“I miss you when we’re in a crowd like that,” he confessed as she snuggled next to him in the taxi. She had had a good time, and had been proud to be with him. It felt so good being part of a couple again. She didn’t need it to complete her, but it was nice having him there, and talking to him about the party afterward. She had missed that since her divorce. Parties were always more fun if you could gossip about them later with a mate. “You looked beautiful,” he complimented her readily, as he had several times that evening. “And I was so proud to be with you. I really enjoyed the evening, but I have to admit, I love having you to myself. It’s going to be great to have some time alone in Cape Cod.”
“Having both in one’s life is nice,” Hope commented peacefully with her head on his shoulder. “It’s exciting to go out and meet people sometimes, and then it’s nice to have quiet time alone.”
“I hate sharing you with your adoring public,” he teased her. “I like it best when we’re alone. Everything is so fresh and new right now, it feels like an intrusion when anyone else is around.” The way he said it flattered her, that he was so anxious for time with her, but there were definitely times when she enjoyed the company of her peers and colleagues, and once in a while, even their admiration. For her, it had been part of life ever since she’d gone back to work, although she always benefited from solitary moments too. But it touched her that Finn was so anxious to be with her, and to not waste a single moment they could spend alone. They would have plenty of time together at the Cape.
“You have your adoring public too,” she reminded him, and he hung his head in embarrassment in a burst of humility rarely seen and that no one would have expected of him. It surprised her at times that for a man so well known in his field, and so strikingly good looking, he didn’t seem narcissistic to her at all. He wasn’t selfish or self-centered, he took pride in her accomplishments, was discreet about his own, and had no need to be the center of attention. And whatever flaws he had that she had not discovered yet, a big ego was not among them. He was a gem.
They left for Cape Cod at nine o’clock the next morning, in a Suburban he had rented for the week, since Hope no longer kept a car in New York. Whenever she needed one, she rented one herself. Living in the city, it made more sense, and she didn’t go up to Cape Cod very often anymore. She hadn’t been there since September, four months before. She was thrilled to be going with Finn now, and have the opportunity to share it with him. For a man who loved nature, solitude, and time alone with her, it was the perfect place for them to go.
She was determined not to sleep with him that weekend, and already knew what guest room she would put him in. It was actually the room she had spent summers in as a child, and it was next door to her parents’ old room, which she lived in now and had for years.
She and Paul had spent summers there during most of their marriage. And at the time, the simplicity of it had suited them both, although with the windfall he had made from the sale of his company, Paul’s life was grander now. And if anything, Hope’s had gotten less cluttered over the years. She had no need for luxuries, unusual comforts, or excess of any kind. She was a very unassuming, straightforward person, and enjoyed a simple life. And Finn said he did too.
They stopped for lunch at the Griswold Inn, in Essex, Connecticut, on the way to the Cape, and as they drove past an exit for Boston, Finn mentioned his son at MIT.
“Why don’t we stop and visit him?” Hope asked with a bright smile. After all she’d heard about him, she wanted to meet him, and Finn laughed.
“He’d probably fall over if I stopped in to see him. Actually, they’re not back yet after the winter break. He said he was going to Paris after skiing in Switzerland with his friends, or he may be back at my place in London. Maybe we could stop in to visit some other time. I’d like you to meet him.”
“So would I,” Hope said warmly.
They drove on to Wellfleet after Providence and they reached the house at four in the afternoon, as the light was starting to get dim. The roads had been clear, but it looked like it might snow, and it was bitter cold, with a stiff wind. She directed Finn to drive into the driveway, which was slightly overgrown. The house stood apart from all the others, and there was tall dune grass all around. It seemed bleak at that time of year, and Finn commented that it looked like a Wyeth painting that they’d seen at the museum, which made Hope smile. She’d never thought of the house that way before, but he was right, it did. It was an old barn-shaped New England structure, painted gray with white shutters. In summer, there were flowers out front, but there were none now. The gardener she hired to come once a month cut everything back in winter, and he wouldn’t even bother to come now until spring. There was nothing for him to do there. And the house looked sad and deserted with the shutters closed. But the view of the ocean from the dune it sat on was spectacular and the beach stretched out for miles. Hope smiled as she stood looking at it with him. It always made her feel peaceful being there. She put an arm around his waist and he leaned down to kiss her, and then she took her keys out of her bag, opened the door, turned off the alarm, and walked in, with Finn right behind her. The shutters were closed against the wind, so she turned on the lights. Dusk was coming fast.
What he saw when she lit the lamps was a beautiful wood-paneled room. The wood was bleached, as were the floors, and the furniture was stark and simple. She had redone the couches a few years before because they were so worn. The fabrics were the pale blue of a summer sky, the curtains were a simple muslin, there were hooked rugs, plain New England furniture, a stone fireplace, and her photographs were all over the walls. It had a stark simplicity and unpretentiousness that made it easy to be there, particularly in the summer, with the breeze coming off the ocean, sand on the floor, and everyone going barefoot. It was the perfect beach house, and Finn immediately responded to it with a warm smile. It was the kind of house every child should spend a summer in, and Hope had, and so had her daughter. There was a big country kitchen, with a round antique table, and blue and white tiles on the walls that had been there since the house was built. The place looked lived in and well worn, and more important, much loved.
