Bittersweet

CHAPTER 18

WHEN INDIA walked into the house at five-fifteen on Friday night, the kids were all in the kitchen, eating snacks, and playing and teasing each other, and the dog was barking. And just looking at them made it feel as though she had never left them. It made London seem like a dream, and the stories she'd covered unreal, and her friendship with Paul nonexistent. This was her life, her reality, her existence.
And the moment they saw her, Aimee let out a squeal, and Jason and Sam both ran toward her, as Jessica waved to her with a broad grin while holding the phone and chatting to one of her buddies. And suddenly she had her arms full of children, and she realized how much she'd missed them. Her life had seemed so grown-up for a week, so independent, so free, and it had been exciting. But this was even better.
“Wow! I missed you guys!” she said as she held them close to her, and then they broke free, and told her all at once what had happened all week. Sam had scored the winning goal at soccer, twice, Aimee had lost two more teeth, Jason had had his braces off, and according to them, Jessica had a new boyfriend. It was business as usual as she listened to them, and after ten minutes of celebrating her return, everyone went upstairs to do homework, call friends, or watch TV. By six o'clock it was as though she had never left them.
She took her suitcase upstairs and sat on the bed, looking around her bedroom. Nothing had changed. It was the same safe little world, and her children had survived her absence. So had she. In an odd way, it made the trip seem completely unreal, and like a figment of her imagination.
The only time it became a reality was when she saw Doug's face when he came home at seven. He looked like a storm cloud, and he barely managed to say hello to her before they sat down to dinner. The babysitter had stayed to help her, and had left before Doug came in. They were having steak and mashed potatoes and string beans, and even the kitchen looked tidy, as India went to kiss him. She was still wearing her traveling clothes, black wool pants and a warm sweater so she wouldn't be cold on the plane. And he turned away as she tried to kiss him. She hadn't talked to him since she left eight days before, the morning of Thanksgiving. Every time she had called, the kids had said he was out or busy, and he had never called her.
“How was your trip?” he asked formally as he sat down, and the children noticed the chill between them.
“It was great,” India said easily, and then she told them all about the wedding. The girls were particularly hungry for the details. But even Jason and Sam were impressed when she told them about the Kings and Queens and Prime Ministers, and that the President and First Lady had been there.
“Did you say hi from me?” Sam asked with a giggle.
“Of course I did,” India smiled at him, “and the President said, ‘Say hi to my friend Sam.’” But Sam laughed as she said it. They were all in good spirits, except Doug, who continued to look angry all through dinner.
And the dam finally broke when they got upstairs to their bedroom. “You seem to have enjoyed yourself,” he said accusingly. He could detect no remorse in her whatsoever. Worse yet, he could see no fear of the displeasure she had caused him, or the consequences it might lead to. But that had been Paul's gift to her. She felt more at ease in her own skin than she had in years, and even proud of what she'd accomplished. But watching Doug as he sat down and glared at her, she finally felt a little tremor.
“I did some good work over there,” she said quietly, but without apology. She was mostly sorry that he couldn't share the good feelings with her. “The children seem fine.” It was their common bond, the one thing they seemed to have left to cling to, since they no longer seemed to have each other. He still hadn't touched her, or put an arm around her, or kissed her. He was obviously much too angry.
“No thanks to you,” he said, referring to her comment about the children. “It's interesting that you're willing to do the same thing to them your father did to you. Have you thought of that at all this week?” He was trying to make her feel guilty, but thus far not succeeding.
“London for a week is not Da Nang for six months, or Cambodia for a year. That's very different.”
“Eventually, you'll work up to that, India. It's only a matter of time, I'm sure.” He was being incredibly nasty to her.
“No, it isn't. I'm very clear on what I'm willing to do.”
“Really, and what is that? Maybe you should tell me.
“Just an occasional assignment like this,” she said simply.
“It's all about your vanity, isn't it? And your ego. It's not enough to be here and take care of your children. You need to go out in the world and show off.” He made it sound like she was a stripper.
“I love what I do, Doug. And I love you, and the children. They're not mutually exclusive.”
“They might be. That's not entirely clear yet.” There was an obvious threat in what he was saying, and the way he said it made her angry. She was tired from her trip. It was two o'clock in the morning for her, and Doug had been rotten to her from the moment he saw her.
“What does that mean? Are you threatening me?” She was getting angry too as she listened to him.
“You knew the potential risk when you walked out on us on Thanksgiving.”
“I didn't ‘walk out on you,’ Doug. I made Thanks-giving dinner the night before I left, and the kids were fine with it.”
“Well, I wasn't, and you knew that.”
“It's not always about you, Doug.” That was what had changed between them. At least some of it had to be about her now. “Why can't you just let this go? I did it. The kids are fine. We survived it. It was a week out of our lives, and it was good for me. Can't you see that?” She was still struggling to make him hear her. But even if he heard, her happiness was of no interest to him.
“What I see is a lifestyle that doesn't suit me. That's the problem, India.” She saw, as she listened to him, that it was about controlling her. He was angry at what he saw as her insubordination and treason. But she didn't want to be controlled by him. She wanted him to love her. And she was beginning to think he didn't. She had thought that for a while now.
