Bittersweet

CHAPTER 13

THE DAY after the funeral, Doug took Sam to his soccer game, and India helped Jessica clean out her closets. She had more junk in them than India had ever seen, and she was carrying armloads of Jessica's outgrown clothes to give away when the phone rang.
She assumed it was for one of the children, as usual, and made no effort to answer. She dropped the clothes on the garage floor, and walked back into the kitchen while it was still ringing. And finally, sounding exasperated, she answered.
“Yes?”
“Hello?” The male voice was unfamiliar and sounded like a grown-up, although lately the boys who called Jessica were sounding a lot more like men than children.
“I'm sorry. Who is this?”
“It's Paul Ward. I was calling for Mrs. Taylor.” Her heart skipped a beat as he said it, and she sat down at the kitchen table.
“Paul …it's me…. How are you?” All she could think about was his face covered in tears as he left the podium at Saint Ignatius.
“Numb, I think. Someone said you were there yesterday. I'm sorry I didn't see you.” The crew of the Sea Star had flown back for the service, out of respect for Paul, and one of the stewardesses had told Paul she'd seen her.
“I didn't expect you to. It was a beautiful service. Paul …I'm so sorry. … I don't know what to say.” She truly didn't, and she was so surprised to hear him. She hadn't expected him to call her.
“I got your letter … it was wonderful. And the picture.” She could hear that he was crying. “I love it. How are you?” he asked, trying to regain some normalcy. He had wanted to thank her for coming, and for writing to him. But now that he was talking to her, he felt overwhelmed with emotion. He knew how kind she was, and her gentle ways, and reaching out to her somehow made him feel more vulnerable than he had in days. He still hadn't absorbed what had happened. He felt stricken.
“I'm okay,” she said, sounding unconvincing.
“What does that mean? Are you going back to work?”
“No. It turned into World War ?? for the rest of the summer.” She sighed then. “I just can't do it. He put it to me very clearly. It's not negotiable. Maybe it's not important.”
“You know it is,” he said gently, “it's about what you need. Don't lose your dreams, India …you'll lose yourself if you do. You know that.” It was something Serena never would have done. She had always been true to herself, no matter what it cost her, and they both knew that. But she hadn't been married to Doug Taylor. She hadn't made a “deal” with him. And Paul would never have given her the ultimatum that Doug had.
“I gave up those dreams a long time ago,” India said quietly, sitting in her kitchen. “Apparently, I don't have a right to take them back now. We're going out to dinner tonight for the first rime in months. Our life has been a nightmare all summer.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” he said sadly. He felt sorry for her. She was wasting herself, and she knew it. They both did. “How's my friend Sam?”
“Wonderful. He's out playing soccer this morning. He said he was going to write you.”
“I'd like that,” he said, but it didn't sound like the old Paul, the man she had met on the Sea Star. He sounded tired and sad and disillusioned. He had just lost his dream, and he had no idea how he would live without her.
“What about you?” India asked gently. “What are you going to do now?”
“I'm going back to the boat, and float around for a while. I took some time off from my work. I wouldn't be any good to them right now anyway. I'm not sure where I'll go. The boat's in Italy, and I thought I'd take it down to Yugoslavia and Turkey. I don't care where we go, just so it's far away, and all I see is water.” It was what he needed now to heal him.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked, wishing she could think of something. All she had had to offer him was one picture.
But Paul answered quickly. “Call me sometime. I'd love to hear from you.” And then his voice broke again, and she could hear that he was crying. “India, I'm so lonely without her. She's only been gone for five days, and I can hardly stand it. She drove me crazy sometimes, but she was so terrific. There's no one like her.” He was crying openly with her, and India wished she could reach out and touch him.
“No, there isn't anyone like her,” she agreed. “But she wouldn't want you to fall apart. She'd be furious over it. You have to cry and scream and stamp your feet, and sail around on the Sea Star, and then you have to come back and be strong for her. You know she'd want you to do that.”
“Yes.” He smiled through his tears, thinking of it. “She'd have been pretty rude about it.” And then they both laughed. “I'll tell you what,” he said then, as he stopped crying for the moment. He had been crying on and off for five days, and he felt as though he was going to do it for a lifetime. “I'll pull myself together eventually, if you promise me you won't give up your dreams completely. India, you mustn't do that.”
“I can't hang on to them, and my marriage. It's just that simple. There's no compromise here. It's all or nothing. Maybe he'll relent one day, but not now.”
