Second Harmony

by Barbara Bretton

  It was no less than he deserved.

  And no more than she wanted, as well.

  He'd built a good life for himself, Michael had, a life that far exceeded what she'd imagined he would have years ago when the need in her for security overshadowed even love. That big house in the good neighborhood was more than she'd expected. Oh, he was mortgaged to the hilt just as she was, but his sturdily almost-upper-middle-class life-style had come as an enormous surprise.

  But medieval craftsmen weren't in great demand. Once the work on the cathedral was over, where did a master stonecutter go?

  And what happened to a master stonecutter with a son whose needs doubled and tripled with every passing day?

  He had responsibilities of the heart, just as she did, responsibilities that were bred into the blood and into the bone.

  He would no more turn away from his son than she could turn away from her mother.

  He was a man of honor, but sometimes even a man of honor could buckle beneath the pressure.

  Andrew Maxwell had, and unfortunately there was no guarantee that the same thing wouldn't happen with Michael.

  She was sure of only one thing: she had come too far to let him go now. He had always been part of her and always would be, and now his son was laying claim to a part of her heart.

  A future she hadn't dared dream about was suddenly opening up before her, and there seemed to be only one way to secure it.

  A branch crackled somewhere to the left of the blacktop driveway. She knew she should gather up her things and make the fifty-yard dash to her front door, but she was at the edge of something important.

  For the last few days she'd been avoiding the obvious, but now, in the darkness of her car, there was no escaping it.

  This mythical trip of Elinor's finally had to come to an end.

  Sandra had argued and demanded and pleaded with her mother not to keep her illness a secret, but to no avail. Elinor Patterson was a proud woman, and a vain one. Her beauty had been a source of strength for her when strength had been in short supply; her physical grace had been a source of joy.

  When ALS began to strip her of control over her own body, she had made the conscious decision to remove herself from her old friends, her old routines, and disappear.

  The thought of seeming vulnerable, of spearing ugly, was as difficult for Elinor to accept as the inevitable result of the disease itself.

  Sandra had hoped that the reappearance of Michael McKay in her life would open a new door for her mother. She'd had every intention of pushing the issue each time she visited.

  Elinor's self-imposed isolation had seemed both foolish and unfair.

  Sandra laughed in the silent darkness.

  "Who are you trying to kid?" she said out loud. A part of her, a part she hated, wanted to take the easy way. But no, not this time.

  When she drove up to see Elinor tomorrow after work she would tell her about Michael and his phenomenal work at the cathedral; she would tell her about David and his golden curls and his eyes black as night; she would tell her about Annie Gage and Leon and that incredible stone angel and she would try just once more to force her mother out of hiding.

  #

  "You should have called first, lovey," Lucie said, the following evening. "If I'd known you were driving up, I would have saved you the trip."

  Sandra disengaged herself from another of Lucie's hidden-tape-measure hugs and tried to hide her dismay.

  "Mother had a bad day?" she asked, keeping her tone light. "Another Fair Oaks party, I suppose."

  Lucie smiled, but Sandra couldn't help noticing the sadness in her eyes.

  "Elinor has no control over her extremities today, and she's had some difficulty with her speech. She's sleeping now."

  Sandra sank down onto the couch in the hallway. It was an overstuffed colonial in a gay chintz pattern that belonged in front of a roaring fireplace. She'd give anything to be in front of that blaze, to be as far away from this reality as possible.

  "Here." Lucie handed her a cup of ice water from the cooler near Elinor's door. "Drink this. You look terrible."

  Sandra took a gulp of water. "Am I that obvious?"

  "I know you too well, lovey. You can't fool me."

  Sandra patted the woman's hand. "Wonderful," she said, a trace of amusement in her voice. "Now I have two mothers to nag me."

  Lucie picked up her knitting and started to untangle a length of beige yarn. "You can never have too many mothers," she said. "That's an old English saying I learned at my own mother's knee."

  "I thought your family was French," Sandra said, fascinated by the way Lucie's hands quickly picked up the rhythm of the knitting.

  The older woman's dark eyes flashed as she glanced at Sandra over her stitches. "I'm flexible," she said. "I can bend to fit the occasion."

  Sandra patted her hand. "Advice from every nation?"

  Lucie laughed. "The international Ann Landers."

  A young, red-haired nurse bustled by in a cloud of antiseptic and Ivory soap, and Sandra was once again reminded she was in a hospital, not a drawing room.

  "Mother seemed so well the other day," she said. "I was actually beginning to wonder if – "

  Lucie put her knitting back down on the sofa and met Sandra's eyes.

  "No," she said quietly. "As much as we love Elinor, she isn't going to get better. You know that, Sandra. Don't let yourself get caught up in that trap."

  "Sometimes she seems so healthy that I expect her to kick aside the wheelchair and head out to the jogging track." Her laugh caught on the jagged edge of a sob. "It's so damned unfair."

  "That it is, lovey."

  "This isn't – I mean, this isn't a serious setback, is it?"

  "A minor one, but she may not gain back all the ground she's lost," Lucie said.

  "It's so difficult not knowing," Sandra said. "Days, months, years . . . every time the phone rings late at night, my heart stops."