“I'm sorry you have to make this such a big deal. It doesn't have to be. Why not just live with it for a while and see what happens? If it gets too complicated, if it's too hard on the kids, if we really can't live with it, then let's talk about it.” She tried to reason with him but he didn't answer. What she had suggested was rational, but he wasn't. Without saying another word to her, he picked up a magazine and started reading, and that was the end of the conversation. She had been dismissed. As far as Doug was concerned, it wasn't even worth discussing it with her.
She unpacked her suitcase, went to bed, and wished she could have called Paul. But there was no way she could, and by then it was five o'clock in the morning for him, wherever he was, in Sicily, or Corsica, or beginning to make his way to Venice. He seemed part of another lifetime, a distant dream that would never be a reality for her. He was a voice on the phone. And Doug was what she had to contend with, and live with.
She took Sam to soccer the next day, and she and Doug successfully avoided speaking to each other for the rest of the weekend. She saw Gail, who talked about her Christmas shopping. And after India dropped Sam off, she took her film to Raoul Lopez in the city. They went to lunch and she filled him in on all the details. He was particularly excited about her second story, and knew it was explosive material. And on her way back from the city at four o'clock, she pulled out of the traffic and stopped at a gas station. She knew the Satcom number by heart, and had purchased twenty dollars in quarters at the airport the day before, for an opportunity like this one.
A British voice answered briskly at the other end. “Good evening, Sea Star.” She recognized him now as the chief steward, said hello to him, and asked for Paul. It was ten o'clock at night, and she suspected he was probably in his cabin, reading.
Paul came on the line very quickly, and sounded happy to hear her. “Hi, India. Where are you?”
She laughed before she answered as she looked around her. “Freezing to death in a pay phone at a gas station, on my way back to Westport. I had to drop off my film in the city.” It had just started snowing.
“Is everything all right?” He sounded worried.
“More or less. The kids are fine. I don't think they even missed me.” But it was so different for them than it had been for her as a child. She had been all alone with her mother. They had each other, and a happy stable life that she had carefully provided for them. “Doug hasn't spoken to me since I got home, except to tell me how rotten I was for going. Not much has changed here.” Nor would it, she was realizing. This barren landscape was her life now.
“How are the pictures?” He was always excited about her work, particularly about the stories she'd just done in London.
“I don't know yet. They didn't want me to develop them myself. Big magazines do their own lab work and editing. I'm out of the loop now.”
“When will they be out?”
“The wedding in a few days. Raoul has sold the prostitution ring photos to an international syndicate so it will be later in the month. How are you?” Her feet were getting numb in the cold, and her hand felt as though it were frozen to the phone, but she didn't care. She was happy to hear him. It was a warm, friendly voice in the darkness of her life at the moment.
“I'm fine. I was beginning to think you weren't going to call, and I was getting worried.” He had fantasized a warm, romantic reunion with her husband when she got home, and he was a little startled to realize that the thought of it unnerved him.
“I haven't stopped since I got back. I took Sam to soccer this morning, and I had to go into the city. Tonight, I'm taking the kids to the movies.” It was something to do while Doug ignored her. It would have been so much nicer to have dinner with him and tell him all about London, but there was no chance of that now. Instead she was calling Paul from a phone booth, just to have a sympathetic adult to talk to. “Where are you?”
“We just left Corsica, and we're heading south to the Straits of Messina, on our way back up to Venice.”
“I wish I were there with you,” she said, and meant it, and then wondered how it sounded. But it sounded good to him too. They would have talked all night, and played liar's dice, listened to music, and sailed all day. It was a lovely fantasy for both of them, but there were parts of it neither of them had come to terms with.
“I wish you were here too,” he said, sounding husky.
“Did you sleep all right last night?” Knowing of his trouble with that now, it was a question she always asked him, and it touched him.
“More or less.”
“Bad dreams again?” His survivor guilt haunted him, and his visions of Serena.
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Try warm milk.”
“I'd rather try sleeping pills, if I had some.” It was beginning to upset him. His nights had become one long restless battle, particularly lately.
“Don't do that. Try a warm bath, or go up on the bridge and sail for a while.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he teased her, happier than he wanted to be to hear her. “Are you freezing, India?” His voice sounded sexy and gentle.
“Yes,” she laughed, “but it's worth it.” There was something very odd about doing something so clandestine, and she hated to be so sneaky. But it was great to hear him, and she reminded herself as she listened to him, that their conversations were harmless. “It's snowing. I can't even think about the fact that Christmas is in four weeks. I haven't done anything about it.” And as soon as she said it, she was sorry. She knew Christmas would be an agony for him this year. He wasn't going to Saint Moritz, as he had every year with Serena.
“I'll bet Sam loves it,” he said calmly. “Does he still believe in Santa Claus?”
“More or less. I think he kind of doesn't, but he's afraid to take a chance, so he pretends he does, just to be on the safe side.” They both laughed, and then the operator came on the line and asked for more of her quarters. “I've got to go, I'm out of money,” she said regretfully.