“Just see what happens, and keep your options open for a while.” And then he sounded worried. “Did you take your name off your agent's roster?”
“No, I didn't.”
“Good. Keep it that way. He has no right to blackmail you into abandoning your talent.”
“He can do anything he wants to, Paul. He owns me, or at least he thinks he does.”
“He doesn't, and you know it. Don't let him. You're the only one who can allow him to do that.”
“I gave it all to him seventeen years ago. He says we made a ‘deal,’ and he expects me to stick to it.”
“I won't tell you what I think of his theories,” Paul said, sounding stronger again, like the man she had met and been so struck by that summer. “Or his behavior,” he added. He didn't even know Doug, but Paul thought he was treating India very badly. And it was obvious that she wasn't happy with him. If she had been, Paul wasn't so sure he would be calling. But in an odd way, just as friends, they needed each other. “I thought about you a lot this week, India. About the things we talked about last summer. It's funny how one can be so sure that one has everything all sewed up forever. We're all so damn confident and sure that we know it all, and have it all, and then it gets blown to smithereens in a second and we have nothing. That's how I feel. All those lives wasted on that plane, children, babies, young people, people who deserved to live …just like she did. I keep thinking I wish I had gone down with her.”
She didn't know what to say to him for a minute. In a way, she didn't blame him, but he hadn't and he had to go on now. “That wasn't meant to happen. You're still here, and she wouldn't want you to waste it.”
“No, the terrorists did that for me. They blew my life to bits, and everyone else's.”
“I know.” It seemed wrong to tell him that in time he'd feel better, but he would someday. It was just the way life worked. He would never forget Serena, or stop loving her, but in time he would learn to live without her. He had no choice. “It'll do you good to be on the Sea Star” she said quietly, as she saw Aimee walk across the room and out again, and she wondered when Doug and Sam would be home. But she was still alone in the kitchen.
“Promise that you'll call me?” he said, sounding desperately lonely, and she nodded.
“I will. I have the number.”
“I'll call you too. Sometimes I just need someone to talk to.” She wanted to be there for him, and she was touched that he had reached out to her.
“You helped me a lot this summer.” And then, with a sense of her own despair, she felt as though she owed him an apology or an explanation. “I'm sorry to disappoint you.”
“You're not disappointing me, India. I just don't want you to let yourself down, and regret it later. But you won't. You'll see. Sooner or later you'll get up the courage to do what you have to.” And do what, she wondered. Defy her husband? If she did, she knew she'd lose him, and she didn't want to.
“I'm not there yet,” she said honestly, “and maybe I never will be.”
“You will be. One day. Just tuck those dreams of yours into a safe place somewhere, and remember where you left them.” It was a sweet thing to say, and she was touched by the entire conversation.
“I'm glad you called, Paul,” she said gently.
“So am I.” He sounded as though he meant it.
“When are you leaving?” She wanted to know where he was now, so she could imagine him, and reach out to him if she had to.
“Tonight. I'm flying to Paris, and then switching planes and going on to Nice. The boat is going to pick me up there.” The crew had already flown back that morning, and it was a short distance from Portofino to Nice. He knew they'd be there for him. And then he sighed, as he looked around the room where he was sitting. It was filled with pictures of Serena, and the treasures she had collected during the years of their marriage. He couldn't bear to be there. “I guess I should sell the apartment eventually. I can't stand being here. Maybe they can do it while I'm gone, and put everything in storage.”
“Don't move too quickly,” she said wisely. “Give it time, Paul. You don't know what you want to do yet.”
“No, I don't. I just want to run away and turn the clock back.”
“You can do that on the Sea Star,” she said gently, as Doug walked into the room and stood behind her. “Take good care of yourself, try to be strong,” she urged him, as Doug left the room again to look for something. “And when you're not strong,” she said softly, “call me. I'll be here.”
“I know. Me too. I'm always here for you, India, if you need me. Don't forget that. And don't let anyone make you think they own you. They don't.” They both knew he meant Doug as she listened. “You own you. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take care….” She could hear tears in his voice again. He was on an agonizing roller coaster of emotion, and she felt so sorry for him.
“Take care of yourself, Paul. You're not as alone as you feel right now. Try to remember that. And in her own way, she's right there with you.”
He laughed through his tears then. “This is probably the only way I could have gotten her to stay with me on the Sea Star, but it's a hell of a way to do it.” If nothing else, it was good to hear him laughing. “Talk to you soon, India.”
