying to her as it was to Ward. She felt now though as if she had been running for months, and wondered if she was ever going to be able to stop, if they were ever going to be able to find each other again. |
| 1807 |
But in the meantime, it gave Faye and Ward a place to leave the children for a few weeks. She had leads to several houses to rent, and the furniture would wait in storage until then. She was going to drive down to Palm Springs with all of them, and then go back to Los Angeles alone to find a house, while Ward oversaw the packing up of the house in Palm Springs. He insisted that it was the least he could do, after all she had tackled alone in L.A. She didn't have to touch a thing this time, she just had to find them a decent place to live. And she knew it wasn't going to be easy to do. With the sale of the shipyard, the house in Beverly Hills, all their furniture, their art, the collection of rare books, the cars, and the house in Palm Springs with most of its contents too, they would have just enough to pay off all of their debts, with about fifty five thousand to spare, which, carefully invested, would eke out barely enough to support them all. They were going to rent a house, and Faye was hoping she could find something cheap. And as soon as they were all settled in, and the children went back to school in the fall, she was going to see about getting a job. Of course Ward was talking about getting one too. But she had more faith in her own abilities to find work, and it would be easier for her. She had worked before, and even if she was thirty two, she certainly wasn't over the hill yet, not for what she wanted to do. And Lionel would be starting first grade, Greg would begin kindergarten, the twins would be in nursery school, she would have plenty of free time. She was keeping only their nurse to keep an eye on all of them, and the baby as well, and do the housework and cook. Baby Anne was only four months old and not much trouble yet. It was a perfect time for Faye to leave home. And as she thought of it on the drive to Palm Springs, she felt suddenly guilty about the baby again. The others had all spent so much time with her at the same age, but this time she hadn't had a moment to spare for her. |
| 1808 |
But disaster had struck so immediately after her birth, it was impossible to even think of her more than now and then, she had so many other things on her mind. Ward glanced over at her several times as they drove, noticed the frown and patted her hand. He had promised her he would drink less once they got to Palm Springs, and she hoped he would keep his word. The house was smaller there and the children would have been much more aware of it if he was drunk all the time. Besides, he had a lot to do, and Faye hoped it would keep him occupied. She went back to Los Angeles two days later, by train, and moved into a small room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel when she arrived. The houses she saw were depressing beyond words. In bad neighborhoods, with tiny backyards and small ugly rooms. She combed the papers, and called all the agencies, and finally, desperate, by the beginning of the second week, she found a house that was not quite as ugly as the rest, and was large enough for all of them. It had four good sized bedrooms on one floor. She had already decided to double up the boys, and the twins, and the nurse and Anne could also share a room, and the fourth bedroom would be for her and Ward. Downstairs there was a large somewhat gloomy cheaply paneled living room, a fireplace that had not worked in years, a dining room that looked out on a bleak little garden, and a big old fashioned kitchen, big enough to put a big kitchen table in. The children would certainly be closer to her than they ever had before, and she tried to tell herself that it would be good for them, that Ward wouldn't hate it and refuse to live in it, and the children wouldn't cry when they saw the dreary rooms. The best thing about it was the rent, which was an amount they could afford. And it was in a family neighborhood in Monterey Park which was a long, long way from their old life in Beverly Hills. There was no kidding anyone about that, and when she returned to Palm Springs, she didn't really try to. |
| 1809 |
She didn't have the answers anymore. At least he had kept his word, and packed up the house in Palm Springs, and he hadn't started drinking again until she returned. Then he knew she would take over and he could relax. At least for a while... until they moved. When they closed up the house and drove to Los Angeles all together on a Tuesday afternoon, it felt as though it were a thousand degrees. Faye had already made a little headway in the Monterey Park house before rejoining them in Palm Springs. She had unpacked what she could by herself, hung a few pictures in everyone's rooms, filled vases with flowers, made beds with clean sheets. She had done everything possible to make it look like home, and the children were intrigued when they arrived, like puppies sniffing out their new home, and delighted when they found their rooms and their toys and their own beds as Faye watched hopefully, but Ward looked as though he were going to faint as he walked into the dark, ugly, wood paneled living room. He said not a word as Faye watched his face, and fought back tears. He glanced out into the garden with narrowed eyes, glanced around the dining room, noticed a table they had kept from an upstairs den, and instinctively looked up, expecting to see a familiar chandelier that had been sold months before, and then shook his head as he looked at Faye. He had never seen anything like it before. He had actually never been in a home this poor, and instantly it cut him to the quick. "So much for that. I hope at least it's cheap." He felt guilt overwhelm him again at what he was doing to her, and all of them. Her eyes were gentle, as they stood facing each other in their new home. "It's not forever, Ward." That was what she had told herself years before, as she longed to escape the poverty of her parents' home. But that had been much worse than this. And this wouldn't be forever either. This time, she was sure of that. Somehow, they would dig their way out. Ward looked around again sorrowfully. |
| 1810 |
The children would be back in school by then. Lionel was going into second grade, Greg into first, the twins were still in nursery school for this final year, and Anne was not yet two years old, straggling behind the others, anxious to keep up, and somehow always outrun by them. Faye always meant to spend time with her, but somehow she never had enough time. The others clamored for her, now she would have the script to study and read for several months, eventually the movie to do. It was difficult to stop everything and spend time with a baby again. Anne was different from the others, not only younger, but also so much less able to communicate. It was always easier to leave her with the nurse, who loved her so much, and Lionel had always been especially attached to her. Faye was excited about the new film, it was an opportunity she was excited about, except that day in, day out, she still thought of Ward and wondered where he was. Since the day he'd walked out, they'd never heard from him. She'd read about him in Louella Parsons once, but the piece told her nothing at all. At least it hadn't mentioned Maisie Abernathie. In light of that, the movie gave her something to do. She had been anxious to keep her mind occupied since finishing the other film. She had asked Abe for a lawyer's name several months before, but somehow she had never gotten around to calling him, although she promised herself that she would. Something always came up, and the memories would flood her again. And then suddenly, one day in July, Ward appeared at her front door. The children were playing in the back, in the yard they had all so carefully planted with flowers, and the nurse had built a swing for them, proud of their accomplishment and ingenuity, and then suddenly, there he was, in a white linen suit and a blue shirt, looking more handsome than he ever had before. For an instant, she felt the old familiar pull toward him, but she reminded herself that he had walked out on her, and Lord only knew who he was involved with now. |
| 1811 |
The day after the graduation party dawned like any other working day for Faye and Ward. The kids could sleep it off until noon, but they had to be at the studio by nine. Their next movie would be starting soon and the two of them had mountains of work on their desks. It always seemed to require so much discipline to go on, to work, no matter how tired they were, especially when Faye was actually directing the film. Then she was always at the studio before six o'clock, often before the actors were there. But she had to be there, to breathe the air, to get the feel of it. In fact, while they were shooting, it was always difficult to force herself to go home, and sometimes she did not. Sometimes she slept in a dressing room, eating, sleeping, and thinking the script, making it become almost a part of her, until she knew every character as though she had been born in their skin in another life. It was what made her so demanding of the actors who worked for her, but she taught them a kind of discipline they never forgot, and most of the actors in Hollywood talked of Faye Thayer with awe. Her kind of talent was a gift, and she was so much happier than when she had been acting herself. This was the fulfillment she had been looking for, and Ward loved seeing that light in her eye, that light that came only when she was thinking of her work. It made him a little jealous sometimes because he liked what he did, but not with the same determination, the same fire, as what she seemed to feel. She breathed her very soul into her work. And he was thinking of that now. In a few weeks he was going to lose her to their new film, but they both thought it was the best one they had ever done. They were both extremely excited about it, and more than once Faye had said how sorry she was that Abe Abramson was no longer alive. He would have loved this film. But he had died years before. He had lived long enough to see their success, to see her win the second Oscar of her life, this one for directing. |
| 1812 |
It was brutal and painful and tore your guts out, and most studio heads would have assigned a male director to it, but Dore Schary still trusted her, and she wasn't going to let him down. Or Ward. It hadn't been easy for Ward to raise the money for this film, in spite of their names. But people were afraid that no one would want to see a depressing film. After the assassination of John Kennedy the year before, everybody wanted comic relief, not serious film, but both Ward and Faye had agreed from the start, when they read the script, this was it. It was a brilliant film, the screenplay was magnificent, as the original book had been, and Faye was determined to do right by it. Ward knew she would, but he also knew how nervous she was. "It's going to be okay, you know." He smiled at her just outside her office door. They both knew it would be, but he also knew that she needed reassurance from him, and he knew that even more certainly as she answered him. "I'm scared to death." "I know you are. Just relax and enjoy yourself." But she didn't do that until they started the film, and then she plunged into it even more totally than she usually did. She never got home before midnight or one, was gone again by five A.M., and often didn't come home at all. Ward knew it would go on for months that way, and he had promised her he would keep an eye on the children for her, and he tried. She had always worked that way, when she was directing a movie she was totally involved, and when she was finished she spent her life folding shirts, doing laundry, driving car pools. She took special pride in it, but right now, even the children were far, far from her mind. Ward came back to the studio to pick her up late one night, he didn't trust her to drive when she was that tired, or that wrapped up in her work. He was afraid she'd wind up in a tree off the freeway somewhere, so he came to pick her up, and she collapsed on the front seat of his car like a little rag doll as he leaned over and kissed her cheek. |
| 1813 |
He had come to California from Buffalo when he was twenty two, and life had been beautiful ever since, especially in the past three years. His career had taken off meteorically, at first thanks to one fortuitous romance with a major producer in Hollywood. But after that, the breaks he got were thanks to his own strengths and abilities. There was no denying it, and few did. No matter what you thought of Paul Steele, he was damn good. But most of the people who had worked with him didn't have ugly things to say about him. He was a decent man, fair to work with, he kept to himself most of the time, and if you got to know him well, he could be fun. Between films, he was a wild man sometimes, smoking a lot of dope, snorting a little cocaine, he was into poppers, and there were rumors about orgies at his place, and kinky sex, but he took advantage of no one, no one got hurt, and working as hard as he did, he had to do something to let off steam, and he was still young after all. He took Lionel to Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset, and had him follow him there in his car, driving carefully. For some reason, he found himself anxious about the kid. He didn't want him to get hurt, physically or in any other way. He liked him, more than he'd liked anyone in a while. It was just a damn shame that he was only eighteen. That was rotten luck. He was so damn beautiful and so fucking young. He couldn't take his eyes off him as they ate, and afterwards they stood outside, Lionel not even sure how to thank him for the honor and the rare treat, Paul dying to invite him up to his place, but afraid of how it would sound so they stood there, awkwardly, as Paul looked at him. He wished he knew what Lionel knew of himself, but he still wasn't sure of that. If the boy knew, maybe it would be different, but if he didn't even suspect as yet... just looking at him, Paul was already sure, but was Lionel? And then suddenly, as they stood there in the parking lot, Paul knew he had to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. |
| 1814 |
She had grown breasts and softly rounded hips, was thirteen now, and mercifully hadn't gotten lost this year before they had to leave for the ceremony. But Greg's graduation gift had been no surprise. He had badgered them so badly for it, that Ward had given in and presented it with a flourish the week before. It was a yellow Corvette Stingray convertible, and he was even more excited than Lionel had been about his, if that was possible. It was actually a fancier car than Lionel's little red Mustang but that had been Ward's idea. And Greg roared up and down their street, and then vanished to pick up all his friends for a ride. Ward had been certain that he would either crash or be arrested within the hour, but somehow they had all survived, and nine of his closest friends had arrived whooping and screeching as they careened down the street, burning rubber as they turned into the drive, and then all of them had leapt out of the car outside the house and headed for the pool, as Ward wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake. He certainly didn't have Lionel's calm ways, and Ward just prayed that Greg would drive sensibly when he got to the University of Alabama. He had won a football scholarship, and he could hardly wait to leave. He was going back to the ranch in Montana to work for a month again. But then he was going to the university on August first to begin football practice with the team and their famous coach "Bear." And Ward could hardly wait to fly down and see him in his first game. Faye knew she was going to be doing a lot of that this year, but she didn't mind. She had promised to go whenever she could, although they'd be winding up a film in the fall, and starting another after the first of the year, but she'd do what she could. They watched Greg receive his diploma, as Lionel had last year, but Greg merely grinned sheepishly unlike his more poised brother. He waved to his family and friends, and then took his seat again, his broad shoulders almost knocking his friends off their seats as he sat down again. |
| 1815 |
And Faye seemed to see a lot of him for lunch. He hadn't had much time himself. He'd been putting together the package for another big film deal, and he had a lot on his mind. But the boy looked all right. At least none of their brood had gone haywire with this flower child nonsense, and none of them were into drugs, although he frequently warned Faye to keep an eye on Val. That child was too damn seductive by far, and she seemed to have a knack for hanging out with older boys. She had turned up with some character in May who admitted to being twenty four, and he had squashed that romance fast enough. But there was no denying she was hard to control. There was one in every brood, he'd been told, and Val was theirs. But so far, despite the wild garb, the makeup, and the older boys, she seemed to have stayed within the bounds of some kind of propriety. The party they gave Greg that night differed radically from Lionel's the year before. By midnight everyone was not only drunk on beer, but most of them were naked in the pool. Faye wanted to have them all thrown out, but Ward prevailed and told her to let them have their fun. He wanted her to send Anne and the twins to bed, and Faye said that was impossible. You either had to close the whole show down or let them be, but the police made the decision for them shortly after two o'clock. They told them to turn the music off and tone it down. Every neighbor on their street had complained, especially the couple next door, when a chorus line of twelve hefty young men had appeared on the front lawn, and mooned them before leaping into their pool. Ward had thought the whole thing in good fun, but he was amused by almost everything Greg did. Faye was slightly less amused. There had been no complaints at all over Lionel's party the previous year. By the time the police came, Greg was sprawled out on a chaise longue, a towel wrapped around his naked waist, and an arm draped across his date, both of them drunk on beer and sound asleep. |
| 1816 |
Lionel tried to feign the same excitement as Ward felt but it just wasn't there, and he was desperately relieved on the flight home, as he talked film to him, and tried to explain what he was working on. But as he had felt that he might as well have been on the moon as he watched Greg play, his father looked at him as he described his latest avant garde film. "Do you really think you can make money with something like that one day?" Lionel looked at him, stupefied, it was a goal that had never entered his mind. They were trying out new techniques, stretching the language of film to its utmost. Who gave a damn about making money on it? This was much more important than that, and the two men stared at each other in confused disbelief, each convinced that the other was a fool, yet feeling the burden of pretending that they respected the other's views. It was a terrible strain for both of them, and they both looked relieved to see Faye waiting for them at the gate. Ward talked endlessly about Greg's extraordinary touchdown, crushed that she hadn't watched it on TV, and Lionel looked at her as though he couldn't have stood a moment more. She laughed to herself, knowing them both so well and how different they were, yet she loved them both, just as she loved her other son, and the girls. They were just all very different people, who needed different things from her. She dropped Ward off at home first, and then said that she would run Lionel home, and come back in time for a drink with Ward. It gave her a few minutes to talk to her oldest son, and commiserate over the boring weekend he had had. "Was it terrible, love?" She smiled at the look on his face, and he groaned as he leaned his head back against the seat after they dropped his father off at home. He had never felt as exhausted in his entire life. "Worse. It was like going to another planet and trying to talk their language all weekend long." She wondered if it was just the boredom of the sport, or the strain of pretending to be straight, but she didn't ask. |
| 1817 |
She knew what a blow it would be to her, and she resolved to go upstairs and talk to her, but when she did, the child's door was locked and she wouldn't answer her. The twins went to their rooms too, and the entire family acted as though someone had died. Faye called Lionel a little while later, and he and John knew by then that Ward had gone to the Wells. They were all hysterical and Bob and Mary Wells had called. There had been rivers of tears, and after the phone call, John had gone to the bathroom and thrown up. But for all the shouting and screaming and reproaches they made of both boys, they wanted John to know that he was still their son, that they did not share Ward Thayer's view, that they still loved him, and they accepted Lionel as well. It brought tears to Faye's eyes when she heard, and she was secretly pleased when Lionel told her that Bob Wells had thrown Ward out of their house. And Faye went to see both boys that afternoon. She wanted Lionel to know again how strongly she supported him, and mother and son stood holding each other for a long time, and then she turned and hugged John. It wasn't easy to accept, and it wouldn't have been her choice for him, but it was what he was. And she also wanted him to know that he would always be welcome in their home, that he was still part of the family no matter what his father said, and that from now on, she would be supporting both his school career and his living expenses. If his father wanted to cut him off, that was up to him, but Faye would always be there for him. She would take the responsibility on now, and Lionel cried as she told him, and promised to get a job to help support himself. And John did too. His parents had already told him earlier that they would continue to support him as long as he was in school, that nothing was going to change for him. But Ward stuck to the same party line, when he returned that night. He had disappeared all day, and Faye could tell from the way he looked when he got home that he had been drinking all day. |
| 1818 |
She rang the bell, and knocked on the door, and she could see lights upstairs, but they wouldn't answer her and when she went to the corner and called on the pay phone there, no one answered the phone. They had heard it ring, and they were sitting quietly in the living room. But it had been such a nightmarish twenty four hours for them that they couldn't take any more. John thought that maybe they should answer the door. But Lionel disagreed. "If it's one of the guys coming home early, they've all got the key. It's probably my father drunk again." They'd been through enough. They both agreed about that. They didn't even look out the window to see who it was. And downstairs she fished a pencil out of her coat pocket, and tore a piece of newspaper off the garbage can, scribbling a note to Lionel. "I love you, Li. I always will, A." Tears filled her eyes. She had wanted to see him again before she left, but maybe it didn't matter now... she slipped the piece of paper into the mailbox. That was all he needed to know. She didn't want him to think she had turned on him too. He had to know she never would. But she couldn't stand it anymore. It had been unbearable ever since he moved out, and now it would be worse. She would never see him. She had only one choice, and she was surprised at how relieved she felt. That night as they all slept, she quietly packed a small duffle bag, and slipped out her bedroom window, as she had done when she had gone to see Li. There were easy footholds all the way down the side of the house. She had used them before, plenty of times. And she slipped quietly down now, wearing sneakers and jeans, her hair in a long blond braid, a warm parka on. She knew it would be cold up there. And she had everything she cared about in the one small bag. She didn't even look back as she left the house. She didn't give a damn about any of them, any more than they did about her. She stealthily crept down the road, and walked all the way into L.A., and there she hitched a ride on the freeway heading north. |
| 1819 |
It was a haven for runaway kids, and though he didn't tell his parents, he felt certain that the runaways could live there for years without being recognized or turned in. There were thousands of them, crushed into tiny apartments, living like ants in the houses of the Haight Ashbury, the houses painted a riot of colors, with flowers and rugs and incense and drugs and sleeping bags everywhere. It was a place and a time that would never come again, and Lionel instinctively felt that Anne was part of it. He had felt it from the first moment he'd arrived. It was just a question of finding her, if they could. He and John had combed the streets for months without success, and there wasn't much time left for them. They had promised to return to school by June for the summer session to make up for the time they'd lost. "If you don't find her in three months," Bob Wells had said, "then you have to give up. You can only search for so long. She could be in New York, or Hawaii, or Canada." But Lionel knew he was wrong. She would come here, to search for the love she felt she'd never had from them. And John agreed with him, and now he was certain that he'd seen her walking in a daze near Ashbury, wrapped in a purple bedsheet, with a crown of flowers on her hair, her eyes so glazed he almost wondered if she had seen him at all. But for an instant, just an instant, he had been certain that she had known who he was, and then she had drifted off again. He had followed her to an old broken down house that seemed to be housing an entire colony of obvious druggies and runaways. The smell of incense wafted right out into the street, and there must have been twenty of them on the steps, singing an Indian chant, and holding hands, crooning and laughing softly and waving at friends. And as she came to the stairs, they parted like the Red Sea for her, helping her up the stairs through their midst, as a gray haired man waited for her in the doorway, and then carried her inside as John watched. |
| 1820 |
But she noticed that the children avoided him as well, they were afraid of what their father would do if they talked to him. The twins never answered the phone Lionel called her on, as though Ward would know if they had talked to him. They had taken him at his word, and Lionel was abandoned by all save Faye, who loved him more than ever before, out of compassion, her own loneliness, and for what he was doing to find Anne. She spoke to Mary Wells as often as she could and expressed her gratitude for John's help. They seemed to have accepted the situation gracefully. They loved their son, and they accepted hers as well. It was far more than she could say for Ward, who had never spoken to the Wells since the morning Bob had thrown him out, the day he'd broken the news to them. And things were no longer the same between Ward and Faye either. He had actually gone to the Super Bowl with Greg despite Anne's running away. He had insisted that the police would find her eventually, and when they did he would punish her, and put her on restriction for the next ten years if that was what it took to put some sense into her. But it was as though he couldn't cope with anything more, and he left with Greg, and had a great time at the Super Bowl. He seemed surprised to learn that the police had not located Anne when he came back, and in the ensuing weeks, he began to pace the floor at night, pounce on the phone the moment it rang. He finally understood that it was serious, and the police had told them bluntly that it was possible that their daughter was dead, or that she was alive and they would never find her again. It was like losing two children at once, and Faye already knew that they would never recover from it. She had buried herself in her work to ease the pain, to no avail, spending whatever time she could with the twins when they were free. But they felt it too. Vanessa was quieter than she had ever been before, her big romance died shortly after it began, and even Valerie was more subdued. |
| 1821 |
Faye looked up at it for an instant before hurrying inside with Ward on her heels. She knew that their room was on the third floor, from her last trip up, and she headed quickly up the stairs before the desk clerk could say anything to her. She didn't want to talk to anyone now. She just wanted to see Anne. She even forgot that Ward was with her, as she rapped softly on the door. A moment later Lionel appeared. He looked at her through the narrow opening, seemed to hesitate, and slowly opened the door. And from where she stood, Faye could see the still form lying there, her back to her. She was wearing Lionel's bathrobe, her hair had grown long and her feet were bare, and for an instant Faye thought she was asleep, and then she turned slowly to see who it was, her face tear stained, her eyes dark rimmed and huge in the suddenly narrow face. Faye was instantly taken aback, but she didn't want to let on. Anne had completely changed in the five months she'd been gone. She was thinner, looked more grown up, and there was something so different about her face that Faye wasn't even sure she would have recognized her. She was almost sure she would not have from a photograph and was grateful that John had. "Hello, sweetheart." Faye advanced slowly toward the bed, almost afraid she'd frighten her away, like a wounded bird, and Anne gave a soft moan and huddled further into a ball as she turned away again. She was coming down from the hallucinogens she had taken on and off for so long, and Lionel and John had been feeding her orange juice and candy bars to keep up her strength. And a while before they had forced her to eat a hamburger they had brought in. She had immediately thrown up after eating it, but she looked better now, at least to John and Li. They had seen what she looked like when the police first picked her up several hours before, and Lionel had cringed at the thought of his mother seeing her then. He looked from her to his parents now, and he was stricken by the look in his mother's eyes. |
| 1822 |
And the doctor made an exception, and let Faye stay with Anne, at least as long as she was in the labor room. None of them were prepared for how long it would take. Even the doctor didn't know, although he was usually good at predicting that, but again with teenagers, nothing was sure, she could race through it suddenly or it could take three days. She was dilating well, but she would stop at each stage for long hours, begging for release, for drugs, for anything, clutching at her mother's hand, trying to sit up to leave and then collapsing with the pain, clawing at the walls, and begging the nurses to let her go. It was the worst thing Faye had ever seen, and she had never felt so helpless in her life. There was nothing she could do to help the child, and she only left her once to go outside and say something to Ward. She wanted him to call the attorney first thing the next morning, in case Anne agreed to give the baby up after it was born. They would have her sign the papers immediately. They had to review them again in six months, to make them permanent, but by then the baby would be gone, and hopefully she'd have started a normal life again. Ward agreed to call him the next morning, and she suggested he go home. It could take hours, and the three men agreed. Ward dropped Lionel and John off, without saying much to them, and the two boys went upstairs. They were surprised to realize that it was already 4 A.M. and Lionel never got to sleep that night. He crept stealthily out of bed, and called the hospital several times, but there was no news of Anne. She was still in the labor room, and the baby had not been born. And she was still there the following afternoon when John came home from work, and found Lionel still sitting by the phone. It was six o'clock and he was amazed. "My God, hasn't she had the baby yet?" He couldn't imagine it taking so long. She had gone into labor around eight o'clock the night before, and had already been in terrible pain when they got her to the hospital. |
| 1823 |
If it had been his sister, he would have died for her, and he tried to cheer Anne up now. Even if the jokes were in bad taste, they were heartfelt. He felt terrible for her. "We could always redo your room in black. I have some great black corduroy at the shop... we could drape black tulle over the windows, a few little black spiders here and there." He squinted artistically, and for the first time in a week she laughed. But when it came time to go home, it was Ward and Faye who came for her. They had talked to Lionel earlier that day, or at least Faye had, and explained that they were taking Anne home now. He and John were free to rent her room to a friend, or do whatever they liked with it. The purpose had been served, and now Anne had to come home to resume her life with them. She was even more depressed when she found that out, but she didn't have the strength to argue with them now. She sat in her room for the next few weeks, refusing to eat most of the time, telling the twins to get the hell out when they stopped in to say hello to her, which admittedly they seldom did, although Vanessa really did try more than once. She wanted to reach out to Anne, with records, and books, and a bunch of flowers once or twice. But Anne steadfastly refused to be wooed by the gifts. She kept her heart closed to all of them. And it was Thanksgiving before she joined them for dinner again. Lionel was conspicuously not there, nor was Greg, who was playing a big game at school, and Anne returned to her room as soon as possible. She had nothing to say to any of them, even Vanessa, who tried so hard, and Faye, whose grief still showed in her eyes. Anne hated them all. All she could think of was the baby she had given up. He was exactly five weeks old now. She wondered if for the rest of her life she would remember exactly how old he was all the time. She could almost sit down now, which was at least something, Lionel reminded her when he stopped by, when he knew for sure their father was out. |
| 1824 |
But it was close to Columbia, and all the kids lived up there. She didn't like it as much as the Barbizon, but there was more freedom here. They moved in a month before school began, and took turns buying groceries and doing household chores. It was Vanessa's turn, as she struggled up the stairs one day with a bag of groceries in each arm. There was an ancient elevator which never worked, and she was afraid to get stuck in it anyway. It was easier just to stagger up the stairs to the third floor, but as she did on a hot August afternoon, after work, she found someone staring down at her. He was tall and he had auburn hair, a pleasant face, and he was wearing a tee shirt and shorts, and carrying a stack of papers in one hand as he looked at her. "Do you need help?" She looked up at him and was about to decline, but she liked the look of him. There was something matter of fact and intelligent about the man that appealed to her instantly. He was the kind of man she had hoped to meet at Parker when she took the job. But she never seemed to meet anyone there who excited her, and this young man had something that appealed to her now. She wasn't sure what it was, maybe it was just the stack of papers he held. It looked like a manuscript to her, and she wasn't far wrong. That was exactly what it was, he explained, as he set her bags of groceries down outside her door. "Just move in?" He had never seen her before, and he'd been living there for years. He had moved in when he'd gone to graduate school, and he had finished the year before. But he'd been too lazy to move out, he had too many papers lying around. He was doing research for a thesis on philosophy, and he was thinking about writing a play, but he forgot about it all now, as he looked at the slim girl with the long blond hair. She nodded in answer to his question, and dug her key out of her bag. "I moved in with a friend two weeks ago." "Starting graduate school next month?" He knew the type. He'd been dating them for years. |
| 1825 |