“Call me whenever you want to. And I'll call you on Monday,” he confirmed. “And, India?” He seemed about to say something important, and she felt her heart skip a beat. There were times when she thought they were dancing close to the line now, and she didn't know what to do once they got there, or worse yet, crossed it.
“Yes?” she said bravely.
“Keep your chin up.” She smiled at what he'd said to her, both relieved and disappointed. They were still in safe territory, but she wondered if they would stay there forever. Sometimes it was more than a little confusing sorting out her feelings. She was married to a man who didn't seem to care about her, and calling a man thousands of miles away from a phone booth, and worried about how he was sleeping. In a weird, inexplicable way, it was like being married to two men, and having a real relationship with neither.
“I'll talk to you soon,” she said, as plumes of frosty steam curled into the frigid air in the phone booth.
“Thanks for calling,” he said warmly.
They both hung up and stood rooted to the spot for a long moment, she thinking of what she was doing now, going to these lengths to speak to him, and he encouraging her to do it. And as they both walked away from their phones, they were equally confused, and equally happy to have spoken to each other.
When she got back to Westport, everyone was waiting for her to start dinner, and they were arguing over what movie to go to. Doug was working on some papers he'd brought home, and didn't say a word to her, or ask her where she'd gone to. And looking at him, as he sat down to dinner next to her, she felt a shiver of guilt run through her. How would she have liked it, she asked herself, if Doug was calling women from pay phones? But it wasn't like that, she reassured herself. Paul was a friend, a confidant, a mentor. And the real issue, she realized, was not what Paul was providing in her life, but what Doug wasn't.
In the end, after grousing about it, Doug decided to come to the movies with them, and they went to one of those huge complexes, which showed nine different movies, and he and the boys went to something suitably violent, while she and the girls saw the latest Julia Roberts movie. And when they got home, everyone was happy and in good spirits.
All in all, despite the strain between her and Doug, it was a passably good weekend, as good as it ever was now. In order to survive the loneliness of her life, India found she had to apply different standards. As long as they didn't have any major fights, and he didn't threaten to leave her, it qualified as a decent weekend. Hardly a standard of perfection. And, as promised, Paul called her on Monday.
She told him about the movie she'd seen, Raoul's call that morning to tell her the magazines were ecstatic about her photographs, and she asked him how his dreams were. He said he had slept well the night before, and then told her Serena's new book would be out soon, the one with India's photograph of her on the back cover. And it made him sad to think about it. It was as though she were still there, when in fact she wasn't. And India nodded as she listened.
And after a while, she and Paul hung up,' after covering a variety of subjects. She picked up the kids that afternoon, and did some Christmas shopping. And for the next two weeks, Paul called every few days, to hear her news, and tell her where he was, and what he was thinking. He was beginning to dread Christmas, and he was talking more about Serena.
India's whole focus was on him when they talked, and on the children when she was with them. And she dealt with Doug as best she could, though he hadn't warmed up to her again since before Thanksgiving, and there might as well have been a glass wall between them in their bedroom. They saw each other, but never touched, or even approached each other. They had become nothing more than roommates.
India was still hoping to make the marriage work, but she had no idea how to do it. She was willing to make whatever concessions she had to, within reason. “Reason” for her now no longer included turning down all possible assignments. But maybe, with luck, they'd get through a peaceful Christmas. She hoped so, for the children.
She mentioned it to Gail once or twice, and looked as depressed about it as she felt. But other than an affair to boost India's spirits and spice things up, Gail couldn't think of anything to suggest to help them. And India still hadn't told her about her conversations with Paul. She had kept that as her darkest secret. Only she and Paul knew about it. It made them conspirators and allies.
She had just talked to him, in fact, on the day that Doug stormed into the house from a late train and asked her to come upstairs to their bedroom. She had no idea what had happened to make him so furious, as he set his briefcase on the bed, snapped it open viciously, and threw a magazine at her feet with a single brutal gesture.
“You lied to me!” he raged, as she stared at him un-comprehendingly. All she could think of were her calls to Paul, and she hadn't in fact lied. She just hadn't told him. But it was not her calls to Paul that had upset him. He knew nothing about him. “You told me you were going to London to cover a wedding” He pointed to the magazine lying at her feet, and she saw that he was shaking with rage over what he'd seen there.
“I did cover a wedding,” she said, looking surprised, and a little frightened. She had never seen him as furious in all the years she'd known him. “I showed you the pictures.” The story had come out the week before, and the photographs had been terrific. The children had loved them, but Doug had refused to even look at them.
“Then what's this?” he asked, picking the magazine up off the floor and waving it in her face, as she realized what had happened. The second story must have broken. She took the magazine from him, and looked at it, and nodded slowly.
“I did another story while I was there,” she said quietly, but her hands were shaking. They had broken the story earlier than she expected. She had been meaning to say something to him, but the right moment had never come, and now he was livid. It was obvious that he had gone right over the edge because of it, and not only because she did a story without telling him, but he was outraged by the subject.
