After the Fire

by Belva Plain

  “I don't know the first thing about real estate,” she replied.

  “I'll take my chances on that. You've never seen this part of the state before. It'll be interesting. No beaches and no tourists.”

  It did not need a detective to see that something more personal than real estate was on Arnie's mind. There was no mistaking what it was. Francine's expressive eyebrows had risen in pleased surprise, and there was no mistaking that, either.

  “I want to come, too,” cried Emma.

  “Not today, dear. Some other day,” Arnie said.

  His gentle tone, along with the child's ready acceptance of his direction, affected Hyacinth. He really was fatherly, no doubt of it. It was a pity that he had never had children.

  “Let me run upstairs to get a hat and my sunglasses, Arnie, and I'll be with you,” she said.

  To anyone accustomed to packed commercial highways or to royal palms on a pastel oceanfront, the landscape was unrecognizable. Flat as a tabletop lay the fields on which the sugarcane grew; there was not a tree in sight and in the hot air, no breeze stirred. Irrigation canals at intervals cut through the fields, and at longer intervals, wherever roads met, a shabby, unpainted hamlet would cluster around a filling station and a soft-drink stand.

  Arnie was being instructive. “These fields go on for miles. This is one of the largest cane areas in the country. I'll bet you didn't know that.”

  These remarks were so unlike him, who rarely spoke in general terms, that Hyacinth wondered how long it would take for him to get to the reason for this rather aimless expedition. It did not take very much longer because, at sight of a soft-drink stand, he stopped the car.

  “I could use a Coke. How about you?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  The owner of the stand, having accepted his pay, went into his house and slammed the door, leaving them to stand beneath his single sparse tree drinking the Cokes in a total silence. Hyacinth's tingling nerves caused her to break it by saying something, anything. “You surely aren't looking at any properties out here, are you, Arnie?”

  “No. I only wanted to get away with you where there was nobody and nothing.”

  He was looking not at her but away down the vacant black tar road. Free then to look intently at him, she did so. What she saw was the same familiar figure, dapper and confident. Yet at this moment, there was something else; perhaps it was his stance, or the pose of his head, that brought to her mind with a shock that evening at the hotel where the bed, turned down for the night, was on view beyond the door.

  Suddenly he turned and spoke. “I've been waiting for you, for the time when you'd be ready. I hoped—I was pretty sure I wouldn't have to wait too much longer. So how about it, Hy? We aren't gonna live forever.” And with a strangely old-fashioned gesture, taking hold of both her hands, he made his appeal. “Marry me, Hy. I've wanted you almost from the time I first saw you.”

  She was helpless, held by his hands and by his eyes, which were glistening with emotion.

  “You'll be safe and loved. I'll give my part of the practice to Gerald in return for that paper you signed. He'll take it. It's worth a fortune.”

  “You'd actually give it to him, Arnie? That doesn't make any sense.”

  “Why not? I'm very well fixed. Plenty of great real estate and plenty of ready cash, too. I can retire, take you and the kids anyplace in the world. You just name the place.”

  “I didn't—didn't expect—” she began.

  “Yes, you did, Hy. Don't play with me. You knew I'd be asking you soon. Listen to me: Could it be any nicer? These few days—why, we've been like a family, you, and the kids, and even your mother. Ask her what she thinks of me, especially now that you've told her the whole story. She'll be the first to say, ‘Go to it, take the guy.’ I know she will. ‘He's smart, he's not bad-looking,’ she'll tell you; ‘he's good to your kids, and he's crazy about you. What more do you want?’ ”

  His questions pounded her. His hands still gripped her, and he kept on pounding.

  “I'm no womanizer like Gerald. You know that. You'll be able to count on me. You'll have a steady life instead of running around trying to make yourself fall in love with some man who'll only bring you the same problem you had with that fellow Will.”

  Releasing her hands, he put his arms around her, and as if he sensed that she was not ready for anything more, he kissed her forehead and her cheeks with great tenderness.