He wasn't too excited about it, but it would leave him plenty of time to write, and that was what mattered to him most. Vanessa was impressed by how serious he was. But he was serious about a lot of things, and he was developing a serious interest in her. And this time when he asked her out, she was free. They went to a little Italian restaurant uptown, and they drank a lot of red wine, and talked until almost one o'clock, and then took a leisurely walk home, as Vanessa glanced over her shoulder now and then, hoping they wouldn't be mugged. She wasn't used to New York yet, and it was hardly a lovely neighborhood. But Jason put a powerful arm around her, sensing her fears, and she felt safe with him. He walked her slowly upstairs, and seemed to hesitate on the second floor, but she began the next flight up, and he gently touched her arm. "Want to come in for a drink?" She had drunk enough, and she suspected what he had in mind. It was almost 2 A.M., and she was asking for it if she went to his place. She wasn't ready to make that kind of commitment yet, to anyone, not even to him, and she liked him a lot. "Not tonight, Jason, but thanks." He looked disappointed, as he walked her to her door, and she felt just as disappointed when she went inside. For the first time in her life, she really wanted a man. She had always had fun playing with boys before, but she wasn't like Val. She didn't need conquests, or ache with desire for anyone. There were boys that she liked, but never that much. Until now. Suddenly, she knew from the unfamiliar stirrings she felt that she wanted to sleep with him. She tried to distract herself for the next few days. She went out with Louise and her friends. She even had lunch with her boss at Parker, and she could see that he had the hots for her but she couldn't even stand his touch on her arm. All she could think of was the tall boy with auburn hair on the second floor as she went home at night, and it was almost a relief when she ran straight into him that weekend. |
| 1826 |
She noticed that his parents never called, and that he rarely mentioned them. She didn't call home that often either, but she still considered herself close to all of them. But as Vanessa looked up, she saw Jason smiling at her. There was a tender side of him that she really loved and she could see it now. She reached out a hand to where he sat at his desk, and he kissed it and smiled. "I'm going to miss you too, you know. And it'll probably take me weeks to straighten you out again." "One of these days, you'll have to come to California with me." But neither of them was ready for that. Her family sounded terrifying to him, and the prospect of bringing him home frightened her too. That would mean that it was serious, or so her parents would think, and it was not. It was just a lovely first affair. She expected nothing more of it than that or so she told herself. "I'll call you, Jase." She repeated exactly the same words to him as they stood at the airport on December 23. He had decided not to go home, but to work on his thesis instead, which sounded like a lonely way to spend the holidays to her. But he said he'd be fine, and she promised to call every day. He kissed her long and hard before she boarded the plane, and then she was gone in the huge silver bird in the air, and he dug his hands into his pockets, and wrapped his scarf around his neck, and went back out into the cold air. It was snowing again. And it frightened him to realize how much he had fallen in love with her. He had wanted it to be a casual affair, even the convenience of living in the same building appealed to him. And that had nothing to do with it now. He liked everything about her, she was serious, intelligent, beautiful, kind, and wonderful in bed, and his apartment seemed like a tomb as he unlocked the door, and sat down at his desk and stared. Maybe he should have gone home after all. But it was so depressing for him. Life in their small town was so limited, and his parents always smothered him, he couldn't stand it anymore. |
| 1827 |
And now he could see where the real resemblance was. Lionel looked exactly like Faye. And although Jason wouldn't have admitted it to Van, it was impressive meeting her. She was beautiful and intelligent, and her eyes danced with a million ideas. She made everyone laugh, and she had a deep sexy voice. He thought she was one of the most interesting women he'd ever met, as they sat deep in conversation that night. She was quizzing him about his thesis, his plans, his ideas, and he suddenly realized how difficult it must have been to have grown up with her. She was so damn beautiful, and so bright, it would have been impossible to compete with her, and it explained to him now why Vanessa was so quiet and subdued and her twin sister so wild. Van had obviously chosen not to compete at all, but to lead her own quiet life, and Val was still fighting her every inch of the way, but in a way that assured she would never win. She was trying to be more spectacular, more beautiful, she was trying to beat her at her own game, and she could only lose at that. Lionel had gone into film, but in a totally different vein, and he was curious to meet the other two now. Greg arrived next, talking constantly of playing ball, drinking beer, chasing girls. It was almost exhausting to be in the same room with him, but whenever Jason watched Ward talk to him, he saw his eyes light up. This was his adored son, his hero, his jock. And he could only begin to imagine the pain it must have caused Lionel for most of his life. He attempted to talk to Greg once or twice, the day he arrived, but he had nothing much to say, and he always seemed to have something else on his mind. And then finally Val arrived with Anne. She had stayed in town as long as she could, and agreed to drive her sister up, although she wasn't in the mood to leave town just then. There was a new horror movie being cast, and she didn't want to get passed up. But she couldn't do everything, and she knew there would be another one being cast in two weeks. |
| 1828 |
For almost two years she had felt like his wife, and she needed no fanfare now. Gail thought it was silly of her. She was so unlike girls her age. She wanted no wedding dress, no veil. It looks so barren, Faye thought to herself, remembering the magnificence of her own wedding day. Anne wore a simple white wool dress with a high neck and long sleeves, simple pumps, her blond hair in a single braid with baby's breath in it, and she carried no bouquet. She came to him simple and stark, wearing no jewelry save the large diamond he had given her. And the wedding ring was a wide band of diamonds too. She looked so innocent and young that it looked almost incongruous on her hand. But she noticed none of that. She saw only Bill. It was all she had wanted since the day they met, and she came quietly to him now, on her father's arm, and then Ward stepped back, feeling again how little any of them had known her in the last eighteen years. It was as though she had slipped through their lives too quickly, too silently, living behind a locked door, always disappearing. Suddenly, it seemed as though his entire memory of her childhood was saying, "Where's Anne?" They had a small luncheon at the house, which was all Anne would allow them to do. There were flowers everywhere, and the champagne was very fine. And Faye looked quiet and restrained in a green silk suit that set off her eyes. But somehow she didn't feel like the mother of the bride. It all felt like a charade, as though they were playing games, and eventually Gail would go home with her Dad. But when they left in the gray Rolls that night, Anne went with them, and she turned to kiss Faye and Ward goodbye. Faye had an overwhelming urge to ask her if she was sure, and yet when she saw her daughter's eyes, there was no question there. She had given herself to the man she loved, and she was a woman now. Gail was more subdued than usual, but she was happy for them. They had both graduated a few weeks before, and they would fly to New York with her now. |
| 1829 |
She had never forgiven her, and possibly never would. And now, on Madison Avenue, she looked sadly at Bill. "Do you think it'll ever happen?" She had asked him that a million times since January, and it had only been four months since their wedding day. They had used precautions until then, no thanks to her, he reminded her several times. But he knew why she wanted to be careless. It was the same thing again. That desperation to have a child, to fill the void, to relive the past differently this time. She had never forgiven herself for giving that child up, or Faye for making her... "Yes, I think it will happen, little love. Six months from now you'll be wallowing around like a whale, telling me how miserable and uncomfortable you are, and hating me for it." They both laughed and he kissed her again and left for his meeting, as she headed for Bloomingdale's, and it tore at her heart when she passed the racks of baby clothes. She stopped for just a moment and fingered them wistfully, wanting to buy something just for good luck, and then afraid it would jinx her instead. She remembered when she had bought little tiny pink shoes when she'd been pregnant before. She had been so convinced it would be a girl, Lionel and John had teased her about it. The memory was still painful now, as she walked away, and it hurt to think of John. She wondered how Lionel was. They seldom spoke anymore. Things had never been the same since he had told her parents about Bill, and she seemed to have nothing to say to him now. The last she'd heard, he was still looking for a job at one of the studios, anxious to get back into film. She sighed, and took the escalator downstairs, there was a riot of color everywhere, silk flowers, patent leather bags, bright suede belts in rainbow hues. She couldn't resist, and came home with bags of it, most of which she knew she'd never wear, unlike the diamond bracelet Bill gave her that night to ease the pain. He knew how unhappy she was about not getting pregnant yet. |
| 1830 |
He was fifty one years old, and had learned to be more philosophical about life. Deep down she was still upset but for the three weeks that they played on the beach at St. Tropez, Anne had never looked happier in her life. She wore blue jeans and espadrilles, bikinis and bright cotton shirts, and she let her hair go wild, in a haze of blond bleached even paler by the sun. She was a beautiful girl, and growing prettier by the day. And he was pleased to see she had even gained a little weight, and when they went to Cannes to shop, she didn't fit into her usual size, she had to move up one. And he teased her when she had trouble zipping up her jeans again. He told her she was getting fat, but a question dawned which he didn't even dare voice to her. And in Paris he was sure of it when she was too tired to walk along the Seine, fell asleep on the way to Coq Hardi for lunch, and turned green when he suggested a Dubonnet. He didn't say a word to her, but protected her like a mother hen with a chick, and when they got back to L.A., he reminded her that she hadn't had a period since they left a month before. For the first time in six months, she hadn't even thought of it, and suddenly her jaw dropped as she made rapid calculations in her head, and then grinned nervously at him. "Do you think...?" She didn't even dare say the words and he smiled gently at her. It hadn't taken so long after all. Six months wasn't long at all, except it had been to her, so anxious to conceive. "Yes, I do, little one. I've thought it for the last few weeks but I didn't want to get your hopes up, so I didn't say anything." She squealed and threw her arms around his neck, and he tried to calm her down. "Let's wait till we're sure, and then well celebrate." She went for the test the next day, and when she called them breathlessly that afternoon for the results, they were positive. She was so stunned, she just sat there and stared at the phone, and when Bill came home she still looked dazed, and he whooped with delight. |
| 1831 |
And she looked more grown up than she had nine months before. Especially now, the pregnancy had given her a certain maturity. They were planning to go to New York in the next few weeks, to see Gail, and the doctor said it was all right for Anne to go, but the day before they left, she began spotting lightly, and he put her to bed to rest. She was terrified of what it meant, but the doctor insisted that it happened all the time. Most women had some spotting in the first few months, it meant nothing at all, he said, except that after three days it hadn't stopped, and Bill was growing anxious now. He called another doctor he knew, who said the same thing. But Anne was strangely pale under her tan, mostly from fright. She barely moved from her bed all day long, except to go to the bathroom, and Bill came home for lunch every day to see how she was, and he left the office earlier than usual. They would just have to wait and see, both doctors said, but neither of them was concerned, until after a week of consistent bleeding, late one night she began to have terrible cramps. She woke up with a start, and grabbed Bill's arm. She was barely able to speak she was in such pain, and she felt as though a hot poker were forcing its way through her, pushing everything down between her legs and on her lower back. Bill called the doctor, frantically wrapped her in a blanket, and took her to the hospital. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she held his hand tight, as she lay in the emergency room. She begged him not to leave her, and the doctor let him stay, but it wasn't a pretty sight. She was in terrible pain and bleeding copiously, and within two hours, she lost the baby she had wanted so desperately, as she sobbed in Bill's arms. They put her out and wheeled her away to do a quick D and C and when Anne woke up in the recovery room, Bill was there again, with grief stricken eyes filled with concern as he held her hand. The doctor had said there was no explanation for it, some fetuses were just wrong and the body eliminated them. |
| 1832 |
She huffed and she puffed and she had to sit down on a huge rock outside someone's house. He almost wondered if he'd have to go and get the car for her, but she insisted that she could get home again. She looked so vulnerable and so huge that he felt desperately sorry for her, but she seemed to accept it as the way things were, and the next day she even got up and made him breakfast before he left for work. She seemed to be brimming with energy and she said something about cleaning the baby's room again, which he thought unnecessary, but she seemed hell bent on it when he tried to discourage her, and as he left, she was dragging the vacuum across the floor, and he was faintly worried about her, so much so that he decided to drop by again before lunch, and when he did, he found her quietly lying on the bed with his stopwatch in her hand, timing contractions as she did the Lamaze breathing she had learned this time. She looked at him with a distracted look and he hurried to her side. "Is this it?" She smiled peacefully up at him. "I wanted to be sure before I dragged you home from work, or lunch at the Polo Lounge." He looked suddenly nervous as he took the stopwatch from her hand. "You shouldn't have vacuumed the baby's room." But she only laughed. "I have to have this kid sometime, you know." And her due date was only four days away now. He canceled his lunch and called the doctor for her, and then told his secretary that he wouldn't be in for the rest of the day. But try as he would, he couldn't make her go to the hospital yet. Even the doctor said she could wait a while, but Bill was afraid they'd wait too long at home. She remembered her last experience only too well, when it had taken days for the baby to be born. There was no reason to rush now, and the breathing was helping her control the pain. Bill made her a little cup of soup, and sat quietly in the bedroom with her, and now and then she got up and walked around. And then at four o'clock, she looked at him with a distracted frown. |
| 1833 |
He had graduated from Harvard Business School two years before and was enjoying a meteoric rise at a Wall Street investment bank. Annie had graduated from Columbia Architecture School six months before, and she was reveling in the excitement of her first job with an important architecture group. It was her dream come true. And the handsome pair had spotted each other across a crowded room, and it was infatuation at first sight. It had been a great summer so far, and they were already talking about renting a ski house together with some of their friends. They were falling in love and looking forward to good times ahead. Annie was having the time of her life: weekends with Seth, passionate lovemaking, happy times on the pretty little sailboat that he had just bought. She had it all, new man, new home, first big step in the career she had worked so hard for. She was on top of the world, twenty six years old, tall, blond, beautiful. She had a smile that could have melted the world, and a lot to smile about. Her life these days was everything she had dreamed of. She had to force Seth to leave that afternoon after another perfect weekend on his boat, but she had work to do. She wanted to spend some time on her first big project for a client meeting the following day. She knew she had to blow their socks off, and the plans she had been working on were meticulously done, and her immediate supervisor had shown a lot of respect for her ideas and was giving her a chance to shine. Annie was just sitting down at her drafting table when her cell phone rang. Although he had only left the apartment five minutes before, she thought it might be Seth. He called her sometimes on his way home, to tell her how much he already missed her. She smiled, thinking of him, and then saw from the caller ID that it was Jane, her older sister by ten years. The two sisters were crazy about each other, and Jane had been like a mother to her since their parents had passed away when Annie was eighteen. |
| 1834 |
Bill's publishing associates came out from New York to pay their respects. And Annie had called her office and explained that she needed to take a week or two off and couldn't make the presentation. She moved into Bill and Jane's house and went back to the city to get her things. The new apartment she loved was history. It had only one bedroom, and she didn't want to uproot the children so soon, so she'd have to commute to the city. Magdalena agreed to move in. And Annie had to adjust to the idea that suddenly she was a twenty six year old woman with three children. Jane and Bill had talked to her about it, that if anything happened to them, she would have to step in for them. Bill had no close relatives, and Annie and Jane's own parents were dead. There was no one to take care of them now except Annie, and all four of them had to make the best of it. There was no other choice. And Annie's vow to Jane the night before the funeral was to devote her life to their children and do the best she could. She had no idea how to be a mom, all she had ever been was a fun aunt, and now she would have to learn. She couldn't even imagine stepping into their shoes, and she knew she was a poor substitute for parents like Bill and Jane, but she was all they had. Seth had the grace to wait until a week after the funeral before he came to see her in Greenwich. He took her to dinner at a quiet place. He told her he was crazy about her, but he was twenty nine years old, and there was no way he could take on a woman with three children. He said he had had a terrific time with her for the past two months, but this was way, way over his head. She said she understood. She didn't cry, she wasn't mad at him. She was numb. She said nothing after he explained the situation to her, and he drove her back to the house in silence. He tried to kiss her goodbye, and she turned her head away and walked into the house without a word to him. She had more important things to do now, like bring up three children. |
| 1835 |
Bill and Jane had left their children comfortably provided for. Bill had made some good investments, the house in Greenwich sold for an excellent price, and so did the one on Martha's Vineyard, and there had been an insurance policy for the children. They had what they needed financially, if Annie was careful with it, but they didn't have a mom and dad. They had an aunt. They were patient with Annie while she learned. There were some bumps and some sad times for them all at first, but in time they all got used to the hand they'd been dealt. And Magdalena stayed. In time, Annie got them through high school, through their first romances, and helped them apply to college. By the time he was fourteen Ted had decided to go to law school. Lizzie was obsessed with fashion and wanted to be a model for a while. And Kate had her mother's artistic talent, but unlike the rest of them, she marched to her own drummer. She used her allowance to get her ears pierced at thirteen, and then her belly button, to Annie's horror. She dyed her hair blue and then purple, and at eighteen she got a tattoo of a unicorn on the inside of her wrist, which must have hurt like hell when she got it. And she was a talented artist like her mother. She got accepted at Pratt School of Design and was a very capable illustrator. She looked like no one Annie had ever known. She was tiny, fiercely independent, and very brave. She had strong beliefs about everything, including politics, and argued with anyone who didn't agree with her, and wasn't afraid to stand alone. She had been a handful in her teens but eventually settled down once she got to college and moved into the dorm. Ted had his own apartment by then, and got a job after college, before he went to law school. Liz was working for Elle. Bringing up her sister's children had been Annie's vocation and full time job. She had no other life but theirs and her work. At thirty five, Annie had opened her own architecture office, after nine years with the same firm. |
| 1836 |
The two women met for lunch when Whitney came into the city, usually to go shopping. And Annie went to New Jersey for the weekend once in a while, after the kids were gone, but most of the time she was too busy working on weekends to go anywhere. And her work was beautiful. There were several handsome townhouses on the Upper East Side that she had renovated, spectacular penthouses, and several beautiful estates in the Hamptons, and one in Bronxville. And she had turned a number of brownstones into offices for clients. Her business was booming and continued to grow. She had just turned down a job in Los Angeles, and another in London, because she said she didn't have time to travel. She was happy working in New York. And basically she was happy with her life, and it showed. She had done exactly what she wanted and what she'd promised. She had accompanied her nieces and nephew from childhood to young adulthood, and she didn't mind the sacrifices she'd had to make at all. And by the time she was forty two, Annie was one of the most successful architects in New York, and loved practicing on her own. It was the day before Thanksgiving, on a freezing cold morning, as Annie walked through the gutted interior of a townhouse on East Sixty ninth Street with a couple who had hired her two months before. The house represented an enormous investment for them, and they wanted Annie to turn it into a spectacular home. It was hard to visualize as they climbed over the rubble the workmen had left after taking out several walls. Annie was showing them the proportions of the newly enlarged living room and dining room and where the grand staircase was going to go. She had a unique talent for combining ancient and contemporary designs and making it look both avant garde and warm, although it was hard to imagine right now. The husband was questioning her intensely about the costs, and his wife was looking anxious now that she saw the state of total chaos the house was in. Annie had promised them it would be complete in a year. |
| 1837 |
Liz always gave better than she got. The men she got involved with were always selfish and spoiled, and Annie worried that she sold herself short. She was a beautiful, talented, intelligent young woman. It shocked Annie sometimes when she realized that at twenty eight, Liz was two years older than she had been when she inherited all of them. And in some ways Liz seemed so young. And she never seemed to think about marriage or settling down. Annie realized that she hadn't set them much of an example on that score, since all she did herself was work, and take care of them when they were young. They had rarely if ever seen her with a date. She had kept the few men in her life well away from them, and there hadn't been many anyway, and none she had cared about seriously. The last man she had been crazy about had been Seth, sixteen years before. She had run into him once a few years ago he was married, lived in Connecticut, and had four kids. He had tried to explain to her how bad he felt that he hadn't stepped up to the plate for her when her sister died, and she had laughed and brushed it off and told him she was fine. But it had given her a little flutter to see him. He was as handsome as he'd been before, and she had told Whitney about it. It all seemed like ancient history now. Liz was in the process of apologizing to Annie that Jean Louis hadn't brought decent clothes with him, since he'd be working, and Annie assured her it didn't matter. None of the men in Liz's life ever owned a suit. Whether successful photographers or famous models, they always showed up in ragged clothes, with long hair and beards. It was the look she seemed to like, or the one most prevalent in her milieu. Annie had grown used to it over the years, although she would have loved to see her with a decently dressed guy with a haircut, just once. In contrast, Liz was always stylish beyond belief and gave Annie fashion tips and even occasionally brought her clothes. It was always fun to see what Liz would wear. |
| 1838 |
Any other single woman her age would have been doing her best to charm him, but she was always professional with her clients. All he was to her was a job. It made no difference to her whatsoever that he had a yacht in St. Barts and his own plane. She was interested in the apartment, not the man. Annie was friendly but totally businesslike in her manner. He suspected that she had a husband or boyfriend, but he didn't dare ask. Annie left an hour after she arrived. She promised to send him plans within two weeks and wished him a happy Thanksgiving. She was totally clear on what he wanted and what she was going to do for him. He told her he was leaving for Aspen that night, to spend the holiday with friends. And he stood at the window, watching the snow fall on Central Park after she left. The apartment was silent and empty when Annie got home, just as it was every night. It was so different now than when the children still lived there. There were none of Kate's clothes on the floor, strewn around the living room. Ted's TV wasn't on. Liz wasn't dashing in and out, brandishing a curling iron, late for whatever she was doing, with no time to eat. The fridge wasn't full. Kate's briefly vegan meals weren't left all over the sink. The music wasn't on. Their friends weren't there. The phone didn't ring. The house was empty, neat, and clean, and Annie still wasn't used to it, even three years after Kate had left for college. Annie suspected that it was a void she would never be able to fill. Her sister had given her the greatest gift in life, and time had slowly taken it from her. She knew that it was right for them to grow up and leave, but she hated it anyway, and nothing made her happier than when they came home. She went out to the kitchen and started organizing things for the next day. She had just stacked the good plates on the kitchen counter, getting ready to set the table, when she heard the front door slam and what sounded like a load of bricks being dumped in her front hall. |
| 1839 |
A few minutes later they all disappeared to their rooms and emerged again at noon. Ted was wearing gray slacks, a blazer, and a tie and looked heartbreakingly like his father to Annie. They were almost clones. And Katie looked like a more dressed up version of herself. She was wearing a black leather miniskirt, a black fur trimmed sweater that Annie had bought her, and black tights and high heels, and she'd put gel on her hair to spike it more, and wore makeup, which she rarely did. She looked beautiful, while still being faithful to her very individual style. And Annie was wearing a soft brown cashmere sweater dress and high heels. It was nearly one o'clock when Liz walked into the apartment. She was wearing black leather pants, a white Chanel jacket, and towering high heels. Her blond hair was pulled back in a sleek bun, and she was wearing small diamond earrings that she had borrowed from the shoot, and they were glittering fiercely on her ears. The man who walked in behind her looked like a homeless person she had picked up on the street. He was wearing torn sneakers, jeans with holes in them, and a black hooded sweatshirt with holes in it too. His uncombed hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he had a beard. He was smiling and relaxed as he walked into the room, and he had brought flowers for Annie. His manners were impeccable, and his appearance was totally out of sync with Liz's. She looked like one of the models from the magazine, and he looked like he had been shipwrecked for a year. And his French accent lent charm to his appearance. He kissed Annie and Katie on both cheeks and shook Ted's hand. He was personable and friendly, and within minutes, they all forgot how he looked. He was one of the most successful young photographers in Paris, and in great demand in New York. He didn't seem to care at all about what he wore, nor did Liz. She was obviously happy to be with him, as Annie silently wished her niece didn't have a weakness for men who looked like that. |
| 1840 |
Ted went back to his apartment, and Kate to her dorm on Sunday night. The house felt like a tomb, and the only thing that cheered her was knowing that they would stay with her again over Christmas, which was only a month away. After so many years of living with them, and as her main focus and only personal life, she lived for the times when they were together. She hated to admit it to anyone, even Whitney, but it was true. It was a relief to get back to work on Monday morning. She had four client meetings set up in one day and visited two of her job sites during lunch. And she didn't get back to the apartment until eight that night. She was so tired, she looked at some plans and notes she'd made during meetings with clients, and then took a bath and went to bed. She was almost too tired to miss the kids, never bothered to eat dinner, and barely noticed the darkened rooms and silence in the apartment. It was the drug she had always used to counter loneliness and pain, total immersion in work. The Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend was a busy day for Liz too. She had an important jewelry shoot for the March issue, and she had pulled major pieces from all over the world. The theme was Spring, and all the jewelry she was using was in flower designs, leaves, and roots, from their most important jewelry advertisers, and some new designers that Liz had found herself. There were three armed guards at the shoot, and four of the currently most important models in the world. One of them had agreed to pose naked, literally covered in jewels. And the photographer they were using was major too. They were having fun on the set, trying things on and playing with them during breaks. Jean Louis stopped by when he finished his own shoot. Liz and her group were working late. "Pretty shot," he said admiringly from the sidelines, as he stood next to Liz. She was wearing black leggings and a T shirt, her long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, no makeup, and high heeled Givenchy sandals they had made especially for her. |
| 1841 |
They had been working since eight o'clock that morning, and she'd been at the photographer's studio at six to set things up. Usually she would have had an assistant do it, but the pieces they were using were of such enormous value that she felt she should be there herself. Jean Louis put his arms around her and kissed her. They had been dating for months, with frequent breaks since they lived in separate cities, and they both traveled constantly for work. They tried to get together in Paris or New York once or twice a month. It seemed to work, and neither of them had time for more of a relationship. They were both rising stars in their fields. Liz's secret dream was to be editor of Vogue one day, and she knew that getting there was still years away. She had to make her mark as an outstanding editor first. And the stories she did now were key. Jean Louis was successful but more relaxed about his work. He told her that she took life too seriously, but Liz always had. Life had gotten very serious for her on a September Sunday when she was twelve. And she had been intense about everything ever since. The one thing she never did was relax. She never took anything for granted, and she never got too attached. The only people she felt she couldn't live without were her brother, sister, and aunt. The men in her life came and went. Jean Louis had accused her several times of being cool and detached. The Ice Princess, he called her. She wasn't, but she was standoffish with men. It was easy to understand why. She had told him she had lost her parents as a child, but she never went into detail. Her night terrors afterward, the nightmares she had had and sometimes still did, the years of therapy to get over the loss, were none of his business. All she wanted from Jean Louis was to have fun, and she liked that they worked in the same field. The men she went out with were always related to fashion. Other people didn't understand the crazy world in which she lived, and how passionate she was about her work. |
| 1842 |
Ted hesitated, and now he felt even ruder turning her down. She was offering her help, and he didn't want her to feel that he didn't appreciate the gesture, but it seemed strange to go to her house. They had never spoken to each other outside of class. "My kids are asleep by eight. Why don't you come by at nine? We can knock out the prep for the quiz in an hour. I'll give you some pointers about contracts, and show you some things that are key." "All right," he said hesitantly, not wanting to intrude on her private life. She had already jotted down her address on a piece of paper and handed it to him. He saw that she lived in the East Village, not far from the university, in a run down neighborhood. "You're sure you don't mind?" he asked, feeling like a kid. She seemed so motherly to him, although she probably wasn't that much older than he was. "I won't stay long." "Don't be silly. Once the kids are in bed, I'll have plenty of time." He nodded and thanked her again, and his day went better after that. He was relieved that she had offered to help him, he knew he needed it in this one class. He had another class afterward, then went to the library to do some studying, and stopped to eat dinner in a diner, before his appointment at the assistant professor's house at nine. He arrived at her building five minutes early, and it was freezing outside so he went in. The building smelled of urine and cabbage and cats, and he rang the bell and took the stairs to the third floor two at a time. Seeing the building made him realize how little money she must make at her job, and he wondered if he should be offering her some kind of tutoring fee for helping him, but he didn't want to insult her. He rang the doorbell, and he could hear children laughing inside. Apparently they hadn't gone to bed on time, and Pattie looked flustered when she opened the door to him. She was wearing a pink V neck sweater, jeans, and bare feet, and her long curly blond hair made her look younger than she was. |
| 1843 |
