Nocturne (28 page)

“Oh!” Savannah seemed startled as her smile faltered on her lips. “Sorry.” She looked around the open space.

“No need to apologize. I’m just getting some air.”

I didn’t like the way Nathan Connors was eyeing me. It likely had to do with whatever Savannah told him about the last time we saw each other face-to-face, as I recklessly dismissed our relationship on the steps of my townhouse. I wondered if Savannah had received any of the emails I sent her in those first few weeks. She didn’t reply to any of them. Once Madeline told me Savannah had left for Europe, I stopped emailing. Putting an ocean between us was signal enough. She wanted nothing to do with me.

“Can you give us a minute?” Savannah turned toward Nathan, who looked shocked at her request.

Not as shocked as I felt.

“Savannah …” Nathan cocked his head to the side as he took a frustrated breath.

“Nathan …” she retorted mockingly, mimicking his head tilt.

“You’re impossible.” He shook his head, gave her a playful smile, and headed inside without another word.

The click of the doors shutting behind him lingered in the space between us, as she slowly turned around to face me. Her eyes were dark, longing, as she walked slowly toward me. My heart echoed the sound of her heels clicking against the paved patio as she walked toward me. Uneven steps. Uneven beats.

“I’m sorry I rushed off at the beginning of dinner,” she started.

I waved my hand. “No worries.” She laughed. Oh, her laugh. “What?” I asked.

“That thing you do with your hand. You do that when you’re annoyed. You did that at my audition … and any time I came to your office.”

“Any time you came into my office, Savannah, you were ready to argue points that didn’t need arguing.” I chuckled, sipping more of my drink, until the ice clinked against my teeth.

“Fair enough.” She nodded. “How have you been? You and Karin, huh?” Her eyes were honest, endearing. With just a hint of the fire that sucked me in the first time I ever saw her.

“Yeah …”

“Everything okay?” She crossed her arms and took a step closer. Just close enough for me to smell the lilies.

“I’m sorry, Savannah,” I blurted out as I set my glass down behind me and shoved my hands into my pockets.

She swallowed hard, her cheeks turning pink. “Gregory, you don’t have to—”

“No,” I stopped her, “I do. It was cruel of me to treat you the way I did that day. I thought at the time I was doing what was best for you, and for me ... but you deserved better from me.”

“Look,” she cleared her throat and looked down for a moment before capturing me with her glistening gaze, “I didn’t ask to speak with you so you could apologize. I wanted to tell you that I’m fine. Everything is fine and the past is in the past, okay?” She started to turn for the door.

“Savannah, wait.” I reached out, taking hold of her hand.

She stopped and faced me again. Her lip was trembling slightly, and her eyes looked conflicted. She laced her fingers between mine. “What?”

“I …” I gently tugged her hand so she would take one more step toward me. My head was spinning, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the gin or the feel of her hand in mine.

Our toes were touching and I stared into her eyes before my gaze fell to her cheeks, then her lips. The pull I felt to the woman standing before me was undeniable. Startling. It felt like we were standing on Madeline’s porch five years ago. My lips parted as I fought to say something to get out of this. To get out of holding hands with Savannah at our friends’ wedding.

Savannah bit her lip and gave a long sigh, leaning in so her mouth almost touched my ear. “You should go home to your wife, Gregory,” she whispered before freeing her hand from mine and walking back inside without a backward glance.

Gregory

W
alking home from checking in
on James and Madeline’s house, as they were off on their honeymoon, I found myself enjoying the silence. Peaceful silence. The kind of silence that allows you to hear the leaves hum the wind’s song. Not the kind of dreadful emptiness that I knew awaited me at home.

Karin had never been one for the silent treatment. We actually hadn’t fought much at all until recently. She wanted to reopen the baby discussion, I told her that one a.m. simply wasn’t the time, and I went to sleep. For three days I found myself watching the calendar, begging for the summer tour to start so I could escape the constant scrutiny.

Tossing my keys on the door upon entering my home, I saw Karin curled up on the couch in the formal living room, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. She seemed startled by my entrance and turned toward the south-facing window. Away from me. My chest felt heavy, seeing her in such a state. The silent anger I could handle. Hearing the sniffles of falling tears, however, I couldn’t. She was beyond mad, now. She was hurting.

“Karin.” I exhaled slowly and made my way to the couch, sitting gently next to her. She hadn’t changed out of her pajamas yet, and her hair was snarled about her head.

“Leave me alone, Gregory. Please.” Her voice shook as she rested her head on her knees.

Ignoring her, I placed my hand softly on her back.

“I
said
leave me alone,” she repeated with no hesitation.

Removing my hand from her back, I clasped them in front of me, leaning forward so my elbows were resting on my knees. “I won’t leave you alone, Karin. You’re my wife and you’re upset. I want to talk about whatever it is that’s upsetting you enough to cloak this place in silence for the last three days.”

Karin chuckled softly, sardonically. “Three days of silence is too much for you, yet I’m supposed to smile and live with a ghost for the last five years?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I could live with the idea of Savannah Marshall, Gregory. Her existence in the world, your history with her—”

“I have no history with Savannah, Karin,” I lied.

“You still can’t admit it! The top student at the conservatory leaves at the beginning of her senior year, and you resign within a week of that. Don’t you
dare
tell me there’s no history with you two, Gregory. Especially not after half of Glen Wild’s fundamentals class saw you two making out on the street.” With a petulant scoff, Karin leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest.

