Facets (53 page)

“Do you think he suspects anything?” he asked.

Pam, too, was studying Ariana. “I’m not sure. There are times when I think he has to know—but maybe that’s my guilty conscience speaking. If he suspects anything, he doesn’t let on. He adores Ariana. And she adores him. She’s forever climbing all over him.”

Cutter felt a stab of jealousy. At about the same time, he caught a look of concern on Pam’s face. He shot a fast glance back at Ariana, thinking something had happened to her, but she was sitting just where she’d been. “What is it?”

Pam seemed surprised by his question. “Uh, nothing.”

“You looked worried.”

After a minute’s silence, she said, “Brendan’s been more tired lately. He tries not to let me see, but it’s there.”

“Is he working harder than usual?”

“No. If anything, he’s home more. He’s president of the bank. He can do it.”

“How old is he now?”

“Fifty-nine. He used to have checkups often. I remind him now, but he keeps putting it off.” More lightly, she said, “It’s probably nothing more than facing sixty.”

Cutter stretched out his legs and grunted. “I can identify with that.”

Her lips twitched. “Forty? Forty’s nothing.”

“Fine for you to say. You’re not the one turning it soon.”

“But look at you. You’re doing so well.”

He gave a negligent shrug.

“Do you miss modeling?”

“No way.” He had officially retired two years before, when his last contract expired. “I got what I wanted from it. It was a vehicle, right from the start. That’s all.”

“You don’t miss the adulation? The attention?”

He gave a firm shake of his head.

“And the business is going well?”

“Uh-huh.” He was a partner in an investment banking firm that he had formed with three others shortly before he’d stopped modeling. “My partners have the degrees, the experience, the technical know-how. I have the contacts.”

“You have the charisma,” Pam corrected. “You don’t talk all the time, but when you do, you have something to say. You don’t waste people’s time. You give them a feeling of confidence.”

He shrugged. “Something works.” Then he dropped all show of nonchalance, because nonchalance was the last thing he felt when he thought about John. “We’re getting there, Pam. The St. George package is growing.” He paused. “John doesn’t see it yet, does he?”

“No. He’s too arrogant. You’d have to pound him over the head with a takeover before he knew it was happening.”

“Good.” Cutter sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. Yes, he felt satisfaction. He also—still—felt anger and resentment. “That’s exactly how I want it. We’re buying small blocks of stock here, small blocks there. Our clients use their own names or those of their businesses. When we finally group together to form a cohesive entity, John will be stunned. Totally outsmarted. Beaten at his own game.”

Pam exhaled into a grim smile. “That sounds good.”

“How are things on your end?”

She pursed her lips. “I just saw the latest figures. My designs comprise nearly forty percent of
Facets’
sales. Granted, I’m not doing the actual jewelry-making anymore, but I hold copyrights on all of my designs.” She tapped her chest with a finger. “Me. Not John. Me. And I’ve checked and rechecked that with two different lawyers. If I were to suddenly pull out, John would be up shit’s creek.”

Cutter had to smile at the expression. It wasn’t often that Pam swore. She had mellowed with age, as he had, but John was the one thing that could get her riled. “Do you see him much?”

“As little as possible,” she said with feeling.

“How much is that?”

“Once a week or so. More when the board meets.”

“Is he civil?”

“Oh, yeah. But I don’t take chances. I make sure there are people around. He’d never misbehave in public. It wouldn’t be good for his image.”

“Does he see Ariana much?”

“As little as possible,” she repeated with even more feeling than before.

“By his choice or yours?”

“Both. He doesn’t like kids. Has no idea what to do with them. That suits me just fine. The less she sees of him, the better. He isn’t the kind of role model I want for her.” She stopped and considered what she’d said. When she spoke again, he heard an element of doubt. “That goes two ways, I suppose. When I’m with John, I’m not the kind of role model I want for my daughter, either. I feel ugly things. I don’t want her seeing that.”

Cutter marveled at her sensitivity. “You’re a good mother.”

“To want to spare her pain?”

“To want her to be a good person.”

“Every mother wants that.”

“Not every mother takes the care to see that it happens.” He hitched his chin toward Ariana. “She’s even-tempered, like you.”

“No, like you. I’m impulsive.”

“Cutter!”
Ariana cried.

“Whooops, spoke too soon.”

Ariana was rushing toward him, looking crushed. “It broke. Won’t go anymore.”

Her disappointment made him ache. Reaching for her, he brought her between his legs and arms enveloping her, took hold of the music box. “It wound down,” he explained by her ear. “That’s all. You have to wind it up to get it going again.” Closing the lid, he turned the box over and showed her how to twist the key. Her small fingers were right there trying to help. “It’s kind of hard. Maybe you should have your mommy do it.”

“I can,” she said. Pulling his fingers away, she struggled with the key. In slow, ninety-degree increments, she turned it. After three turns, she stopped.

“More,” Cutter prompted.

She worked the key again, then again. What would have been a simple task for Cutter was painstaking—at least, as he had to sit there and watch Ariana do it. The nice thing was that during her struggles she was close to him again. He suspected that if he ever had her to himself, really to himself, he would carry her everywhere. She was his child. He had helped create her. That she was a human being and growing more human by the day never ceased to amaze him. He only wished he saw her more.

Some of what he was feeling must have shown in his eyes, because when he looked up at Pam, she seemed wistful. As soon as Ariana had scampered off again, she said, “You’re so good with her.”

“Two of my partners have kids. I get practice.”

Pam shook her head. “What you do is natural.” She touched her heart. “It comes from here.”