The university housing office had found it for her, and she was grateful to have it. She said the babysitter she used lived downstairs, and since the divorce it was a perfect arrangement. She promised to return in five minutes after she put the kids to bed. And in the end it took half an hour, while Ted read his contracts book and made a list of questions for her. By the time he finished his list, Pattie had reappeared. Her hair fell around her face in soft curls, and her cheeks were flushed from playing with the kids. "Sometimes they just don't want to go to bed," she explained. "They were with their father for Thanksgiving. We have joint custody, and there are no rules at his house, so when they get back here, it's always a little nuts. By the time they calm down and shape up and get sane again, they go back to him. Divorce is tough on kids," she said, as she sat down next to Ted and looked at his list. The questions were intelligent and made sense, and she had a clear answer for all of them. She showed him examples and flipped through the book to point out what he needed to study and learn by rote. She clarified some important points for him and an hour later Ted sat back on the couch, looking immensely relieved. "You make it seem so simple," he said with admiration. She was a good teacher, and he liked her style. She was an easy, warm person, a bright woman, and obviously a good mother from what he had seen. She was like Mother Earth as she tucked her feet under her, and smiled at him. She had a lush body and seemed limber and graceful and explained to him that she had done yoga for years. She taught it privately sometimes and said that she did everything she had to to make ends meet. Her ex husband was an artist and couldn't even pay child support. She was carrying it all herself. Ted admired her for her openness and courage. She didn't say anything nasty about her ex husband, and she seemed to accept her life as it was, and it had been kind of her to help him. |
| 1844 |
She had written one herself with a funny drawing on it, of Santa with the Rudolph tattoo on his bare behind. Annie burst out laughing when Kate handed it to her, and then taped it up on the fireplace, just as Liz wandered out in a man's pajama top that looked sexy with her beautiful long legs. Annie was wearing an old flannel nightgown and a pink cashmere robe. And Ted emerged a few minutes later wearing boxer shorts and a T shirt. Comfort was the order of the day on Christmas morning, not elegance. And a few minutes later they all exchanged gifts in front of the brightly lit tree. Kate's paintings of the three of them were a huge hit, and for her brother and sister she had done a portrait of Annie. She had done portraits of her parents too, from photographs, but she had left them tacked on the wall in her dorm room. She hadn't wanted to upset anyone by bringing them home. Annie loved the three beautiful portraits of the children, and Katie promised to have them framed for her. Annie said she was going to take down a painting and put them up in the living room. There were tears in her eyes as she hugged Kate. And Ted and Liz loved the portrait of Annie. Ted's gifts to everyone were a big hit too, and Annie put her personalized hard hat on immediately. Liz had given Annie and Kate beautiful gold cuff bracelets, and an elegant Cartier watch for Ted, with a sporty rubber diver's band. And afterward they all had breakfast in the kitchen. Liz had half a grapefruit as usual and was thinner than ever. Katie had granola, and Ted made eggs sunny side up for Annie and himself. The smell of bacon was delicious, and the turkey in the oven was turning golden brown. It occurred to Annie as she watched them talking and laughing with each other that they had a life of fragments of loaves and fishes. Somehow she had managed to bring up three children, not her own, with no idea of what she was doing, and they had turned out wonderfully, they all loved each other, and they enriched her life in ways she never would have dreamed. |
| 1845 |
Pattie had just called and invited him out to lunch with her kids. There was still snow on the ground in the park, and she had suggested a snowball fight or maybe skating for the afternoon. He liked the idea and had agreed. He left the house an hour later without telling his aunt or his sister where he was going. He just said he was meeting friends and didn't say when he'd be back. Annie wasn't surprised, and it didn't bother her. She didn't keep track of his every move, and at twenty four, he had to feel free to come and go when he stayed with her. Katie went out for a while too. She wanted to check out the sales at her favorite stores, and she came back to the apartment shortly before five. Annie was still working at her desk and had been there all afternoon. The doorbell rang a few minutes after Katie got home, and she went to let him in. Annie could hear them talking and laughing in the living room, and Katie had put some music on. It was the Clash, which Annie actually liked. They had been there for an hour when Annie walked through the room. She was on her way to make a cup of tea and intended to casually say hello, and she smiled at the handsome young man who stood up and held out his hand to shake hers. He was much more polite and poised than Katie's usual friends. He introduced himself with impeccable manners, and he was wearing a blazer and a tie, which was unheard of among Katie's cohorts. He was a beautiful young man with jet black hair and deep honey colored skin and eyes the color of onyx. Annie realized that he was probably from the Middle East, or maybe Indian, and suddenly she remembered the book about Muslim culture that she had seen in Katie's room. She had obviously borrowed it from him. And she hadn't said a word to Annie about him before he came. He was extremely polite as he shook hands with Annie. He seemed very mature for his age, and he was a far cry from Kate's tattooed and pierced friends from art school who wore drooping jeans and torn T shirts with uncombed hair. |
| 1846 |
And she sank into the tub a few minutes after Whitney left the room. She had promised herself she was going to make an effort and get into the spirit of the evening. Annie blew her hair dry and did it in a French twist. She put her makeup on carefully and stepped into the black dress. And she wore a pair of high heeled sandals with feathers on them that Lizzie had bought her in Paris. And she put on diamond earrings that she had bought herself. She checked herself in the mirror before she left her room and decided that her fashionable niece Lizzie would approve. And she carried a small black satin clutch. Annie looked sleek and sophisticated as she left her room, just as the first guests arrived and walked into the living room. They were a couple she had met before. He was an orthopedic surgeon like Fred, and his wife was a friend of Whitney's with kids the same age, and Annie remembered that they always drank a little too much. The couple looked Annie over as she walked in, and the wife had the smug, condescending look that some married women give single ones, as though they feel sorry for them. Annie wouldn't have traded her own life for hers, but she chatted amiably with them, as other guests continued to arrive. By eight o'clock everyone was there. People arrived promptly in the suburbs, unlike big cities where everyone was late. And she hadn't figured out which one her blind date was yet. All the men in the room had paunches and looked middle aged, and most of the women were slightly overweight. Whitney was too, although she was as tall as Annie and carried it well. Annie always suspected that the excess weight was because most of the women drank a little too much wine. Annie had a better figure than anyone in the room. And she was intrigued to discover that the women ignored her, and the men stood in clumps with each other, discussing business or medicine. The men acted as though the women didn't exist, and the women didn't seem to care and talked about shopping, tennis, or their kids. |
| 1847 |
It was five minutes before they sat down to dinner when Whitney brought him over to meet her and introduced her to Bob Graham, the man she was dying for Annie to meet, and as she saw him, Annie's heart sank. He looked like every bad blind date she'd ever had, and he looked her over like a piece of meat. He told her immediately that he was a surgeon and specialized in heart lung transplants, and he looked as though he expected applause. He looked moderately athletic but still had a paunch and several chins. And he'd had very bad hair plugs done the year before when he got divorced. Annie would have preferred it if he were bald, and she tried to remind herself to be a good sport and give the poor guy a chance. What if he were the nicest man on the planet and had bad hair plugs? It would be worth putting up with his hair if he were a wonderful human being, and maybe he was. Or fascinating. Or funny. Or extremely smart. Anything was possible. She saw him staring at her diamond earrings, and he cut to the chase. "You're divorced?" Alone at her age, he assumed she was. "No. I've never been married," she said, smiling at him, wondering if that made her sound racy or like a loser. "Nice earrings. Your ex boyfriend must have been a generous guy." She was startled by the comment and had never had a boyfriend who bought her anything other than meals or a scarf. "I bought them myself," she said, smiling at him, as Whitney herded them into the dining room like sheep, and the heart lung surgeon sat down next to her. He ignored her completely for the first half of dinner, while he discussed his most recent surgery and hospital politics with two men across the table. And the man on her left had his back turned to her and was in earnest conversation with the woman on his other side. They had reached the dessert course when the heart lung man turned to her again, as though he had just remembered she was there. She expected him to ask what she did for a living, since she had listened to him discuss his own work all night. |
| 1848 |
They placed a huge tent over the models and filtered in artificial sunlight. It took them longer to set up, but it was manageable. They had set up heaters against the freezing cold. But one of the models said she was getting sick anyway and didn't want to work. The clothes in the shoot were secondary, and she and the stylist had chosen several simple black and white dresses by an American designer, two of which had gotten stuck in French customs and couldn't be released, so they had to make do with what they had. And the stylist substituted a great looking white shirt for one of the dresses, which worked. The whole focus of the shoot was the jewelry Lizzie was featuring, and that was their worst problem. All of the jewelers she had worked with to pull pieces had sent what she had chosen, but one of the more important jewelers had substituted several pieces she didn't like. She called him immediately, and he apologized, but he had sold the pieces she had picked, and never told her. Worse yet, he was a designer in Rome so she couldn't go back and find something else. She raced to two of the jewelers she was working with in Paris, during a break in the shoot, but she didn't find anything there she liked, and she was short three or four pieces for the shoot. It was the kind of stress and aggravation she hated but that just couldn't be avoided sometimes. "Jesus, I should have read my horoscope for today," Lizzie complained to the head stylist. She had no idea what to do. She reorganized the jewelry for several of the shots, but no matter how she rearranged it, she came up short, and this was a major story. The editor in chief in New York was not going to care that a model had been sick, two dresses were stuck in customs, and four major pieces of jewelry that they had planned to feature had been sold. Lizzie sat quietly in a chair at the edge of the set with her eyes closed, trying to figure it out. She was good at pulling rabbits out of hats, but this time she was coming up dry. |
| 1849 |
Jean Louis explained that he was an artist and had a studio in Montmartre that once belonged to Toulouse Lautrec. And she had to admit to herself that for once she looked as disheveled as they did. She couldn't wait to go home, get warm, and take a long hot bath. They got back to his place at ten o'clock, and Lizzie had to be up at five again for the second day of the shoot. They were using the Place de la Concorde as their location this time, and the Arc de Triomphe the following day. She had a heavy week. Jean Louis had the following day off and was planning to spend it with friends. As Liz sank into the tub and closed her eyes, she thought back over the shots they had done, the jewelry they'd used, the models and their clothes. As she ran the film of the day through her head, she was satisfied with the work. And she was still thinking about it, and already worrying about the next day, as she fell asleep in Jean Louis's bed. He glanced over at her and smiled as he turned off the light. He had never known anyone who worked as hard as Liz, and he certainly didn't want that for himself. Few people did. Annie's first days back to work after the holidays weren't much smoother than Liz's. It seemed like there was chaos at all her construction sites, her most important contractor had quit, and there were delays on all her projects. After the first of the year, all hell had broken loose. She was so stressed that she didn't have time to stop for lunch all week. It was Thursday afternoon when she got back to her office at a decent hour. She had some plans she needed to change, and she wanted to get her files in order. And she had dozens of calls to return and e mails to answer. She asked her assistant for a cup of black coffee and got to work. She decided to open the mail on her desk first. The second letter she opened was from Kate's school, and she suddenly panicked, thinking she had forgotten to pay her tuition. Her accountant usually handled it, but the check could have gotten lost in the mail. |
| 1850 |
She knew she couldn't convince Annie that this was acceptable instead of school, but she thought she shouldn't have to defend it either. She had made a decision that felt right to her. "Are you okay?" Annie asked her gently, and Katie nodded, and then she smiled, and looked happier than she did a minute before. "I'm having fun. They're teaching me a lot. I want to learn how to do tattoos, just so I know what it takes and how the designs work on skin." Annie refrained from saying "Why?" Annie only stayed for a few minutes, and Katie didn't tell her co workers who she was. It made her feel like a child to have her aunt check up on her, and she was no longer a child as far as she was concerned. She was an adult. She looked visibly embarrassed to have Annie there, so once she had looked around, Annie left. Annie wanted to cry as she drove away in a cab. She couldn't get the image of those people out of her head. They had bolts and pierces everywhere. They looked like a scary lot to her. She had one more job site to visit before she went back to her office, and then home at the end of the day. The construction site was another one of her trouble spots right now, and she was fiercely upset when she saw that one of the workmen had left a hose on earlier in the day, and in the freezing weather, the water had turned to ice on the ground. It was an invitation to accidents and another headache she didn't need. She pointed it out to the foreman, and the contractor who was there too, and then, still thinking about Katie and her new job, Annie stepped over the construction debris and hurried out of the site and back toward the street. It was getting late. Her mind was so full of Katie that she didn't see the last patch of ice she had complained about, and suddenly her high heeled boots flew into the air, and she came down hard on one foot with a sharp yelp. One of the construction workers had seen her fall and rushed to help her. He picked her up, dusted her off, and steadied her on her feet. |
| 1851 |
It had been a totally rotten day, two days, and now this. "You really shouldn't go home if it's broken," the woman advised her. "You don't want to be back here at four in the morning with an ankle like a football, screaming in pain. You might as well get an X ray now that you're here, and check it out." It seemed like sensible advice, and Annie decided to wait. She had nothing else to do at home. She hadn't even been able to get to her office and bring plans home. And she couldn't have worked anyway, with the acute pain she was in. She was still feeling sick and hoped she wouldn't throw up. She was amazed by how a small thing could make you feel so awful. The pain was excruciating as she propped up her leg in the wheelchair. She sat there with her eyes closed for a while, trying to tolerate the pain, and then the woman in the chair next to her started to cough. She sounded really sick, so as discreetly as she could, Annie wheeled herself away. She didn't want to catch a disease here on top of it. The ankle was bad enough. She wheeled herself into a quiet corner, where no one was sitting yet, and watched as paramedics brought a man in on a body board with a suspected broken neck. He'd been in a car accident. And a man with a heart attack came in immediately after. If they were using a triage system, she realized she might be there forever, while the more severe cases were treated before her. It was five thirty by then, and liable to be a long night. She looked around, and it seemed as though they had dumped an entire airport in the waiting room for the ER. She closed her eyes again, trying to breathe into the pain, and a moment later someone jostled her wheelchair, then apologized profusely as she opened her eyes. It was a tall, dark haired man with an inflatable splint on his arm. He looked vaguely familiar as she closed her eyes again. One of her boots was tucked into the wheelchair, and her naked foot had swollen to twice its size since she got there, and it was starting to look badly bruised. |
| 1852 |
He told her about China then, and the story he was covering. There was a new prime minister, and he had gone over to do an interview with him, about his foreign policies and a trade commission he was setting up. It struck her that Tom led a very grown up life and was at the hub of world events. She was trying to get contractors to come in on time, and moving walls around to keep her clients happy. Her world was a lot smaller than his. But she loved what she did. It had given her great satisfaction for years. She had always secretly hoped that Kate would get interested in architecture too, and she could have formed a partnership with her in later years, but her artistic talents had found other avenues. Tom promised to call her as soon as he got back to New York, and he confirmed their dinner date on Saturday night. He said he'd figure out where on the way home and make the reservation. She liked the way he took charge of things and made plans on his own. She didn't have to do it for him. It was a relief not to be the one carrying the whole load. That was new for her. Annie was in much better spirits after she heard from Tom. And she finally reached Ted. He said he was just busy with classes, but he sounded terrible and she didn't believe him when he said he was fine. He didn't sound it. She called Liz then, who insisted she knew nothing. She hated lying to Annie, but it was up to Ted to tell her that Pattie was pregnant, and he didn't have the courage, and there was plenty of time. Pattie was barely more than a month pregnant. She had told him the baby was due in September. He didn't even want to think about it now. And she was talking marriage now a lot of the time. He had never been so miserable in his life, except when he lost his parents. Liz called him every day to see how he was, and she hated the way he sounded. He admitted to her that he was in despair and felt trapped. The fetus growing in Pattie's belly had ruined his life, or was going to the instant it was born. |
| 1853 |
She was smart, loving, fair, and respectful of their opinions. But despite that, Katie refused to listen to her. She was going to Tehran and that was that. Tom admitted that in Annie's shoes, he would have wanted to strangle her on the spot for being too independent, headstrong, and listening to no one's advice. "Strangling her is not an option," Annie said, smiling at him, "although I have to admit it's tempting at times." In spite of her concerns about Katie, their dinner date was as enjoyable as the first one. They were getting to know each other better, and they laughed, talked endlessly, and seemed to enjoy many of the same things. He was a kindred spirit in many ways. And this time when he brought her home, he kissed her. It was a gentle lingering kiss that aroused feelings in her that she hadn't felt in years. It was like being kissed awake by the handsome prince in Sleeping Beauty. She was beginning to feel like a woman again. Tom made her happy, and they had a great time together. He invited her to the TV studio later that week and showed her around. It was fascinating. And she got to watch him do his show. She took him to one of her job sites with her on another day and explained what she was doing and showed him the plans. He was very impressed by the caliber of her work and how talented she was. And they cooked dinner together at her apartment the following weekend. Katie was out, and they had the place to themselves. This time they made out like kids on the living room couch. Their desire for each other was mounting, but they both thought it was still too soon to give in. They were in no rush, and wanted to get to know each other better. They felt that if this was right, and meant for them, it could wait. They were waiting for their feelings for each other to ripen before they plucked them off the tree. They were in complete agreement about that. The only thing that still concerned him was if she had room for him in her life. She was still so busy and preoccupied with her sister's kids. |
| 1854 |
Annie's weekend with Tom was a dream come true. She didn't even know that people did things like that and indulged themselves with such luxury. For all of her adult life, she had worked and taken care of kids and never even thought of spoiling herself. Her trips had been to Disneyland when they were young, flying around the country to meet with clients, and to Europe twice with the kids and planning their trips around them. She had never taken a vacation by herself and wouldn't have known what to do with herself if she did. She had filled all the spare time she had in recent years with work. Tom opened up a whole new world for her. He said he had never been there either, but he had put some serious research into the ideal place to take her. And this was it. He took her to the Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. They flew directly from Kennedy Airport to Providenciales, and the flight took three and a half hours. They were picked up at the airport by a limousine and taken to the hotel, where he had reserved a villa for them, with its own beach and a private pool. The sand was the color of ivory and as fine as sugar, and the water was completely transparent and turquoise in color. And true to his word, there were two bedrooms in the villa. She had never seen anything so luxurious, and there was a butler to serve their every need. A huge basket of fruit was sitting on the table, and a bottle of champagne. She felt as though she had died and gone to heaven. This was as far as you could get from the stresses and anxieties of daily life. They were planning to be there for three days, and she just prayed that no emergency would come up for either of them that would interfere. In her case, her nieces and nephew, and in his, some kind of news crisis in the world. He was vulnerable to that at any time. "I don't believe this," she said with a look of childlike disbelief. It was like finding out that Santa Claus really did exist, and Tom was it, minus the red suit and white beard. |
| 1855 |
And Annie told him about losing her sister while Tom held her. They talked about their childhoods, their hopes, their disappointments, their dreams. They learned each other's bodies and it really was a honeymoon. It was the foundation they had needed, the time away from everything. By the end of three days their bodies had meshed together, their hearts, and their souls. Annie had never been as comfortable with anyone in her life, and Tom felt more married to her than he had to his wife. They had been so different and had had so little in common. That had been all about passion and it burned out very quickly. This was about something so much deeper. Annie felt as though they shared one soul. What they shared defined kindred spirit or soul mate. She never wanted to leave, and they had to tear themselves away on Sunday. Annie told him she would never be able to thank him enough for what he'd done by giving them this vacation. They sat on the terrace on Sunday morning, trying to figure out where to go from here. The children she had raised were adults now and certainly old enough to understand his spending a night or weekend with her, although they both suspected it would be more peaceful at his place. They talked about living together at some point, and he asked her how she felt about marriage. She wasn't sure she cared. That had stopped being a goal or even a possibility for her a long time ago, although it was an option again now. In the end, they decided to play it by ear and see how things went. And they made a vow to each other to at least try not to let everyone intrude on them, and to make their relationship a priority. She didn't care about how much he had to travel for work. And he said he was fine with her work and the kids, as long as there was room in all of it for him too. Their relationship would start in earnest when they left the Turks and Caicos, and they left the villa hand in hand. They both looked back at it and smiled, knowing that they would never forget it. |
| 1856 |
They were dating, but if they decided to get married and have kids, it could get extremely complicated. But Kate was only twenty one, and they weren't discussing marriage, just a trip. Annie was trying to calm down about it and not get too worked up. "Tom and I are going to run around the apartment naked while they're gone," Annie said with a grin in answer to Whitney's question. "I have to admit, there comes a point when it's a little challenging living with your adult kids. It's awkward with Tom, but I love having her here. I just hope she goes back to school next term." Annie was still upset about her job at the tattoo parlor, but she was trying to be less vocal about it. Tom had tempered her a little. She felt more relaxed about everything now that she was sharing life with him. She had another adult to talk to, and his perspective on most subjects was sensible, although he'd never had children and didn't fully understand her bond to them and how close it was. But on the more practical issues, he was a big help. And with Katie gone for two weeks, they'd have the place to themselves. Ted hadn't come home for the night since the stabbing incident, although Annie had met him for lunch. He seemed to be doing all right, given the circumstances, although Annie thought he seemed nervous and very stressed. He was still upset about the baby. And despite Pattie's constant pressure, he hadn't agreed to marry her before August. She said it would be humiliating to get married when she was so pregnant, but Ted wouldn't relent on that. August was the best he was willing to do, no matter how much she cried and whined about it. He felt pressured enough as it was, and he still thought it was wrong for them to have the baby. He wasn't prepared to take that on, but he had agreed to step up to the plate. He was being very good to her and had taken over all the household chores for her. And he was honest with Annie that he was behind in his studying and was worried about his midterms. |
| 1857 |
His mother had given her the head scarf she would have to wear when she got off the plane, and the long gray billowing cotton overcoat that women wore if it was required. Katie already knew from what she'd read and Paul had told her, that Iranian women were fairly liberated, went to universities, were highly educated, and were allowed to vote and drive and hold public office. They both watched movies on the flight to London and eventually fell asleep. They wandered around the shops in Heathrow Airport, then boarded the plane for the six hour flight to Tehran. They took their seats in coach, and were offered tea, water, and fruit juices before takeoff. No alcohol was served on the flight or anywhere in Iran. As one of the smiling flight attendants handed her a glass of fruit juice, Katie smiled at Paul and already felt as though she had entered a different world. Paul had written to his aunt and uncle, explaining that he was bringing a friend with him. He said she was a young woman he went to school with, who was interested in visiting Iran to further her studies. They had both decided that it was best for now to say that they were friends, and not that they were in love. Paul had mentioned no hint of romance between them in his letters, and he had warned Katie that they would have to behave themselves, even in his uncle's home. He didn't want to offend his family, and neither did Katie. And it was likely to be a surprise for them that Paul was involved with an American girl and not a Persian, so they had agreed to be discreet. And Katie also knew that public displays of affection were discouraged and were not acceptable between a Muslim man and Western woman, and Katie had assured Paul that she would follow the rules. She had no desire to upset anyone while she was there. They just wanted to see his family and enjoy the trip. The meal that was served on the flight was traditional and according to Muslim dietary laws and restrictions. The food was plentiful, and they both fell asleep after they ate. |
| 1858 |
There were films on the flight, but they slept most of the way. With the two flights, the trip from New York to Tehran took thirteen hours, and they were due to land in Tehran after another brief meal. And as she looked happily at Paul before they landed, she felt closer to him than ever. She was excited to be making the trip with him. The neat, orderly airport was teeming with activity when they arrived. There was only one terminal, and all the international flights from everywhere, within and without the Arab world, came through there. It took them nearly an hour to get their luggage, as Katie looked around, her head scarf neatly in place. She had brought very little with her, some longer skirts, a few pairs of jeans, sweaters, and two dresses, all in sober colors. She had brought nothing low cut, too short or revealing, or too punky, since she didn't want to offend his family with outrageous clothes. And for the first time since she was thirteen, she had taken all the earrings out of her ears. She didn't want to shock his aunt and uncle, and she was planning to wear long sleeved shirts and sweaters to cover her tattoos. Annie had noticed the absence of her earrings the night before she left and realized how much she loved Paul, to make so many adjustments for him. Katie was wise enough not to want to attract attention or censure and to remain appropriately discreet. Meeting Paul's family was important to her. He had told her about his family before the trip and on the flight. She knew that his two female cousins, Shirin and Soudabeh, were fourteen and eighteen, and that his male cousins were twenty one and twenty three. The cousin his age was studying to be a doctor at Tehran University, and the cousin her age was studying art history and wanted to work in a museum as a curator one day. She knew that the museum in Tehran was exceptionally good. Once they got their luggage, they had to go through immigration. Katie presented her passport and was fingerprinted as part of the routine for all foreigners. |
| 1859 |
They looked at her visa, stamped her passport, and she went through. Paul had to present his passport and his military exemption card, which were in good order. He was no longer considered American here. While still on the flight, he had put his American passport in a pocket in his backpack, and he would be unable to use it anywhere in Iran. He was an Iranian citizen for life, and if he one day had children born in the States, they would be considered Iranian too. And so would Katie, if they ever married. Everyone was extremely helpful and polite to them as they came through customs and immigration, and Katie was careful not to stand too close to Paul. She didn't touch him or smile at him too warmly. For these two weeks they were just friends and nothing more, even in his uncle's home. Her head scarf was in place, and she had put the thin cotton coat in her backpack, and as they scanned the faces outside the gate at the airport, Katie recognized Paul's family immediately. His uncle looked exactly like his father, only shorter and older, and his aunt Jelveh was a small, warm, friendly looking woman. And both of Paul's male cousins bore a strong family resemblance to him they looked like they could have been his brothers and were close to his age. Their sisters hadn't come to the airport, and Paul instantly threw his arms around his cousins whom he hadn't seen for so long, and then their parents embraced him and welcomed him home. There were tears of joy in their eyes as they hugged him, and Paul introduced Katie to them as his school friend from New York, as she shyly said hello. And then she noticed that there was an older man standing just behind them, quietly observing the scene with a serious expression, and he looked at his son, as though confused about who Paul was. And then Paul's aunt gently explained it to him, and he burst into tears and came to hug Paul. It was a touching moment, and Paul was crying too. He had changed so much in the last nine years that his grandfather didn't recognize him. |
| 1860 |
He acted as though Paul were the prodigal son returned. Once his grandfather got in the van, Paul explained to Kate that he had aged enormously in the last decade, and he seemed very frail to her too. He seemed somewhat disoriented, and Jelveh explained to Paul that his grandfather thought he had returned to Tehran for good. Hearing that tugged at his heart, and he was happier than ever to be back, even if only for two weeks. As soon as they landed, he was instantly reminded of how much he loved it there, and in many ways it was still home. He wondered if that was why his parents didn't go back, because it would be too hard to leave again. Everyone was very friendly to Katie as they got into the van, and one of Paul's cousins carried her bag, as she got into the back row with Paul's aunt, so the three cousins could sit together. She asked Katie if she was very tired from the long trip and promised her a good meal when they got home. She said that her daughters had stayed home to prepare it. Paul had told her that his aunt was a great cook. As they drove toward the city, with Paul's uncle at the wheel of the van, Jelveh admitted to Katie that she had never been out of Iran, and New York seemed so far away. And even to Katie it certainly did right now. And Jelveh complimented her on her interest in Iran to complete her studies. Katie didn't explain to her that the genesis of her interest was not academic but romantic, and that she was in love with her nephew. The charade of their friendship had begun, and would have to last for the entire two weeks they were there. It seemed too soon to tell them that theirs was a serious romance, or that they were involved at all. Paul wanted them to get to know Katie first. The traffic around the airport was heavy, and the roads into the city were choked with cars. It took them an hour and a half to get there, and their house was in the Pasdaran district of the opulent northern part of the city. Katie looked around in fascination as they drove into town, and she spoke very little. |
| 1861 |
