Remembrance (50 page)

As Vanessa's preparations to move gained momentum they seemed to spend more and more time together. It was as though, in letting her go, Teddy was better able to reach out to Linda. Vanessa finally moved into a studio apartment of her own on May 1, and on the following weekend Linda stayed for four days. After that Teddy wound up spending most of the following week at her apartment. She returned to his place for the weekend and spent the week. They never seemed to leave each other anymore, except to go to their offices, and when the three of them went away for a weekend in Cape Cod in August, Teddy looked at Vanessa sheepishly and cleared his throat.

“I have something to tell you, sweetheart.” Linda watched him, feeling tenderness mingle with amusement. In some ways he was still very shy. But it was part of what she loved about him, and there was a great deal about him that she loved.

Vanessa looked at him with a question in her eyes, and for just an instant the two women's eyes met and held, and then Linda looked away. She didn't want to spoil the surprise. “What is it?” Vanessa tried to seem nonchalant but she wasn't. She suddenly felt an electric thrill of excitement and anticipation course through her.

“I … uh … Linda and I …”He almost choked on the words and then took a breath. “We're getting married.”

“Well, it's about time.” Vanessa beamed. “When's the wedding?”

“We haven't quite figured that out yet. We thought maybe September.”

“Do I get to take pictures?”

“Of course.” He looked at her searchingly, wanting her approval, and she was beaming, and suddenly she threw her arms around his neck. They had had something so special for so many years, and now it had altered slightly, but in a healthy way for them both, and she was so pleased that he was marrying Linda. They were perfect for each other, in every way. And neither one of them had ever been married, he at forty-six and she at thirty-nine.

“I'm so happy for you, Uncle Teddy.” She held him close and Linda felt warm just watching them. And then Vanessa reached out to hug her, and as the two women embraced there were tears in their eyes.

“Do I get to be an aunt, or …” She looked puzzled. “What would I be? A cousin? Gee, seems like I could have a better title than that.” And then her eyes clouded strangely. She had been about to say sister, but something had stopped her. Teddy and Linda both saw it and no one said a word. “Can I be an aunt?”

“Sure.” Linda grinned. “But you're a little ahead of yourself, Vanessa. I'm happy to announce that this is not a shotgun marriage.”

“But I could arrange that.” Teddy grinned and put an arm around each of his women, as they strolled down the beach, talking about the wedding, and he felt as though he were the happiest man alive.

51

The wedding was lovely. They had it at the Hotel Carlyle in mid-September. They invited about a hundred friends, and Vanessa took all the pictures, and by Christmas her wish had come true. As they sat around the fireplace after the turkey dinner, Linda reached out to touch her husband's hand, and then looked at Vanessa.

“I have something to share with you, Vanessa.” She wore a mysterious little smile, and Vanessa looked at her in the firelight, thinking that she had never seen her look more lovely. She wore a peacock-blue silk dress, with her hair loose around her shoulders. Her eyes looked greenish blue and her skin had an almost rosy blush that made her look much less than her thirty-nine years.

“If it's more food, Linda, I can't.” Vanessa lay down on the floor with a groan and smiled up at her aunt and uncle.

“No, it's not more food.” Linda giggled and Teddy grinned. He was wearing an expression of beatific contentment that Vanessa had never seen before, as Linda went on. “We're having a baby.”

“You are?” Vanessa looked stunned. It took her a moment before she actually looked pleased. Again one could almost see her hearing an echo, and Teddy watched her nervously, afraid that the news would cause her pain. But an instant later her eyes danced and her face was radiant. “Oh, Linda!” She threw her arms around her friend, and then around Teddy, and clapped her hands with glee.

The next day Vanessa went out and bought the baby an enormous teddy bear, and for the next five months she bought things for the baby in a never-ending stream, pandas, giraffes, silver rattles, hand-made quilts, tiny nightgowns made of old lace, little caps, and she even knit a pair of booties. Linda and Teddy were touched by the gifts, but occasionally, when Linda looked at her, she was worried. There was an odd kind of tenseness about her lately, a sense of something about to happen. Linda tried to talk to her about it once or twice, but Vanessa herself didn't seem to know what the matter was and insisted that she wasn't aware of it. It was an almost indefinable impression one got when one looked at her closely. It was as though, deep within, she was desperately unhappy. And it grew more marked as the time for the baby's birth came closer.

Linda on the other hand seemed to grow happier and calmer as she got larger. There was a serenity about her that struck everyone who knew her. Even her patients were touched by what one of them called “the rosy glow of the Madonna” about her. There was a luster in her eyes, a warmth to her smile, that told everyone how happy she was about the baby. At forty she was finally having the baby she had wanted all her life but had decided would never come.