  “I'd really like to set us up in France. You love France, and you'd be out of harm's way over there with the children if anything should turn up.”

  “Turn up? Oh, God. Is this to go on forever?”

  “You can never be sure, Hy. We've talked about that often enough, haven't we?”

  The chronic fear was weakening her legs so that she needed to sit down. “I want to get back into the car,” she said. “I don't feel well.”

  Alarmed at once, Arnie opened the car door and helped her in. “We'll head right back. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Are you all right? Are you sure?”

  “It's a headache, a thunderclap—so much all at once, this whole lovely week, and now these thoughts starting up again.”

  “Lay your head back,” Arnie commanded. “We won't talk. You'll be all right. I'll take the short way this time.”

  She gave him a faint smile. “So there is a shorter way?”

  He smiled in return. “Of course. I was making the trip last as long as I could.”

  Her nerves, unstrung, were quivering. Peeking through eyelids almost closed, she observed him, a robust and muscular man appearing much younger than his years; his face, in the coppery afternoon glow, was Indian tan against the silvery crest of his hair. If she were to move any closer to him, she would smell his pine lotion. He was supremely fastidious.

  In one week, he could find a dozen desirable women who would want him. And he wanted her. He would be good to her….

  To go away somewhere and have her children all to herself again! Wouldn't any woman in her position—if there ever was any other woman in this crazy position— accept him in a minute? Francine the practical, the almost-always-right, would approve on the principle that in this world you cannot have everything….

  “We're here,” he said as the car stopped at the hotel. And he went around to her side to open the door.

  Palms soared above her head. The breeze was fragrant, and from somewhere came a tinkle of music, leaving a rich sense of expectation as it passed.

  “You slept,” said Arnie. “A psychologist would say that you were escaping a decision.”

  He was, of course, also supremely intelligent, which had been obvious from the beginning.

  “How long shall I wait for the decision, Hy?”

  She heard herself replying, “Emma and Jerry have to finish this semester.”

  He nodded. “That's only a couple of months away. Understood.”

  This time his kiss was full on her mouth. When he let her go, his eyes were happy.

  Upstairs in the room, she opened a door and stepped out onto the balcony, where a pair of lounge chairs faced the ocean. Again the weakness overcame her, and she fell into one of the chairs. She was ill, but the fact that the illness was obviously psychosomatic was of no help at all. So she lay still and blanked out her mind.

  After a while, when her mind came back to life, she began to reconstruct exactly what had happened during these last few hours. She had actually allowed his embrace! Yet could she, should she, have pushed him away? She had said something about the end of the school term. Had she given him any promise? All was a whirl and tumble in her head: her children, the fear, the threat, the responsibility of her job, Arnie's promises, and again, the children.

  She stood up and gazed out over the railing. High up here the wind rushed through silence. From this height, the ocean lay as if no wind disturbed its flat calm, but if you were down there below, you would see the great green swells and hear them crash as they broke onto the land. For a long time she st
ood there, her hands gripping the railing, just gazing and sensing the vastness of the sea.

  Once on a night not very long ago, two people had lain in a hammock watching the dark waves until the moon came up and turned everything white. They say you forget—but when? When you're ninety, maybe, and past wanting anything? I hurt him, she thought. I've hurt Will. It would have been better for both of us if we had never lain in that hammock, or if we had never met.

  It would have been better, too, if I had not let Arnie leave today with the wrong impression. He has given so much of himself to me; it's true that I never asked for that gift, but neither did I refuse it, and I'm sorry. Still, I can't pretend love, even to purchase peace, even if a part of me is tempted. No, I can never do that. And I will not.

  Dear God, isn't there any way to straighten out this life of mine?

  “Handsome children,” remarked the man on the neighboring bench.

  An elderly man with a pleasant manner, he had been watching Francine as she took a picture of Jerry and Emma, and he was watching them now as they walked away toward the stables.

  “I think so, but of course I would think so. I'm their grandmother.”