“Thanks for calling,” she said, and they both hung up then. She sighed, and stood up to see Doug standing in the doorway, frowning at her.
“Who was that?” He looked angry as he asked her.
“Paul Ward. He called to thank me for a photograph of Serena I sent him.”
“It sounds as though the grieving widower is recovering very quickly. How long has she been gone? Less than a week now?”
“That's an awful thing to say.” She looked horrified at what he was implying. “He was crying on the phone.”
“I'm sure he was. That's the oldest ploy in history. All he has to do is whine a little bit, make you feel sorry for him, and bingo. You fell for it like a ton of bricks, India. You sounded like you were talking to your boyfriend.”
“That's disgusting. He's a nice man and a decent person, and he's heartbroken over losing her. He's just terribly upset and very lonely, and we struck up a nice friendship this summer.”
“I'll bet you did. His wife wasn't there then either, was she? I remember your telling me she wasn't there the first time you told me about him. So where was she then, if she was so madly in love with him?” He was filled with venom and suspicion, and ready to accuse her.
“She was working, Doug,” India said quietly. “Some women do that.”
“Is she the one who filled your head with all that garbage? Was he part of that scheme?” Doug was just aching to despise him, and India was angry at him for it. Whatever she felt for Paul, she had no intention of acting on it, or even letting Paul know, let alone her husband. She wasn't even sure herself exactly what she felt for him, and whatever it was, the affection she felt for him had chosen the path of friendship. And there was no reason for it ever to go any further. “I think you're a fool if you don't see what he's doing here, India. And I don't want him calling here again. You sounded like you were talking to your lover.”
“I don't have a lover, Doug,” she said icily, suddenly unable to stop her own rage. She hated what he had been saying to her. “If I did, I might be happier than I am now. But in any case, Paul Ward is not that person. He loved his wife, and he had a deep respect for her, and her career, something which you know nothing about. And I suspect he's going to mourn her for a long time.”
“And when he stops, you'll be there for him? Is that it? Maybe you'd like being the mistress of a man with all that money.”
“You make me sick, Doug,” she said, and walked back up to Jessica's room to finish her closets. She didn't even want to see Doug, and for the rest of the afternoon she avoided him completely. But the atmosphere was no better between them when they left for dinner. She didn't even want to go out with him, but she thought that if she didn't, it would cause more trouble.
If she had thought about it, she might have been flattered that he had expressed jealousy over Paul, but the way he expressed it was so offensive that it only made her angry. And what he had said to her was disgusting. Paul Ward was very certainly not her lover, and never would be. He was only a very good friend. Of that, she was certain.
The meal she and Doug shared that night was strained, in spite of his allegedly good intentions in taking her out. But what he had said to her that afternoon had doomed his efforts to failure. They scarcely said a word to each other while they ate. And the movie they went to was so depressing, India just sat and cried through the whole film, and she felt worse than ever when they got home, and Doug paid the sitter. As far as India was concerned, it was a disastrous evening, and Doug didn't think it had been much better.
He was feeling discouraged as he walked upstairs, and neither of them wanted to go to bed, so they sat in chairs and turned the TV on, and watched an old movie they had both liked. It was actually better than the one they had seen in the theater. They ended up staying up late, and they went down to the kitchen for a snack at one o'clock in the morning.
“I'm sorry about what I said today,” he said suddenly, looking at her unhappily, and his unexpected remorse surprised her. “I know he's not your boyfriend.”
“I should hope not,” she said primly, and then she unbended a little bit. “I'm sorry about the things I said too. It sure hasn't been easy lately, has it?” Everything had been so difficult. Every conversation, every exchange, every hour, every contact.
“I guess sometimes marriage is like that,” he said sadly, and then what he said next touched her. “I've missed you.”
“Me too,” she smiled. It had been so lonely without him. During the last few months he'd barely spoken to her, and been so angry at her for suggesting she do a few assignments, it had been as though he'd been away all summer.
They finished their snack and went upstairs. The kids were all in bed, and India gently closed the bedroom door behind them. They both got ready for bed, and Doug turned the TV off, and when she came to bed, he was awake. And this time when he reached out for her tentatively, she didn't turn away or refuse him. He took her gently in his arms, and made love to her, though there wasn't the passion she wished there had been. He seemed awkward with her after so long, and he never told her he loved her. But this was the life they shared, the “deal” they had made, and for better or worse, he was her husband. This was what she had, and what she had to make her peace with.