“And suddenly there you were one day in my office”—she smiled at Teddy one night as she told him—”and I knew that you were it. Prince Charming.” She beamed at her husband and he grinned.

“Oh, you did, did you? Is that why you had me come back for all those consultations?”

“I did not!” She tried to look insensed. “You wanted to come back to talk about Vanessa.”

“Well, I did at first.” He looked suddenly thoughtful. “Speaking of which, have you seen her lately?” He looked worried and Linda nodded. “I'm worried about her. She's lost weight and she looks very nervous.”

“I think she is. I tried to talk to her about it the other day.”

“Anything important?” He looked worried. After all, in a sense Vanessa was still his first child, and Linda understood that. But she looked pensive as she answered.

“Honestly I don't know. I think that maybe the baby has set off some old impressions for her. I'm sure she doesn't know it, but whether or not she's aware of it, there's a definite déjí vu in it for her. It's bound to rattle up something.” She sighed unhappily for a moment. “And I think the latest man she's met has her upset too.”

“Why?” Teddy looked surprised. “Who is he?”

“She didn't say anything to you?”

Teddy sighed. “She almost never does. By the time she gets around to telling me, they're usually already off the lists.” It always made him sad to see how she closed herself off from men and any kind of close relationship. The only people she was close to were Teddy and Linda, with them she was wide open to her feelings and to theirs, but with anyone else she ran like a frightened deer if they came near her. She was twenty-four now and Teddy knew that she had never been physically involved with anyone. “Who is he?”

“I think he's a photographer's agent, she met him at a party. She said that he was very nice, and apparently he was interested in representing her work. She was thinking about it too, but then he asked her for a date and she got nervous.”

“Did she go?” Linda nodded.

“Yes. I think they went out three or four times. She really liked him. They had a lot in common, he was crazy about her work. She says he made some very good suggestions about how she should market herself. Everything was fine.”

Teddy looked bleak. “And then he kissed her.”

Linda reached out and touched his hand. “Don't take it so personally, Teddy.”

“I can't help it.” He looked at his wife. “I keep thinking that if I'd handled it right, if I'd been the perfect role model, she wouldn't be afraid of men.”

“Teddy, she saw a man kill her mother. Be reasonable. How can anything you did or didn't do alter that?”

He sighed. “I know, I know … but in my heart I keep thinking—” He looked sadly at Linda then. “Do you think I should have told her?”

Linda shook her head. “No, I don't. And I don't think telling her would have changed a damn thing. She'd still have to live with the same nightmare, consciously or not. If she's going to trust men, or even just one man, it will come to her on her own, if the right man comes along. It's still possible, you know, Teddy. She's a young girl. She isn't totally averse to the idea. She's just frightened.”

“So what's happening with this guy?” Teddy looked a little more hopeful after Linda's speech.

“For the moment, nothing. She called a halt on dating him until she decides if she wants him as her agent. She says that if she does, then she doesn't want to go out with him, she'd want to maintain a businesslike relationship with him.”

“Sounds like you.” He leaned over and kissed her, and then gently patted the enormous belly. “You sure that's not twins, by the way?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not according to my doctor. The kid's probably got big feet like me.” She smiled at her husband. “Or he's carrying a football.”

“Or a purse.” They both laughed, and Teddy sighed as he thought of Vanessa. “Think she'll start seeing this guy again?”

“She might.”

“What's his name?”

“John Henry.”

“John Henry what?”

“That's it. John Henry.”

“He sounds like a phony.” Teddy frowned.

“And you,” Linda laughed at him, “sound just like a father. One minute you're all upset that she'll never go out with him again, the next minute you think he's a creep.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No. But Vanessa's a bright girl. If she says he's a terrific guy, I'm sure he is. She certainly isn't easy about men, so if she likes this one that much, I'd say he's probably a winner.”

“Well, we'll see what happens.”

“Yes, we will.” Linda was looking at her husband. “Don't worry about it so much. She's all right, Teddy.”

“I hope so.” He lay back on the bed. “I've been so worried about her lately.” But much of the time his worries about Vanessa were eclipsed. He was so excited about the baby that he could hardly wait until the due date. He was more than a little concerned about Linda having her first baby at forty. Medically speaking, they both knew the dangers of giving birth to a first baby at her age, but her doctor seemed to feel confident that there would be no problems.