  “I come out here a couple of times a week, and I often see them. They both do well on horseback. Very well, I should say.”

  “They're excited about the show on the fairgrounds next month. That's why they wanted to try out their new outfits today, new velvet caps, new boots, the works. For dressage, they told me, not that I know anything about it.”

  “Dressage is a parade around the ring, and a beautiful sight it is. My wife's going to be in the show, too. In fact, she's here now, rehearsing. But I had to drop out on account of this broken leg.”

  Only now did Francine observe the crutch propped against the bench.

  “Oh, too bad,” she said, murmuring sympathy.

  “Well, it's a lot easier for a man to break a leg than for a horse to do it. They're delicate creatures, horses, although you might not think so when you're standing next to a stallion sixteen hands tall.”

  “I guess not,” said Francine, murmuring again but this time reluctantly, because the man seemed to be prepared for a conversation that for all she knew might last another hour until Jerry's and Emma's return.

  So she picked up her book, but not quickly enough, because a question was thrust at her: “Have you heard about Diamond?”

  “Diamond?”

  “The horse. The famous Diamond. Or was famous, but now he's dead, poor fellow. He stumbled over a gopher hole and broke his leg. Had to be put down. They were all shocked here yesterday. The owner boards him here sometimes between shows and races, and everybody was glad that the accident did not happen on these premises.”

  “Oh, you don't mean Arnie—Dr. Ritter's horse?”

  “I'm afraid I do. Arnie—Dr. Ritter—was always a good judge of horseflesh. We used to ride together years ago in Texas. It's amazing! When I saw him here yesterday, he hadn't changed a day's worth since then.”

  “I'm awfully sorry. But he never said a word about it to me.”

  “I guess he was too upset yesterday to talk anymore. Well, I see you want to read your book, and I'll go back to my paper, learn what's going on in the world.”

  The afternoon ticked by as a hand moves around a clock, always too slowly when one is in a hurry and tense with waiting for a crucial decision. She could not stop worrying about Hyacinth's country ride with Arnie. And yet was there really so much to wonder and worry about? For the children's sake, if for no other reason, Hyacinth would surely do the sensible thing.

  After a while, Francine got up and walked to the field, where a small class was practicing. “Handsome children,” that man had said, and indeed they were: Emma with the fat, shining braids and shining eyes under the velvet cap, Jerry already alert and prideful like the man he would become. They're so much older than they were only a few months ago, she thought. It's come about suddenly, as when you look at a plant, noting that yesterday it didn't reach the windowsill, and today it does.

  For obvious reasons, even though she loved all her grandchildren equally, these two held a particular place in her heart. Always she had the sense that they felt abandoned. They clung so much to many small, far-back memories. Jerry still knew the telephone number at their old house. Last summer at her house they both remembered, despite the fact that the strawberry patch was now overrun with wild grass, exactly when and where they had picked strawberries long ago with Jim.

  Yes, it was a good thing that Hyacinth was doing at last.

  She needs peace and protection, Francine thought. I don't know how she has managed to stand up under all her burdens, the guilt over that poor man's awful death, and the loss of Will—for which you can't blame him, you really can't—and of course, most of all, the children.

  But now they can be with their mother. I'm sure Arnie will see to that. I am still not over the shock, if I ever do get over it, of what Gerald did to her. And I finally do see why she kept it from me for so long: It was too hard and too terrible to put into words. She was terrified. But Arnie understands, and he will be good to her. They will all be safe with him.

  In Hyacinth's ears, the airplane engines thrummed and throbbed. Across the aisle a woman with a maddening whine had been talking for the last half-hour, while during that half-hour Francine had not spoken a word. She had already said enough to make herself quite clear. Now she was simply staring out into blue space.

  Then suddenly she turned to Hyacinth. “You're a responsible person, and this is your life. I don't want to nag you, but I'll try once more. I don't enjoy throwing things up to you, but I have to do it. You're making a mistake. You didn't listen to me about Gerald, and now again you're not listening to me. I don't know what more I can say to convince you.”