“It's total smut. The worst garbage I've ever seen. How could you even take pictures like that and put your name on them? It's sheer pornography, absolute filth, and you know it! It's disgusting!”
“It is disgusting. It was terrible …but there was nothing pornographic about the pictures. It's a story about abused children. I wanted people to feel exactly what you do, about what happened to them. I wanted people to feel sick and outraged. That's the whole point of what I was doing.” He had in fact proven that she'd done a good job with it, but he was not outraged at the perpetrators, he was incensed at her for covering the story. His point of view was more than a little twisted.
“I think you're twisted to have had any part of it, India. Think of your own children, how will they feel when they know you covered this? They're going to be as ashamed of you as I am.” She had never realized how narrow he was, how limited, and how archaic. It was depressing to hear him say it.
“I hope not,” she said quietly. “I hope they understand, if you don't, that I wanted to help, to stop a terrible crime from happening again. That's what my work is about, not just taking pretty pictures at weddings. In fact, this is a lot more up my alley than covering a wedding.”
“I think you're a very sick person,” he said coldly.
“I think our marriage is much sicker than I am, Doug. I don't understand your reaction.”
“You deceived me. I would never have let you go over there to do this, which is undoubtedly why you didn't tell me. India, you were deceitful.”
“For chrissake, Doug. Grow up. There's a real world out there full of dangers and tragedies and terrible people. If no one exposes them, what's going to stop those people from hurting me, or you, or our children? Don't you understand that?”
“All I understand is that you lied to me in order to take photographs of a lot of filth and teenage prostitutes and revolting old men. If that's what you want in your life, India, fine, go for it. But I want no part of it, or of you, if this is the world you want to live in.”
“I've been getting that message loud and clear from you,” she said, looking at him with disbelief. There was no pride, no praise, no recognition of what she might have accomplished with her story. She hadn't even seen it, but she knew that if it had elicited this reaction from him, it must have been as powerful as she had intended. “I thought you'd get over it, maybe even ‘forgive’ me for wanting to have a little more in my life than just picking Sam up at soccer, but I'm beginning to think it is going to go on forever like this, with you punishing me for what you perceive as my many offenses.”
“You're not the woman I married, India,” he accused, as she looked at him with sorrow.
“Yes, I am, Doug. That's exactly who I am. I haven't been that person in a long time. I've only been the person you wanted me to become. And I tried. God knows I tried. But I think I could be both people, the one you want, and the one I've always been, the one I was before I was your wife. But you won't let me. All you want to do is kill that person. All you want is what you can make me.
“I want what you owe me,” he said. And for the first time in seventeen years, after what he'd just said to her, she felt she owed him nothing.
“I don't owe you anything, Doug, any more than you owe me. All we owe each other is to be good to our children, and make each other happy. Neither of us owes the other a life of misery, or of forcing each other into being something we can't be, or worse yet, depriving each other of something that makes us feel better, as human beings. What kind of a ‘deal’ is that? Not a very good one.” She said it with a look of grief, and everything about the way she stood there and looked at him said she felt defeated.
“I'm getting out of here,” he said, looking at her furiously. He was enraged by everything she had said to him, as well as the article she'd done in London. She had been making him miserable for the last six months, and he was sick and tired of it. As far as he was concerned, she had broken every contract she had ever made with him when they married. “I've had it up to here with your bullshit,” he said, as he pulled a suitcase out of the top of his closet, threw it on the bed, and started throwing things in it. He wasn't even looking at what he was packing, he was just throwing in handfuls of ties, loose socks, and whatever underwear he found in his drawers without caring what it looked like.
“Are you divorcing me?” she asked miserably. It was a hell of a time of year to do it. But there never was a good one.
“I don't know yet,” he said, as he snapped his suitcase shut. “I'm going to stay in a hotel in the city. At least I won't have to do that goddamn commute every day, and then come home to listen to you bitch about your career and how unfair I'm being to you. Why did you even bother to get married?”
With a handful of words he had cast aside the years she had devoted tirelessly to him and their children. With a single gesture he was willing to throw away seventeen years of their marriage. But she had no idea what to do now to stop him, or change things. She just couldn't give up everything to please him. In the end, it would do just as much harm as what he was doing now. And she didn't entirely disagree with him. The last six months had been a nightmare.
He stomped down the stairs and out the front door without saying a word to her, or the children watching TV in the living room. And he slammed the door as hard as he could behind him. India looked out the window and saw him drive away, and she could see it had started snowing. Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she picked up the magazine he had left on the floor. She sat down heavily in a chair, and looked at it, and realized as she did, that it was the best thing she'd ever done, and made the Harlem child abuse story look like a fairy tale in comparison. This one was brutal. And everything those children had been through showed in their eyes and on their faces. And as she went from page to page, all India could think was that she was glad she'd done it. No matter what Doug thought.
It was a long, lonely night for her, thinking of Doug, and wondering where he was. He had never called to tell her what hotel he had decided to stay in. She lay awake, and thought about him all night, and everything that had happened since June. It was beginning to look like a mountain the size of Everest that stood between them, and she had no idea how to scale it.