Taking a deep breath to keep my patience in check, I slowly faced Karin. “We’ve discussed my reasons for resigning from the conservatory. Those are also five years old. What I don’t understand is what you mean by her
ghost.
”

Wordlessly, Karin stood and walked over to the baby grand piano by the window, gliding her fingers over the glossy black wood before talking at the window.

“I’d heard the rumors, just like everyone else. But I thought they were simply rumors. You’re a good man, Gregory, with strong ethics. I knew you’d never endanger your career by sleeping with a student. When you brushed me off in Lenox that summer, I thought that I was done with you. That you weren’t interested in
anyone
, let alone me. You hadn’t had a girlfriend since being in the conservatory yourself.” Karin shrugged and turned toward me, leaning against the piano. “Then you kissed her. In the middle of Boston for all to see.”

I swallowed hard, nodding. There was little I could do to refute that, especially given I never told her I’d slept with Savannah.

“Though you and I hadn’t been on a date in several months by that point, it hurt me. The thought of you kissing Savannah—or anyone really. I’d cared a lot about you early on, and you just weren’t interested in me.”

Not knowing where she was going with this, I felt the need to stand and meet her at the Steinway that was hosting this discussion. “Karin, I love you …” I trailed off, taking her hands in mine.

“Then why haven’t I ever had the Gregory Savannah Marshall got to have? The one who will go dancing without hours of persuasion? The one who will grab me on a busy street corner and kiss me like no one is watching?” My lips parted to retort, but she continued. “I get the ghost of you. Why that girl got that part of you no one had ever seen before, I’ll never know …”

“Then why did you marry me?” I spit out distastefully.

“Because I love you!” Fresh tears spilled down her drained cheeks. “You’re intelligent, passionate, talented … when we started dating again you said all the right things, did all the right things, and made me believe you’d changed. That you’d moved on from whatever it was that happened between you and Savannah.” She shook her hands out of my hold and placed them on her hips, looking down.

I worked hard over the months after Savannah disappeared to regain my footing. To remind myself why I never got involved with anyone. It was too distracting to my career. Karin was safe, though. She understood my commitment to my craft and never questioned the long hours. She was patient and loving and didn’t get in the way of my goals.

“What makes you think I haven’t changed?” I asked, incredulously.

“The look on your face when you saw her at the wedding. You looked like you’d seen a ghost, and I realized I’d been living with one.”

Frustrated at her accusations, I ran a hand through my hair and turned away, pacing to the other side of the living room. “Yes, it was surprising. I haven’t seen or spoken to Savannah in five years, you know that. But for you to stand there and assert that the way I looked at her somehow disregards
our
entire relationship is foolish, Karin. I love you.”

Karin’s face changed. Calm, as she walked toward me, she looked up at me with wide eyes. “Then let’s start a family, Gregory. Let’s have a baby.”

“Damn it, Karin!” I spoke through tightly clenched teeth.

She took a step back and furrowed her brow. “What?”

“You will
not
use this situation to emotionally blackmail me into having a baby with you.” I turned quickly on my heels and headed for the kitchen to get a drink. And space.

Karin shouted after me as she followed. “Are you kidding me, Gregory? You think I’m
blackmailing
you?”

Slamming the refrigerator door shut after retrieving a bottle of water, I shouted, “Explain yourself, then. Explain how that senseless story about some student I kissed five years ago led to you asking me to concede to having children!”

Karin jumped. “
Concede?
” she shouted back. “That’s what people do when they get married, Gregory. They get married and start a goddamn family!”

“No!” I slammed my fist on the granite island. “That’s what people who want to have children do, Karin. People who discussed it while they dated, while they were engaged. We never discussed it! We discussed travelling and buying a second home somewhere …”

“You discussed it.”

“What?” I asked, finally taking a sip of my water.

“
You
discussed those things, Gregory. You discussed travelling the world, hoping to maybe play with a symphony overseas for a time.
You
discussed buying a second home in the Berkshires. You never asked me what I thought of all of that. Or what I wanted. You put more thought into whether or not you were going to pick up lessons with that blind boy again than you did into fixing our marriage.”

I shook my head violently. She
knew
I’d never felt equipped to teach Robert. “First of all,
that blind boy
has a name, and he’s an accomplished musician and needs someone advanced to continue his lessons. Second. You agreed with what I was saying, Karin. You never spoke out against any of it. And, knowing what I wanted, you married me anyway, without ever mentioning your desire for children. What did you expect from me?”

Karin rolled her eyes. “I expected more. I expected a relationship.” Contempt curled around her words as she looked through me.

“I don’t have time for this, I have to practice.” I sighed and left the kitchen, heading for my practice room.

“Excuse me? You’re still considering going on this tour?” she shrieked.

I stopped abruptly and turned just as fast. “No,” I spit out, “I’m not
considering
going. I am going. Practice starts in a few days and we’re leaving at the end of next week and will be gone through June and July.”

“You’re a selfish bastard, you know that?” Her disdain for me was palpable.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. “Perhaps you should stay at James and Madeline’s house for a few days.”

She gasped. “What did you just say?”

“We’re not going to resolve this today, and I refuse to walk in this house every day feeling uncomfortable and looked down upon. James and Madeline will be out of town for the next two weeks. They’re returning home a few days after I leave for the tour.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“This is my house, Karin.”

“Oh fuck
off
, Gregory. This is
our
house. We’re
married.
” Karin never swore, and the conviction in her words irritated me.

“
Fine
. I’ll go.” Reaching into my practice room, I pulled out my cello case and walked to the front door.