But all of them spoke excellent English whenever they talked to Kate. Tehran looked like a modern city, with mosques dotting the landscape; there were tall buildings, and short ones. There was a financial district, and she was dying to see the bazaar that Paul had described to her so vividly. She wanted to buy something for Annie there. Paul pointed out the university to her, and the Azadi Tower as they drove home. And Paul realized as he looked around that the city had grown since he left. It was even busier and more crowded than it had been then, with fifteen million people living there now. Katie realized with amazement that it was busier and seemed even more crowded than New York. But even in a city as metropolitan as this, Katie had a sense of being in an exotic place. She loved being there with him and felt comfortable with his family, who all seemed like nice people to her and treated her with kindness and respect. She noticed too that his grandfather in the front seat spoke very little and seemed lost in thought as he looked out the window. And every now and then he would turn to look at Paul, seated in the row behind him, and as soon as he did, tears of emotion sprang to his eyes again, and once or twice he leaned back and patted Paul's hand, as though to be sure that he was real and not simply an illusion. And then he would say something quietly to his son in Farsi. Paul and his cousins were chatting and laughing, and Jelveh continued to point out important landmarks to Katie as they drove home. And when they finally pulled up in front of their home, it looked like a sprawling family house, no different than the ones she had seen in the suburbs of New York. This one was only a little larger and had beautiful arches over the doors and windows. Both of Paul's female cousins were waiting for them on the front lawn, and they threw their arms around Paul as soon as he emerged from the van. It was a shock for him to see them since they had been five and nine years old when he last saw them. |
| 1862 |
And she had a Black Berry in her pocket. As soon as she had put her things down, the girls beckoned her back down the stairs to the kitchen, where Jelveh and the girls put the lavish meal on platters, and the three servants helped take the food to the dining room. The family was not fabulously rich, but it was obvious that this was a wealthy household. Jelveh was wearing a sober looking black dress and a very nice diamond watch, and Kate noticed that the two girls were wearing gold bracelets, and the men in the family wore large gold watches, even Paul's cousins. And just as Jelveh was preparing the meal, Katie heard the adhan for the first time. It was the midday call to prayer, announced on loudspeakers all over the city, as the muezzin made the same haunting sound that they heard five times a day. And everything instantly stopped. There was no sound in the household as each member of the family listened to the seven verses in the call to prayer. Katie was mesmerized by the sound. Paul had told her she would hear it at dawn, midday, midafternoon, just after sunset, and for the last time two hours after sunset. It was the reminder to the faithful to stop and pray five times a day. When the muezzin's call ended, the house sprang to life again. The food that Jelveh had prepared with the girls' help was delicately scented with saffron, fruit, and cinnamon blended in. There were chicken and lamb and fish, and it all smelled delicious to Katie as the men came in from outside and Katie realized how hungry she was after the long trip, although she had eaten two meals on each flight. She had no idea what time it was in New York, but she felt as though it was in another world, on another planet, a million miles from here. She had only been in Tehran for two hours, but Paul's family was making her feel completely at home. Everyone took their places at the table, and Katie sat down between Shirin and Soudabeh, while the three serving girls passed the platters and the whole family chattered excitedly at once. |
| 1863 |
She had the feeling that his grandfather had asked about her, since he had glanced at her several times. "He asked if you were my girlfriend," Paul said quietly. "I said no." It was the agreement Paul and Katie had made before they came, and Katie nodded. It was best if they didn't know. If they did, it would only complicate things for Paul. After lunch Jelveh suggested that all three girls go upstairs and rest. Katie followed them to the floor above, and both of Paul's girl cousins joined her in her room, where she unpacked her bags, and they admired her clothes. Shirin held all of it up in front of her and would have loved to try it on, but didn't dare ask, as Katie put her belongings in the chest and closet and rapidly unpacked. She then decided to put her money and Black Berry away it seemed silly to carry them in the house. She reached in to tuck them in the pocket of her backpack, with her passport, but as soon as she unzipped the pocket, she saw that her credit card, traveler's checks, and passport were gone. The pocket was empty. Someone had removed them during lunch, since she had checked her backpack just before. Katie felt a wave of panic rush over her. It was a strange feeling being without them. She wondered if maybe Paul or one of his cousins was playing a trick on her and hoped that was the case. But when Paul showed up a few minutes later and she mentioned it to him in an undervoice with a look of concern, he looked surprised too. He went to tell his uncle about it immediately. All he said in response was that Kate did not need any of it during her stay with them, and he thought it was safer to keep them locked up. They didn't intend to let her pay for anything so she didn't need her credit card or traveler's checks, and he pointed out that Katie didn't need her passport until she left. Paul had no idea who had gone through the backpack and didn't want to ask. His uncle was the authority here, and when he explained it to Katie a short time later, she still looked upset. |
| 1864 |
Losing control of her passport was frightening for her. It made Kate feel completely helpless. She realized then that she hadn't texted Annie when they arrived, and she wasn't sure if it would work here. She decided to try, and sent a short text that said only, "Safely arrived. I love you," and then she decided to turn it off to save her battery, in case they wouldn't let her have that either. She was sure they meant well in keeping her passport, but it still made her uncomfortable to have lost possession of it. She put the Black Berry in a sock and hid it far under her mattress, where she knew it was safe. It was her only means of communication with the outside world, and she didn't want it running down, or taken. She didn't like being without her passport at all, nor the traveler's checks and credit card, all of which were tangible signs of her freedom and independence. It was a shock to have them taken away, however benevolent their motives. It made her feel like a child instead of an adult. And Paul was unhappy as well. His uncle had pointed out to him that only his Iranian passport mattered here, and his American one was useless to him in Tehran anyway. But Paul didn't want to lose possession of his passports, and Katie only had one. But there was nothing they could do about it. Paul's uncle was the head of the family, and he made the decisions for all of them, even for Katie while she stayed with them. After that, Paul and his male cousins went out to drive around old familiar places. The women stayed home, and Shirin and Soudabeh played cards with Kate. She would have liked to go out with Paul and the boys too, and see more of the city, but she didn't want to be rude to the girls, who were so excited to have her there. The boys came back three hours later in high spirits. Paul said he had seen his old school and visited one of his boyhood friends. He had been surprised to discover that his friend was the man betrothed to Soudabeh and would be marrying her that summer. |
| 1865 |
She sent short ones to Ted and Lizzie too. And after writing to them, she missed home even more. Despite the wonders she was discovering in Tehran, she was beginning to get seriously homesick, and when she got back to the house, she looked a little glum. Paul felt sorry for her when he saw it and admired her for being a good sport about everything so far. She had fit into everything they were doing. It had been an action packed week, and Paul had the feeling at times that his family were subtly trying to convince him to move back to Tehran, and to remind him of how much happier he'd be here, where he belonged. He loved being back in Tehran, but he also realized that it was no longer home for him, and he missed his parents, friends, and familiar life in New York. His grandfather reminded him at every opportunity that he was Iranian, not American, and his uncle and cousins had echoed the same thought. He still felt totally at ease in Tehran, but he was ready to go back to New York. A week had been enough. Two was beginning to seem too long. Katie felt that way too, and was tired of the charade that they were only friends. She missed cuddling with him and kissing him whenever she wanted. And sometimes she found it exhausting trying to absorb a whole new culture, and to understand all their customs. Paul was glad they had come, and particularly to have shared the experience with Katie. Contrary to all of Annie's dire warnings, there was nothing either of them regretted about the trip so far. On the contrary they had both loved it. And they were hoping to take a trip to Persepolis before they left. Paul had shown her everything he wanted to and that Kate had been hoping to see before they arrived. It was the day of their second visit to the bazaar to buy a bracelet for Liz and a belt for Ted that Katie began to feel strange at dinner. She got very pale, said she was a little dizzy, and then broke out in a sweat. Jelveh looked instantly worried, felt her head, and said she had a fever. |
| 1866 |
He was an amazing guy. The apartment was quiet an hour later. They were all in their rooms, falling asleep. Annie glanced at the clock and realized that Tom was taking off at that moment. It felt good to know that somewhere in the world, he was there, and he'd be back soon. She couldn't imagine a life without him anymore. And she no longer wondered if there was room for him in her life. He was part of the landscape now. He was one of them. And there was just as much room for the kids as there was for Tom and Annie. It was their turn now. Katie woke up feeling better the next morning. The trip to Tehran felt like a dream. It seemed so unreal and far away. She called Paul when she got up, and he sounded sad when he talked about leaving his family in Tehran, even though he was happy to see his parents again too and be back in New York. And he had been frightened when he thought of being trapped in Tehran against his will. He promised to come and visit Katie that afternoon. Katie could hear something different in his voice. He sounded quiet and distant. It felt strange when he came to visit her at the apartment. The trip to Tehran had been exciting and fun, but his almost getting stuck there had shaken both of them. Katie had a sense now that she was in over her head, in a relationship that she wasn't ready for yet. They had talked about marriage as though it would be simple and easy. Now she realized how different their lives were and how much more complicated his was, torn between two families and two worlds, the old and the new. They both needed time to recover from the discoveries they'd made on the trip. It was a lot to digest, and she realized that neither of them was ready to be fully adults yet, and they both needed a break. Paul thought so too. It was too soon for either of them to make decisions about the rest of their lives. They needed time to just be kids, and things had gotten too intense for both of them. They needed time with their own families and friends in their own familiar worlds. |
| 1867 |
It had been absolutely impossible to get a taxi. He had given up after fifteen minutes of waiting and started walking south from Seventy ninth Street. He often walked to work. It was only eighteen blocks from door to door. But today as he walked from Madison to Park and then turned right on Lexington Avenue, he realized that the biting wind was brutal, and he had only gone four more blocks when he gave up. A friendly doorman allowed him to wait in the lobby, as only a few determined souls waited for a bus that had taken hours to come north on Madison Avenue, turned around, and was now heading south on Lexington to carry them to work. The other, more sensible souls had given up when they caught their first glimpse of the blizzard that morning, and had decided not to go to work at all. Bernie was sure the store would be half empty. But he wasn't the type to sit at home twiddling his thumbs or watching the soaps. And it wasn't that he went to work because he was so compulsive. The truth was that Bernie went to work six days a week, and often when he didn't have to, like today, because he loved the store. He ate, slept, dreamed, and breathed everything that happened from the first to eighth floor of Wolffs. And this year was particularly important. They were introducing seven new lines, four of them by major European designers, and the whole look of American fashion was going to change in men's and women's ready to wear markets. He thought about it as he stared into the snowdrifts they passed as they lumbered downtown, but he was no longer seeing the snow, or the stumbling people lurching toward the bus, or even what they wore. In his mind's eye he was seeing the new spring collections just as he had seen them in November, in Paris, Rome, Milan, with gorgeous women wearing the clothes, rolling down the runway like exquisite dolls, showing them to perfection, and suddenly he was glad he had come to work today. He wanted another look at the models they were using the following week for their big fashion show. |
| 1868 |
It was all part of the package to him. Everything mattered. It was no different from U.S. Steel as far as he was concerned, or Kodak. They were dealing in a product, in fact a number of them. And the impression that product made rested in his hands. The crazy thing was that if someone had told him fifteen years before when he was playing football at the University of Michigan that he would be worried about what kind of underwear the models had on, and if the evening gowns would show well, he would have laughed at them... or maybe even have busted their jaw. Actually, it struck him funny now, and sometimes he sat in his huge office on the eighth floor, smiling to himself, remembering back then. He had been an all around jock when he was at Michigan, for the first two years anyway, and after that he had found his niche in Russian literature. Dostoevski had been his hero for the first half of junior year, matched only by Tolstoi, followed almost immediately by Sheila Borden, of slightly less stellar fame. He had met her in Russian I, having decided that he couldn't do the Russian classics justice if he had to read them in translation, so he took a crash course at Berlitz, which taught him to ask for the post office and the rest rooms and find the train in an accent which impressed his teacher enormously. But Russian I had warmed his soul. And so had Sheila Borden. She had sat in the front row, with long straight black hair hanging to her waist romantically, or so he thought, her body very lithe and tight. What had brought her to the Russian class was her fascination with ballet. She had been dancing since she was five, she had explained to him the first time they talked, and you don't understand ballet until you understand the Russians. She had been nervous and intense and wide eyed, and her body was a poem of symmetry and grace which held him spellbound when he went to watch her dance the next day. She had been born in Hartford, Connecticut, and her father worked for a bank, which seemed much too plebeian to her. |
| 1869 |
He hated being bribed. Hated the way she thought sometimes, and the over protective way she treated him, in spite of his father's more sensible attitudes. It was difficult being an only child, and when he got back to Ann Arbor and saw Sheila she agreed with him. The holidays hadn't been easy for her either. And they hadn't been able to get together at all, even though Hartford was certainly not the end of the world, but it might as well have been. Her parents had had her late in life, and now they treated her like a piece of glass, terrified each time she left the house, frightened that she would get hurt or mugged or raped, or fall on the ice, or meet the wrong men, or go to the wrong school. They hadn't been thrilled at the prospect of the University of Michigan either, but she had insisted on it. She knew just how to get what she wanted from them. But it was exhausting having them hang all over her. She knew just what Bernie meant, and after their Easter holidays they devised a plan. They were going to meet in Europe the following summer, and travel for at least a month, without telling anyone. And they had. It had been blissful seeing Venice and Paris and Rome for the first time together. Sheila had been madly in love, and as they lay naked on a deserted beach in Ischia, with her raven black hair falling over her shoulders, he had known that he had never seen anyone as beautiful. So much so that he was secretly thinking of asking her to marry him. But he kept it to himself. He dreamt of getting engaged to her over the Christmas holidays, and married after they graduated the following June... They went to England and Ireland too, and flew home from London on the same plane. As usual, his father was in surgery. His mother picked him up, despite his cable not to. Eagerly waving to him, she looked younger than her years in her new beige Ben Zuckerman suit with her hair done just for him. But whatever good feelings he had for her disappeared as she spotted his traveling companion immediately. |
| 1870 |
She had two of her own, both girls apparently, and by the time he heard from her, he didn't care anymore, although he had for a long time, and he had been grateful that his parents hadn't made too much of it. He was just relieved when his mother didn't mention her for a while, and she was relieved that Sheila had disappeared. She was the first girl he had loved, and the dreams had died hard. But Europe had been good for him. There had been dozens of girls he had met in Paris, London, the south of France, Switzerland, Italy, and he was surprised that traveling with his parents could be so much fun, and eventually they went on to meet friends, and so did he. He met three guys from school in Berlin and they had a ball, before they all went back to real life again. Two of them were going to law school, and one was getting married in the fall and having a last fling, but he was in great part doing it to avoid the draft, which was something Bernie didn't have to worry about, much to his embarrassment. He had had asthma as a child, and his father had documented it carefully. He had been classified 4 F when he registered for the draft at eighteen, although he hadn't admitted it to any of his friends for two years. But in some ways it was convenient now. He didn't have that to worry about. Unfortunately he was turned down at the schools he applied to, because he didn't have a master's yet. So he applied to Columbia and planned to start taking courses there. All the prep schools had told him to come back again in a year, when he had his degree. But it still seemed a lifetime away, and the general courses he'd signed up for at Columbia didn't fascinate him. He was living at home and his mother was driving him nuts, and everyone he knew was away. Either in the army or in school, or they had gotten jobs somewhere else. He felt like the only one left at home, and in desperation he applied for a job at Wolffs in the Christmas rush, and didn't even mind when they assigned him to the men's department and had him selling shoes. |
| 1871 |
It was not unlike going to Paris and ordering from the couture lines. And Bernie was going to kick it all off with a party and one fabulous black tie show which would combine a few pieces from each designer they would be working with. None of it could be bought, it would only be a teaser for the shows that would come next, and all of the models were coming from Paris, along with the designers. And three American designers had been added since the project began. It gave Bernie a huge amount of work to do in the next several months, but it also made him a senior vice president at thirty two. The opening night fashion show was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever seen. The clothes were absolutely staggering and the audience oohed and aahed and applauded constantly. It was absolutely fabulous and one sensed easily that fashion history was being made. It was extraordinary the way he combined good business principles with strong merchandising, and somehow he had an innate sense for fashion. And it all combined to make Wolffs stronger than any other store in New York, or the country for that matter. And Bernie was on top of the world when he sat in the back row watching the first full designer show, as the women watched it avidly. He had seen Paul Berman pass by a short while before. Everyone was happy these days, and Bernie began to relax a little bit as he watched the models coming down the runway in evening gowns, and he particularly noticed one slender blonde, a beautiful catlike creature with chiseled features and enormous blue eyes. She almost seemed to glide above the ground, and he found himself waiting for her as each new series of gowns came out, and he was disappointed when the show finally came to an end and he knew he wouldn't see her again. And instead of hurrying back to his office, as he had meant to do, he lingered for a moment, and then slipped backstage to congratulate the department manager, a Frenchwoman they had hired, who had worked for years for Dior. |
| 1872 |
She even packed the four thousand dollars in cash he kept hidden in his desk drawer. She called it a "little loan," and was sure he would "understand." She had her screen test, and exactly a year later she appeared in a film. And by then, Bernie didn't give a damn. He was a hardened case. There were models and secretaries and executives. He met women in Rome, there was a very pretty stewardess in Milan, an artist, a socialite... but there was no one he gave a damn about, and he wondered if it would ever happen to him again. He still felt like a damn fool when someone mentioned her. She never sent the money back, of course, or the Piaget watch he'd discovered was gone long afterwards. She never even sent a Christmas card. She had used him and moved on to someone else, just as there had been others before him. And in Hollywood she did exactly the same, disposing of the producer who had gotten her her first film and turning him in for a bigger one, and a better part. Isabelle Martin would go far, there was no doubt of that, and his parents knew the subject was taboo with him. They never mentioned her to him again, after one inappropriate remark that sent him out of the house in Scarsdale in blind fury. He didn't come back for two months and his mother was frightened by what she had seen in him. The subject was closed permanently after that. And a year and a half after she left, he was back in control of his life again. There were more women on his calendar than he could handle almost, business was booming, the store was in fine shape, and when he had woken up to see the blizzard that morning, he had decided to go in anyway. He had a lot of work to do, and he wanted to talk to Paul Berman about the store's summer plans. He had some exciting things in mind, and as he stepped off the bus at Lexington and Sixty third, wearing a heavy English overcoat and a Russian fur cap, he walked into the store with his head bent against the wind, and then looked up at the store with pride. |
| 1873 |
But more important than that, even in its unfinished state, the store was fabulous. And when he called Paul the next day, Paul sounded relieved just knowing he was there. And everything was moving on schedule. The construction was going well, the decoration was all lined up and ready to be installed as soon as construction would allow. He met with the ad agency, talked to the public relations people about how they were starting to warm up, and had an interview with the Chronicle. Everything was exactly the way they had hoped it would be. And Bernie was in charge. All that remained to do was to open the store, and find an apartment for himself, hardly two minor tasks, and he was far more concerned about the store. He rapidly rented a furnished apartment in a modern high rise on Nob Hill; it had none of the charm of the houses he saw everywhere, but it was convenient for him, and it was close to the store. The opening was fabulous. It was everything they had all wanted it to be. The press had been favorable beforehand. There had been a beautiful party at the store, with models wearing spectacular clothes, while impeccably dressed waiters served caviar, hors d'oeuvres, and champagne. There was dancing, entertainment, and the freedom to roam around the store with no one else there. And Bernie was proud of it. It was really beautiful, with a light airy feeling combined with enormous style. It had all the chic of New York, with the ease of the West Coast. And Paul Berman was thrilled, too, when he flew out. The crowds that came the day of the opening required police cordons and hordes of smiling PR people just to hold them back. But it was all worth it when they saw the record sales for the first week, and even his mother had been proud of him. She had said it was the most beautiful store she'd ever seen, and she had told every salesgirl who helped her for the next five days of shopping there that the manager was her son, and one day, when he went back to New York, he would run the entire chain. |
| 1874 |
She was sure of it. When they finally left San Francisco, they went to Los Angeles, and Bernie was surprised to realize how lonely he felt once they were gone, as well as the rest of the contingent from New York. All the board members went back the day after the opening, and Paul had flown on to Detroit that night. And suddenly he was all alone, in the town he had been transplanted in, without a single friend, and an apartment that looked sterile and ugly to him. It was all done in brown and beige, and seemed much too dreary for the gentle northern California sun. He was sorry he hadn't rented a pretty little Victorian flat. But it didn't matter too much anyway. He was always at the store, seven days a week now, since in California they were open every day. He didn't have to come in on weekends at all, but he had nothing else to do anyway, so he did, and everyone noticed it. Bernie Fine worked like a dog, they said, and they all agreed that he was a nice man. He expected a lot of them, but he expected more of himself, and it was difficult to argue with someone like that. He also seemed to have an infallible sense of what was right for the store, and what merchandise they should have, and no one dared quibble with him about that. He was definite, and from what they could see, most of the time, he was right. He had an innate sense of what worked and what didn't, even in this town he barely knew, and he was constantly shifting things, and adjusting to the new information he found out. He kept things moving constantly, shipping things to other branches when they were wrong for San Francisco after all, moving things in, having buyers reorder constantly. But it worked. It was extraordinary, and they all liked him in the store. They didn't even mind the habit he had of roaming the store every day for several hours. He wanted to see what people wore, what they did, how they shopped, what they liked. He would talk to housewives and young girls and single men, he even took a personal interest in their children's wear. |
| 1875 |
It was the most beautiful evening she had had in a long, long time, and being with him made up for everything bad that had ever happened to her, her parents' death, the nightmare with Chandler Scott, and the long lonely years alone since Jane's birth, with no one to help her out or be there for her. And suddenly none of it mattered now that she was with him. It was as though all her life had been in preparation for this man who was so good to her now, and absolutely nothing else mattered. After their champagne, when he had paid the check, they walked slowly upstairs hand in hand, and she was about to stroll outside when he directed her through the hotel instead, guiding her gently by the arm, but she didn't think anything of it, until he walked her to the elevators and looked down at her with a small, boyish smile, barely concealed by his beard. "Want to come upstairs for a drink?" She knew what he was up to, and that he didn't live there, but it seemed romantic somehow, and a little mischievous at the same time. He had whispered the words to her and she answered him with a smile. "As long as you promise not to tell my mother." It was only ten o'clock and she knew they still had three hours. The elevator rose to the top floor, and Liz followed him to a door directly across the hall without saying a word. He took a key from his pocket and let her inside. It was the most beautiful suite she had ever seen, in a movie or real life, or ever even dreamed of. Everything was white and gold, and done in delicate silks, with fine antiques everywhere, and a chandelier which sparkled over them. The lights were dim, and there were candles burning on a table with a platter of cheese and fruit, and a bottle of champagne chilling in a silver bucket. Liz looked over at him with a smile, bereft of words at first. He did everything with such style, and he was always so thoughtful. "You're amazing, Mr. Fine... do you know that?" "I thought if this was going to be our honeymoon, we ought to do it right." And he had. |
| 1876 |
After the trip to Tahoe with Jane, where they all slept in separate bedrooms, and Liz had mentioned several times how great it would be if they could be together all the time, Bernie insisted that she pick out a dress from the store for the opening of the opera. They would be sitting in a box, and it was the most important event of the San Francisco social season. He knew she didn't have anything dressy enough of her own, and he wanted her to pick out something spectacular for the opening. "You might as well start taking advantage of the store now, sweetheart. There have to be some advantages to working seven days a week." Although nothing was free, he always enjoyed an enormous discount. And for the first time he enjoyed using it on her. She went to the store, and after trying on dozens of dresses, she selected one from an Italian designer he loved, a dress which hung in rich velvet folds, in a cognac colored velvet, encrusted with gold beads and little stones all of which appeared to be semiprecious. At first Liz thought it far too elaborate and wondered if it looked too much like the outlandish slippers he had given her with her engagement ring, but the moment she put it on she realized how magnificent it was. It was cut in a style reminiscent of the Renaissance, with a generous decollete and big full sleeves, and a long sweeping skirt with a small train she could hook to her finger. As she moved around the large fitting room in the designer salon, she felt like a queen, and she giggled as she preened, and then suddenly she was startled as she saw the fitting room door open and heard a familiar voice behind her. "Find anything?" His eyes danced above the beard when he saw the gown she had on. He had seen it when it arrived from Italy, it had caused quite a stir in the designer salon and was one of the most expensive ones they had, but he didn't look disturbed about it as he watched her. He was mesmerized by how exquisite she looked in the dress, and with his discount it wouldn't be too painful for him. |
| 1877 |
And in some ways, Jane considered Bernie her friend, more than her mother's. "Good night, sweetheart." Liz stooped to kiss her, and Jane turned away, with angry eyes, and this time she said nothing to Bernie. And as they left the house, for a moment Liz looked worried, but she said nothing to Bernie. She didn't want anything to spoil their magical evening. They went to the dinner at the Museum of Modern Art first, in the Rolls Bernie had rented for the occasion, and they were rapidly swept into the throng of women in dazzling gowns and ornate jewels, and photographers fighting to take their picture. But Liz felt perfectly at home in their midst and proud on Bernie's arm as she clung tightly to him and the flashbulbs went off all around them. She knew they had taken their photograph too, and Bernie was already becoming known around town as the manager of the city's most elegant store, and many of the expensively dressed women seemed to know him. The museum had been decorated by the local socialites, and was filled with silver and gold balloons and trees that had been sprayed gold. There were beautifully wrapped gifts at each seat, cologne for the men, and a handsome bottle of perfume for the ladies, from Wolffs, of course, and it was easy to recognize their distinctive wrapping on every table. The crowd pressed them close as they walked into the huge hall where the tables were, and Liz looked up at Bernie with a smile as he squeezed her arm and another photographer took their picture. "Having fun?" She nodded but it was difficult to call it that. It was a crush of bodies in exquisite evening gowns, and enough jewelry to fill several wheelbarrows had anyone wanted to try. But there was an aura of excitement too. Everyone knew that they were part of an important evening. Bernie and Liz took their seats at the same table with a couple from Texas, the curator of the museum and his wife, an important customer of Wolffs and her fifth husband, and the mayor and her husband. |
| 1878 |
The photographers appeared en masse this time, to photograph everyone going into the opera house, and there was a crowd held back by cordons and police. They had come just to ogle the elegantly dressed crowd on opening night, and Bernie suddenly felt as though he were attending the Academy Awards, only the crowd was staring at him and not at Gregory Peck or Kirk Douglas. It was a heady feeling as he shielded Liz from the eddying movements of the crowd and ushered her into the building and up the stairs to where he knew their box was. They found their seats easily, and he recognized familiar faces all around him, the women anyway. They were all clients of Wolffs. In fact, he was pleased at how many of their gowns he had seen since the evening began. But Liz was by far the most beautiful in her magnificent Renaissance gown, with her hair caught up in the woven threads of gold. He found himself aching to kiss her as others looked at them admiringly, and he pressed her hand gently as the light dimmed, and they held hands through the whole first act. And Domingo and Scotto were extraordinary together. It was a breathtaking evening in every way, and they followed the others to the bar, where the champagne poured like water and the photographers were hard at work again. He knew they had taken Liz' photograph at least fifteen times since the evening began, but she didn't seem to mind it. She looked shy and demure and she felt safe at his side. Everything about her made him want to protect her. He handed her a glass of champagne, and they stood sipping it and watching the crowd, and suddenly Liz giggled as she looked up at him. "It's funny, isn't it?" He grinned. It was funny. It was so overwhelmingly elegant, and they all took themselves so seriously that it was difficult to believe that they hadn't been cast backwards into another time when moments like this were infinitely more important. "It's kind of a nice change from one's daily routine though, isn't it, Liz?" She smiled again and nodded. |
| 1879 |
