Always and Forever (47 page)

“Bella is a warm, sweet woman, and I love her,” Kathy told him. “But I can’t bear to see you swearing loyalty to a man who deserves only your contempt.”

“I’m sorry.” His face was cold and set. “I can’t stay here and listen to you talk this way. I’m driving back to New York.”

Kathy’s face was ashen as she stood at a window a few minutes later and watched David pull out of the garage. This time it was over for them forever. There was no turning back.

K
ATHY WAS AT HER
desk by 8
A.M.
—a common occurrence at rush business periods—because she had awakened before six after a night of broken sleep. She had come early to the office in a determination to push out of her mind the calamitous conclusion to what had seemed a perfect weekend with David.

She struggled to focus on business. In a burst of exasperation she left her desk to brew a cup of instant coffee.
Why had she behaved so stupidly?
All these years she’d managed to keep her silence, even while she fumed at David’s misplaced loyalty. A few careless sentences, and she’d destroyed everything between them.

At close to nine Marge arrived. She and Marge were almost always the first to arrive, the last to leave. But they had a dedicated staff, she thought with pride. In a crunch everybody pitched in to get the work done.

“You were carousing yesterday,” Marge drawled. “I called you three times and you didn’t answer.”

“I went out to Montauk,” Kathy said somberly. “Come in and let me tell you my tale of woe.”

Marge listened sympathetically while Kathy talked about the reunion with David and its ultimate outcome.

“Marge, it’s fate,” Kathy said painfully. “I should know by now.”

“Bullshit,” Marge scolded. “It was a landmark occasion—you and David had your first fight.”

“The first and last,” Kathy said with a towering sense of loss. “I tried—I was aggressive—but I screwed up.”

“David’s too bright and sensitive not to wake up to the truth,” Marge comforted. “He’ll think things through and know you’re right.”

“When?” Kathy challenged. “When I’m ninety?”

“Men can be jugheaded,” Marge conceded. “All this talk—all the articles now about how women are coming into their own at last—but what guy wants to hear about it? To the average male any woman with brains is a queer duck. And a successful woman is either an affront to their manhood—or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

“Forget the lot of them.” Kathy opened a folder and pulled out a report. “Let’s figure out our spring promotion for the Atlanta and Palm Beach stores.”

David checked his watch as he changed into a fresh shirt for the evening. He was tired from the sixty-five-hour weeks at the office and would have preferred to have dinner and collapse with a book. Still, he knew he couldn’t turn down his uncle’s request to fill in as his aunt’s escort to dinner and the theater tonight.

Uncle Julius and Phil were entertaining out-of-town buyers, he recalled. Not even hard-to-get theater tickets would stand in the way of business. The three of them were alike in that, David told himself. Their work came before all else.

But he had been tense and insomniac since the weekend at Montauk five weeks ago. He’d flown off the handle that way because he’d been so uptight about an experiment that was driving him up the wall. But how could he stand by and let Kathy vilify Uncle Julius that way?

He reached for a topcoat—the November night was cold—and hurried from the apartment. Aunt Bella had suggested meeting him at the restaurant, but he insisted on picking her up at the company apartment where she was staying for a few days. Part of his European childhood, he thought humorously.

Bella was waiting for him, beautifully dressed as always and wearing her trademark diamond necklace.

“I felt guilt at Julius’s drafting you this way,” she said while he held her sable coat for her, “but then I remembered how hard you work and that you probably need a night of relaxation.”

Wally was waiting downstairs with the limousine to drive them to the Colony. He would return in time to drive them to the theater. Seated at their table David and Bella focused on ordering dinner. Then Bella launched into talk about Jesse, whom she obviously adored.

“I never thought I would be a fatuous grandmother,” she mocked herself good-humoredly. “I wasn’t that way with my granddaughters. But there’s something about Jesse. He reflects the love and understanding Kathy has lavished on him through the years. I’ll never really forgive myself for raising my kids the way I did. But Kathy isn’t making my mistakes.”

“Jesse’s special,” David agreed.
Kathy
was special. He’d known that since those days aboard the ship that took them to Hamburg.