“What a wonderful place,” Finn said, as he put his arms around her and kissed her.
“I’m glad you like it,” Hope said, looking happy. “I would have been sad if you didn’t.” They went outside together then to open the shutters, and when they came back in, the view of Cape Cod Bay at sunset was spectacular. He wanted to go for a walk on the beach, but it was too late and too cold.
They had brought groceries with them, which they had bought in Wellfleet, and unpacked them together. It felt like playing house and she looked happy. She hadn’t done that in years, and with Finn, she loved it. Then he went out to get their suitcases and she told him where to put them. He walked upstairs to their bedrooms, set them down, and looked around. Hope’s photos hung in every room, and there were a lot of old photographs of her with her parents, and Mimi with her and Paul. It was a real family summer home that spanned generations and warmed hearts.
“I wish I had had a house like this when I was growing up,” Finn said as he strode back into the kitchen, his hair still disheveled by the wind, which only made him look more handsome. “My parents had a very stuffy, boring place in Southampton, which I never liked. It was full of antiques and things I wasn’t allowed to touch. It wasn’t like being at the beach. This is the real deal.”
“Yes, it is.” She smiled at him. “I love that about it too. That’s why I keep it. I don’t get here often enough anymore, but I love it when I do.” There were too many memories and friendly ghosts here for her to ever give it up. “It’s not fancy, but that’s what I love about it. It’s fantastic in the summer. As a kid, I spent all my time on the beach, and so did Mimi. I still do.”
She was making a salad as she said it to him, and they were going to make steaks on the grill. The kitchen appliances were modern and functional, and often in summer they barbecued, but
it was too cold to do that now. Finn set the table, and lit a fire. And a little while later, he made the steaks, and she warmed some soup and French bread they’d bought at the store. They set some French cheeses on a platter, and when they sat down at the kitchen table, it was a hearty meal. Finn opened a bottle of red wine he’d bought, and they each had a glass. It was a perfect dinner in the cozy house, and then they sat in front of the fire, telling stories of their respective childhoods.
Hers had been simple and wholesome in New Hampshire, near the Dartmouth campus, since her father was an English literature professor there. Her mother had been a talented artist, and her childhood had been happy, despite the fact that she was an only child. She said it had never bothered her not to have siblings. She had had a great time with her parents and their friends, and was included at everything they did. She spent a lot of her time visiting her father at his office on the campus. He had been devastated when she decided to go to Brown instead, as a seventeen-year-old freshman, but they had a better photography department. It was where she ultimately met Paul. She met him at nineteen, and married him at twenty-one, when he was thirty-seven. She said that both her parents had died within the first few years she was married. It was a huge loss to her. Her father died of a heart attack, and within a year, her mother of cancer. She couldn’t live without him.
“See what I mean?” Finn commented. “That’s what I meant by fusion. It’s what real relationships should be, but it can be a dangerous thing sometimes, if things don’t work out in a relationship, or one of the partners dies. Like Siamese twins, one can’t survive without the other.” It still didn’t seem like a good thing to Hope, particularly citing her mother’s untimely death as an example. Hope had no desire to be anyone’s Siamese twin, but she didn’t comment. She knew he loved the theory, but she didn’t. And for her, it had been a hard blow to lose both parents so close together. She had inherited the Cape Cod house from them, and sold their old Victorian near Dartmouth. She said that she still had all her mother’s paintings in storage. They were good, but not quite her style, although she clearly had talent, and occasionally taught a class at Dartmouth, but she had no interest in teaching, unlike Hope’s father, who was gifted, much loved, and deeply respected at the school for all the years he taught there.
By comparison, Finn’s youth was far more exotic. He had already told her that his father was a doctor and his mother an extremely beautiful woman.
“I think my mother always felt she married beneath her. She had a broken engagement before that to a duke in Ireland. He was killed in a riding accident, and shortly after that, she married my father and went to New York with him, where he had a very substantial practice, but her family was much fancier than his, and she always lorded it over him. I think she missed having a title, since her father was an earl, and she would have been a duchess if her fiancé hadn’t died.
“She always had frail health when I was little, so I didn’t see a lot of her. I always had some young girl taking care of me, whom they brought over from Ireland, while my mother had the vapors and went to parties, and complained about my father. The home I have in Ireland now originally belonged to her great-grandfather, and I think it would have made her happy that it is back in the family now. It means a lot to me because of it.
“My father was always very disappointed that I didn’t want to be a doctor like him, but it just wasn’t for me. He made an excellent living and always supported my mother handsomely, but it was never quite enough for her. He wasn’t titled, and she hated living in New York. I’m not sure they were ever very happy, although they were discreet about it. I never saw them fighting, but there was a distinct chill in our Park Avenue apartment, which my mother hated, because it wasn’t Ireland, although our home was beautiful and filled with antiques. She just wasn’t a happy woman. And now that I live there, I can see why. The Irish are a special breed, they love their country, their hills, their houses, their history, even their pubs. I’m not sure you can take an Irish person away and have them be happy somewhere else. They pine for their own country, and it must be in the genes, because the minute I walked into my great-great-grandfather’s house, I knew I was home. It was as though it had been waiting for me all my life. I knew it the minute I saw it.
