Book Lover, The (34 page)

She sat on the sand suddenly, the force of guilt nearly taking her breath away.

“Oh, Lucy. You fool.”

She stayed there for a long time staring at the water, seeing the bald eagle exhausting itself for its family, realizing finally that David had done the same thing for her. And Ben.

* * *

CHARLOTTE STREET WAS PERHAPS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STREET in town. The graceful old live oaks, their arching limbs veiled in Spanish moss, charming stucco homes with tile roofs, or old Victorians with wrap-around porches, each house a little different. The feel of the past everywhere, her own included, as Lucy drove down the narrow road and pulled in the driveway.

Soon it would be autumn, her favorite season here, when the heat and humidity lifted, yet everything was still lush and blooming. The light was already a bit different. The pink climbing roses on the side of the garage were in full bloom now, and would be again in March or April. She would miss the long autumn, the early spring.

She unlocked the front door, wondering if it would all be different. Walking through the rooms, it was all as she’d left it. David hadn’t moved or changed a thing. She’d tried so hard to put in all the right touches, but there was still so much unfinished. Her eyes went to the blank wall above the fireplace.

How long she’d searched for the right painting to put there. The sheers on the arched windows were a temporary solution, now hanging for five years. If she’d been able to finish, make it the perfect house she’d envisioned, would it have made any difference, really?

Walking to the kitchen, she looked out the glass doors into the courtyard, the bougainvillea also in full bloom, crimson petals covering most of the back wall. On her way to the bedroom, she stopped, surprised to see the picture still on the wall. It was Ben in his isolette, wrapped in a blue receiving blanket, his slate gray eyes wide open. A hospital snapshot blown up until it was almost grainy. A few hours later it would all change. Who knew there wouldn’t be time for more? Lucy placed her lips on Ben’s as she’d done every morning in this house.

Then she opened the bedroom door and gasped. David was sitting in the corner chair.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in the same moment he said, “I know I’m not supposed to be here…”

He stood up. “I’m sorry, Lucy, for everything.”

She watched his eyes fill with tears as she fought her own.

“I’m sorry, too, David.”

She walked into his open arms.

                            
38

R
UTH WALKED INTO THE HOUSE SHE’D LEFT forty-eight hours before, a different woman. Climbing the stairs to her bedroom, she had to stop halfway up to catch her breath, and by the top her legs were trembling. She called Jenny and told her she was home, not that she’d signed herself out. Before Jenny could launch into another lecture, Ruth told her she was selling or closing the store. Then she went to bed and slept until the following morning.

Jenny had come while she slept and stocked her refrigerator. She found a note on the counter,
I love you, Mom. You’re doing the right thing. Call me when you’re up for a visit. Love, Jenny. P.S. Sam is fine, I’ll bring her back in a few days.
Her head felt groggy, and there was a surreal feeling to standing alone in her kitchen in the middle of the morning with nothing she had to do. Even the dog bowls were gone. She sat heavily in a kitchen chair, wondering if she had ever been this bone tired in her life. She felt like one of the kids’ old wind-up toys that once stopped, simply could not be wound up again.

She microwaved a container of chicken soup Jenny had divided into individual servings. Then she swallowed two of the ginseng capsules she found on the counter next to an arsenal of vitamins and herbs. She went in the living room and lay on the couch, picking up a book from the pile on the floor, then putting it down. It was frightening not even having the strength to read, although the doctor kept assuring her that with a few weeks’ rest, the virus would begin to disappear and so should the fluid around her heart. But what if it didn’t?

She closed her eyes, wondering how things were going at the store without her. She knew her decision was going to make a lot of people unhappy, would no doubt send a little shock wave through the village of Warwick. Worst of all was Hannah, who would be completely shattered if someone didn’t buy the store and keep her café. She couldn’t think about Hannah or any of it right now because there was no turning back. Even if she had a change of heart, she was out of money. And energy.

* * *

“DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN?” DAVID ASKED.

Lucy turned to his face on the pillow beside her, staring at the ceiling, his dark hair tousled.