At three o'clock, she rolled over and looked at the clock again, and realized that it was already nine in the morning in Venice. And with a rock still sitting on her heart, she dialed and asked for Paul, and was relieved when she heard him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding worried. “You sound awful. Are you sick, India?”
“Sort of.” She started to cry as soon as she said it. It was odd calling him about Doug, but she needed a shoulder to cry on. And she could hardly call Gail at three o'clock in the morning in Westport. “Doug walked out on me tonight. On us. He's staying at a hotel in the city.”
“What happened?”
“That story on the kids in London broke. It's beautiful. The best thing I ever did. He thought it was disgusting, he called it pornography, and said I was sick to cover something like that, and he wants no part of me as a result. He said I lied to him about doing the story. I did,” she sighed, “but if I had told him the truth, he wouldn't have let me do it. And Paul, it's terrific. Even after all this, I'm glad I did it.”
“I'll go to one of the hotels here today to get it.” It was in an international publication and he was sure he could find it. “I want to see it.” And then he addressed her immediate problem. “What are you going to do about your husband?”
“I don't know. Wait. See what he does. I don't know what to tell the kids. If he calms down, it seems stupid to upset them. If he doesn't, they'll have to know sooner or later.” And then she started crying again. “It's only nine days till Christmas…. Why did he have to do this now? It's going to ruin their Christmas.”
“He did it because he's a son of a bitch,” Paul said in a voice India had never heard him use before, “and he's been hurting you ever since the day I met you. I don't know what it was like before, India. But I'd be willing to bet that the only reason it worked for so long is because you made all the concessions.” She had only recently begun to see that. “He's been a total shit to you ever since last summer, from what you said. And just what I've heard in the last few months should be enough to make you walk out on him, never mind what he wants.” He was absolutely furious at what she'd told him. “You did something very important with that story and you know it. You're an incredible human being, a great mother, and I'm sure you've been a good wife to him. He has no right to be such a bastard to you. You're a decent, talented, nice person, and he doesn't deserve you.”
India felt as though she'd watched an express train roar by as she listened. Paul was livid. “I'm tired of listening to you tell me stories about how he hurts you. He has no right to do that. Maybe he did the right thing today. Maybe in the long run, it will be a blessing for you and the children.” But she wasn't sure yet. She was still feeling the shock and the loss and the shame of what Doug had told her. She would never forget the look on his face as he stormed out of their bedroom.
“India,” Paul went on then, “I want you to hear me. You're going to be okay. You're going to be just fine. You have your kids, and your work. And he'll have to support you. You're not going to be abandoned. This is not like when your father died. This is very different.” He knew from her that her father hadn't left them a dime when he died, he had nothing, and her mother had had to take extra jobs to make ends meet. She never complained, but they had been frightened for a long time about literally starving.
“You're not going to starve. Your kids are going to be okay, and so are you, and you have each other.” But if Doug left, she would no longer have a husband. And for nearly twenty years now, her identity had been entirely tied up with him. She felt as though a part of her had just been torn away, and she was left with a gaping wound now, no matter how unhappy he had made her. This wasn't going to be easy either. It might even have been easier to give up her career, and shrivel up and die inside, doing what he told her, she told herself. But even she knew she didn't believe that. She was just scared now. But Paul was helping. Even his anger at Doug put things into sharper focus for her.
It also made her wonder for a moment if Paul was going to be there for her. But he had said nothing about that. They talked to each other almost every day, about everything that crossed their minds, and shared their most hidden secrets, but nothing had ever been said between them about the future. And this hardly seemed the time to ask him.
“Do you know where he is?” Paul asked, as she blew her nose.
“I have no idea. He never called to tell me.”
“He will eventually. Maybe this is for the best. I think you should call a lawyer.” But she didn't feel ready to do that. There was still a chance that Doug would calm down and come back, and they could still limp hand in hand into the future. “Can you get some sleep?” he asked sympathetically. He wished he were there to comfort her. She sounded like a frightened child as he listened to her.
“I don't think so.” It was already four o'clock in the morning.
“Try, before the kids get up. I'll call you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Paul,” she said, as tears filled her eyes again. She was still feeling overwhelmed by everything that had happened, but he understood that.
“Everything's going to be all right,” he told her, sounding confident. He had the confidence for her that he no longer had for his own life.
After they hung up, she lay in bed for a while, thinking about him, and about Doug, and everything that had happened in the past six months. And all she could think of in the dark of night was that she was going to be alone now.
And on the boat, Paul was staring unhappily out to sea, thinking of her and the constant abuse she was taking from Doug. He was sick of it on her behalf, wished he could say as much to Doug, and tell him never to come near her again. But he knew he had no right to do that.
He took the tender out after a while, and went to the Cipriani, and found the magazine her photos were in. He stood and looked at them in the lobby. They were sensational, and if Doug objected to them, as far as Paul was concerned, he was crazy. Paul couldn't have been more proud of her, and he called her at nine o'clock, her time, to tell her.