  “And I don't know what else I can say to make you understand how I feel,” Hyacinth said gently.

  “I'm just so sorry about everything. Sorry for you and the children and, believe it or not, for Arnie. Between you and the horse, I'd say he must have had quite a week.”

  “The horse? What horse?”

  “His prize. Diamond. His racer.”

  “What happened?”

  “It had a broken leg and had to be put down. It's dead. There was a man at the stable yesterday who told me about it. Arnie was really broken up, too.”

  “But he never said a thing to me! How did this man know?”

  “He saw Arnie yesterday. They knew each other anyway, years ago, in Texas. He even said Arnie hadn't changed a bit.”

  “Well, I'm sorry. I'll phone tonight.”

  Francine made a tight mouth. “It's very nice to sympathize with him about the horse, but what about the other business?”

  “That's not something to talk about over the phone. He'll be in New York in a month or two, and then I'll tell him as kindly as I can. I'll always be very, very fond of him, I'll be his friend, but I can't—oh, you know.”

  “Yes, yes, I know.”

  Her mother was disappointed and even disgusted by what to her was a stubborn resistance. It's a sad thing to feel your mother's anger, thought Hyacinth, especially when you have a mother like Francine. When I think of how I misjudged her when I was young! She was so right about so many things…. It's hard to disappoint her again now. Yet it can't be helped.

  They traveled the rest of the way in a silence, broken only by an occasional neutral, necessary remark. In the taxi from the airport, Francine asked to be let out at Grand Central Station. Hyacinth had expected her to stay overnight before going home, but she preferred to leave then, so they kissed quickly and parted.

  Francine was angry.

  The telephone rang just as Hyacinth walked in at her door. When she picked it up, the familiar, enthusiastic voice rang out.

  “It's me, Arnie. Just wanted to make sure you folks landed safely.”

  “Yes, we're fine. It was a lovely week. But Francine told me something sad about your Diamond. Why didn't you tell
us? You never said a word.”

  “Didn't want to spoil the party. What's the use of doing that?”

  “Well, it's an awful pity. That horse was your pride and joy.”

  “I can't say it doesn't hurt. That was some gorgeous animal. Happened in Kentucky. I'm glad I wasn't there to see it. He had a ruptured intestine. Blew up like a balloon, they told me.”

  “Oh! Francine heard it was a broken leg, a bad break.”

  “Who told her that?”

  “Some man out at the stables. Somebody from Texas who's known you for years.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I don't know his name. I don't think Francine knows it, either.”

  “I can't imagine who it could have been, shooting his mouth off about my horse when he doesn't know a damn thing about it. Well, enough of that. What's done is done. I'll tell you what's on my mind. I had a brainstorm last night. You know what? The kids only have a few more weeks in the term. What are we waiting for? We've waited long enough, you and I. How about packing a couple of trunks and going? The kids can make up their work, and besides, they'll love it. Seeing the world—it's more educational than a few weeks in school. I'll send you a stack of travel brochures. In fact, I'll send them by express mail tomorrow. You pick the place, anywhere at all. You pick.”

  Hyacinth's heart sank. This nonsense was exasperating, so late in the evening and after a long flight. But forcing good humor, she replied, “I can't get over how fast you move. Slow down a bit, will you?”

  “Why should we? Nobody lives forever, Hy. So once my mind is made up, I get moving. That's the way I am.”

  The emotional traffic, she thought, is becoming congested. Better glide out of it quickly onto a side street. And sounding a long sigh, she said that she could hardly keep her eyes open.

  “Somehow this flight wore me out, so I can't think straight, Arnie. I feel like going straight to bed.”

  “Well, you go right to bed. I wish I was in it with you. I'd show you a thing or two.”

  All of a sudden, these words distressed her more than she had ever imagined possible. The reality of being in bed every night with Arnie was truly shocking. Had she ever truly considered it for more than an instant?