He had made a date with them at La Cote Basque, because he explained that he didn't have time to go out to Scarsdale. And he knew how anxious his mother was to see him. He had bought her a beautiful handbag that afternoon, a beige lizard with a tiger's eye clasp that was the latest from Gucci. It was a work of art more than a handbag and he hoped she'd like it. But his heart was heavy as he walked from his hotel to the restaurant. It was one of those beautiful October nights, when the weather is perfect for exactly two minutes, and the way it is in San Francisco all year round. But because it's so rare, in New York, it always seems much more special. But everything seemed alive as the taxis swirled past, and the horns honked, and even the sky looked clear as elegantly dressed women darted from cabs to restaurants, and in and out of limousines wearing fabulous suits and brilliantly hued coats, on their way to plays and concerts and dinner parties. And it suddenly reminded him of everything he had been missing for the past eight months, and he wished that Liz were there with him, and he promised himself that the next time he would bring her. With luck, he could plan his spring business trip while she had Easter vacation. He went quickly through the revolving door at La Cote Basque and took a deep breath of the elite ambience of his favorite restaurant. The murals were even prettier than he remembered and the light was soft as beautifully bejeweled women in black dresses lined the banquettes watching passersby and chatting with dozens of men, all in gray suits, as though in uniform, but they all had the same air of money and power. He looked around and said a word to the maitre d'hotel. His parents were already there, seated at a table for four in the rear, and when he reached them his mother reached out to him with a look of anguish and clung to his neck as though she were drowning. It was a style of greeting which embarrassed him profoundly, and then made him hate himself for not being happier to see her. |
| 1880 |
He looked very citified and grown up and elegant in a dark gray English suit, and she was wearing a plaid skirt and a red sweater they had bought together at Trois Quartiers, with shoes she'd bought in Italy, and she looked very pretty and young to him, and Jane was very proud to see him there. "That's my daddy over there, with my mom." She pointed him out to several friends and then went to stand next to him, to show that he belonged to her. "Hi there, short stuff," he said, tossing her up in the air, and then doing the same to three of her friends. He was a big hit in the cafeteria, and Tracy came over to say hello to him. She gave him a big hug and announced that her daughter was pregnant again. And he saw the hungry look in Liz' eyes and squeezed her hand. She was beginning to worry that something was wrong with her, and he had suggested that maybe it was he, since she had had a child before. And they had finally both decided to relax about it for a while, and they were trying to, but it still came to mind a lot. They both desperately wanted a baby. And in June he had a surprise for her. He had rented a house in Stinson Beach for two months, and she was thrilled. It was the perfect place for them. A bedroom for them, one for Jane, a guest room for friends, a huge spacious living room with a dining area, a sunny kitchen, and a sheltered deck where they could even sunbathe nude if they wanted to, not that they would have if Jane were at home. It was perfect for them, and Liz couldn't have been happier. They decided to move there for the two months, and he would commute every day. But they had scarcely been there for two weeks, when Liz came down with the flu, and it took her weeks to get over it. He mentioned it to his father when he called, and Lou thought it was probably her sinuses and she should see someone about starting antibiotics right away. Her head felt heavy all the time and she was nauseous at the end of the day. She was exhausted and depressed and she couldn't remember ever feeling that terrible. |
| 1881 |
As Liz had said, he looked handsome and jaunty. He was wearing a blazer and gray slacks, but when one looked more closely, the blazer was cheap, the shirt cuffs were frayed, and his shoes were all but worn out. His con man suit was in serious disrepair, and he looked like an aging preppie down on his luck as he walked to the bar and ordered a Scotch straight up, and held it with a trembling hand, eyeing the crowd. Bernie had not told him what he looked like, so he had the advantage. And he was almost certain this was his man. He watched Scott chat with the bartender. He said he had just returned from Arizona, and after a few more minutes and half his drink, he heard him admit that he'd been in prison there. He shrugged with a boyish smile. "Screw 'em if they can't take a joke... Hell, I passed a few bad checks, and the judge went nuts. It's good to be back in California." It was a sad commentary on the state's laws, and once again Bernie was sorry they weren't back in New York, as he finally decided to approach him. "Mr. Scott?" He spoke in a quiet voice, and slid discreetly next to Chandler as he stood with his second drink in his hand. And he was obviously very nervous. At close range, he had the same blue eyes as Jane, but so did Liz, so it was difficult to say whose eyes Jane had inherited. He had a handsome face, but he looked older than his twenty nine years. He had thick blond hair which fell over one eye, and he could easily see how Liz might have fallen for him. He had that innocent boyish air, which had made it easy for him to rip people off, and convince them to invest in his bunko schemes. He had been kidding people ever since he was eighteen, and his frequent arrests didn't seem to stop him. But he still had the naive look of a midwestern kid, and one could see how he might have tried to give himself the aura of the country club at one time, though he appeared to be down on his luck now, and he looked at Bernie with nervous, hungry eyes the moment he spoke. |
| 1882 |
Bernie drove her to the hospital, and they put her in a wheelchair when she checked in. A student nurse pushed her upstairs as Bernie walked along, holding Liz' hand, and Doctor Johanssen was waiting for them. Liz undressed and put on a hospital gown, and the world looked so sunny outside. It was a beautiful November morning, and she turned to Bernie. "I wish I didn't have to do this." "So do I." It was like helping her to the electric chair as she lay down, and he held her hand, and a nurse in what looked like asbestos gloves appeared. The stuff they used was so powerful that it would have burned the nurse's hands, and they were going to put that inside the woman he loved. It was almost more than he could bear but they gave her the IV of Valium first, and she was half asleep when the chemotherapy began. And Johanssen stayed to supervise the treatment. When it was over she lay sleeping peacefully, but by midnight, she was throwing up and desperately ill, and for the next five days her life was a nightmare. The rest of the month was just as bad, and Thanksgiving was no holiday for them that year. It was almost Christmas before she felt halfway human again, and by then she had no hair and she was rail thin. But she was home again, and she only had to face the nightmare once every three weeks now, and the oncologist promised it would only make her sick for a day or two. After Christmas vacation she could go back to school to teach again, and Jane was like a different child once she was home, and Alexander was crawling. The last two months had taken their toll on all of them. Jane cried a lot in school, the teacher said, and Bernie was barking at everyone at the store, and constantly distracted. He was using babysitters to help take care of the baby all day long, but even that wasn't working out. One of them got lost with the baby, another never showed up, and he had to take the baby to a meeting, none of them knew how to cook, and nobody seemed to be eating except Alexander. |
| 1883 |
But she had already drifted off to sleep, and he listened to the labored breathing beside him. It had been three months since they'd found out that she had cancer, and she was fighting valiantly and the doctor thought the chemotherapy was helping. But in spite of all of that, Bernie thought that she was getting worse. Her eyes grew larger every day, they sunk deeper, her features grew sharper and she lost more weight, and there was no denying now that she was having trouble breathing. But he wanted to hang onto her anyway, for as long as he could, doing whatever they had to do, no matter how difficult it was for her. She had to fight, he told her constantly... he wouldn't ever let her leave him. And that night he slept fitfully, dreaming that she was going on a trip, and he was trying to stop her. Her teaching seemed to bring some life back to her. She loved "her" children, as she called them. She was only teaching them reading this year. Tracy was teaching them math and another sub was handling the rest of the curriculum. The school had been incredibly flexible about letting Liz reduce her schedule. They cared about her a great deal, and they had been stunned at the news she had told them so bluntly and quietly. And word had traveled around the school fairly rapidly, but it was still being spoken in hushed whispers. Liz didn't want Jane to know yet, and she prayed that none of the children would hear it from their teachers. It was no secret to her colleagues, but she didn't want the children to know yet. She knew she wouldn't be able to come back next year. It was too hard getting up and down stairs, but she was determined to finish out the year, no matter what, and had promised the principal she would, but in March word got out and one of her students looked at her sadly, with tears bright in her eyes, and her clothes disheveled. "What's up, Nance?" She had four brothers and loved a good fight. Liz looked at her with a special smile and smoothed down her blouse for her. |
| 1884 |
His father couldn't leave his practice again, but Ruth had promised to come out. She was coming out for the Big Event, and to see Liz. But when Bernie came back from New York, he saw the same thing she saw when she arrived. How rapidly Liz was changing. By leaving her for only a few days, he got enough distance to realize just how bad it was. And the night he got home, he locked himself in the bathroom and cried into the big white towels she kept so immaculate for him. He was terrified she would hear him, but he just couldn't stand it. She looked pale and weak, and she had lost more weight. He begged her to eat, and brought home every possible treat he could think of, from strawberry tarts to smoked salmon, from the gourmet shop at Wolffs, but to no avail. She was losing her appetite, and she had dropped to less than ninety pounds by the time Alexander's birthday came. Ruth was shocked when she saw her when she came out, and she had to pretend that she didn't notice. But the tiny shoulders felt even more frail than they had before as the two women kissed at the airport, and Bernie had to get a motorized cart to get her to the baggage claim. She could never have walked that far, and she refused to be pushed in a wheelchair. They chatted about everything except what really mattered on the drive home, and Ruth felt as though she were desperately treading water. She had brought an enormous rocking horse on springs for Alexander and another doll for Jane, both from Schwarz, and she could hardly wait to see the children, but she was deeply troubled by Liz, and amazed as she watched her cook dinner that night. She was still cooking and cleaning house, and teaching school, she was the most remarkable woman Ruth had ever seen, and it broke her heart to see the struggle Liz engaged in daily, just to stay alive. Ruth was still there when she had her next chemo treatment, and she stayed with the children while Bernie stayed at the hospital with Liz overnight. They rolled a cot into the room, and he slept beside her. |
| 1885 |
She turned up in some of his favorite cashmere sweaters, and once even borrowed his socks. She never washed, the house smelled terrible, and when Jane came home from school in the afternoon, she found Alexander with dirty pants, running around the house in drooping diapers and an undershirt, with dirty feet and lunch all over his face, while Anna talked to her boyfriend on the phone, or listened to rock on the stereo. The food was inedible, the house despicable, and Jane was taking care of Alexander almost full time herself. She bathed him when she got home from school, and dressed him up before Bernie got home, she fed him and put him to bed at night, and went in to him when he cried. Anna never even woke up. The laundry wasn't done, the beds weren't changed, the children's clothes weren't washed. Anna drove them crazy, and in less than ten days they kicked her out. Bernie announced it to her on a Saturday night, as the steaks burned in a large filthy cooking pot, and she sat on the kitchen floor talking on the phone, and she had left Alexander alone in the tub. Jane found him there, slippery as a fish, attempting to climb over the side, and she rescued him, but he could have drowned, which terrified everyone except Anna. Bernie told her to pack her things and leave, and she did, with barely an apology, and wearing Bernie's favorite red cashmere sweater. "So much for that." He put the pot full of burnt steaks into the sink and ran hot water over them. "Can I interest you in a pizza tonight?" They had been eating pizza a lot, and they decided to invite Tracy to join them. When she arrived, she helped Jane put the baby to bed. They all cleaned up the kitchen together. It was almost like the old days, except that someone very important was missing and they all felt it. And to make matters worse, she told them she was moving to Philadelphia. Jane looked stricken. It was like losing her second mother, and she was depressed for weeks after they saw her off at the airport. |
| 1886 |
She was Swiss and had been trained as a baby nurse, which sounded perfect to him in the interview, but what she didn't say was that she must have been trained in the German army. She was rigid and inflexible and unkind. The house was immaculate, the dinners were small, the rules were ironclad and plentiful, and she slapped Alexander all the time. The poor child cried constantly and Jane hated to come home from school and find her there. Milk and cookies were not allowed, nor were treats of any kind, and they were not to speak at meals, except if their father was there. Television was a sin, music was a crime against God. Bernie decided that the woman was half crazy, and when Jane laughed at her inadvertently on a Saturday afternoon two weeks after she'd come, she walked across the room and slapped Jane hard across the face. Jane was so stunned she didn't even cry at first, but Bernie was trembling when he stood up and pointed at her. "Get out of this house, Miss Strauss. Immediately!" He took the baby from her, put an arm around Jane to comfort her, and an hour later, with an enormous bang, the front door slammed behind her. And it was discouraging after that. He felt as though he had interviewed everyone in town, and he wouldn't have trusted any of them. The first thing he did was get a cleaning lady, but even that didn't help. His big problem was Alexander and Jane. He wanted someone to take care of them properly. They were beginning to look unhappy and bedraggled to him, and he was desperate to find someone to help him. He was beside himself as he ran home from work every day to take care of Alex and Jane. He had a daytime sitter temporarily, who could only stay until five o'clock. And his mother was right. It was difficult working all day, and then taking care of the children and the house and the laundry and the groceries and the cooking and the ironing and the backyard all night. Their luck changed six weeks after school began. The agency called him again and he listened to the usual tale. |
| 1887 |
It seemed forever since he had seen her in Napa. And he was excited to be seeing her again, especially in this setting. It was new and different and exciting. He liked the quiet, simple life she led, working hard at what she did, with love and dedication. And yet there was more to her than that, her family in Boston, the "crazy" brother she described so fondly, and the fancy relatives she spoke of with amusement, like the cousins getting married that night. But more than that, there was what he felt for her. The respect and the admiration and the growing affection. And there was more than that. There was a physical attraction he could barely deny now, no matter how guilty it made him feel. It was still there, growing more powerful day by day. And he was thinking of how lovely she was as the limousine sped up Madison Avenue on the salt strewn street, and turned east on Seventy sixth Street. Bernie got out of the car and went inside the elegant lobby to ask for her. An assistant manager at the front desk, wearing a morning coat and a white carnation, checked the register and nodded to him solemnly. "Dr. Jones is in four twelve." He took the elevator to the fourth floor, and turned right as they told him to. And he held his breath as he pressed the bell. He suddenly couldn't wait to see her again, and when she opened the door in a navy satin evening gown, she took his breath away with her shining black hair and her blue eyes, and a stunning sapphire necklace with matching earrings. They had been her grandmother's but it wasn't her jewelry which took his breath away, it was her face and her eyes, and he reached out and gave her a warm hug that felt like coming home to both of them. It was incredible how much they had missed each other in such a short time, but they barely had time to say anything before her brother came bounding into the room, singing a filthy song in French, and looking precisely as she had described him. Samuel Jones looked like a very handsome, aristocratic blond jockey. |
| 1888 |
Liz seemed to come to mind far too often and it made him testy with Megan. Bernie spent the entire summer with the San Francisco store, in body anyway. But his heart and his mind and his soul seemed to be somewhere else. In Napa with Megan, and the house he wished he were buying, and the store he wished he were starting. He felt guilty about his mixed emotions, and Megan sensed what was happening to him. She was very calm and quiet and supportive and she asked him no questions about his plans, and he was grateful to her for that. She was a remarkable woman. But he worried about that too now. They had been living on borrowed time for seven months, and sooner or later they'd have to face the music. And he didn't like it. He loved being with Megan, going for long walks, talking late at night, even going to the hospital with her when she had a late night call and she was so wonderful with the children. Alexander was crazy about her, and now so was Jane, and so was Nanny Pippin. She seemed to be the perfect woman for him... except there was still Liz' memory to contend with. He tried not to compare them to each other, they were two entirely different women, and whenever Jane tried to, Megan would always stop her. "Your mommy was very, very special." It was impossible to disagree with her and it was comforting to Jane when she said that. She seemed to know the children so well, and Bernie even more so. He didn't even like staying in the city anymore, and there was something about their house there that depressed him. The memories there didn't seem happy anymore, and all he could think of now was when Liz had been sick and dying, and trying so desperately to hang on, dragging herself to school, cooking dinner for them, and weakening hourly. He hated thinking about it now. It was two years since she'd left them, and he preferred thinking of other things. But it was hard to think of her at all, without thinking of her dying. In August his parents came out to visit the children. |
| 1889 |
And he left the store in a hurry at lunchtime. The house was deathly quiet as he turned the key in the lock, and the silence which greeted him was as painful as it had been ever since she died. He still expected to find her there, to see her pretty smiling face as she emerged from the kitchen, tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder and wiping her hands on her apron. But there was no one. Nothing. There hadn't been in two years. It was all over, along with the dreams that had gone with it. It was time for new dreams, a new life, and with his heart in his mouth, he dragged the boxes into the front hall, and then into their bedroom. He sat down on their bed for a moment, and then stood up quickly. He had to do it before he started to remember her again, before he inhaled the perfume of the distant past too deeply. He didn't even take the clothes off the hangers, he just lifted them off the racks in bunches, like the boys in their stockrooms, and dumped them into the boxes along with armloads of shoes and sweaters and handbags. He kept only the beautiful opera gown and her wedding dress, thinking that one day Jane would like to have them. But an hour later, everything else stood in the front hall in six enormous boxes. It took him another half hour to get them all down to his car and stowed inside, and then he walked back into the house for a last time. He was going to sell the house, but without Liz, there was nothing in it he cared about now anyway. It held no charm for him. She had been the charm of their entire existence. He gently closed the closet door. There was nothing in it now except the two dresses he had saved in their plastic cases from Wolffs. The rest was empty. She needed no clothes now. She rested in a peaceful place in his heart, where he could always find her. And with a last look around the silent house, he walked quietly to the door, and then outside into the sunshine. It was a short drive to the thrift shop he knew she had used before for Jane's cast off clothes. |
| 1890 |
No matter how hard he tried to be "one of them" back home, there was always something different and much more big city about him. He had hated living on a farm when he was a kid, and dreamed of going to Chicago or New York, and being part of the business world. He hated milking cows, and stacking bales of hay, and endlessly cleaning manure out of the stables. For years, after school, he had helped his father at the dairy farm he ran, and now his father owned it. And Peter knew what that would mean. Eventually, he would have to go home, when he finished college, and help them. He dreaded it, but he wasn't looking for an easy out. He believed in doing what you were supposed to do, in living up to your responsibilities, and not trying to take any shortcuts. He had always been a good boy, his mother said, even if it meant doing things the hard way. He was willing to work for everything he wanted. But once Peter knew who Katie was, being involved with her seemed wrong to him. No matter how sincere he was, it looked like an easy way out, a quick trip to the top, a shortcut. No matter how pretty she was, or how in love with her he thought he might have been, he knew he couldn't do anything about it. He was so adamant about not taking advantage of her that they broke up about two weeks after he found out who she was, and nothing she said to him changed that. She was distraught, and he was far more upset over losing her than he ever told her. It was his junior year, and in June he went home to help his father in Wisconsin. And by the end of the summer, he decided to take a year off to help him get the business off the ground. They'd had a hard winter the year before, and Peter thought he could turn it around, with some new ideas and new plans he'd learned in college. He could have too, except that he got drafted and sent to Vietnam. He spent a year close to Da Nang, and when he re upped for a second tour, they sent him to work for Intelligence in Saigon. It was a confusing time for him. |
| 1891 |
She had transferred and was living in Chicago by then too, and she was about to graduate from Northwestern. The first time he saw her again, she took his breath away. She was prettier than ever. It had been almost three years since he'd seen her. And it stunned him to realize that even after three years of forcing himself to stay away from her, seeing her could still make everything inside him tremble. "What are you doing here?" he asked nervously, as though she were only supposed to exist in his memories of his school days. She had haunted him for months after he left college, and especially when he first went into the service. But he had long since relegated her to the past, and expected her to stay there. Seeing her suddenly catapulted her right back into the present. "I'm finishing school," she said, holding her breath as she looked at him. He seemed taller and thinner, his eyes were bluer and his hair even darker than she remembered. Everything about him seemed sharper and more exciting than her endless memories of him. She had never forgotten. He was the only man who had ever walked away from her, because of who she was, and what he thought he could never give her. "I hear you were in Vietnam," she said softly, and he nodded. "It must have been awful." She was so afraid to scare him away again, to make some terrible wrong move. She knew how proud he was, and just looking at him, she knew that he would never come near her. And he watched her too. He was wondering what she had become, and what she wanted from him. But she seemed so innocent to him, and fairly harmless, despite her seemingly ominous background, and the threat he had convinced himself she presented. In his eyes, she had been a threat to his integrity, and an untenable link between a past he could no longer live, and a future he wanted, but had no idea how to accomplish. Having seen so much more of the world since they had last met, looking at her now, he could barely remember what he had once been so afraid of. |
| 1892 |
His plan had worked. His little girl was home. And he had found a brilliant new marketing man in the bargain. For all concerned, the arrangement was a good one. And for the next several months, Peter concentrated more on business than romance. It annoyed Katie at first, but when she complained to her father about it, he wisely told her to be patient. And eventually, Peter relaxed and became less anxious about whatever unfinished projects he had at the office. But generally, he wanted to do everything perfectly, to justify Frank's faith in him, and show him how grateful he was to be there. He didn't even go home to Wisconsin anymore, he never had time to. But in time, much to Katie's relief, he began to make more room in his schedule for some diversion. They went to parties, and plays, she introduced him to all her friends. And Peter was surprised to realize how much he liked them, and how at ease he felt in her life. And little by little, over the next several months, none of the things that had once terrified him about Katie seemed quite so worrisome to Peter. His career was going well, and much to his astonishment, no one was upset by where he was, or how he got there. In fact, everyone seemed to like and accept him. And swept away by a wave of good feelings, he and Katie got engaged within the year, and it didn't come as a surprise to anyone, except maybe Peter. But he had known her long enough, and he had come to feel so comfortable in her world, he felt he belonged there. Frank Donovan said it was meant to be, and Katie smiled. She had never doubted for an instant that Peter was right for her. She had always known it, and been absolutely sure that she wanted to be his wife. Peter's sister, Muriel, was thrilled for him when he called her with the news, and in the end, Peter's father was the only one who objected to their union, much to Peter's disappointment. As much as his father had thought the job at Wilson Donovan was a great opportunity, he was equally opposed to the marriage. |
| 1893 |
Peter liked living in Greenwich, he loved their house, and he loved being married to Katie. Most of the time, they got on splendidly, and the only major disagreement they'd had was over the fact that she thought he should have inherited the farm and then sold it. But they had long since ceased to argue about it, in deference to each other's conflicting opinions. The only other thing that bothered him was that Frank had bought their first house for them. Peter had tried to object to it, but he didn't want to upset Katie. And she had begged him to let her father do it. Peter had complained, but in the end, she won. She wanted a big house so they could start a family quickly, and Peter certainly couldn't afford the kind of house she was used to, and her father thought she should live in. These were the problems Peter had been so afraid of. But the Donovans handled it all graciously. Her father called the handsome Tudor house a "wedding gift." And to Peter, it looked like a mansion. It was big enough to accommodate three or four kids, had a beautiful deck, a dining room, a living room, five bedrooms, a huge den for him, a family room, and a fabulous country kitchen. It was a far cry from the battered old farmhouse his father had left his sister in Wisconsin. And Peter had to admit sheepishly that he loved the house. Her father also wanted to hire someone to clean and cook for them, but there Peter drew the line, and announced that he would do the cooking himself if he had to, but he was not going to allow Frank to provide them with hired help. Eventually, Katie learned to do the cooking, for a little while at least. But by Christmas, she was so violently ill from morning sickness, she couldn't do anything, and Peter had to do most of the cooking and clean the house. But he didn't mind a bit, he was thrilled about their baby. It seemed almost a mystical exchange to him, a special kind of consolation for the loss of his father, which still pained him more than he ever said. |
| 1894 |
It was the beginning of a happy, fruitful eighteen years for them. They had three sons in their first four years, and ever since, Katie's life had been filled with charity committees, parents' associations, and car pools, and she loved it. The boys were involved in a thousand things, soccer, baseball, swimming teams, and recently Katie had decided to run for the Greenwich school board. She was totally involved in her community, and very concerned with world ecology, and a number of issues Peter knew he should have been interested in, but wasn't. He liked to say that Katie was involved in global issues for both of them. He was just trying to keep his head above water at work. But she knew a lot about that too. Katie's mother had died when she was three, and she had grown up being her father's constant companion. As she grew up, Katie knew everything about his business, and that never changed even after she and Peter married. There were times when she knew things about the company even before Peter did. And if he shared a bit of news with her, he was always startled to realize it wasn't news to her. It caused some problems over the years, but Peter was willing to accept Frank's place in their life. Katie's bond to him was a great deal stronger than Peter had expected, but there was no harm in it. Frank was a fair man, and he always exercised good judgment about how far to go with his opinions. At least Peter thought he did, until Frank tried to tell them where to send their son to nursery school. That time, Peter put his foot down, and kept it there until high school, or at least he tried to. But there were times when Katie's father was completely immovable, and it upset Peter even more when Katie sided with him, although she usually tried to phrase it as diplomatically as possible when she echoed her father's opinions. But despite her diplomacy, Kate's ties to her father remained strong over the years, and she agreed with him more frequently than Peter would have wanted. |
| 1895 |
Peter's life had moved ahead impressively over the years. He was an important man. His career had gone brilliantly. And appropriately, they had moved to a larger house in Greenwich, when he could afford to buy it himself. This time there was no question of accepting a house from Frank. The house Peter bought was a handsome home on six acres in Greenwich, and although the city appealed to him at times, Peter knew how important it was to Katie to stay where they were. She had lived in Greenwich all her life. Her friends were there, the right elementary schools for their kids, the committees she cared about, and her father. She loved living close to him. She still kept a close eye on his house for him, and on weekends, she and Peter often went over to discuss family matters, or business, or just for a friendly game of tennis. Katie went over to see him a lot. They went to Martha's Vineyard in the summer to be near him too. He had a fabulous estate there that he'd owned for years, and the Haskells had a more modest one, but Peter had to agree with Kate, it was a great place for the children, and he truly loved it. The Vineyard was a special place to him, and as soon as he could afford to buy a place of their own, Peter had forced her to give up the cottage her father loaned them on his property, and bought her a lovely house just down the road. And the boys loved it when Peter built them their own bunkhouse, which allowed them to invite their friends, which they did constantly. For years now, Peter and Kate had been surrounded by children, particularly at the Vineyard. There always seemed to be half a dozen extra kids staying at their house. Theirs was an easy comfortable life, and in spite of the compromises Peter knew he had occasionally made on the domestic end of things, as to where and how they lived, and the boys going to boarding school, he also knew that he had never sacrificed his principles or integrity, and as far as the business was concerned, Frank gave him a free hand. |
| 1896 |
And as they went by, Peter glimpsed Catherine Deneuve then, still beautiful, and laughing as she talked to a friend at a corner table. It was everything he loved about this hotel, the faces, the people, the very look of them was exciting. And as they walked the long, long hall to the back elevator, they passed the block long expanse of vitrines filled with expensive wares from all the boutiques and jewelers of Paris. Halfway there, he saw a gold bracelet he thought Katie would like, and made a mental note to come back here to buy it. He always brought her something from his trips. It was her consolation prize for not going, or it had been years before, when she was either pregnant, or nursing, or tied down with their sons when they were very young. Nowadays she really didn't want to travel with him, and he knew that. She enjoyed her committee meetings and her friends. With both older boys away at boarding school, and only one at home, she really could have come, but she always had an excuse, and Peter didn't press her anymore. She just didn't want to. But he still brought her presents, and the boys too, if they were home. It was a last vestige of their childhoods. They reached the elevator at last, and the Arab king was nowhere to be seen by then, they had gone upstairs a few minutes earlier to their dozen or so rooms. They were regulars there, his wives normally spent May and June in Paris, and sometimes stayed until the collections in July. And they came back again in the winter for the same reason. "It's warm this year," Peter said easily, chatting to the concierge as they waited for the elevator. It was glorious outside, balmy and hot, it made you want to lie under a tree somewhere, and look up at the sky, watching the clouds roll by. It really wasn't a day to do business. But Peter was going to call Paul Louis Suchard anyway, and see if he would make time to see him before their scheduled meeting the next morning. "It's been hot all week," the concierge said conversationally. |
| 1897 |
There were four of them, and it was impossible to see who was behind them. It was easy to see that they were bodyguards, from the earpieces they wore and the walkie talkies they carried. And if it had been any colder, they would surely have been wearing raincoats. They moved toward where Peter and the concierge stood, almost in unison, and then moved aside just enough to reveal a handful of men just behind them. They were men in lightweight suits, they looked American, and one of them was taller than the others and noticeably blonder. He looked almost like a movie star, and something about him seemed to magnetize everyone. They were all hanging on his every word, and the three men with him looked extremely earnest and deeply engrossed, and then suddenly laughed at what he was saying. Peter was intrigued by him, and glanced at him long and hard, suddenly sure that he had seen him somewhere, but couldn't remember, and then instantly it came to him. He was the controversial and very dynamic young senator from Virginia, Anderson Thatcher. He was forty eight years old, had been lightly touched by scandal more than once, but in each case the fearsome fumes had been quickly dispelled, and more than once, and far more importantly, he had been touched by tragedy. His brother Tom, while running for the presidency, had been killed six years before, just before the election. He had been a sure winner, and there had been all lands of theories about who had done it, and even two very bad movies. But all they'd ever turned up finally was one lone, mad gunman. But in the years since, Anderson Thatcher, "Andy" as he was known to his friends apparently, had been seriously groomed and had come up through the ranks of his political allies and enemies, and was now thought to be a serious contender for the next presidential election. He had not announced his candidacy yet, but people in the know thought he would shortly. And over the past several years, Peter had followed him with interest. |