“I can’t believe it, either,” she managed.

“I had everything rehearsed that I wanted to say to you, but…” He turned and looked at her with a little smile. “So I guess you don’t hate me?”

She shook her head, but his smile disappeared.

“I need to talk about Ben,” he said. “Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

He was quiet for a long time, and she wondered if he had changed his mind when he finally said, “Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like if he’d lived? What he’d have been like?”

“Of course.” For a long time it had completely consumed her. “That entire first year I kept imagining him making his first sounds, reaching for the spoon as I fed him cereal. Sitting up at six months, then beginning to walk and terrified to let go.” She knew every upcoming step, because along with writing her novel, she’d read everything she could find on what to expect the first year. “I pictured him as a chubby toddler with silky dark hair like yours, saying all the unintelligible words babies say at first, and hoping I’d know what he meant.”

“The therapist made me do it,” David said then. “At first I thought it would be torture because before I couldn’t even let myself think about him. But in a way it made him seem more real. When we lost him, even though I saw him and held him…it was like it wasn’t real.”

“I know. He was there, and then he simply vanished as if he never existed at all. And we never got to bond with him.” She took a deep breath, remembering her own therapist telling her the same thing. Only for her it wasn’t that she was trying
not
to think of an older Ben, how he would change over the months and years. It was that she couldn’t
stop.

It amazed Lucy that they were talking like this. You’d have thought they lost their son five days, not five years ago.

“After a while, I couldn’t go to the park anymore,” she continued. “You know the one with the playground where I would sit and write? I’d watch the kids with their mothers, toddlers on a swing or coming down a slide for the first time, squealing. I even wrote a poem about it one day.”

“What’s it called?”

She hesitated a moment. ‘“My Son, The Autumn Dancer.’”

“I’d love to hear it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Please, Lucy.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. Then she took a deep breath. This poem was sacred to her, and she knew it by heart. It wasn’t just words, it was a scene she imagined, a moment frozen in time, if she could have had just one more moment with him again.

“Like crimson leaves on a crisp
fall day, you swirl about
the rich green grass,
a final burst of color, so bold
it almost hurts the eye.

A golden face sliding
into a pool of sunlight,
it is a joy which we
drink deeply, a time
never to be forgotten.

You are an autumn dancer
and for this precious moment
this park is yours, this
delight is yours, this
earth is yours.

Such love and beauty are
almost painful as I watch
you helplessly, slipping
naturally into the years
to come. But for Just this
moment, it is ours.”

“Oh, Lucy.”

She turned to see David with his eyes closed, a tear rolling down the side of his face.

“I imagined we were just another mother and child there at the park, and that we had our whole lives ahead of us. What this one beautiful, golden moment might be like, and how I would savor it, knowing that he would grow up and grow away, as kids normally do.”

“Have you ever gone back, since you’re up there?”

“To the cemetery? No.” It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it. Part of her felt guilty because it wasn’t that far, really.

“I’ve been thinking about coming up,” David said. “I think it would be good for me. Closure, finally.”

“I understand.”

“You’re letting your hair grow,” he said then and smiled tenderly, reaching for a strand and twirling it around his finger. “I’m glad you don’t hate me. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“David, you’re not the only one…”

“Shhh,” he said, putting a finger over her lips. “It’s nearly dark, and I think I heard your stomach growling.”

“I haven’t really eaten since yesterday morning.”

“Well, I’m famished, but there’s nothing here. Do you want to go out?”

“Not really.” She sat up and slipped on her shirt, pulled on her underpants.

“I’ll run over to Harry’s,” David said, sitting up.

A few minutes later he was gone. She stood under the shower, letting the water beat on her head, wondering at what had just happened. It was as though the David she once knew had returned, after a long, strange absence. He’d never mentioned the word divorce, and neither had she.

It was as if a fragile peace had descended and for the moment, neither one of them wanted to shatter it with a touch of reality. But she knew that soon she would have to.

THEY SAT ON THE PATIO EATING RIBS AND DIRTY RICE and drinking chardonnay, like they might have any night before. But David only picked at his food, then pushed it aside. He broke the peace first.

