Promise Me A Rainbow (40 page)

“Catherine, I want to tell you something,” Pat said abruptly.

I want to tell you something, too, Pat.

“What is it?”

But Pat closed her eyes again without answering.

Catherine waited, dreading the inevitable question about Don. Pat had indeed wanted him to come see her, but as yet, no one had been able to locate him.

“Catherine . . .”

“I’m here.”

“You know . . . I’m glad I didn’t have children. I’m
glad
 . . . do you understand?”

“No, Pat.”

“You have to understand. You don’t have children, either.” Her hands twisted the covers. “Oh, I . . . forgot. You wanted . . . them.” There was a long pause. “I . . . used to want them. You remember? I told you that.”

“I remember.”

“But now . . .”

Catherine waited, but Pat didn’t say any more, sleeping again for a few moments.

Then she opened her eyes. “They wouldn’t remember me,” she said.

“Who, Pat?”

She frowned. “My children. My
children
. Don wouldn’t let them remember me. He wouldn’t let them come to me because I was dying. He wouldn’t take them to the cemetery or anything like that after I was dead, would he?”

Catherine wanted to reassure Pat that she wasn’t dying, but she didn’t. Pat was very ill, and it wasn’t a part of their deal to try to give false hope. “I don’t know,” she said instead. She didn’t know. She understood next to nothing about Pat’s relationship with her husband.

“Yes, you do. I told you what he’s like. He wouldn’t
let
them remember me. He’d let the waters of forgetfulness close over me. Isn’t that poetic? The waters of forgetfulness? Hell, he’d hold my head under. Joe didn’t do that with his wife, did he? His children remember her, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Catherine said.

“He made sure they’d never forget. What’s the girl’s name?”

“Fritz.”

“No, the pain in the butt.”

“Della.”

“That’s it. Della. I saw her name in the paper. Did I tell you that?”

“No, Pat.”

“Did you see it?”

“No, I didn’t see it.”

“She was . . . something. Some kind of homecoming queen or something like that. Joe didn’t tell you? No, I forgot. You can’t see Joe, can you? But it was in the paper. Did you see it?”

“No,” Catherine said again.

“Well, it said, ‘daughter of Joseph D’Amaro and . . . the late Mrs. D’Amaro,’ or something like that. Don wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t let them print ‘daughter of the late Mrs. Bauer.’ He’d have ‘daughter of Donald and
Bimbo
Bauer’—period.”

Catherine couldn’t keep from laughing, and Pat laughed with her.

“No. It’s true, Catherine. He wouldn’t give me . . . credit for having anything to do with the children. So it’s better we didn’t have any. How could I rest for all . . . eternity knowing the bastard was doing something like that? I mean, I don’t feel
well
enough to haunt the son of a bitch. Did I ask for him?” she asked abruptly.

“Any number of times.”

“Oh, shit! I knew I would. Is he coming?”

“They . . . couldn’t find him.”

“Ah, well. He wouldn’t come if they had. Catherine . . .”

“Don’t you think you ought to rest?”

“No, I don’t. I think I ought to . . . talk. That’s what I had them call you for. So I can talk. I can’t talk to those churchwomen. I
like
them, but I don’t want to talk about cookies.”

“Cookies?”

“Cookies, cookies,” she said, gesturing with her hand and then letting it fall limply back on the bed. “First . . . they tell me I’m brave—and you and I know the truth about
that
—then they . . . tell me their cookie recipes. I have to spend half my time pretending I’m in a coma.”

Catherine looked away. She didn’t know if this was more of Pat’s black humor or if she knew how close her “comas” were to being actual fact. They were trying a new antibiotic, and Catherine prayed that this one would help.

“Catherine,” Pat said again. “I lied.”

“So what,” Catherine said. She pulled her feet up in the chair and propped her head in her hand on the edge of the bed.

“No, now don’t stonewall me, Catherine.”

“I’m not stonewalling you. I just said ‘so what.’” But she was stonewalling. She didn’t want to hear any dark confessions, not with her mind already so filled with problems of her own.

“I’m trying to tell you this,” Pat said impatiently.

“Okay. Tell me.”

“It’s about the bimbo. She’s not really a bimbo. She’s very smart. Educated. Like me.”

Catherine smiled. “Like you, huh?”

“Yes, like me. I don’t have time for false modesty. She’s smart, and I’m smart. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the way Don is. He wants a woman he can feel inferior to.”

“I see.”

“I doubt it,” Pat said, chuckling. “But it’s true. He likes a woman who’s smarter than he is—some unresolved thing with his . . . mother, don’t you think?”

Catherine didn’t answer and Pat drifted off to sleep again. Several young women from the dietary staff rolled a huge cart near the door and began to unload trays. Pat jumped as one of them dropped something.