| 1898 |
Despite some of the less savory things he'd heard about him personally, he thought he might be an interesting candidate on the next ticket. And just looking at him now, surrounded by campaign officials and bodyguards, there was an obvious charisma about him, and it fascinated Peter to watch him. Tragedy had struck him for the second time when his two year old son had died of cancer. Peter knew less about that, but he remembered some heartbreaking photographs in Time when the child died. There had been one photograph in particular of his wife, looking devastated as she walked away from the cemetery, surprisingly solitary, as Thatcher took his own mother's arm and led her from the service. The agony that had been portrayed on the young mother's face had made him shudder. But all of it had warmed people's hearts to them, and it was intriguing to see him now, deeply engrossed in conversation with his cohorts. And it was a moment later, while the elevator still refused to come, that the group of men moved slightly away, and only when they did so, did Peter catch a glimpse of yet another person behind them. It was the merest hint, the quickest impression, and then suddenly he saw her standing there, the woman he had seen in the photograph. Her eyes were cast down, and the impression she gave was of incredible delicacy, she seemed very small and very frail, and almost as though she would fly away at any moment. She was the merest wisp of a woman, with the biggest eyes he had ever seen, and something about her that made you want to stare at her in fascination. She was wearing a sky blue Chanel linen suit, and there was something very gentle about her, and very self contained as she walked behind the men in her party. Not one of them seemed to notice her, not even the bodyguards, as she stood quietly waiting for the elevator behind them. And as Peter looked down at her, she glanced suddenly up at him. He thought she had the saddest eyes he'd ever seen, and yet there was nothing pathetic about her. |
| 1899 |
She was simply removed, and he noticed that her hands were delicate and graceful as she reached into her handbag and put away a pair of dark glasses. But not one of them spoke to her or even seemed to notice her as the elevator finally came. They all pressed in ahead of her, and she followed quietly behind them. There was a startling dignity about her, as though she were in her own world, and every inch a lady. Whether or not they knew she was alive seemed to be of no importance to her. As Peter watched her, fascinated, he knew exactly who she was. He had seen numerous photographs of her over the years, in happier times, when she married him, and even before that with her father. She was Andy Thatcher's wife, Olivia Douglas Thatcher. Just as Thatcher did, she came from an important political family. Her father was the much respected governor of Massachusetts, and her brother a junior congressman from Boston. Peter thought he remembered that she was about thirty four years old, and she was one of those people who fascinates the press, and whom they can't bring themselves to leave alone, although she gave them very little to go on. Peter had seen interviews with him, of course, but he didn't recall any with Olivia Thatcher. She seemed to stay entirely in the background, and he found himself mesmerized by her as he got in the elevator just behind her. She had her back to him, but she was so close that, with no effort at all, he could have put his arms around her. The very thought of it almost made him gasp, as he looked down at the dark sable colored hair that was so lovely. And as though she felt Peter thinking about her, she turned and looked at him, and he met her eyes again, and for a moment he felt time stop. He was struck again by the sadness in her eyes, and it was as though, without saying a word, she was saying something to him. She had the most expressive eyes he'd ever seen, and then suddenly he wondered if he'd imagined it, if there was nothing more in her eyes than in anyone else's. |
| 1900 |
She turned away almost as suddenly as she had looked at him, and she didn't look at him again as he left the elevator, feeling somewhat shaken. The porter had already taken his bag up to his room, and the gouvernante had already checked the room for him, and found everything perfectly in order, and as he looked around when he stepped into it, Peter felt once again as though he had died and gone to Heaven. The brocades on the walls were a warm peach, the furniture all antique, the fireplace apricot marble, and the window and bedcoverings were in the same matching silks and satins. There was a marble bathroom, and every possible amenity and convenience. It was like a dream come true, and he sank into a comfortable satin chair, and looked out at the immaculately tended garden. It was perfection. He tipped the concierge, and then walked slowly around the room, and went out and leaned against the balcony, admiring the flowers below, and thinking about Olivia Thatcher. There was something haunting about her face, her eyes, he had thought that about photographs of her too, but he had never seen anything as powerful as what he had seen in her eyes when she looked up at him. There was something so painful there, yet there was something strong too. It was as though she had been saying something to him, or to anyone who looked at her. In her own way, she was far more powerful and more compelling than her husband. And Peter couldn't help thinking that she didn't look like someone who would play the political game. In fact, to the best of his knowledge, she never had, and she still wasn't now, even with her husband such a close contender for the nomination. He wondered what secrets lay hidden behind her facade, or was he imagining all of it? Perhaps she wasn't sad at all, but simply very quiet. No one had been speaking to her, after all But why had she looked at him like that? What had she been thinking? He was still distracted by thoughts of her after he washed his face and hands and called Suchard five minutes later. |
| 1901 |
His benediction on Vicotec would mean more than anyone else's. The elevator came more quickly this time, and Peter stepped into it swiftly. He was still wearing the same dark suit, but had changed to a fresh blue shirt with starched white cuffs and collar and he looked crisp and clean as he glanced at a slender figure in the corner. It was a woman in black linen slacks with a black T shirt, she was wearing dark glasses. Her hair was pulled back, and she was wearing flats, and as she turned and looked at him, even with the dark glasses, he knew it was Olivia Thatcher. After reading about her for years, he had suddenly seen her twice in one hour, and this time she looked completely different. She looked even slimmer and younger than she had in the Chanel suit, and she took her glasses off for a moment, and then glanced at him. He was sure she had recognized him too, but neither of them said anything, and he tried not to stare at her. But there was something about her that absolutely overwhelmed him. He couldn't figure out what it was about her that intrigued him. Her eyes, for sure, but it was far more than that. It was something about the way she moved and looked, the legend of all that he had heard about her. She seemed very proud, and very sure, and very quiet, and amazingly self contained. And just looking at her like that made him want to reach out to her and ask her a thousand stupid questions. Just like all the reporters. Why do you look so sure of yourself? So removed? But you look so sad too. Are you sad, Mrs. Thatcher? How did you feel when your little boy died? Are you depressed now? They were the kind of questions everybody always asked her and she never answered. And yet, looking at her, he wanted to know the answers too, he wanted to reach out to her, to pull her close to him, to know what she felt, and why her eyes reached into his like two hands reaching for his, he wanted to know if he was crazy to read so much into her. He wanted to know who she was, and yet he knew he never would. |
| 1902 |
Their meeting concluded on a gloomy note, and Peter felt exhausted as he took a cab back to the Ritz, and then got out and walked the last few blocks to the Place Vendome. He was feeling desperately unhappy. They had worked so hard and he had believed in it so much, how could it go so sour? How could Vicotec prove to be a killer now? Why hadn't they discovered that before? Why did it have to happen this way? His one big chance to help humanity, and instead he had backed a killer. The irony of it tasted very bitter, and as he walked back into the hotel, even the hubbub of the cocktail hour and guests coming and going in a flurry of well dressed activity didn't cheer him. The usual Arabs, Japanese, French movie stars, models from all over the world went unnoticed as he strode across the lobby and walked up the stairs to his room, thinking about what to do now. He knew he had to call his father in law, yet he wanted to wait until he had the rest of the information. He would have liked to talk to Kate about it, but he knew that whatever he said to her would have reached his father in law's ears before morning. It was one of the true weaknesses in their relationship. Kate was unable and unwilling to keep anything to herself, whatever was said between husband and wife was always shared with her father. It was a remainder of their old relationship when she'd been growing up alone with him, and try as he had over the years, Peter had been unable to change it. He had resigned himself eventually, and he was careful not to tell her anything unless he wanted to share it with Frank too, and this time he most emphatically didn't. Not yet anyway. He wanted to wait until he heard from Paul Louis again, and then he would face whatever he had to. Peter sat in his room that night, staring out the window, and feeling the warm air, unable to believe what had happened. It was incredible. And at ten o'clock, he was standing at his balcony, trying not to dwell on the possibility of failure. |
| 1903 |
They wouldn't allow them to begin human trials, if there was still so much to work out. There was suddenly so much to think about. It was hard to wrap his mind around all of it, and finally at eleven o'clock, Peter decided to call Katie. It would have been nice to be able to tell her what was troubling him, but at least hearing her voice might cheer him up. He dialed the number easily, but there was no answer. It was five o'clock in the evening, and even Patrick wasn't home. He wondered if Katie might have gone to friends for dinner. And as he set the receiver down, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of depression. Four years of hard work had all but gone down the drain in a single day, and along with it, almost everything he'd ever dreamed of. And there was no one to talk to about it. It was grim. He stood at the balcony again for a little while, and thought about going out for a walk, but even strolling through Paris suddenly held little appeal, and instead, he decided to get some exercise to rid himself of his private demons. He glanced at the little card on the desk, and then walked swiftly down the stairs to the spa two floors below him. It was still open fortunately, and he had brought a dark blue bathing suit with him, just in case he had the opportunity to use it. He usually liked using the Ritz pool, but this time he hadn't been sure how much time he'd have to do it. As it turned out now, while he waited for Suchard to complete his tests, he had time to do a lot of things. He just wasn't in the mood to do them. The attendant on duty seemed a little surprised when he walked in. It was almost midnight by then, and there was no one there. The spa appeared to be deserted and everything was silent. The single attendant had been reading a book quietly, and assigned Peter a changing room and gave him a key, and a moment later, he walked through the wading pool of disinfectant toward the main pool area. It was a large, handsome pool, and he was suddenly glad he had come here. |
| 1904 |
He dove neatly into the pool from the deep end, and his long, lean body sliced through the water. He swam a considerable distance underwater, and then surfaced finally, and swam long clean strokes down the length of the pool, and then as he reached the far end, he saw her. She was swimming quietly, mostly underwater, and then she surfaced occasionally and went down again. She was so small and lithe that she almost disappeared in the large pool. She was wearing a simple black bathing suit, and when she surfaced, her dark brown hair looked black against her head, and her huge dark eyes seemed startled when she saw him. She recognized him instantly, but made no sign of recognition to him. She just dove under the water again and went on swimming as he watched her. It was so odd watching her, she was always so near, and yet so totally removed, in the elevator, both times, and now here. She was always tantalizingly close, and yet so far away that she might as well have been on another planet. They swam silently at opposite ends of the pool for a while, and then passed each other several times, as they both did laps, working earnestly to flee their private torments, and then as though by design they both stopped at the far end of the pool. They were out of breath, and not knowing what else to do, unable to take his eyes from her, Peter smiled at her, and then she smiled in answer. And then just as suddenly, she swam away again before he could speak to her or ask her any questions. He hadn't been planning to anyway, but he suspected that she was used to that, people who hounded her, or wanted to know things they had no right to ask her. He was surprised to see that she wasn't accompanied by a bodyguard, and he wondered if anyone even knew she was down here. It was almost as though they didn't pay any attention to her. When he had seen her with the senator, they hadn't looked at her, or spoken to her, and she seemed perfectly content to be in her own world, just as she was now, as she continued swimming. |
| 1905 |
She was not a real person. And as though to prove what he thought, just as he approached, she stepped gracefully out of the pool, and with one swift gesture, wrapped herself in a towel, and when he looked up again, she was gone. He had been right after all. She wasn't a woman, only a legend. He went back to his own room shortly after that, and thought about calling Kate again. It was nearly seven o'clock in Connecticut by then, and she was probably at home, having dinner with Patrick, unless they were out with friends. But the odd thing was that he really didn't want to talk to her. He didn't want to put up a front for her, or tell her things were fine, nor could he tell her what had happened with Suchard. He couldn't trust her not to tell her father, but not being able to say anything to her made him feel oddly isolated as he lay on his bed at the Ritz in Paris. It was a special kind of purgatory, in a place meant only to be Heaven. And he lay there, in the warm night air, feeling better than he had before, physically at least. The swim had helped. And seeing Olivia Thatcher again had fascinated him. She was so beautiful, yet so unreal, and everything about her made him somehow feel that she was desperately lonely. He wasn't sure what made him think that, if it was just what he had read about her, or what was real, or what she had conveyed to him with those brown velvet eyes that looked so full of secrets. It was impossible to tell from looking at her, all he knew was that seeing her made him want to reach out and touch her, like a rare butterfly, just to see if he could do it, and if she would survive it. But like most rare butterflies, he suspected that if he touched her, her wings would turn to powder. He dreamt of rare butterflies after that, and a woman who kept peeking at him from behind trees, in a lush, tropical forest. He kept thinking that he was lost, and as he would panic and begin to scream, he would always see her, and she would lead him silently to safety. |
| 1906 |
She was lithe and blonde, "cute looking," her friends still said, and very athletic. She wore her hair short and had blue eyes like his, and there was something pixieish about her, except when she didn't get what she wanted. She was a good mother, and a good wife to Peter, and an exceptional daughter to Frank. They both knew that. "I'll give her your love," Frank reassured him, and then hung up, as Peter sat in his room, wearing a sheet, and staring out the window. What was he going to say to him if it all blew up in their faces? How were they going to justify the millions they had spent, the billions they wouldn't make, at least not for a while, and not until they spent still more to correct the problems? Peter couldn't help wondering if Frank would be willing to do that. Would he be willing to pursue Vicotec as far as they had to, to make it perfect, or would he insist that they abandon the project? As chairman of the board, the decision was still his, but Peter was going to do everything he could to fight for it. He was always willing to go the long hauls for the big wins. Frank liked the quick, showy wins. Just getting him through the past four years of development had been hard enough, another year or two might be just too much, particularly in view of what it would have to cost them. He ordered coffee and croissants from room service, and then picked up the phone. He knew he was supposed to wait for Suchard's call, but he just couldn't help it. He called Paul Louis and was told that Dr. Suchard was in the laboratory and could not be interrupted. They were having a very important meeting. And all Peter could do was apologize, and go back to the agony of waiting. It seemed an eternity of days, waiting to hear from him. It had been less than twenty four hours since their meeting the day before, and already Peter was ready to jump out of his skin with unbearable tension. He put his robe on before the breakfast came, and he thought of going swimming again, but it seemed so decadent during working hours. |
| 1907 |
She seemed to have drifted even farther from her group after a while, and even the bodyguards seemed to have lost track of her and paid no attention whatsoever to her. And the senator had had his back to her ever since they'd come out of the hotel, he never spoke to her once, as he and his entourage settled into chairs, and Olivia moved even farther to the rear of the several hundred guests in the Place Vendome to get another cup of coffee. She looked quite peaceful standing there, and didn't seem in the least bothered that her husband's entire party ignored her. And as he looked at her, standing there, Peter was more and more fascinated, and couldn't help staring. She offered an elderly American woman a chair, and patted a little dog, and eventually set her empty cup back on a table. A waiter offered Olivia another cup, but she smiled and shook her head graciously as she declined it. There was something wonderfully gentle and luminous about her, as though she had just drifted to earth and were really an angel. It was hard for Peter to accept the fact now that she was just a woman. She looked too peaceful, too gentle, too perfect, too mysterious, and when people came too close to her, too frightened. She was obviously ill at ease under close scrutiny, and she seemed happiest when no one was paying attention to her, which no one was that night. She was so unpretentiously dressed, and so unassuming standing there, that even the Americans in the crowd didn't recognize her, although they had seen her hundreds of times in every newspaper and magazine in the country. She had been every paparazzi's dream for years, as they leapt out at her, and caught her unprepared, particularly in the years when she had been with her sick and dying child. But even now, she intrigued them, as something of a legend, and a kind of martyr. And as Peter watched her continually, he couldn't help noticing that she was drifting farther and farther back, behind the other guests, and he actually had to strain now to see her. |
| 1908 |
They said they thought the evening was great fun, and it should happen at the Ritz more often. They were staying in the hotel for a three day shoot for Harpers Bazaar, and they both said they loved Paris. Then they sang a little song, and did a mock soft shoe in the Place Vendome. It was a lively group, and despite the possible danger presented by the missing bomb, it was a festive night. But Peter was far from all of it by then, as he followed the senator's wife around the corner and out of the Place Vendome. She seemed to know where she was going, and she didn't hesitate for a moment. She just kept walking. She walked at a good clip, and Peter took long strides to keep up with her, but he let her keep ahead, and he had no idea what he would say to her, if she stopped and turned around, and asked him what he was doing. He had no idea what he was doing, or why. He just knew that he had to be there. He had been compelled to follow her from the Place Vendome, and he told himself he wanted to be sure she was safe at that hour of the night, but he had no idea at all why he seemed to feel he should be the one to do that. He was amazed when she walked all the way to the Place de la Concorde, and then stood there, smiling to herself, as she looked at the fountains, with the Eiffel Tower lit up in the distance. There was an old bum sitting there, and a young man strolling by, and two couples kissing, but no one paid any attention to her, and she looked so happy as she stood there. It made him want to go over and put an arm around her, and look at the fountains with her. But instead, he just stood at a polite distance from her, smiling at her. And then much to his astonishment, she glanced over at him, and there were questions in her eyes. It was as though she knew suddenly that he was there, and why, but she still felt he owed her an explanation. Clearly, he had followed her, and she looked neither angry nor panicked, and much to his embarrassment, she turned and walked slowly toward him. |
| 1909 |
The only thing that seemed lucky to him just then was having been with her all night, emptying their souls in each other's hands and sharing their secrets. "Because you're content with your life, you believe in what you've done, and you still believe in the decency of the human race. I wish I still did, but I haven't in a long time." But she hadn't been as lucky. Life had been kind to him for the most part, and extremely hard on Olivia Thatcher. She didn't tell him she suspected his marriage was a lot less fulfilling than he told himself, because she thought he didn't even know that. In some ways, he was lucky because he was still so blind, but he was sincere and caring and he had worked hard, and he was willing to close his eyes to his wife's indifference to him, and her involvement in her own life, and his father in law's outrageous invasion of what should have been their life. He was fortunate in Olivia's eyes, because he saw none of the emptiness around him. He sensed it perhaps, but he didn't really see it. And he was basically such a kind, decent, loving person. She had felt so much warmth from him that night, that even now, just before dawn, she didn't want to leave him. "I hate to go back," she whispered sleepily into his white shirt, nestled against his shoulder in the back of the cab. After all their talking, they were both spent, and she was beginning to fade now. "I hate to leave you," he said honestly, trying to force himself to remember Kate again, but it was this woman he wanted to be with, and not Kate. He had never talked to anyone as he had talked to Olivia that night, and she was so giving and understanding. She was so lonely and so hurt and so starved. How could he make himself leave her? It was hard to remember why he should now. "I know I'm supposed to go back, but I can't remember why." She smiled sleepily, thinking of what a heyday the paparazzi would have if they could have seen them for the last six hours. It was hard to believe they had been away for that long. |
| 1910 |
He didn't send messages to Frank via Katie. "Just have fun. I'll see you in a few days," Peter said, and nothing in his voice would have told her he'd just spent the night baring his soul to another woman. "Don't work too hard," she said evenly, and then she hung up, and he sat there for a long time, thinking about her. The conversation was unsatisfactory, but typical of her. She was interested in what he did, and deeply involved with anything that had to do with the business. But at other times, she had no time for him at all, and they never talked anymore about their inner thoughts, or shared their feelings. Sometimes he wondered if it frightened her to be close to anyone but her father. Losing her mother as a young child had given her a fear of loss and abandonment, and she was afraid of getting too attached to anyone but Frank. To Katie, her father had proven himself long since, and he had always been there. Peter had been there for her too. But her father was her priority. And he expected a lot of Katie. He was very demanding of her time, her interest, and her attention. But he gave a lot too, and he expected to be acknowledged for the generosity of his gifts with an equal amount of time and affection. But Katie needed more in her life too, she needed her husband and her sons. And yet, Peter suspected that she had never loved anyone as much as she loved Frank, not even him, or their sons, although she would never admit it. And when she thought anyone was threatening Frank, she fought like a lioness to protect him. It was the reaction she should have had for her own family, and not her father. That was the unnatural quality in the relationship that had always bothered Peter. She was attached to her father beyond all reason. Peter worked on his computer all that afternoon, and finally at four o'clock, he decided to call Suchard, and then felt foolish once he did it. This time Paul Louis took the call from the laboratory but he was curt with him, and told Peter he had no further news. |
| 1911 |
Peter wanted to tell him about it now, and suggest that they send the police there at once to search for her. And if she wasn't there, then he felt sure she was truly in trouble. Peter didn't waste time waiting for the elevator. He headed straight for the stairs, and ran up two flights to the floor where he knew they were staying. She had mentioned her room number the night before, and he saw instantly that there were police and secret service standing in the halls, conversing. They seemed subdued, but not in any particular gloom. Even right outside her suite, no one seemed particularly worried. And they watched him as he approached. He looked respectable, and had put his jacket on as he left his room. He was carrying his tie in his hand, and he wondered suddenly if Anderson Thatcher would see him. He didn't want to discuss this with anyone, and it was going to be embarrassing telling him that he had had coffee with his wife in Montmartre for six hours, but it seemed important to Peter to be honest with him. When he reached the door, Peter asked to see the senator, and the bodyguard in charge asked if he was acquainted with him, and Peter had to admit that he wasn't. Peter told him who he was, and felt foolish for not having called first, but he had been in such a hurry the minute he realized she was gone, and wanted to share as quickly as possible where he thought she might be hiding. As the bodyguard stepped into the suite, Peter could hear laughter and noise within, he could glimpse smoke, and he was aware of what sounded like a lot of conversation. It almost sounded like a party. He wondered if it had to do with search efforts to find Olivia, or if, as he had suspected earlier, they were actually discussing the campaign, or other political issues. The bodyguard came back outside in an instant, and apologized politely for Senator Thatcher. Apparently, he was in a meeting, perhaps if Mr. Haskell would be good enough to call, they could discuss their business over the phone. |
| 1912 |
The voice droned on, and Peter went to grab a sweater from the closet. He only wished he had brought a pair of jeans with him, but there had been no way of knowing he would have anywhere to use them. It was hardly the kind of thing he wore to meetings. He called the desk after that, and after being told there were no more flights to Nice at this time of night, and the last train was leaving in five minutes, he asked for a car, and a map that would get him from Paris to the south of France, and when they offered him a driver, he explained that he wanted to drive himself, although it would certainly have been faster and easier with a driver. But it would also be much less private. They told him they'd have everything ready for him in an hour, and he should come to the front door and pick up the car, and the maps would be in it. It was just after seven then, and at eight o'clock, when he went downstairs, a new Renault was waiting for him, with a stack of maps on the front seat. And the doorman very obligingly explained to him how to get out of Paris. He had no bags with him, no luggage at all. All he'd brought was an apple, a bottle of Evian water, and his toothbrush in his pocket. And as he got behind the wheel of the car, it had a little bit of the flavor of a wild goose chase. He had already worked out at the desk that, if he needed to, he could abandon the car in Nice or Marseilles, and fly back to Paris. But that was only if he didn't find her. If he did, he wondered if she'd ride back with him. At least they could talk on the way back. She obviously had a lot on her mind, and maybe he could help her sort it out on the road to Paris. The Autoroute du Soleil was still fairly well traveled at that time of night, and it was only after he reached Only that the traffic began to thin out and he picked up some speed for the next two hours, until he reached Pouilly. And by then, Peter felt strangely peaceful. He wasn't sure why, but he felt as though he was doing the right thing for her. |
| 1913 |
It was cramped, but it was exactly what he needed. It was nine o'clock when he woke, and he heard children playing near the car. Their voices were raised as they ran by, and Peter could hear seagulls overhead. There were a variety of sounds and noises as he sat up, feeling as though he had died. It had been a long night, and a long drive. But if he found her, it would be worth it. As he sat up and stretched, he caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and laughed. He looked a mess, definitely enough to frighten small children. He combed his hair, and brushed his teeth with the last of the Evian, and looked as respectable as he could as he got out of the car to begin his search. He had no idea where to begin, and he slowly followed the children he'd heard, to the bakery, where he bought a pain au chocolat, and walked back outside to look out over the water. The fishing boats were already out, small tugs and little sailboats were still in port, and there were clumps of old people huddled in groups, discussing the state of things, as the younger men continued their fishing. The sun was high in the sky by then, and as Peter looked around, he decided she'd been right. It was the perfect place to escape to, peaceful, beautiful, and there was something about it that was very rare and warm, like an embrace from an old friend. And near the port was a long sandy beach. He finished his pain au chocolat, and began to walk slowly along the sand, wishing he had a cup of coffee. He felt mesmerized by the sun and the sea, and wondered how he would find her. He walked almost all the way down the beach, and sat on a rock, thinking of her, and wondering if she'd be angry if he found her, if she was even here, when he looked up and saw a slip of a girl come around the point from another beach just beyond it. She was barefoot, in T shirt and shorts, she was small and slim and her dark hair was blowing in the breeze as she looked up at him and smiled, and he could only stare. It was as it was meant to be. |
| 1914 |
They were both very proud of themselves that they had gotten through the night without misbehaving. "I'd love that." He accepted her offer of a back rub with a broad smile, and rolled over on his stomach with another groan, which amused her. She was still lying on her stomach on the bed, reaching down to him, and gently massaging his neck, and he lay happily on his makeshift bed with his eyes closed. "Did you sleep well?" she asked, doing his shoulders after his neck and trying not to think about how smooth his skin was. He had skin like a baby. "I lay here thinking about you all night," he said honestly. "It's definitely a tribute to my being a gentleman that I behaved myself, or maybe it's just a sign of stupidity and old age." He rolled over and looked at her then, and he took her hands in his, and then without any warning, he sat up easily, and kissed her. "I had a dream about you last night," she said, as he sat on the floor next to her, their faces next to each other's, and his hands played with her hair, as he kissed her lips again and again. He knew he was going to have to leave her shortly. "What happened in the dream?" he whispered as he kissed her neck, his promises to himself slowly being forgotten. "I was swimming in the ocean, and I started to drown... and then you saved me. I think it's pretty representative of what's happened ever since I met you. I was drowning when I met you," she said, looking at him, and this time he put his arms around her and kissed her. He was on his knees by then, and she was still on the bed, and suddenly his hands began to explore her breasts beneath her nightgown. She moaned softly at his touch, and wanted to remind him of their mutual promises, but in a single instant she forgot them, and reached out to him and pulled him toward her. Their kisses were increasingly passionate as she pulled him slowly toward her in the bed, and a moment later their bodies were entwined, and they were tangled in the sheets, she still in her nightgown, and he was still wearing blue jeans. |
| 1915 |
He drove her back to the hotel then, and let her out at the far end of the Place Vendome. She had no bags with her, only the cotton skirt she wore. She had rolled up her jeans and T shirt and was carrying them. She left nothing with him, except her heart, and she looked at him for a last time, and he kissed her again, and then she ran across the square, with tears streaming down her cheeks when she left him. He sat there for a long time, thinking of her, and watching the entrance to the hotel where he had last seen her. He knew she had to be in her room by then, and this time she had promised him she would go back and not disappear again. And if she did, he wanted her to come to him, or at least let him know where she was. He didn't want her wandering around France. Unlike her husband, Peter was far more concerned with her safety. He was worried about everything, about what they'd done, about what would happen to her now when she went back, and whether or not she would once again be used and exploited, or if this time she would leave him. He worried about facing Kate again, when he went back to Connecticut, and if she would sense that something had changed between them. Or had it? Olivia had made him realize his success was his own, but he still felt he owed so much to Kate, in spite of what Olivia had said to him. He couldn't just let her down now. He had to go on as if nothing had happened. What had happened with Olivia had no past, no present, no future. It was simply a moment, a dream, an instant, a diamond they had found in the sand and held between them. But they both had other obligations which took precedence. It was Kate who was his past, his present, and his future. The only problem was the ache in his heart. And as he walked back into the Ritz, he thought his heart would break as he thought about Olivia. He wondered if he would ever see her again, and where she was at that exact moment. A life without her was beyond imagining, but that was all he had now. |