  "She still has time ahead of her. Time enough to see you married and settled with a family of your own."

  Sandra tried to ignore the fact that, thanks to her self-imposed banishment, Elinor would never be part of the family she created.

  "Subtle pressure, Lucie?" she asked, trying to avoid a head-on collision with a problem she couldn't solve.

  "Not too subtle, I hope."

  "Have no fear. You'll never be accused of that."

  Sandra closed her eyes for a moment, blinking back tears. "It's the ups and downs that really get to me. Sometimes I feel like I'm on a roller coaster and someone is about to jam on the brakes."

  "Elinor is a strong lady, Sandra. She can bear what needs to be borne. It's you she worries about."

  Sandra's head jerked up. "Me?"

  "She wants more for you than you want for yourself."

  "Meaning what?"

  Lucie picked up her knitting again. "It's not my place."

  Sandra's laugh was genuine this time. "Since when has that stopped you?"

  Lucie swatted her with a ball of yarn. "Don't be impertinent."

  "Answer my question, Lucie."

  "She has high hopes for you and your young man."

  "What young man?" Sandra asked cautiously.

  Lucie's eyes twinkled. "How many young men are there?" she countered. "I mean Michael."

  "How do you know about Michael?"

  "I have my ways."

  "So my mother's been talking about me." She thought of Larry's words to her the other day on the same subject. "I never knew she was such a gossip."

  "Neither one of us watches much television," Lucie said.

  "So you gossip."

  "We talk," Lucie amended.

  "About me?"

  "Among other topics."

  "Tell me this: do I have any secrets left?"

  "Not too many."

  Once again Lucie put her knitting down. At this rate, Sandra's sweater would be finished sometime early in the next century.

  "If you want to make your
mother happy, you'll marry your Michael."

  Sandra said nothing, but could feel a telltale flush creeping up her throat and flooding her cheeks.

  "Has he asked you?" Lucie persisted.

  There was no use trying to hide it; her idiotic grin was a dead giveaway. "He's asked me."

  "And you've accepted?"

  She thought about her demands for a courtship, for flowers and candlelight.

  For time to balance her new reality with their old dreams.

  "I'm working on it."

  "Don't be a fool, lovey. You're not getting any younger."

  "Lucie!"

  "Well, you're not. Before you know it you'll be a middle-aged spinster with your hair tucked into a bun."

  "That's a rosy picture of my future that you're painting, Lucie."

  "I'm only speaking the truth. If you're smart, you'll grab up that young man before someone else gets her manicured fingers on him."

  The image of Annie Gage popped into her mind, but she pushed it away and reached over to hug Lucie, knitting and all. "I promise you can dance at my wedding. Does that make you feel any better?"

  "Only if I'm not too old to dance by the time you decide to say yes."

  It had been a long, emotionally wearing day, both at work and here at the hospital, and a wave of fatigue rolled in on Sandra that was strong enough to lower her defenses.

  "I haven't told him about Mother yet."

  Lucie's expression was impassive. "She wouldn't want you to."

  "I know," Sandra said slowly, "but it doesn't feel right. Michael knew her and loved her. Maybe this time it would be different – "

  "Elinor's a proud woman," Lucie said. "She wants to build a life away from her past."

  "And I understand that," Sandra said, "but this goes beyond visits from old co-workers and PTA pals."

  "Have you spoken to her about it?" Lucie asked. "Perhaps if you put it to her bluntly, she'd understand."

  "I was going to talk to her today," Sandra said. "I thought maybe if I explained the way I felt, she might – "

  The buzzer in Elinor's room interrupted her. Lucie put her knitting down and went to see what Elinor wanted.

  Sandra could hear Lucie's soothing voice and the low sound of her mother as she tried painstakingly to form her words.

  At least she was able to speak. On her worst days, Elinor couldn't even manage hello.

  Such a small, meaningless victory, but Sandra had learned early on to wring whatever joy she could out of each one as they came along.

  She looked up as Lucie bustled back into the hallway.

  "How is she?"

  "Comme ci, comme ca. Better than before, I'll admit."

  "Can I see her?"

  "She's tired, lovely. I don't think she's up for a mother-daughter gabfest."

  "Five minutes," Sandra said, standing up and smoothing the back of her skirt. "I won't tire her out. I promise."

  Lucie said nothing for a moment; then her expression softened. "Just remember one important thing: Elinor is as sharp now as she was before the disease struck. She can make her own decisions. She doesn't need a caretaker when it comes to matters of the heart and mind."

  The words stung Sandra, and she lifted her chin. "I resent the implication, Lucie. I've never undermined Mother's autonomy and you know it."

  "And I never said you did. I just want you to be prepared for her decision." She put her arm around Sandra and squeezed. "It may not be the one you want."

  How could it be?

  She didn't even know what she wanted herself.

  #

  Ten minutes later, it was over.

  Elinor had come down squarely on the side of maintaining her self-imposed isolation. The panic in her lovely eyes when Sandra had proposed telling Michael the truth had dissipated only when she promised her mother she wouldn't bring up the idea again.