“I’m absolutely disgusted with Phil’s new wife,” Bella confided. “Not just because she’s the same age as two of his nieces, but because she doesn’t give a damn about Phil except for what he can do for her career.”

“A lot of young women today are obsessed by career,” David said softly.

“Kathy has a career, and a damn successful one. But she’s a fine human being. I don’t know how Phil could have treated Kathy the way he did.” For a moment her face was taut with grim recall, then, unexpectedly, she chuckled. “It was the biggest shock of Julius and Phil’s lives when Kathy left Phil without taking her diamond and sapphire necklace. I told Phil if he gives Kathy’s necklace to his new wife, I’ll never speak to him again.”

“I—I was shocked when I learned Kathy and Phil had broken up.”

“Kathy married the wrong Kohn,” Bella said softly. “She deserved better.” Her eyes met his with warmth and compassion.

Aunt Bella knew, he thought. How had they given him away? She knew, and she approved.

“I’ve always found my own diamond necklace a great consolation prize.” David was grateful that she was diverting the conversation. But her message was clear. She saw nothing wrong in his loving Kathy. “The others don’t know it, but I’ve willed my necklace to Kathy. Julius was so proud of having bought the diamonds as stones from a young Jewish refugee back in 1937—” She paused and David tensed, a pulse suddenly throbbing at his temple. “He was so smug because he’d bought them at a fraction of their worth. But you know Julius and his bargains—”

David was cold with sudden, bitter comprehension.
Those were the diamonds his father gave to him through the barbed wire fence at Salzburg.
Kathy had been right. She had tried to make him understand, and he had walked out on her.

Kathy forced a smile while Jesse talked enthusiastically about the school trip that was to take place today, but the aromas of food were making her faintly queasy. She always waited until around ten for breakfast, brought in routinely by her assistant, but she made a practice of having a “wake-up” cup of coffee with Jesse and Lee before leaving for the office. This morning she abandoned the coffee after a few sips.

“You look like you could do with some sleep,” Lee scolded. “You haven’t stopped yawning since you sat at the table.”

“I feel as though I could sleep around the clock,” she admitted.

“But you won’t,” Jesse guessed. “Mom, the office won’t fall apart if you stay home and sleep this morning.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she laughed and pushed back her chair. “Enjoy the school trip, darling.”

The cab that picked her up each morning was just drawing up at the curb when she walked out of the building. Seated in the cab she leaned back and closed her eyes. It was ridiculous to feel so tired. Was she coming down with a virus? She had no time for that, she thought querulously. Then—with dizzying suddenness—suspicion took root in her mind.

That was ridiculous.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
But of course, she could, her mind taunted. Occasionally she was late, she told herself—that meant nothing. But being late and feeling this way was unnerving. She glanced at her watch. Please, no traffic tie-ups this morning. She needed to talk to Marge.

She waited impatiently at her desk for Marge to arrive.

“Marge!” She hurried from her desk to the door as she saw Marge appear in the hallway.

“Let me dump my coat and get some coffee—” Marge was already pulling off her coat.

“Now,” Kathy said agitatedly and beckoned Marge into her office.

“What’s up?” Marge asked in alarm while Kathy closed the door behind her.

“I think I’m pregnant.” Marge knew about the weekend with David. “Of course, it may just be early menopause—”

“At thirty-five?” Marge scoffed, her face aglow with tenderness. “Sweetie, call David!”

“I can’t,” she hedged. “Besides, I’m not even sure.”

“Go for a pregnancy test.” Marge was practical. “You’ll know tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t tell a soul,” Kathy warned. “It’s probably nothing.” Yet deep inside she prayed that she
was
pregnant. That she was carrying
David’s baby.
Somehow, she would manage her life.

“Get on the phone with your doctor,” Marge ordered. “Tell her to send you for a pregnancy test. Neither of us can survive more than twenty-four hours of uncertainty!”

The following morning Marge was waiting with her to make the phone call to her doctor’s office.

“Marge, I’m scared,” Kathy whispered, her eyes focused on her watch. Her doctor had told her to call at 10
A.M.
—she would have the lab reports. “Maybe I’m not pregnant. Maybe it’s an ulcer, or cancer.”

“Call,” Marge said matter-of-factly. But Kathy knew that she, too, was anxious.