| 1916 |
He felt as though there were lead in his soul, and then just as suddenly, he remembered. She was gone from him. It was over. He had to call Suchard, and fly back to New York and face Frank, and Katie. And Olivia had gone back to her husband. It was hard to believe how miserable he felt as he stood in the shower, thinking of her, and forcing his mind back repeatedly to the business he had to deal with that morning. He called Suchard precisely at nine, and Paul Louis refused to tell him what the results were. He insisted that Peter come directly to the laboratory. He said that all of the tests were complete now. He wanted an hour of Peter's time, and said he could easily catch a two o'clock plane. Peter was annoyed that he wouldn't at least give him a summary of their results on the phone, and agreed to come to his office at ten thirty. He ordered coffee and croissants, but could eat none of it, and he left the hotel at ten, and arrived ten minutes early. Suchard was waiting for him, and his face was grim. But in the end, the results were not quite as bad as Peter had feared, or Paul Louis had predicted. One of the essential substances of Vicotec was clearly dangerous, and it was possible they would have to find a substitute, but the entire product did not have to be abandoned. It had to be "reworked," as Suchard said, and it could prove to be a lengthy process. When pressed, he admitted that the changes could be effected in six months or a year, perhaps less if a miracle occurred, though it was doubtful. More reasonably, the process would take about two years, which was pretty much what Peter had suspected after their first conversation. Perhaps, if they put extra teams on it, they could get Vicotec on its feet in less than a year, which wasn't the end of the world, though it was certainly disappointing. But the substance, as it existed now, and as they had planned to market it, was virtually a killer. It didn't have to be, and Suchard had several suggestions as to how to effect the necessary changes. |
| 1917 |
But somehow Peter couldn't see Frank taking the news reasonably, or even Katie. She hated things that upset her father. But even she would have to understand this time. No one wanted a series of tragedies, or even one, they could not afford to let that happen. Peter closed his bags back at the hotel, and as he waited the last ten minutes for the car, he flipped on the news. And there she was. It was almost exactly what he had expected. The big news of the hour was that Olivia Douglas Thatcher had been found. And the tale they told was too strange to be true, and of course it wasn't. She had gone out to meet a friend, apparently, had a minor car accident, and had been suffering from mild amnesia for three days. Apparently no one in the small hospital where she was had recognized her or seen the news, and miraculously the night before, she had come to her senses again and was now happily reunited with her husband. "So much for honest reporting," Peter said, shaking his head and looking disgusted. They ran all the same old, tired photographs of her, and then ran an interview with a neurologist speculating on lasting brain damage from a minor concussion. But they concluded with a statement wishing Mrs. Thatcher a complete and speedy recovery. "Amen," he said, and flipped off the tube. He looked around the room for a last time, and picked up his briefcase. His bag was already gone, and there was nothing left to do but leave his hotel room. But it gave him an odd feeling of nostalgia this time leaving the room. So much had happened during this trip, and he wanted suddenly to run upstairs, just to see her. He would knock on the door of their suite, say he was an old friend... and Andy Thatcher would probably think he was crazy. Peter wondered if he suspected anything about the last three days, or if he didn't even care. It was hard to gauge and the story they had told the press was a thin tale at best. Peter thought it was ridiculous and wondered who had come up with that story. |
| 1918 |
King Khaled had gone to London after the bomb scare. There seemed to be a whole flock of new arrivals checking in as Peter made his way past the desk, and there was a large group of men in suits with walkie talkies and earpieces as he stepped through the revolving door, and then he saw her in the distance. She was just getting into a limousine, and Andy was already in it with two of his people. He was turned away from her, talking to them, and as though sensing Peter nearby, Olivia glanced over her shoulder. She stopped, mesmerized, and looked at him. Their eyes met and held for a long time, and Peter was worried that someone might have noticed. He nodded slightly at her, and then, as though she had to tear herself away from him again, she slipped into the limousine, and the door closed, and Peter stood staring after her on the sidewalk, unable to see in the darkened windows. "Tour car is waiting, monsieur," the doorman said politely, anxious to avoid a traffic jam in front of the Ritz. Two models were trying to leave for a shoot and Peter's limousine was blocking them. And they were getting hysterical, shouting at him and waving. "Sorry." He tipped the doorman and got in, and without another word, or even a last look at her, he looked straight ahead as the driver headed swiftly toward the airport. And in their car, Andy was taking Olivia to see two congressmen and the Ambassador at the embassy. It was a meeting he'd had planned all week, and he had insisted she go with him. He had been furious with her at first, over the stir she'd caused, but within an hour of her safe return, he concluded that her disappearance was a bonus to him. He and his managers had worked out a series of possibilities, all of them designed to arouse sympathy, particularly in light of his current plans. He wanted to make her another Jackie Kennedy. She had the right looks for it, and that same waiflike quality, coupled with her natural style and elegance, and her courage in the face of adversity. |
| 1919 |
Peter was going to spend the Fourth of July weekend with them, and then come back to town and start commuting. He was going to use the company studio in town during the week, and work longer hours at the office. And then go to Martha's Vineyard on the weekends. Monday through Friday, he wanted to be available to the research teams, to help them in any way they wanted. And he liked staying in the city. It was lonely for him in Greenwich anyway, without Kate or the children. It was a great opportunity to get a lot of work done. But it wasn't only work he had on his mind at the end of June. He had seen the announcement two weeks before that Andy Thatcher would be running for president, first in the primaries, and if he won them, in the national elections a year from November. And Peter had noticed with interest that when Thatcher held his first press conference, and even subsequent ones, Olivia had been standing beside him. They had promised each other not to call, so he could hardly call now to ask her about it. Her sudden high visibility at Andy Thatcher's side was disconcerting to him, and he wondered what it meant in light of her earlier plan to leave him. But they had agreed not to call each other, and as hard as it was, Peter stuck by it. And he decided that her regular appearances at Andy's side in the political arena clearly meant that she had decided not to leave him. He wondered how she felt about it, and if Andy had somehow manipulated that decision. Knowing what he did of her, and their relationship, it seemed unlikely that she had done it out of affection. If anything she had stuck by him out of a sense of duty. He didn't really want to believe it was because she loved him. It was strange how they had to go on with their lives, after the brief time they'd spent together in France. And he couldn't help wondering if, for her, like for him, suddenly everything was different. At first he had tried desperately to resist it, to tell himself that nothing had changed. |
| 1920 |
Suddenly everything Kate said or did seemed to have something to do with her father. His work seemed more difficult. The research on Vicotec had wrought no changes yet. And Frank had never been as unreasonable as he was now. Even his sons didn't need him. But worst of all, Peter felt as though there was no joy in his life anymore, no excitement, no mystery, no romance. There were none of the things he had shared with Olivia in France. But most painful of all, there was no one to talk to. He had never realized over the years how far he and Katie had drifted apart, how busy she was with other things, and how totally preoccupied she was with her own activities and friends, most of which involved committees or women. There seemed to be no room for him anymore, and the only man who mattered to her at all was her father. He wondered if he was being sensitive, or unreasonable, if he was still overtired, or overwrought after the disappointment over Vicotec, but he didn't think so. And even when he went to the Vineyard with them for the Fourth of July, everything irked him. He felt out of step with their friends, out of synch with her, and even here he felt as though he hardly saw the boys. It was as though, without even realizing it, everything had changed, and his life with her was over. It was incredible as he watched his life unravel. He wondered too if he was somehow forcing things to a showdown with her, without realizing it, as though to justify what he'd done with Olivia in the south of France. Doing that in a defunct marriage would have been more understandable, more easily forgivable, but doing it in a live one was more difficult to live with. He found himself searching the newspapers for photographs of Olivia, and on the Fourth of July, he saw Andy on TV. He was at a rally on Cape Cod, and there was coverage of him with his enormous sailboat tied up at the dock just behind him. He suspected that Olivia was there somewhere, nearby, but try as he might, he couldn't see her. |
| 1921 |
She wouldn't see the hairdresser, or the makeup man, and she never came out of her room in the wheelchair. The press thought they were playing games with them, and Andy held a press conference in the lobby without her. He explained about the trauma she'd been through, and the guilt of being one of the few survivors. He said he was suffering from it too, but it was hard to believe Andy Thatcher was suffering from anything, except an overwhelming desire for the White House, no matter what it cost him. But he wasn't about to lose this opportunity, and the next day, he let three reporters into her room himself. And when she looked up and saw them, Olivia looked pathetically frail, and desperately frightened. She started to cry, and a nurse and two orderlies forced them to leave her. But they'd man aged to get half a dozen photographs of her before they left the room, and congregated together back in the hallway where they chatted with Andy. And when he returned, after the reporters left the hospital, she came out of her bed and flailed at him with a vengeance. "How could you do that to me? Edwin's whole family just died, and I'm not even out of the hospital." She was sobbing as she pounded her hands against his chest, overwhelmed by a sense of violation. But he had needed to prove to them that she was alive and well, and that she hadn't snapped, as they were beginning to suspect, since she seemed to them to be hiding. What she was trying to preserve was her dignity, but Andy couldn't have cared less. What he was protecting was his political survival. Peter saw the photographs of her on the news that night, and his heart went out to her. She looked frightened and frail as she lay in bed, and cried. The abandoned look in her eyes tore his heart out. She had a hospital nightgown on, and she had intravenous tubes in both arms, and one of the reporters said she was still suffering from pneumonia. It was a dramatic glimpse of her, and sure to arouse a lot of sympathy, which was exactly what her husband had wanted. |
| 1922 |
Frank was vomiting by then, and still coughing, and as soon as Peter set down the phone, he knelt next to him, turned him on his side and tried to support his weight, and keep his face out of his own vomit. He was still breathing, though with extreme difficulty, and he was barely conscious, but Peter was still reeling from everything the old man had said to him. He had never known he was capable of so much venom, so much that it may have killed him. And all Peter could think of as he crouched holding him was what Katie would say if he died. She would blame Peter for it, she would say it was his fault for being so difficult and challenging him on Vicotec. But she would never know what Peter had just heard, what her father had said to him, the unforgivable things he had just hurled at Peter. And he knew, just as the paramedics came, that no matter what happened afterwards, it would be impossible to forget, or forgive him. These were not just affronts conjured up in a fit of rage, these were deep, ugly weapons that he had been hiding for years, concealing from him, and keeping to use on him one day. They were hurtful daggers that had run him through, and Peter knew he would never forget them. The paramedics were working on Frank by then, and Peter stood up and backed away. His own clothes were covered with vomit, and Frank's secretary was standing in the doorway in hysterics. Several people were in the hall, and one of the paramedics looked up at Peter and shook his head. His father in law had just stopped breathing. The other two paramedics took the defibrillator out, and ripped his shirt open, just as half a dozen firemen came through the doorway. It looked like a convention, and they all knelt, working on him for half an hour, while Peter watched them, wondering what he was going to tell Katie. He was just beginning to think there was no hope at all when the paramedics told the firemen to get the gurney. His heart was beating again, irregularly, but it was no longer in fibrillation, and he was breathing. |
| 1923 |
She couldn't even imagine a world without her father. For the first twenty years of her life, he had been all she had in the world. And for the next twenty, he had been one of the most important people in her life. Peter thought Frank was a land of love object to her, a passion of sorts, almost an obsession, and although he would never have said it, she seemed to love him more than her own children. "Hell be all right," he said softly, but she only cried and shook her head as he left, and he knew there was nothing more he could do for her. All she wanted was her daddy. Peter drove home as quickly as he could in the Friday night melee, and fortunately all three boys were home when he got in, and he told them as gently as he could about Frank's heart attack, and all three of them were deeply worried. He reassured them as best he could, and when Mike asked, he said only that they'd been having a business meeting when it happened. Mike wanted to go into town to see his grandfather, but Peter thought it was better to wait. When Frank was feeling up to it, his oldest grandson could come in to see him from Princeton. "What about tomorrow, Dad?" Mike asked. They were supposed to take him to Princeton the next day, and as far as Peter knew, almost everything was ready except for the rug and bedspread Kate hadn't been able to get that afternoon, but Mike could make do without them. "I'll take you in the morning. I think your mom is going to want to stay with Granddad." Peter took them out to a quick dinner, and by nine o'clock he headed back to town, and called Kate from the car. She said there was no change, although she thought he looked worse than he had a few hours before, but the nurse taking care of him had said that was to be expected. Peter got back to the hospital at ten, and stayed with her till after midnight, and then he went back to Greenwich to be with the boys. And he took Mike to school with all his trunks and bags and sporting gear at eight o'clock the next morning. |
| 1924 |
Kate was watching him when he came back to the table. "Everything all right?" She smiled at him as he nodded. And then they both went to dress, and they drove to the airport half an hour later. Peter seemed strangely calm on the way there, and he said very little to Kate. He had terrified her for a little while, but she realized he must have been nervous. She had been afraid he would back out, but now she was just as sure he wouldn't. Peter always finished what he started. It was a short flight from La Guardia to National Airport, and Peter spent most of it going through his papers. He had several files on pricing issues in front of him, and all the new reports on the Vicotec research. He particularly went over the parts Suchard had pointed out to him earlier that morning when Peter called him. The Vicotec material worried him a lot more than his appearance before Congress. Kate called her father from the plane and assured him that all was going along on schedule. And in Washington, they were met by a limousine, which took them to Congress. And as soon as they got there, Peter felt much calmer. He knew what he was going to say to them more or less, and he wasn't really worried. Two congressional aides were waiting for him in the staff room, and he was led to a conference room, where he was offered a cup of coffee. Kate was still with him then, but a page came for her shortly after that, and escorted her to a seat in the gallery, where she could watch him. She wished him luck, and touched his hand as she left, but she didn't stop to kiss him. And a few minutes later, he was led into the room himself, and for an instant he looked startled. No matter how well prepared he was, it was still an extraordinary experience to face the men and women who ran the country, and offer them his opinions. It was only the second time he had ever been there, and the first time, Frank had done all the talking. This time was entirely different. Peter was led to a witness table, and sworn in. |
| 1925 |
He thought suddenly of Katie then, and all he had sacrificed for her, and her father. He had given them the gift of his integrity, and his courage. It was more than he "owed" anyone, her or her father. But once again, he forced her from his mind, and tried to gather his wits, as the head of the committee began speaking. Peter could feel his head spinning as they asked him a series of very specific and technical questions, and the reason he had come here. He explained clearly and succinctly, and in a strong voice that he had come before them for approval of human trials for a product which he believed would change the lives of the segment of the American public afflicted with cancer. There was a small stirring among the committee members, a shuffling of papers, and a look of interest, as he began describing Vicotec and how it could be used by cancer patients everywhere. He told them essentially the same thing he had told Congress only that morning. The difference here was that these people were not going to be impressed by a flashy medicine show. They wanted, and were able to understand, all the most complicated details. And Peter was stunned to realize after a while, as he glanced up at the clock on the wall, that he had been talking for an hour, when they asked him the final question. "And do you in fact believe, Mr. Haskell, that Vicotec is ready to be tested on humans, even in small doses on a limited number of people who understand the risk they are taking? Do you truly feel that you have in fact assessed the nature of all its properties, and any risk that could be involved? Do you give us your word, sir, that you feel without any hesitation that this product is ready for human trials at this moment?" Peter heard the question clearly in his head and he saw the man's face and knew what he had to answer. He had come here to do this. It was a matter of a single word, of assuring them that Vicotec was indeed everything he said, and Everything they had thought it would be. |
| 1926 |
We just assumed she had always been there, part of our lives, just as she was. As one does about old people, we assumed she had always been old. None of us really knew anything about her, and what lingered in my head were the unanswered questions. All I could ask myself now was why I had never thought to ask her. Why had I never sought the answers to the questions? My mother had died ten years before and perhaps even she hadn't known the answers or wanted to know them. My mother had been far more like her father, a serious sort, a sensible woman, a true New En glander, although her father wasn't. But like him, she was a woman of few words and impenetrable emotions. Little said, little known, and seemingly uninterested in the mysteries of other worlds, or the lives of others. She went to the supermarket when there were specials on tomatoes and strawberries, she was a practical person who lived in a material world, and had little in common with her own mother. The word that best described my own mother was solid, which is not the word anyone would have used to describe her mother, Granny Dan, as I called her. Granny Dan was magic. Granny Dan seemed to be made up of air and fairy dust and angel wings, all things magical and luminous and graceful. The two women seemed to have nothing in common with each other, and it was always my grandmother who drew me to her like a magnet, whose warmth and gentleness touched my heart with countless unspoken graceful gestures. It was Granny Dan I loved most of all, and whom I was missing so desperately that snowy afternoon in the park, wondering what I would do without her. She had died ten days before, at ninety. When my mother died at fifty four, I was sorry, and knew I would miss her. I would miss the stability she represented to me, the reliability, the place to come home to. My father married her best friend the year after she died, and even that didn't particularly shock me. He was sixty five, had a bad heart, and needed someone there at night to cook him dinner. |
| 1927 |
The balalaika was long gone by then. But with her went a special kind of excitement. I knew that my children would never understand what they had lost. She was just a very old woman to them, with kind eyes, and a funny accent... but I knew better. I knew exactly what I'd lost, and would never find again. She was an extraordinary human being, a mystical kind of soul. Once one had met her, one could not forget her. The package sat on the kitchen table for a long time, while the children clamored for dinner and watched TV as I prepared it. I had been to the supermarket that afternoon, and bought what I needed to make Christmas cookies with them. We had planned to make them together that night, so they could take them to school to their teachers. Katie wanted to make cupcakes instead. But Jeff and Matthew had agreed to make Christmas bells with red and green sprinkles. It was a good night to do it, because Jack, my husband, was out of town. He was in Chicago for three days of meetings. He had come to the funeral with me the week before and had been warm and sympathetic. He knew how much she meant to me, but as people do, he had tried to point out that she'd had a good, long life, and it was reasonable that she move on now. Reasonable to him, but not to me. I felt cheated to have lost her, even at ninety. Even at ninety, she was still pretty. She wore her long, straight white hair in a braid down her back, as she always had, and wrapped it tightly in a bun for important occasions. All her life she had worn her hair that way. In my eyes, all her life she had looked the same. The straight back, the slim figure, the blue eyes that danced when she looked at you. She had made the same cookies I had planned to make that night, had shown me how to do them. But when she made them, she wore her roller skates and zipped gracefully around her kitchen. She made me laugh, she made me cry sometimes with her wonderful stories about ballerinas and princes. She had taken me to the ballet for the first time. |
| 1928 |
He had no children and hadn't remarried, and Granny Dan always said he'd been very lonely when she met him, and very kind to her, but she never explained it. She must have been beautiful then, and in spite of himself, he must have been dazzled by her. They were married sixteen months after they met. My mother was born a year after that, and they never had any other children. Just one, and he doted on my mother, probably because she was so much like him. I knew all that, always had. What I didn't know, not clearly anyway, was what had come before it. Who Granny Dan had been when she was young, precisely where she had come from or why. The historical details had seemed unimportant to me as a child. I knew she had danced with the ballet in St. Petersburg, and met the Czar, but my mother didn't like her to tell me about it. She said it would fill my head with wild ideas about foreigners and places I would never see, and my grandmother respected her daughter's wishes. We talked about the people we knew in Vermont, the places I'd been, the things I did in school. And when we went ice skating on the lake, she would look dreamy eyed for a moment at first, and I always knew she was thinking of Russia and the people she knew there. It didn't matter what she said, or didn't say, they were still very much a part of her, a part I loved and longed to know, a part I sensed even then was still important to her, more than fifty years after she'd left them. I knew that her entire family, her father and four brothers, had died in the war and the Revolution, fighting for the Czar. She had come to America and never seen any of them again, and made a new life in Vermont. But still, for a lifetime, the people she had known and loved had remained woven into the fiber of her being, part of the tapestry of her life, a part that could not be denied, even though she hid it. I found her toe shoes in the attic one day, looking for an old dress of hers to wear for a school play, and they were just sitting there, in an open trunk in the attic. |
| 1929 |
I didn't get the chance that night, and it didn't come up again, not for years anyway. And eventually, I forgot about them. I knew she had danced with the ballet, we all did, but it was hard for me to imagine her as a prima ballerina. She was my grandmother, Granny Dan, the only grandmother in town with her own roller skates. She wore them proudly with one of her plain little black dresses, and when she went downtown, particularly to the bank, she always wore a hat and gloves, her favorite earrings, and looked as though she were going to do something important. Even when she picked me up at school in her ancient car, she looked dignified, and so happy to see me. It was so easy to see who she was then, and so much harder to remember who she had been. But I realize now that she had never wanted us to remember. She was by then who she had become, my grandfather's widow, my mother's mother, my grandmother who made Russian cookies. Anything beyond that was too much to dream, too much to even fathom. I wondered if Granny Dan lay awake at night, thinking of the past, and remembering what it felt like to dance Swan Lake for the Czarina and her daughters? Or had she let it all go years before, grateful for the life she had with all of us in Vermont? Her two lives had been extraordinarily different. So much so that it allowed us all to forget her past, to believe that she was someone different now, rather than who she had been in Russia. And she let us believe that, for all the years we knew her. In turn, we allowed her to forget about it, or forced her to, and we made her be the person it was comfortable for us to think she was. In my eyes, she had never been young. In my mother's, she had never been beautiful and glamorous and a ballerina. In her husband's, she had never been anything but his. He didn't even like hearing about her father and brothers. They were part of a world he no longer wanted her to be part of. Perhaps he didn't want her to remember. She was his, until he died, and left her to us. |
| 1930 |
We didn't have to feel that we were less than her earlier life had been, or than she was. We didn't have to know, or feel, her pain, or grief, or loss, or mourn who she had been, if we never knew her. But now, as I think of her, I wish I had known more about her. I wish I could have seen her then, wish I could have been there with her. I put the package aside while I made the Christmas bells with Jeff and Matt, and got the green and red sprinkles all over me. And then afterward, I made cupcakes with Katie and she managed to get the icing all over herself, me, and the kitchen. It was late by the time I got everyone into bed, and Jack called me from Chicago. He had had a long day, but his meetings had gone well. I had forgotten the package completely by then, and only remembered it when I went to get something to drink in the kitchen after midnight. It was still sitting there, off to the side, with a little cupcake batter on the string, and a thin veil of green and red sprinkles. I took the box in my hands, dusted it off, and sat down at the kitchen table with it. It took me a few minutes to undo the string and open it. It was from the nursing home where Granny Dan had spent her last year. I had already picked up all her things, when I stopped by, to thank them after the service. Most of her things had been well worn, and there had been very little worth keeping, just a lot of pictures of the kids, and a small stack of books. I had kept one book of Russian poetry I knew she loved, and left the rest of them for the nurses. All I saved of hers, of importance to her, was her wedding ring, her gold watch that my grandfather had given her before he married her, and a pair of earrings. She had told me once that the watch had been the first gift my grandfather had ever given her. He'd never been particularly generous with her, in terms of gifts or trinkets, although he had provided well for her. There was an old lace bed jacket that I had brought home with me too, and slipped into the back of my closet. |
| 1931 |
The last pair she had worn before leaving Russia. There were other things in the box as well, a gold locket with a man's photograph in it. He had a well trimmed beard and a mustache, and in a serious, old fashioned way, he looked very handsome. He had eyes like hers, which all these years later seemed to laugh out of the photograph, in spite of the fact that he wasn't smiling. There were photographs of other men as well, in uniforms, and I guessed them to be her father and brothers. One of the boys looked incredibly like her. And there was a small, formal portrait of her mother, which I think I'd seen once before. There was the program from her last Swan Lake, a photograph of a cluster of smiling ballerinas, and a young beauty at the center of them whose eyes and face had never changed in all the years since then. It was easy to see that it was Danina. She looked breath takingly beautiful and incredibly happy. She was laughing in the photograph, and all the other women were looking at her with affection and admiration. And in the bottom of the box was a thick packet of letters. I could see at a glance that they were in Russian, in a neat, elegant hand that looked both masculine and intelligent. They were tied together with a faded blue ribbon and there were a great many of them. And I knew as I held them that the answer to the mystery was there, the secrets she had never told, or shared, once she left Russia. So many smiling faces there, in that box, so many people she had once cared about, and had left, for a life that couldn't possibly have been more different for her. I held the toe shoes in my hand, and gently stroked the satin, thinking about her. How brave she had been, how strong, and how much she had left behind her. I couldn't help wondering if any of them were still alive, if she had meant as much to them, if they still had pictures of her. And I mused silently about the man who had written the letters to her, what he had been to her, and what had happened to him. |
| 1932 |
And when they were at home, they sang and played with her, and made lots of noise. She loved being with them, passed from one pair of powerful shoulders to the other, as they ran with her, and let her pretend that they were her horses. It was obvious to Danina, as it was to everyone, that her brothers adored her. What Danina remembered of her mother was that she had a lovely face and gentle ways, she wore a perfume that smelled of lilac, and she would sing Danina to sleep at night, after telling her long, wonderful stories about when she was a little girl herself. She used to laugh a lot, and Danina loved her. She died when Danina was five, of typhoid. And after that, everything changed in Danina's life. Her father had absolutely no idea what to do about her. He wasn't equipped to take care of a child, particularly one so young, and a girl child. He and his sons were in the army, so he hired a woman to take care of her, a string of them, but after two years, he knew he simply couldn't do it anymore. He had to find another solution for Danina. And he found the perfect one, he thought. He went to St. Petersburg to make the arrangements. He was vastly impressed when he spoke to Madame Markova. She was a remarkable woman, and the ballet school and company she ran would provide not only a home for Danina but a useful life, and a future she could rely on. If it became clear to them eventually that Danina had real talent, she would have a life with them, for as long as she could dance. It was a grueling life, and one that would require great sacrifices of her, but his wife had loved the ballet, and he sensed deep in his soul that the child's mother would have been pleased with his solution. It would be costly for him to keep her there, but he felt the sacrifice he'd have to make was worth it, particularly if in time she became a great dancer, which he considered likely. She was an unusually graceful little girl. Danina's father and two of her brothers took her to St. Petersburg in April, after she turned seven. |
| 1933 |
And a moment later, they left her alone in the office with the woman who would now rule her life. There was a long silence in the room after they left, as neither teacher nor child spoke, and the only sound between them was Danina's stifled sobs. "You do not believe me now, my child, but you will be happy here. One day this will be the only life you will want or know." Danina looked at her with agonized suspicion, and then Madame Markova stood up, came around her desk, and held out a long, graceful hand. "Come, we will go to watch the others." She had taken in children this young before. In fact, she preferred it. If they had a gift, it was the only way to truly train them properly, to make it their only life, their only world, the only thing they wanted. And there was something about this child that intrigued her, there was something luminous and wise about her eyes. She had a kind of magic and whimsy about her, and as they walked down the long, cold halls hand in hand, far above Danina's head the older woman smiled with pleasure. They stopped in each class for a little while, beginning with those who were already performing. Madame Markova wanted her to see what she had to strive for, the excitement of the way they danced, the perfection of their style and discipline. From there, they moved on to the younger dancers, who were already very creditable performers and might well inspire her. And at last, they stopped at the class of students with whom Danina would study, exercise, and dance. Danina couldn't begin to imagine being able to dance with them, as she watched, then jumped in terror as Madame Markova rapped hard on the floor with the cane she carried for just that purpose. The teacher signaled her class to stop, and Madame Markova introduced Danina and explained that she had come from Moscow to live at the school with the others. Now she would be the youngest student, and the most childlike. The others had a strict, disciplined quality that made them seem older than they were. |