“What is that?” she asked worriedly.

“Just your supper coming.”

“I don’t want any supper. You tell them.”

“I will—after you see what it is. Maybe taste a little something.”

“Catherine, you are a pain.”

“I know.”

“I keep forgetting you’re a damn nurse.”

“I know.”

“Damn nuisance . . .”

“I know,” she and Pat said together, and they laughed. Pat’s laughter abruptly faded.

“I wish I were like you,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re like, do you?”

“Tell me.”

“You’re like . . . Nietzsche.”

“Nietzsche? Oh, great. Nietzsche went insane, Pat.”

“Not at first, he didn’t. At first he was . . . informed.”

“Informed,” Catherine said, thinking that perhaps Pat’s mind really was wandering.

“He knew about life. He said to consider every day lost on which we have not danced. That’s you, Catherine. Always dancing on the day. Now me, I dance, too . . . but the music’s always wrong. I’m always . . . dancing to yesterday’s waltz. You know who else does that? Joe D’Amaro. And it’s the wrong thing to do. You have to look at where you
are
instead of looking back. Your dance and your music have got to fit
today
. You made Joe hear a different song, Catherine. Don’t let that kid of his . . . run you to ground now. Joe needs you. It’s scary out there on the ballroom floor when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do . . .”

The girl from the kitchen came in with the supper tray, and the smell of the food made Catherine’s stomach lurch. She turned away for a moment, fighting down the nausea that threatened to overwhelm her.

“I don’t want anything,” Pat said. “Really I don’t.”

“Just look,” Catherine said, forcing herself to lift the lid. Liver and bacon. Rice. And greens.
Oh, God
.

“No,” Pat said.

“There’s a fruit salad.”

“I’ll . . . try that.”

Catherine fed her the fruit, moving the plate with the liver to the food cart out in the hall. Afterward Pat slept again, worn out by their long conversation and the effort to do some justice to her evening meal. Catherine still sat by the bed, listening to Pat’s breathing, watching her sleep and wondering how much of her observations about Nietzsche and the dancing had been hers and how much had been the fever and the sedative.

Don’t dance to yesterday’s waltz
. Catherine thought it made sense in a whacky sort of way. But she wasn’t as good at dancing on the day as Pat thought. It hadn’t been easy to relegate Jonathan to the past where he belonged. Now she was going to have to do the same thing with Joe.

One of the women from the church came to take Catherine’s place shortly before seven. Catherine wanted to tell her to forego the cookie recipes, but she didn’t.

Pat roused enough for Catherine to say good-bye, but not enough for her to be tempted to tell her about her pregnancy.

“Don’t forget what I said,” Pat whispered.

“I won’t.”

“You have to do something about Joe.”

I think I’ve already done it,
she thought, but she didn’t say anything else, hesitating until she was sure that Pat had drifted back to sleep. She quietly left the room, taking a deep breath once she was in the hallway. She was so tired. Her head hurt, and she felt like throwing it back and bawling. For Pat. For herself.

She put on her coat and took the elevator down. Joe was standing by the receptionist’s desk in the lobby. There was no chance at all that he hadn’t seen her.

“Catherine, wait. Wait!” he called to her when she turned to get back on the elevator. He caught up with her before the doors closed.

“We have to talk,” he said. “I’m not leaving until we do.” He had her cornered, and she couldn’t get away from him. He looked so good to her. He’d come straight from work, and he needed a haircut, and he looked so good.

Her eyes met his. She had to force herself not to look away.

“Not now, Joe. I really don’t feel up to it.”

She could feel him assessing whether or not she was telling the truth.

Apparently he decided she wasn’t.

“Come on,” he said, making her walk with him across the lobby to a small alcove among some plants. “Sit down.”

She wouldn’t sit, and he reached up to stroke her face. “You’re going to have to talk to me, Catherine. That’s all there is to it.”

“We can’t see each other anymore,” she said, trying to move out from under his touch. “Ever.” She was trembling and she prayed he wouldn’t see it.

“Why can’t we?”

“Della—”

“Leave Della out of it. Why can’t we?”

“Because we can’t!”

“Why!”

“I don’t—” She was going to say that she didn’t care anything about him, but he was looking into her eyes and she couldn’t do it. She tried to walk away from him, but he caught her arm.

“Tell me now. Tell me to my face.”

She could feel her eyes welling. She opened her mouth to say something, but oh, God, she was going to cry instead.

“Catherine . . .”

He pulled her roughly into his arms, and she sagged against him. She’d been alone so long, worrying so long! Her arms went around him, and she clung to him as if she were a frightened, lost child.