But more and more Teddy found himself remembering Serena's pregnancies. He remembered the golden glow she had seemed to have before the birth of Vanessa, and how he had delivered her himself that afternoon, alone in the house in the Presidio. He told Linda about it one night, and she watched him. Something so gentle and so sad always happened to his face when he spoke of Serena. It gave her just a hint of what the woman must have been like, and always made her wish that she had met her. She had seen photographs of her among some of Teddy's old things, and she was really incredibly beautiful. It was funny, only Vanessa's shape was actually reminiscent of her mother. Her face and everything else about her was exactly like her father. It was only in looking at the old photographs or remembering cherished moments that Serena still came alive to Teddy.

“Weren't you terrified?” Linda was referring to when he had found Serena on the floor, already in hard labor.

“Scared shitless.” He grinned. “I had been in med school for exactly four months, and the only thing I knew about delivering babies was what I had seen in the movies. Boil water and smoke a lot until the doctor comes out of the room, wiping his hands. And suddenly the whole damn movie was upside down and I was the doctor.”

“Did she have a hard time?” There was a tiny edge of fear in Linda's voice as she spoke. In the last few weeks she had started to get a little nervous. But Teddy knew instantly what was happening and he kissed her and shook his head.

“No, she really didn't. I think most of all we were both scared because we didn't know what was happening. But once she started pushing, it went great after that.”

“You know”—she smiled sheepishly at Teddy—”I hate to admit it, at my age, and with my training …” He smiled, already knowing what was coming. “… but lately I've been getting nervous about it.”

“I hate to tell you this, Doctor, but that's perfectly normal. All women get nervous before childbirth. Who wouldn't? It's a major happening in anyone's life, and physically it's always a little scary.”

“I feel so silly though. I'm a psychiatrist, I'm supposed to be able to handle things like that.” She looked at him in sudden panic. “What if I can't stand the pain? … if I freak out … ?” He took her in his arms and stroked her dark hair.

“You're not going to, and it's going to be wonderful.”

“How do you know?” She sounded like any of a million patients and he loved her better for it.

“Because you're in good health, you've had no problems at all, and because I'm going to be right there with you the whole time.”

Linda had been so excited about this first baby that she had bought everything in sight since the day she found out she was pregnant. The nursery was a sea of white eyelet with blue and pink ribbons, there was an antique bassinet draped in white organdy, a cradle a patient had sent her, shelves filled with dolls, handmade quilts, and lots of little goodies knitted by Linda's mother. A dozen times a day now she walked into the room, looked around, and she always felt that something was missing. It was five days before her due date when she finally realized what it was that was missing, as she laughingly told Vanessa over lunch.

“It's the baby!” They born laughed at the revelation. Linda had retired from her practice the week before, and she was enjoying the last days of waiting. “I must admit, I'm a little antsy. But part of that is just not working for the first time in fifteen years. I feel guilty as hell about that.” But she was going back for half days when the baby was a month old, so the five weeks she'd taken off were really no more than a healthy vacation.

“Your patients will wait.”

“I suppose so,” Linda sighed, “but I worry about them.”

“You're as bad as Teddy. Before he met you, he'd have a nervous breakdown if he took two weeks off. There's something about doctors. They're compulsive.”

Linda grinned. “I think we like to call it conscientious.”

“Well, I must say, I admire it. But I don't have that problem. I spent all of last week sitting on my ass and I loved it.”

“Oh?” Linda looked intrigued. “With anyone special, or is that an indiscreet question?”

There was a twinkle in Vanessa's eyes when she answered. “I saw John Henry again. I decided not to use him as my agent.” For Vanessa that was a major step, Linda knew. She had been almost certain that that was going to be the way out Vanessa would have selected. She would hire him as her agent and then claim that she couldn't get involved with him after that.

“That's an interesting decision.” She sounded noncommittal, and Vanessa grinned.

“You sound like a shrink.”

“Do I?” Linda laughed. “I apologize. I meant to sound like an aunt.”

A warm look passed between them. “You're not bad at that either. No, I don't know. I thought about it a lot. And in a funny way I think we were already too involved with each other for me to do business with him coherently. The funny thing”—she looked at Linda in a puzzled way—”is that I'm attracted to him.”

“Is that such a shock?”

“For me, yes. Most of the time, Linda”—she shrugged—”even if I like them, I don't want to go to bed with them. I just… I just can't.…”

“When the right one comes along, it'll be different.”

“How do you know?” Vanessa looked very young as she asked her. “Sometimes I think maybe I'm just strange. It's not that I don't like men, it's just that …” She groped for the words. “It's as though there were this wall up between them and me, and I just can't get past it.” That was exactly what was happening, as Linda knew only too well. She only hoped that one day Vanessa would find the door, or have the courage to climb over the wall.