| 1934 |
The youngest student was a nine year old boy from the Ukraine, and Danina was only seven. There were several girls who were nearly ten, and one who was eleven. They had already been dancing for two years, and Danina would have to work hard to catch up with them, but as they smiled at her and introduced themselves, Danina began to smile shyly. It was like having many sisters, instead of only brothers, she thought suddenly. And when they took her to see her place in the dormitory after lunch, she felt like one of them when they showed her her bed. It was small and hard and narrow. She went to sleep that night thinking of her father and her brothers. She couldn't help but cry, missing them, but the girl in the next bed, hearing her cry, came to comfort her, and soon there were several others sitting on her bed with her. They sat with her and told her stories, of ballets, and wonderful times they had shared, of dancing Coppelia and Swan Lake, and seeing the Czar and Czarina come to a performance. They made it all sound so exciting that Danina listened to them intently and forgot her miseries, until at last she fell asleep while they were still talking to her about how happy she would be there. And in the morning, they woke her at five o'clock with the others, and gave her her first leotard and ballet shoes. They ate breakfast every morning at five thirty, and by six o'clock they were in their classrooms, warming up. And by lunchtime, she was one of them. Madame Markova had come to check on her several times, and watched her in her classes each day. She wanted to keep a close eye on her formation, and make sure that she was learning properly before she even began to dance. She saw immediately that the little bird that had flown to them from Moscow was a remarkably graceful child with the perfect body for a dancer. She was perfect for the life her father had chosen for her. And it was clear to Madame Markova, and her other teachers, in a short time, that destiny had brought her here. |
| 1935 |
Danina Petroskova had been born to be a dancer. As Madame Markova had promised from the first, Danina's life was one of rigor, backbreaking hard work, and sacrifices that demanded more from her each day than she thought possible. But in the first three years she was there, she never wavered or faltered in her determination. She was ten by then, and lived only to dance, and strove constantly for perfection. Her days were fourteen hours long, spent almost entirely in classes. She was tireless, always determined to surpass what she had previously learned. Madame Markova was well pleased with her, as she told Danina's father whenever she saw him. He came to see Danina several times a year, and was always pleased with what he saw of her dancing, as were her teachers. When he came to see her first major performance on the stage, when she was fourteen, she danced the role of the girl who dances the mazurka with Franz in Coppelia. She was a full member of the troupe by then, and no longer merely a student, which pleased her father greatly. It was a beautiful performance, and Danina was breathtaking in her precision, elegance of style, and the sheer power of her talent. There were tears in her father's eyes when he saw her, and in hers when she saw him backstage after the performance. It was the most exciting night of her life, and all she wanted to do was thank him for bringing her here seven years before. She had lived at the ballet for half her life now, it was the only life she knew, the only one she wanted. She danced the role of the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty a year later, and at sixteen, she gave a miraculous performance in La Bayadere. At seventeen, she was a prima and performed so breathtakingly in Swan Lake that no one who saw her could forget it. Madame Markova knew that she lacked maturity in some ways, she had seen so little of the world, knew nothing of life, yet her technique and her style were so extraordinary that they took one's breath away, and put her far above the others. |
| 1936 |
It was not surprising that the Czarevitch loved her. He was delicate, and had been ill throughout his childhood. But despite his fragility, she teased him and treated him normally, and he loved it. He was a particularly wise, soulful child, and spoke longingly of what she did. She seemed so strong to him, so healthy. Danina promised to let Alexei watch her in class one day, if Madame Markova would let them, but she couldn't imagine Madame Markova saying no to such an important visitor, if his health would permit it, and his doctors. Because of his hemophilia there was always one of two physicians hovering near, making sure no accident befell him. Danina felt sorry for him, he seemed so ill, and so intolerably frail, and yet there was something warm and kind and very loving about him. And the Czarina was very touched when she saw how kind Danina was to him. As a result, that summer, Madame Markova received an invitation from the Czarina to come to stay at Livadia for a week, their summer palace in the Crimea, and to bring Danina with her. It was an enormous honor, but even then, Danina was reluctant to do it. She couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her classes and rehearsals for seven days. She was conscientious to the point of being driven. Hers was a rigid, grueling, brutally demanding monastic life, which required everything of her. She gave it everything she had, everything she could, all she dared, and she had long since far exceeded even Madame Markova's wildest dreams for her. It took Madame Markova nearly a month to convince her to accept the Imperial invitation, and only then because the ballet mistress convinced her that it would be an affront to the Czarina if she didn't. It was the only vacation she had ever had, the only time in her life, since the age of seven, when she hadn't been dancing, when she didn't begin each day with warm ups at five, classes at six, and rehearsals by eleven, when she didn't push her body for fourteen hours a day to its outer limits. |
| 1937 |
Her skill was reaching its peak, and her development and understanding were all that Madame Markova had hoped they would be one day. There was never the slightest element of disappointment in her performance, it was everything it should have been, and more. What she brought to the stage was precisely what Madame Markova had sensed she might, years before. And she had the kind of single minded dedication and purpose that was essential. Danina allowed for no distractions from what she did. She cared nothing about men, or the world outside the walls of the ballet. She lived and breathed and worked and existed only for dancing. She was the perfect dancer, unlike some of the others, whom Madame Markova viewed with disdain. Despite their impeccable training and whatever talent they had, too often they allowed themselves to be distracted or lured away by men and romance. But to Danina, the ballet was her lifeblood, the force that drove and fed her. It was the very essence of her soul. For Danina, there was nothing else. It was everything she cared about, and lived for. And as a result, her dancing was exquisite. She gave her best performance that year on Christmas Eve. Her brothers and father were at the front, but the Czar and Czarina were there, and were overwhelmed by the beauty of her dancing. She joined them in their box briefly afterward and asked immediately after Alexei. She gave his mother one of the roses that had been given her, and sent it to him, and Madame Markova noticed that she looked more tired than usual when she returned backstage. It had been a long, exciting evening, and Danina wouldn't have admitted it, but she felt exhausted. She got up at five the next day, as usual, although it was Christmas Day, and was in the studio warming up by five thirty. There was no class until noon that day, but she could never bear the idea of missing an entire morning. She was always afraid she would lose some part of her skill, if she wasted half a day, or even let herself be pulled away from it for a minute. |
| 1938 |
There was truly nothing they could do now, but he had arranged to stay for several hours. His senior colleague, Dr. Botkin, had improved sufficiently to be able to attend to the Czarevitch if he had to. Dr. Obrajensky wanted to be with Danina if she died, if only to offer comfort to her mentor. They sat quietly side by side for hours, on hard chairs in the barren room, speaking little, and checking her from time to time. He suggested that Madame Markova try and get some rest while he was there, but she refused to leave her beloved ballerina. It was noon when Danina finally made an anguished sound, and stirred uncomfortably. She sounded as though she was in pain, but as the doctor checked her again, he found nothing new or different in her condition. He could only marvel that she had hung on this long. It was a real tribute to her youth, her strength, and her physical condition. And remarkably, thus far, no one else in the ballet had caught it. Only Danina. At four o'clock that afternoon, Dr. Obrajensky was still there, not wanting to abandon them before the end. Madame Markova had dozed off in her chair, and the doctor saw Danina become restless. She was moaning again, and stirring uncomfortably, but Madame Markova was too exhausted to hear her. The doctor examined her, and found her heart weak and irregular when he checked her. He was sure it was a sign that the end was near. Her pulse was rough as well, and she began having trouble breathing, all signs that he had been expecting. He would have liked to ease the end for her, but there was nothing he could do, except be there. He took her hand in his own, after taking her pulse again, and just stroked it gently, watching her, seeing the lovely young face so ill and so tormented. It hurt him to see it, and to be of so little use to her. It was like wrestling with demons, trying to win her. He wanted to will her back to life, to health. And he gently touched her forehead with his hand. She stirred again and said something. |
| 1939 |
It was warm and comfortable and filled with furs and heavy blankets. The Czarina had spared nothing for her. And Dr. Obrajensky had come to accompany her. But before he came, he had checked everything for her in the guest house, which was warm and comfortable, and he knew she would be very happy in it. He also carried a message from Alexei, who could hardly wait to see her, and said he had a new card trick to teach her. The dancers were all lined up outside to see her off, and everyone waved as the sled drove away, with the doctor sitting beside her. She was so nervous that he held her hand, and she waved frantically at them with the other. And before they even reached Tsarskoe Selo, she was exhausted from the emotions of the departure. "It's my whole life, you know. I don't know anything else. I've been there for so long, I can't imagine being anywhere else, even for a minute." She explained it to him as they rode along, but he already understood it. And as always, he was kind and sympathetic. "You're not going to lose anything by being away for a while. You'll get your strength back, Danina, just as you should, and they'll all be waiting for you when you return. And you'll be better than ever. Trust me." She did, and she was grateful for his support and companionship on the trip. It was so easy being with him. It was easy to see why the whole Imperial family loved him. And as soon as they arrived, he settled her comfortably in the little guest house, which was more luxurious than anything she had ever dreamed. The bedroom was done all in pink satin, and the living room was a lovely blue and yellow. There were beautiful antiques everywhere, a kitchen to prepare her meals, there were four servants to take care of her, and two nurses. And half an hour after she arrived, the Czarina came to visit her, and brought Alexei with her, so he could show Danina his card trick. Both of them were shocked to see how hard hit she had been by her illness, and were glad that she had come there to recover. |
| 1940 |
They were hardly ordinary employers. And she couldn't help wondering if in some way his wife was jealous of him. It was hard to believe she was that antisocial. Perhaps she was shy, or awkward in some way. "Her Russian is poor, too, which makes it difficult for her. She's really never taken the time to learn it." It was a long standing bone of contention between them, although he didn't say that to Danina. It would have seemed disloyal to complain about Marie to her, and yet it intrigued him that the two women seemed so different. The one so filled with vitality, the other so tired, so unhappy, so bored, so constantly disenchanted about something. Even after her illness, Danina's energy and excitement about life was contagious. And her conversations with him were a new experience for her as well. Other than the boys she danced with at the ballet, she had never had men friends, been courted by anyone, or had a romance. Her only relationship with men had been with her brothers as a child, and now she seldom saw them anymore. They were always too busy to come to visit. They came to St. Petersburg to see her dance about once a year, and her father came scarcely more often. They were deeply involved with their responsibilities to the army. But with Nikolai Obrajensky, it was all so different. He was becoming her friend, someone she could really talk to. She said so now, and he looked pleased to hear it. He loved talking to her, sharing his books and his views and the poetry he loved. In fact, there was a great deal he loved about her, and he also told himself that theirs was a comfortable friendship. He had almost mentioned her to Marie before she arrived, and had when she was very, very ill, but only in passing. He said he had been called to the ballet for one of the dancers who had a lethal case of influenza. But she had never asked him about it again, and once he knew Danina better, he had decided not to say anything more about her. In some ways, it was easier keeping their friendship a secret. |
| 1941 |
Danina was still a baby. And she was relieved by what he had said about the revolution. "Do you think the war will end soon?" she asked him innocently, and he smiled at her reassuringly, although the number of casualties and men lost to it thus far had been enormous. Everyone had expected it to end months ago, and to everyone's amazement, it hadn't. "I hope so," he said simply. "I worry about my father and brothers," she admitted to him. "They'll be all right. We all will." Talking to him made her feel so much better. He sat with her for a long time and then finally he got up to leave. She looked tired again, and he had to get home. He couldn't avoid it forever. "I'll see you tomorrow," he promised her when he left, and she listened to his sled disappear into the darkness. She was thinking about the things he had said about his wife, and the fact that he hadn't looked happy when he said them. He seemed to be trapped in a difficult situation, and she couldn't help wondering if there was anything he could do to improve it. Perhaps insist that his wife learn Russian, or travel back to England with her from time to time. It shocked her that she didn't seem to want to share his alliance with the Imperial family. It was hard to understand his wife's reactions. And then she found herself wondering if he was being unnecessarily gloomy about it. Maybe he was just tired, she thought to herself, as she lay in bed, thinking about him. The war was depressing everyone these days. Perhaps his comments about his wife were born of that, and other worries he hadn't mentioned. It never occurred to her for an instant that he might want more from her, or have an interest in her other than as her doctor. He was married, after all, and he had a family. And even if he had some complaints about his wife, surely it wasn't as bad as it sounded. To Danina, looking at the world through the tiniest of telescopes, from her small world at the ballet, it all seemed very simple to her, and marriage was sacred. |
| 1942 |
She was making a very good recovery. She'd had a letter from Madame Markova that afternoon, who had told her not to rush back to the ballet. But she still felt incredibly guilty not to be dancing. Madame Markova had given her all the news, and told her as well that one of the other girls had come down with influenza, but fortunately a mild case. She'd only been sick for two days and never even had a fever. She'd been far luckier than Danina. The doctor lingered for a while, chatting with her, and then reluctantly left her for dinner at the palace. And as she sat quietly in bed, sipping her tea, she thought about him. He was a gentle man, with a warm, kind spirit, and she was grateful for his friendship. Were it not for him, and his intercession for her, she would not even have been there, in the guest cottage of the Czar, living in luxury, being pampered by servants and nurses. It was extraordinary to think how kind they had all been, and how lucky she was not only to have survived, but to be there. He didn't come to see her again that night, and she assumed it must have been late when they finished dinner. Or perhaps Alexei wasn't well, or Nikolai had simply needed to be attentive to the family he so diligently worked for. She lay in bed reading one of the books he'd given her, and stayed up late to finish it. And she had just finished getting dressed when he appeared at the cottage the next morning, to inquire about his patient. "Did you sleep well?" he asked solicitously, and she smiled and said she had, and gave him his book back, and told him how much she had enjoyed it. He seemed pleased to hear it, and had brought three more for her. "The Czarina was talking about you last night, she wants to give a small dinner party for you. Just a few friends from St. Petersburg, nothing too exhausting. Do you think you feel up to that yet?" he asked, looking worried about her. He had warned the Czarina it might still be too early, but Danina looked intrigued by the prospect. |
| 1943 |
It was a cold day, and the wind was stronger than it had been the day before, and he brought her back inside in a few minutes. He was still holding her hand in his own when they returned, and neither of them seemed to notice. Her cheeks were bright pink, and her eyes bright, and she looked healthier than he had seen her since she'd been there. But she was still a long, long way from being able to go back to the ballet. She had begun exercising for half an hour a day, and had told him about it. But in his mind, he couldn't envision letting her go back to dancing with the ballet until at least April. She had to be completely well and very strong, before he would even think about it. She still had long months of recuperation ahead of her, and neither of them found it a depressing prospect. She missed the people at the ballet who were like a family to her, but in a matter of weeks she already felt completely at home here. And now the prospect of the Czarina's little dinner party greatly intrigued her. He stayed for lunch with her that day, as he often did, and left her shortly afterward to tend to his duties at the palace, and as he so frequently did, he came back later that afternoon, and again once more after dinner. It was a routine that they both felt comfortable with, and that she now expected. And by the next day, he had given the Czarina permission to organize the dinner for Danina. Only their closest friends would be there, and a few relatives, and of course the children. The Czar was at the front again with his troops, so he wouldn't be there. And the following week the Grand Duchesses sent over a few dresses for her, with Demidova, their mother's maid, and two of the dresses looked splendid on Danina. She was a little slighter than they were, particularly now, after her illness, but pulling the sash of one of the gowns tighter than it was on them made her favorite of the two fit perfectly. It was a blue velvet dress, which showed her figure exceptionally well, and was trimmed in sable. |
| 1944 |
It had a matching cape, and hat and muff, which would allow her to travel in the utmost warmth the short distance to the palace. And the night of the party itself, Danina was so excited she could hardly bear it. She had stayed in bed all that afternoon, trying to regain her strength, and Nikolai came to the cottage for her while she was still dressing. He read one of the books of poetry he had shared with her, while he waited, and helped himself to a cup of steaming tea from the silver samovar on the table. He had become quite at home there. And at a sound from the doorway, he glanced up, still holding his tea, and smiled when he saw her. She looked exquisite in her borrowed finery. And her shining dark hair was the same color as the sable. "You look magnificent," he said with a look of awe. "I'm afraid you'll put everyone else to shame, even the Grand Duchesses and the Czarina." "I doubt that, but you're very kind to say so." She curtsied low, as she would have done on the stage, but still felt how weak her legs were as she stood again slowly. There were no words to tell her what he felt as he looked at her. He could not imagine how this exquisite creature had come into his life, so elegant, so graceful, and so lovely. And he was as taken by her spirit as with her beauty. He had never seen, or known, anyone quite like her. "Truly, you look beautiful, my dear. Shall we go?" he asked, and she nodded, as he helped her put the sable cape on. And she commented again on how extraordinarily generous the Grand Duchesses had been to send it. They traveled the short distance to the palace in his sled, and he covered her carefully with a heavy blanket. It was a clear, cold night, and there were a million stars overhead. And each of them seemed reflected in the candles burning brilliantly in the windows of the palace. He took her quickly inside, and led her upstairs to a large, handsomely appointed salon all done in pale silks and brocades, with marble and malachite and treasures everywhere around them. |
| 1945 |
But finally he sent her two new books with a message that he had caught a bad cold and didn't want to give it to her. And he would see her as soon as he was no longer contagious. She had no idea if it was true or not, but if so, if nothing else, his absence was at least convenient. And it gave them both time to regain control of themselves, and try to forget what had happened. But without his visits, she paced uncomfortably around her small house, tried to sleep and found she couldn't, and by the end of the first day had a dreadful headache, and refused to take anything for it. Her nurses found her uncharacteristically short tempered and fretful, and she apologized to them a thousand times for her ill humor, and blamed it on her migraine. And by the end of the second day, she was despondent. She wondered if he was angry at her, if he regretted what he had said and done, if he had been drunk and she didn't know it, if she would never see him again. She could bear burying their secret and never mentioning it again, but what she realized now with full force, was that she couldn't bear not seeing him. And when he appeared at last, as she stood in her small living room, watching the snow fall in her garden, she didn't hear him come in. She turned, with tears rolling down her cheeks, thinking of him, and when she saw him, without thinking, she flew across the room into his arms, and told him how much she had missed him. He was not sure what it meant at first, if she had changed her mind and was willing to go forward with him, or simply what she said, that she had missed him. "I've missed you too," he said in a voice that still sounded hoarse, so she knew that his excuse for not seeing her had been sincere, and that relieved her. "Very much," he said, smiling at her. But this time, he was not foolish enough to kiss her. He had taken her at her word two days before, and was determined not to cross that line again, unless she invited him to do so. And she herself made no move to kiss him. |
| 1946 |
He had wanted to see her even more than Alexei. "Will you stay for lunch?" she asked politely, and he nodded and smiled with pleasure. "I'd like that." And as he said it, they both thought that they could do this. They could spend time together, just as they had before, without ever divulging their secret, even to each other. But she had already begun to wonder what would happen when she went back to St. Petersburg in a month or two. Would they forget each other, or would he come to see her? Would it just become a cherished memory, and their love for each other fade like the residue of her influenza? It was already hard to imagine leaving. They talked well into the afternoon, she returned some of his books to him, and he promised to come and see her again on his way home that evening, and everything seemed normal again when he left her. But he did not return that evening after all, and instead sent her a message. Alexei wasn't well, and Nikolai was spending the night at the palace with his patient and Dr. Botkin. Because of his hemophilia, the child needed careful observation, and Nikolai didn't think it wise to leave him. But Danina understood, and curled up in her bed with one of his books, feeling relieved to have seen him that morning. His two day absence after their drama after the dinner party had been excruciating for her. Her migraine had disappeared the moment she saw him. And it was a relief to her again when he appeared the next morning to have breakfast with her. But even she was not unaware that there was suddenly a greater intensity between them. Although they had agreed not to discuss their feelings for each other again, it was suddenly clear that his visits meant the world to her, and he himself had begun to feel anxious whenever he wasn't with her. But they were both still convinced that they could control the blaze of what they felt, forever if they had to, and she was determined to keep it in check, and never speak of it again for their entire lifetimes. |
| 1947 |
And when she wrote to Madame Markova again, she told her that she had agreed to it. It was exactly what she needed. And Madame Markova was relieved to hear it. As was the Czarina. They loved having her with them. The Grand Duchesses came to tea whenever they could and weren't busy with their nursing or their lessons. And Alexei loved playing cards with her. She seemed a perfect addition to the family, as far as he was concerned. And it was Alexei who announced that she had to come to his parents' ball on the first of February, it was the first one they had given in ages. The Czarina had been feeling so sorry for her daughters having had no fun in so long, and no break in their nursing, that she had convinced her husband that a ball would lift everyone's spirits. And after telling Danina about it, he informed his mother that he wanted her invited. The Czarina said there wasn't anything she'd like better, and without waiting for an answer from Danina, she sent a number of gowns over for her to try, just as she had for their far less formal dinner. But the gowns she sent this time were truly spectacular, and Danina was overwhelmed when she saw them. There were satins and silks, and velvets and brocades, they were fit for a queen, or for a Czarina, and Danina was almost embarrassed to wear them. She chose a white satin finally, with a gold brocade bustier, which cinched her tiny waist in so tightly that she looked like a fairy queen more than just a ballerina. She looked, as Alexei said, when she tried it on for him, like a fairy princess. Nikolai had not yet seen it, but had heard all about it. And the white satin cape which went with it was lined in the same gold brocade as the bustier, and trimmed in ermine. It was indeed very regal, and with Danina's dark hair she looked more striking than ever. In some ways, it felt like a costume to her, but it was more beautiful than any she had seen or worn, or even dreamed of. And Nikolai was pleased to hear that she was going. |
| 1948 |
It was a most successful party. And Nikolai and Danina danced half the night away. It was hard to believe she'd ever been ill, and she certainly didn't feel it as she danced with him. It was after midnight when he finally urged her to sit down for a while and rest, before she wore herself out completely. She was having such a good time, she didn't want to stop dancing for a minute. He brought her a glass of champagne, and smiled as he handed it to her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bluer than ever, and her bosom tantalizing and creamy. He had to force himself to look away for a moment. But when he looked at her again, he found he couldn't resist her, and moments later, he was dancing with her again, and she looked happier and lovelier than ever. "I feel like a dismal failure as the guardian of your health," he confessed as they danced another waltz, looking as though they had danced together forever. The only time he had ever danced with his wife was at their wedding. "I should be forcing you to go home and rest, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm afraid you're going to be exhausted to the point of feeling ill tomorrow." "It will have been worth it," she said, laughing up at him with the sound that enchanted him unbearably. Just as she did, he wanted the night to go on forever. It was after three when they finally left, and they were among the last to leave, after Danina had thanked the Czar and Czarina profusely. It had been an unforgettable evening, and they thanked her warmly for coming and, like Nikolai, voiced the hope that she hadn't done herself any damage by dancing so much and staying so long, when perhaps she should have been resting. "I will stay in bed all day tomorrow," she promised, and the Czarina urged her to do it. It would be a shame if she fell ill again because of the party. But she was still in high spirits as they went back to her cottage. It was a lovely night, with a sky filled with stars, fresh snow on the ground, and all she could remember now was the endless dancing. |
| 1949 |
Several people had asked her to dance, and she had danced with them willingly, but most of the evening she had spent in Nikolai's arms, and had to admit she preferred it. She was still chatting happily about all of it as they walked into her cottage, and he helped her take the ermine cape off. And just as he had all night, he couldn't help staring at her, and how beautiful she was in all her finery. More so than any other woman he'd seen all evening. "Would you like something to drink?" she asked him easily, she was too excited to sleep, and she hated to have it end now. And he had much the same feeling, as he poured himself a glass of brandy, and they went to sit in front of the fire the maids had left for them, and to talk about the evening. She surprised him by sitting at his feet in the splendid gown, and leaning her head against him. She was thinking about the evening, and was smiling into the fire dreamily, as he gently stroked her hair, and felt the sheer pleasure of having her lean against him. "I will never forget this night," she said quietly, happy to just be there with him, not wanting anything more than she could have from him. "Nor will I," he said, touching her long graceful arm with his hand, and then resting it on her shoulder. She felt so delicate and looked so fragile, and as she turned to look up at him she was smiling. "I'm so happy when I'm with you, Danina," he confessed, afraid to go too far again, and offend her. But it was so hard not to tell her how he felt about her. "So am I, Nikolai. We have been very lucky to find each other," she said, and meant it, not intending to tease him, but merely to celebrate their friendship. But she was making it more difficult for him than ever. "You make me dream again," he said sadly, holding his brandy, "of things I gave up years ago." At thirty nine, he felt as though he had a lifetime behind him. A lifetime of lost hopes, and shattered illusions and disappointment. And now, in her, he saw the dream again, and yet he couldn't have it with her. |
| 1950 |
The secret they shared grew between them like a field of wildflowers in summer. He came to see her every day, as he had before, but now he stayed much longer, while still managing to perform his duties at the palace. And at night, when he had completed what he had to do there, he returned to her, and slept with her. He had told his wife that they needed him at night now to stay with Alexei. And she seemed to have no interest, and no objection. Danina was thrilled to have him. He taught her things that bound her to him, and they gave their hearts and souls to each other. They told each other everything, and had no secrets from each other. Their hopes, their dreams, their childhood fears, and the only real terror they shared was that they might one day lose each other. They had not yet sorted out what would happen when she left there. Because they both knew that eventually she'd have to. And after that, they would have to do something about their future. But he had said nothing to his wife yet. They just wanted to enjoy what they had, for now, before they caused any major explosions. And once their happiness became real to them, February flew past them like an express train, and March along with it. She had been there for three months, when she finally began talking, with regret, of returning to the ballet. She couldn't begin to imagine how she would do it. And even Madame Markova had been asking her pointedly about when she planned to return for classes and training. It was going to take her months to get back what she had lost in her months of illness. Compared to her grueling daily routine at the ballet, the modest exercises she'd done here meant nothing. Even with her daily exercise, it was no way near enough for the ballet. And finally, with regret, she promised to return to St. Petersburg at the end of April. But the thought of leaving Nikolai was almost more than she could bear now. They spoke of it seriously late one afternoon, three weeks before she was scheduled to leave him. |
| 1951 |
That was almost as big a question, though somewhat simpler in his eyes, but not Danina's. "I will talk to her when I go back to St. Petersburg," she said, trying to still the fear she felt, or the sense that she was about to betray her. Madame Markova expected so much from her, had given so much to her, and she would be devastated if Danina left the ballet. But for her, everything had changed now. Her life belonged to Nikolai, and she could no longer ignore that. Miraculously, what they had shared seemed to have gone unnoticed by everyone but the maids in her cottage, and remarkably they had been discreet about it thus far. No one in the Imperial family had ever commented on it to Nikolai, and even Alexei, who spent a great deal of time with them, had no sense that things had changed between them. But in the last three weeks they shared, there was a kind of desperation to what they were both feeling. Such as it had been, as idyllic and perfect as the time was, it was about to end now. A new life was about to be entered into. And Danina was worried about it. If she left the ballet to be with him, where would she live, and who would support her? If he divorced Marie, would the scandal cost him his sacred place in the Imperial family? It was a great deal for them to consider and think of. But he had already promised that he would find her a place to live, and support her, though she didn't want to be a burden to him, and thought she should stay with the ballet until Marie left for England. In the end, he decided to tell Marie after Danina left, so as to shield her from any reaction to the scandal it might cause at home or in the palace. And to both of them, it seemed the wisest decision. He would come to see her at the ballet as soon as he could, and tell her what had happened, and then they could make their plans from that moment onward. Besides, the ballet needed time to replace her. Although she had been ill for months, they were still counting on her for performances that summer and the following winter. |
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