“You really like them?” she asked, sounding incredulous and pleased. Doug still hadn't called, and she was standing barefoot in her nightgown in the kitchen, making coffee. The kids were still sleeping.
“I've never seen anything so moving or so impressive. You made me cry when I read it.”
“Me too,” she admitted. But all Doug had seen was the sleaziness of the prostitution ring and somehow associated India with it.
“Did you get any sleep?” he asked, still sounding worried.
“Not much. About an hour. I fell asleep around seven.”
“Try and take a nap today. And give yourself a big pat on the back from me, for this story.”
“Thank you,” she said. They talked for a few more minutes, and then hung up. Raoul called her a little later, and said essentially the same thing Paul had about the story.
“If you don't win a Pulitzer for this, India, I'll invent a new prize for you myself. This is the most powerful thing I've ever seen in pictures.”
“Thank you.”
“What did your husband say?” he asked, sure that this would finally convince him to let her do the work she was so good at, and that meant so much to her.
“He left me.”
There was a long pause as Raoul listened. “You're kidding, right?”
“No, I'm not. He walked out last night. I told you, he means business.”
“He's crazy. He should be carrying you around on his shoulders.”
“Not exactly.”
“I'm sorry, India.” He sounded as though he meant it. He had always liked her, and never had understood her husband's position about her working.
“Me too,” she said sadly.
“Maybe he'll come back after he calms down.”
“I hope so,” she said, but she no longer knew what she did hope. And Paul was slowly becoming part of an ever more tangled picture. She no longer knew if she wanted to fix it with Doug, or dare to believe that somehow, somewhere, she and Paul would manage to crawl through their respective griefs and manage to find each other. The hope of that, slim as it was, was becoming increasingly appealing. But he had never made any indication to her that that was even a remote possibility, and most of the time, she was fairly sure it wasn't. She couldn't leave a seventeen-year marriage for a vague fantasy she had about a man who swore he would never again have a woman in his life, and was determined to spend the rest of his life hiding on a sailboat. Whatever it was she had with Paul meant a great deal to her, but it was only a slim reed to hang on to. And in truth, it was more friendship than romance.
After she talked to Raoul, she and the children managed to get through the day, and she told them that Doug had had to go out of town on business to see clients. She never heard from him all weekend or from Paul again, and on Monday morning, she called Doug at the office.
“How are you?” she asked bleakly.
“I still feel the same way, if that's what you're asking,” he said tersely. “Nothing's going to change, India, unless you do.” And they were both beginning to realize that was unlikely.
“Where does that leave us?”
“In pretty deep water, if you ask me,” Doug said unsympathetically.
“That's a pretty tough thing to do to the kids over Christmas. Don't you think we could at least put this aside until after the holidays, and then try to resolve it?” It was a reasonable solution, if not to the problem, then at least to not ruining Christmas for the children.
“I'll think about it,” he answered, and then told her he had to meet with clients. He had told her the hotel where he was staying, and she didn't hear from him for the next two days. And on Wednesday he called her, and agreed to come back, at least through Christmas. “For the kids' sake.” But he made no apology to her, and held out no olive branch, and she guessed correctly that his return to the house would be extremely stressful.
She talked to Paul every day that week. He called her most of the time, but she called him occasionally for moral support, and on Friday night, a week after he had left, Doug returned to Westport. It was only four days before Christmas, and the kids were beginning to wonder why he had been gone since the previous weekend. The excuse that he had to see clients had been wearing thin, and they all seemed pleased to see him.
But Doug's return complicated things for India. It made it impossible for Paul to call her again, but she went to a phone booth every day over the weekend. On Monday, it was Christmas Eve, and on her way home from the grocery store, she called Paul collect from a pay phone. He sounded as depressed as she was. He was keening for Serena. And she was miserable with Doug. He had devoted himself to making the holidays as difficult as he could for her, and she just hoped they made it through Christmas, for the children.
“We're a mess, aren't we?” Paul smiled wistfully as he talked to her. Even being on the boat no longer cheered him. He just kept sifting through his memories, and had even gone through some of the things she had left in their cabin. “I still can't believe she's gone,” he said to India, sounding bereft. And she still couldn't believe she was about to lose her marriage. It was hard to understand how lives got so screwed up, how people made such a mess of things. Paul, of course, didn't have to blame himself, or feel it was his fault. But India still wondered in her own case. Doug was so willing to blame her for everything, that at times she actually believed him.
“Are you going to do anything nice over the holidays?” she asked, wishing she could think of something to cheer him. But staying on the boat, as he did, she hadn't even been able to send him a present. She had written him a silly poem, and faxed it to the boat that morning from the post office, and he'd said he loved it. But that didn't solve their larger problems. “Are you going to church?” Venice certainly seemed a good place to do that.
“God and I are having a little problem these days, I don't believe in Him, and He doesn't believe in me. For the moment, it's a standoff.”
“It might just be pretty and make you feel good,” she suggested, stamping her feet in the freezing cold in the outdoor phone booth.
“It's more likely to make me angry, and feel worse,” he said, sounding stubborn. In his opinion, if there was a God, he wouldn't have lost Serena, and India didn't want to argue with him about religion. “What about you? Do you go to church on Christmas Eve?”