“There are so many things I want to say to you right now. I’m sorry seems so inadequate.”

“Before you do, there are some things that I need to tell you.”

“Please,” he said, taking her hand. “Just listen, okay?”

He took a deep breath, squeezing her hand. “It wasn’t until my life was taken away from me, Lucy, that I slowly began to realize how trapped I felt. I’m not making excuses, trust me. What I did, the gambling, taking the money from you, and the trust accounts, it was beyond disgusting. But it was almost as if it was someone else doing it, not me, because I didn’t think about the right or wrong, accountability, none of it. It just made getting through the days easier. And we were in debt from the move, so…I kept thinking maybe I could pay some of it off. Crazy, huh?”

He sat there a moment, staring across the patio, as if reliving it all.

“When Ben died I felt like I went into some kind of autopilot. I thought if I just kept working and taking care of things, somehow I would get through it. But I see now that doing that, moving, working like a dog here to build the practice, sneaking in poker games anytime I could, I was just avoiding the pain. And after a while, it was like I was numb inside.”

“I know the feeling.”

“It wasn’t just losing Ben, it was everything about my life, just squeezing and squeezing me until I thought my head would explode. I didn’t want to be a lawyer. It was never really what I wanted, but…you know how it is, you go for the good job, the security, you don’t want to let people down.”

“You mean your parents?”

He nodded.

“When I was in that prison camp, I felt…free.” He actually laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it? It sounds insane, I know, but having nothing was a relief. I didn’t have to pretend anymore and there was nothing left to lose. I remembered my father saying when he first got sick, that every day you wake up with a hundred problems, but the day you lose your health, you wake up with just one problem. I started to think about that a lot. I still had my health, and my whole life ahead of me. Maybe I didn’t have to be a lawyer anymore. I could just start over. I didn’t have to try to get my license back to practice law. I started to feel…hope.”

“You’re not going to try to get the bar…”

But he was already shaking his head. “No.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s just that I never had any idea. You never let on at all.”

“You know, for as far back as I could remember, my father always told me I was going to be a lawyer and work with him. When I was little I used to go to the office with him, sit on the other side of the big partners’ desk and just love being there. I never questioned my future. When I got older and began to have other thoughts, I just… I didn’t want to disappoint them.”

“But you’ve never mentioned wanting to do anything else.”

“Oh, I had this fantasy of being an archeologist once,” he laughed, but she could see there was something serious there. “I used to read
National Geographic
every month and dream about those kinds of adventures. But really, how many people get to have that kind of life, you know? It’s like saying you want to be an astronaut.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

He shrugged. “I think I did once, but you probably forgot. Anyway, after my father died, I was just about done with law school and then I took over his practice. Being a lawyer was who I was, part of the fabric of my life, and I couldn’t envision anything else after a while.”

“And now?”

“I’m doing some clerical work at legal aid for St. John’s County for now, as part of my community service, but when that’s over, I’m done with the legal profession. And also…” he hesitated, “I’m a bartender at Harry’s.”

“What!”

David began to laugh. “I know, it sounds shocking, but it’s just for now. There’s no pressure, I like meeting people, and believe it or not, the money’s pretty good, so I’m getting by. And there’s something else. I realize now how lucky you are, to know exactly what you want, to be a writer. And to have the guts to go after it. I never really gave you the support there that you deserved.”

“That’s not really true.”

“It is, maybe not all the time, but still…” His words ran out and he sat there a long moment. “You know, all my life, I’ve done the responsible thing, the expected thing. Whatever would make someone else happy, and I see now how that was part of my undoing. But Lucy, what I did to you…” He shook his head, as if there were no words.

“David, it’s over and done with. I don’t hate you anymore. Obviously.”

“I should have gone for counseling with you, after Ben died. I know that now. Everything I held in all that time, it was just, I don’t know, like I didn’t even really know myself anymore. To be honest, it wasn’t until recently that I began to see how much anger I was holding in, too.”