“It should. I love her.” He sat back on the bench again, but he wasn’t as relaxed as he’d been. “There are times when I want to scream. Everything’s going my way in business. I’ve got good money, a respectable occupation, decent partners, and I’m comin’ real close to getting back at John for all he did.” He let out a breath. “So when that’s done, where am I? I don’t have you, and I don’t have Ariana.”

Pam didn’t say anything, but he didn’t expect her to. He had his chance. He could have married her when she’d asked and bluffed things out with John. But he’d been full of pride then. He wanted to do things his own way. Now, watching Ariana play, he felt the hollowness of that pride. He also felt the same small but niggling fear he did from time to time, the fear that too much time had passed, that too many things had happened for him and Pam ever to be together the way he dreamed.

“There are times,” he said quietly, “when I feel like my life has been an endless stream of wanting.” His eyes caught Pam’s. “Most of the wanting has to do with you.” He stretched an arm along the back of the bench so that his fingers could touch her neck. “Since you came along, nothing’s been the same. I love you, Pam.”

For an instant, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back just the tiniest bit, as though to trap his fingers on her skin. But her eyes opened again soon after to direct a mother’s watchful gaze Ariana’s way. “It is ironic.”

“What?”

“What you were saying before about your success in business. The same is true here. Professionally, things are terrific. I have my team of craftsmen. I design on my own time and get the credit for it without having to put in hours at the shop. I don’t have to look at John’s face. The people I’m with look to me for direction, not him. It’s ideal. I have time for Brendan, time for Ariana, time for my mother,” she took a quick breath, “time for you.”

“I wish we had it now,” he said very quietly.

She made a helpless sound.

“I miss holding you.”

“Don’t, Cutter.”

“And kissing you. Touching you.”

She took a shaky breath and whispered, “Stop.”

But he only lowered his voice. “If we were alone I wouldn’t. I’d keep going until neither of us could move.”

“And you’re worried about turning forty?” she cried.

“I’ll be hard for you till the day I die.”

“Shhh.”

“She can’t hear,” he whispered.

“But I can,” Pam whispered back, “and it’s wrong. You shouldn’t be saying those things. You shouldn’t be
thinking
those things.”

A mocking sound came from deep in his throat, just as two teenage girls went by with a flash of metal-mouthed smiles. “She’s adorable,” said one.

“How old is she?” the other asked Cutter.

“Four,” he answered, then, because he was a proud father, added, “today.”

“It’s her birthday?” asked the first, her smile broadening.

“Wow!” said the second and turned to Ariana. “Happy birthday, little sweetie.”

Blissfully entranced by her music box, Ariana didn’t look up until the girls had swept by. They waved at her, laughed at each other, and were soon turning onto the footbridge and blending into the crowd.

Ariana skipped over to the bench. Setting the music box on it, she closed the lid, opened it, closed it for a little longer, opened it again. Reassured that the music would keep coming, she gave Cutter a dimpled smile.

His heart turned over.

“Want to come on the swan boats with us?” Pam asked.

It was a minute before he regained his composure enough to say, “Only if I get to hold the birthday girl. Sound fair?” he asked Ariana.

She nodded. “Can I hold my gift?”

“You hold your gift, I’ll hold you.”

“Who’ll hold Mommy?”

Sweeping her up in his arms, he stood. “How about we just keep her real close?” He shifted Ariana to one side and, by the time Pam joined them, had an arm free to throw over her shoulder.

He didn’t care who saw them, didn’t care if tongues wagged, didn’t care even if word got back to Brendan. If people assumed he and Pam were husband and wife out walking with the beautiful child they’d made, it was only a twist of the truth.

He wanted it to be the whole truth, but that was still a distant dream. He’d been waiting all his life for Pam. Now he was waiting for Ariana, too, only having to wait meant that he was missing some of the special times that once gone were gone for good. The worst of it was that he didn’t know where it would end. As long as Pam was married to Brendan, he’d be the outsider. No matter how much pleasure he found in stolen moments, they were still stolen.

Pam’s concern deepened in the weeks that followed. Brendan looked pale, he wasn’t eating well, and he grew short-tempered each time she mentioned his seeing a doctor. The matter was taken out of both their hands one Thursday morning when he collapsed at the bank. Pam was at
Facets
, examining several pieces of tourmaline that had just arrived from Maine, when she got the call. With a sense of dread, she rushed to the hospital.

Brendan was awake and aware enough to reassure Pam that he was fine, but she didn’t believe him for a minute. She was relieved when his doctor ordered a full battery of tests. After the first batch, there were more. Some were done over.

The word wasn’t good. Brendan had tumors in his brain and both lungs. Pam was in shock.

“That can’t be. He hasn’t been sick. Just tired.”

At the doctor’s request she was meeting with him privately in his office.

“It’s an insidious disease, Mrs. McGrath.”

She’d heard stories to that effect, but never thought they would concern people she knew and loved, not her own husband. “But no headaches? No cough? Maybe the tests are wrong.”

“We’ve run CAT scans and bone scans. We’ve done MRIs—magnetic resonance imaging. The results are consistent.” He looked troubled, almost annoyed. “I wish your husband had come in sooner. I alerted him to the fact that this could happen. For a while there he saw me every six months, but he hasn’t been in for a full physical now in nearly two years. Given his history, that was unwise.”

“His history?”

“The melanoma.”

Her insides knocked. “What melanoma?”

“The one I removed a while back.” The doctor looked at her strangely. “You knew about that, didn’t you?”

Her voice was weak. “No.”

“Surely he told you.”

“No! When was this?”

Pushing his glasses higher on his nose, the doctor shifted a few papers in Brendan’s file until he found the right one. “Brendan first came to me in the spring of ’76 with a growth on his shoulder. I removed it. It was malignant.”