“We do. We go to midnight mass and take the children.”
“Doug should be doing some serious soul searching for the way he's been treating you in the last six months.” Not to mention before that. And then, out of the blue, “I miss her so much, India, I can't stand it. Sometimes I think that the sheer pain of it is going to blow me to bits, I feel like it's going to rip my chest out.”
“Just keep thinking of what she would have said to you. Don't forget that. Listen to her …she wouldn't want you to feel like this forever.” And he wouldn't, but right now was the worst. She had been gone for less than four months, and it was Christmas. India felt helpless in the face of his agony, and at this distance. If they were together, at least she might have been able to put her arms around him, and hug him. That might have been something. But Paul couldn't even find solace in India's words now.
“Serena always had more guts than I did.”
“No, she didn't. You were pretty evenly matched in that way, I suspect,” India said firmly. “You can take it, if you have to. You have no choice now. You just have to get through it. There's a light at the end of that tunnel somewhere,” she said, trying to make him hold on for as long as he had to. She would have liked to tell him that she would be there for him, but who knew what was going to happen to them. Nothing was sure now.
“What about you? What light do you see at the end of your tunnel?” He sounded more depressed than she had ever heard him.
“I don't know yet. I'm not that far. I just hope there is one.”
“There will be. You'll find what you want at some point.” Would she? She was beginning to wonder, and he did not seem to want to volunteer to be there for her either. At this point, he still felt he couldn't. He was still looking back, at Serena. And then he startled India completely with what he did say. “I wish I could tell you I'd be there for you, India. I wish I could be. But I know I won't be. I'm not going to be the light at the end of the tunnel for you. I can't even be there for myself anymore, let alone for someone else.” Let alone a woman fourteen years younger than he, with a whole life ahead of her, and four young children to take care of. He had thought of it more than once, and no matter how fond he was of her, or how much they needed each other now, he knew that in the long run he had nothing to give her. He had already come to that conclusion. Only that morning, in fact, as he stood looking out at Saint Mark's Square, from the Sea Star. “I have nothing left to give anyone,” he went on. “I gave it all to Serena.”
“I understand,” India said quietly. “It's all right. I don't expect anything from you, Paul. All we can do is be here for each other as friends right now. Hopefully, later on, we'll both be in a better place to make it on our own.” But right then, they were both acutely aware that they needed each other's hand to get over the rough places they were facing. But he had certainly made himself clear to her. He would not be at the end of the tunnel for her. He didn't want to be there. It was a taste of reality for her, and left her few illusions. It was not what she had been hoping for, whether she had faced it or not, but it was honest. Paul was always honest with her.
They talked for a little while longer, and finally she knew she had to go home. She was frozen to the bone by then anyway, and it had not been a happy conversation. And with tears in her eyes, she wished him a Merry Christmas.
“You too, India …” he said sadly. “I hope next year is better for both of us. We both deserve it.”
And then, for no sane reason she could fathom given what he'd said to her, she wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she didn't. That would have been crazy. But it was something they both needed, and had too little of, except from each other. The words remained unsaid, but the gifts they had given each other, of time and caring and tenderness, spoke for themselves, whether or not they heard them, or chose to.
She went back home after her call, with a heavy heart. He had told her what she had been wondering for months, and didn't want to hear, but at least she couldn't fool herself now about what might happen someday, or what she meant to him. It was precisely what she had told herself it was, nothing more than an extraordinary friendship. She could not use him as a safety net into which to leap from her burning marriage. And in her heart of hearts, she knew he was right not to be that.
She and Doug went to midnight mass, as they always did, and took all four children with them. And when they got home, she put the last presents under the tree, while Sam put out cookies for Santa, and carrots and salt for the reindeer. The others were good sports about leaving him his illusions.
And in the morning, there were squeals of delight as they opened their gifts. She had chosen them carefully and spent a lot of time on it, and even Doug was pleased with what she gave him. She gave him a new blazer, which he needed desperately, and a handsome new leather briefcase. The gifts were without fantasy, but they suited him to perfection, and genuinely pleased him. And he had given her a plain gold bracelet, which she also liked. What she didn't like was the continuing atmosphere of hostility between them.
The cease-fire between them was brief, and by that night, she could sense the tension increasing, when they retreated to their bedroom. And she was afraid that he was going to leave again now that Christmas was behind them. But when she brought the subject up, somewhat anxiously, he said he had decided to stay until after New Year's. He was taking the week off between the holidays, which she thought might help, but in fact it made things worse and they seemed to be fighting daily.
She went out to call Paul whenever she could, but she missed him a couple of times when he was off the boat, and she had told him he couldn't call her until after New Year's.
And it was just after New Year's in fact when Doug walked into the kitchen carrying an envelope, with his face as white as the paper he held, and his dark eyes blazing. He had just picked their mail up, and he stood in front of her, while she was folding towels, and waved the envelope in her face. It looked like their phone bill.
“Just exactly what is this?” he said, almost too enraged to speak as he threw it at her.