Kathy dialed and waited. Moments later she was speaking with her doctor.

“The test was positive,” the doctor said briskly.

“That means I’m pregnant?” Kathy asked shakily.

The doctor chuckled. “That’s the usual assumption. When you’ve calmed down, call my secretary and make an appointment.”

She’d have the baby out in San Francisco, Kathy plotted. Noel and she would switch locales for a few months. But she showed so quickly, she remembered in panic.

“She said yes?” Marge prodded as Kathy stared into space.

“I’m pregnant,” Kathy said. “What will I tell Jesse? What will I tell my parents?”

“You’ll worry about them later. Tell David!”

“I can’t. He hates me now. This would be like a shotgun marriage.”

“Kathy, you tell David. You’re giving him the greatest gift in the world—his child.”

“But he hates me,” she said in anguish.

“He doesn’t hate you. You upset his image of Julius. One of you has to make a move, and I don’t think it’s going to be David.”

“I can’t do it, Marge—” But in her mind she was wavering. Remembering his longing for family. His tenderness with Jesse. That night in Montauk they had brought his dream into reality.
She was carrying David’s son or daughter. Their child.
“I’ll try to call him. Just get out of here and let me think about it.”

Ten minutes later she was on the phone with David.

“David, I’ve felt so awful about what I said to you up at the house,” she apologized, her heart pounding. “It’s haunted me ever since.”

“You were right, Kathy,” David rushed to reassure her, and she heard the joy in his voice that she had made this overture. “I was wrong. Bella made me understand. But I didn’t have the guts to call you after the way I’d behaved.”

“Come up to the apartment for dinner tonight,” she urged. “Jesse will be so pleased to see you, too.”

“What time?” he asked gently.

Kathy sat through dinner in a pleasurable haze. After dinner Jesse went off to his room to do homework. Lee cleared the table and stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, then disappeared into her room.

“I’m so
glad
you called me,” David told Kathy while they walked into the living room. “I’ve been such an idiot—”

“Have you seen the view from this front window?” she asked, all at once nervous about confiding her news. “We can see all the way across the Hudson to New Jersey.”

“I only want to see you,” he said, reaching to pull her close.

“David, I’m pregnant,” she whispered, her face radiant.

“Kathy—” His eyes searched hers. “Our baby?”

“Are you questioning that?” She clucked with mock reproach, knowing he was in shock.

“This is the most wonderful moment in my life.” His voice was reverent. “I can’t believe this is happening. We’ll be a family.” All at once he was anxious. “We’ll get married immediately.”

“It’ll have to be a civil marriage,” Kathy reminded. “I don’t have a religious divorce.”

“The father of a colleague is a judge up in Connecticut. We can have him marry us,” David said.

“I’ll need a few days to break the news to my family,” Kathy said. “About the wedding,” she laughed. “A week later I’ll tell them about the baby. Oh, David, we’ve waited so long!”

Two limousines carried the wedding party to the judge’s home in Connecticut. Kathy’s parents, Jesse, her aunt Sophie and Bella in one. Lee, Marge, Rhoda, Frank, Sara, Noel—who flew in from San Francisco for the occasion—with David in the other.

Kathy chose a gray velvet suit for the wedding, to highlight the jeweled bow that David would give her the moment she was his wife—as Alex Kohn’s mother had urged him to do generations ago. At her suggestion the bow now hung from a silver chain.

Her face luminous with happiness—all those she loved surrounding her—Kathy stood with David before the judge. This marriage, she told herself with joyous confidence, would endure forever. In a brief but lovely ceremony the judge married them.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Kathy lifted her face to David’s. Tenderly he kissed her, then reached into the pocket of his jacket to pull forth the jeweled bow, restored now to its original splendor.

“From my great-grandmother to her new great-grand-daughter-in-law,” David murmured and dropped the chain to which the bow was now attached in place about Kathy’s throat. “At last it’s home, my love.”

“How beautiful!” Kathy’s mother leaned forward and inspected the jeweled bow with admiration after warm embraces were exchanged.

“Where did you get that?” Aunt Sophie stared with an air of disbelief, then reached to turn over the bow, where initials had long ago been inscribed.