  "You must think me a fool," Elinor had said as Sandra bent down to say goodbye. Her lovely face reddened with the painful effort of forming her words. "The worst kind of vain fool."

  "No," Sandra had said, touching her hand. "I understand. I honestly understand."

  More than you know.

  She said goodbye to Lucie, then hurried down the hallway, past the nurses' station, past the telephone booths and the coffee machines and the doctors lounging near the lobby.

  It was Elinor's life. It was Elinor's decision.

  And – God forgive her – Sandra was finally about to accept it.

  She pushed her way back out into the cold night air that dried the tears on her cheeks before she even realized she was crying.

  #

  Lucie had been watching her over the top of her knitting for the past hour.

  "Don't look at me like that," Elinor said. "Stop pursing your lips."

  Lucie's silver needles caught the light as they flashed through the yarn. "You didn't even give her a chance to explain her side, did you?"

  Elinor's brows drew together in a frown. "I know what's best." She paused for breath, to gather the strength necessary for speech. "I want her to be happy."

  The knitting needles clicked defiantly. "Best is being truthful, Elinor, not hiding you away."

  "I heard you tonight, Lucie. You said it was my decision to make."

  "And it is. I'm just going on record as thinking it's a horrible decision."

  "Duly noted."

  Lucie looked at her knitting and made a face. She threw the mess of yarn to the floor.

  "How can she make a life built on a lie?"

  "Other people manage," Elinor said. "It's better this way." The yearning had been all over Sandra's face that evening. The same soft, lovestruck look Elinor remembered from years ago had returned, as if time had somehow reversed itself and Elinor had been given a second chance to get it right. "She loves him and he loves her. They belong together. That is the only thing that matters."

  "Someday she may hate you for pulling away like this."

  She closed her eyes and feigned fatigue. For a long while she felt Lucie's gaze upon her, then finally the rhythm of the knitting picked up again and Lucie lost herself in her stitches and the relentless banter drifting from the television.

  Two months. That's all it would take. Sandra had said Michael had given her two months in which to be courted, and then he fully intended to marry her.

  What Elinor had to do was pull away from her daughter for a while.

  Just sixty days, and Sandra and Michael would finally have the chance to build a life together, as they would have more than fifteen years ago if she hadn't been so arrogant as to think she could play God with her daughter's future.

  What she was planning now wasn't playing God.

  She was simply making amends, drawing upon the boundless love she felt for her child, and the affection she'd always had for Michael, and channeling it into a way to make their dreams come true at last.

  Someday Sandra would understand.

  And if she didn't – well, Elinor would be long gone, and it wouldn't matter a bit.

  Knowing her daughter was finally happy would be enough.

  She sighed and turned her face into the pillow.

  It would have to be.

  ~~

  Chapter Eleven~~

  The hawk rose up from the block of limestone in all its primitive glory. His eyes snapped with fire; his wings were flared, his body poised for flight.

  All morning Michael had worked on the bird's right leg, trying to free it from the stone, and all morning he'd found it difficult to concentrate.

  Sandra Patterson and the bizarre progress of their relationship were making it difficult to keep his mind on anything else.

  Something had gone wrong between them, but he'd be damned if he could figure out what.

  He'd promised her a courtship and, by God, that was exactly what he'd been giving her.

  For three weeks now he'd been plying her with champagne and candy and elaborate floral arrangements, complete with helium balloons, se
nt to her office.

  Twice they'd driven out to Montauk for dinner and dancing at Gurney's, a famous watering hole of the rich and famous that prided itself on the Atlantic Ocean that crashed and roared outside the dining room window.

  Romantic?

  Definitely.

  Effective?

  He wasn't so sure.

  He had been determined to play this game according to her rules, but so far it seemed as if maybe he hadn't quite understood them. Instead of this courtship drawing her closer, it seemed as if she were pulling away.

  Only when they were together with David in a more familial setting did she seem to relax.

  Strange that the one thing he'd expected to be a problem had turned out to be the greatest source of joy.

  Never in a million years had he expected the sophisticated, career-oriented Sandra Patterson he'd met that night at White Castle to become enamored of a five-year-old boy for whom "soap" was the ultimate four-letter word.

  There was a tenderness in Sandra he hadn't expected, a deeply nurturing side to her personality that she'd managed to hide from him until now. David had been wary at first, bringing up Annie's name at least once every half-hour, but Sandra had hung in there, managing to turn a sticky situation into something wonderful.

  He changed his position a fraction of an inch and kept working on the hawk's right talon, ignoring Leon's curious look as he struggled to regain his concentration.

  It wasn't easy when your whole life seemed to be wrapped up in one woman.

  Just five more weeks, he thought as he chipped away a millimeter of limestone. Just five more weeks until she was his forever.

  "The angle is all wrong."

  He looked up. Annie Gage, wearing a bright red sweater and faded jeans, was leaning against his workbench.

  "What are you talking about?" He put the chisel on the table and brushed dust from his eyelashes. "The angle is perfect."

  She pointed to the bottom curve of the bird's leg. "Here," she said, drawing her index finger across the spot where he'd been working. "Make it flow this way. See?"

  He saw. She was right on the mark.