“It looks like our phone bill.” She wondered if it was too high, and then suddenly she remembered with a sense of panic. She had called Paul several times from home during the week Doug had left her.
“You're damn right it is,” he said, pacing around the room like a lion. “Is that what all this was about? Is that it? It had nothing to do with your ‘career,’ did it, all this crap for all these months? How long have you been sleeping with him, India? Ever since the summer?”
She picked the bill up and looked at it. There were five calls to the Sea Star.
“I'm not sleeping with him, Doug. We're friends,” she said quietly, but her heart was pounding. How could she ever explain it to him? It was obvious what it looked like, and she wasn't sure she blamed him. But it truly was nothing more than a friendship. Even Paul had confirmed it. “I was upset. You had walked out on me. He's called a couple of times to talk about his wife. He knows I liked her. He's desperately unhappy. That's all it is. Two unhappy people crying on each other's shoulders.” It was embarrassing to admit, but in truth there wasn't a lot more to tell him.
“I don't believe you,” Doug said with utter fury. “I think you've been sleeping with him since last summer.”
“That's not true, and you know it. If I were, I wouldn't be as upset about us, or trying so hard to get through to you.”
“Bullshit. All you've done is fight for your ‘career,’ so you could dump me and the kids and get out of here. Did you meet him in London?”
“Of course not,” she said calmly, although she didn't feel it. She felt sad and afraid and somewhat guilty. It was as though the last shred of what was left between them had just gone up in smoke. There was nothing left to fight for. It was hopeless.
“Did he call you?”
“Yes, he did,” she said honestly.
“What do you do? Have sex on the phone with him? Some kind of kinky disgusting kicks that turn you both on?” The image he painted for her made her shudder.
“No, he cries about his wife. And I cry about you. It's not exactly sexy.”
“You're both sick, and you deserve each other.” She wished she did, but unfortunately, that was not the case either. “I'm not going to put up with this, India. I've had it. You're of no use to me, and you'll be of no use to him either. You're a lousy wife, and a lousy lover,” he threw in for good measure, though she wasn't even sure why he did it, except maybe to hurt her. “All you're interested in is your career, that's all you care about now. Well, India, you've got it.” And as though to punctuate his words and the plummeting of her heart, the phone rang. She picked it up, praying it wasn't Paul, to make matters still worse, but it wasn't. It was Raoul, and he sounded excited. She told him she couldn't talk just now, but he insisted she had to, and she saw that Doug was watching, and she was afraid he would think it was Paul, so she let him tell her what he wanted.
He had an assignment for her, right here in the States. In Montana. It was about a religious cult that had cropped up and seemingly gone berserk. They were laying siege, holding hostages, and the FBI was camped around them. There were over a hundred people involved, at least half of them children.
“This is going to be a biggie, India,” Raoul promised, as she listened.
“I can't do it now.”
“You have to. The magazine wants you. I wouldn't call you if it wasn't important. Do you want it or not?”
“Can I call you back? I'm talking to my husband.”
“Oh shit. Is he back? All right, call me back in the next two hours. I have to give them an answer.”
“Tell them I can't, and I'm sorry.” She was definite this time. She didn't want to add any fuel to the fire Doug had just set, using their marriage as kindling.
“Call me back,” Raoul insisted.
“I'll try,” was all she'd promise.
“Who was that?” Doug asked, looking suspicious.
“Raoul Lopez.”
“What did he want?”
“He has an assignment, in Montana. I told him I can't take it. You heard me.”
“What difference does it make now, India? It's over.” He said it with such venom that this time she knew he meant it. “I've had it. I'm finished. You're not the woman I married, or the one I want. I don't want to be married to you anymore. It's as simple as that. You can tell Raoul, or Paul Ward, or anyone you want to. I'm calling my lawyer on Monday.”
“You can't do that,” she said, with tears in her eyes, begging for mercy.
“Yes, I can, and I'm going to. Go do your story.”
“Right now that's not important.”
“Yes, it is. You were willing to f*ck up our marriage for that, India, now go get it. It's what you wanted.”
“It shouldn't have been a choice. I could have done both.”
“Not married to me, you couldn't.”
But suddenly, being married to him wasn't an option she wanted. Just looking at him, staring at her angrily, she knew he didn't love her. And as painful as it was to realize, she knew it was something she had to face now. And as she saw it in his eyes, all the fight went out of her, and she turned and left him standing alone with their laundry.
She grabbed her coat and went outside, and took a deep breath of the cold air, feeling it sear her lungs. She felt as though her heart were breaking, and yet at the same time she knew that, as terrifying as it was to her, she had to be free now. She couldn't live with his threats anymore, or her terror that he would abandon her, she couldn't live with the mantle of guilt he tried to make her wear, or the constant accusations. She just couldn't do it. She had to let him take it all from her, and leave her to stand alone naked. She had nothing but her children now, her camera, her life, her freedom. And the marriage she had cherished for so long, clung to and hung on to, and tried to fight for, was dead and gone. It was as dead as Serena. And as she had told Paul about his own life, all she had to do now was hang on, be strong, and live through it.