“My parents died fairly young too, in a road accident together. I think if she had lived, and my father hadn’t, she’d have gone back to Ireland then. It was all she waited for during all the years of their married life in New York. I suppose she loved my father, in her own way, but she wanted to go home. So I did it for her.” He smiled sadly. “I hope you come and visit me there, Hope. It’s the most beautiful place on earth. You can walk in the hills for hours, amid the wildflowers, without ever seeing a soul. The Irish are an odd combination of soulful, solitary, and then wildly gregarious in the pubs. I think that’s how I am, sometimes I just need to be alone, and at other times I love being around people, and having fun. At home, I’m either locked up, writing, or having a good laugh in the local pub.”
“It sounds like a good life,” Hope said, nestled in beside him on the couch, as the fire died slowly. It had been a lovely evening, and she felt wonderfully comfortable with him, as though they had known each other for years. She liked hearing the stories of his childhood, and his parents, although it sounded lonely in some ways. His mother didn’t sound like a happy person, and his father had been busy all the time with his patients, and neither of them seemed to have had much time for him. He said it was why he had started writing, and was a voracious reader as a child and young man. Reading, and eventually writing, was his escape from an essentially lonely childhood, despite their very comfortable Park Avenue life. Her far simpler life had been much happier with her own parents in New Hampshire and Cape Cod.
Finn and Hope had both married young, so they had that in common. They were both artistic in different fields. They were both only children, and their own children were only two years apart, so they had become parents at roughly the same time. And for very different reasons, their marriages had failed. Hers for complicated reasons, and his officially when his wife died, but he readily admitted that his marriage to Michael’s mother had never really worked, and probably would have ended in divorce if she hadn’t died, which was traumatic for him and their child. Finn said she was totally narcissistic, beautiful, and spoiled, and essentially badly behaved. She had cheated on him several times. He had been enamored with her beauty as a young man, and then overwhelmed by what it entailed. There was a lot of common ground between Finn and Hope, in many ways, although their marriages had been different, and his son was still alive. But there were many common points, and they were nearly the same age, only two years apart.
When the fire finally went out, she turned off the lights, and they walked upstairs. He had already found his bedroom when he brought the bags up and had seen hers. She had a small double bed in the cozy room that had been her parents’, and the bed always felt too big for her now without Paul. The one in the room Finn was staying in was so small that Hope looked embarrassed and said that maybe they should trade, although hers didn’t look big enough for him either.
“I’ll be fine,” he reassured her, and tenderly kissed her goodnight. And then they each disappeared into their rooms. She was in bed five minutes later in a heavy cashmere nightgown with socks, and she laughed when Finn called out a last goodnight in the small house.
“Sweet dreams,” she shouted back, and turned over in the dark, thinking of him. They had known each other for so little time, but she had never felt so close to anyone in her life. For a minute, she wondered if his fusion theory was correct, but she didn’t want it to be. She wanted to believe that they could love each other, but keep their distinct lives, personalities, and talents intact. That still felt right to her. Thinking about him, she was awake for a long time. She was remembering the things he had said about his childhood and how lonely it sounded to her. She wondered if that was why he was so anxious to be part of someone els
e. His mother didn’t sound like much of one to her. And it was interesting to think that while he said that his mother was beautiful and dissatisfied, he had married a woman who was also beautiful and selfish and hadn’t been a good mother to their son. It was odd how, in some cases, history repeated itself, and people re-created the same miseries that had tormented them as children. She wondered if perhaps he had tried to get a different ending to the same story, and hadn’t succeeded in the end.
As she thought about it, she heard a thump that sounded like Finn had fallen out of bed, punctuated by a loud “Fuck,” which made her laugh, and she went to check on him, padding down the hall in her nightgown and cashmere socks.
“Are you okay?” she whispered in the dark, and heard him laugh.
“The chest of drawers attacked me when I went to the loo.”
“Did you hurt yourself?” She sounded worried about him, and felt guilty about the small room he was in.
“I’m bleeding profusely,” he said in a tone of anguish. “I need a nurse.”
“Should I call 911?” She laughed back.
“No, some hairy paramedic will give me mouth to mouth, and I’ll have to knee him in the groin. How about a kiss?” She moved into the room and sat down on the narrow bed that had once been hers, and he took her in his arms and kissed her. “I miss you,” he whispered.
“I miss you too,” she whispered back. And then hesitantly, “Do you want me to sleep in here?”
He laughed out loud. “In this bed? Now, that would be a contortionist’s act I’d like to see you do. That isn’t what I had in mind.” There was a long silence, and he didn’t push. He had promised that they would sleep in separate rooms and not have sex, and he was determined to keep his word, although he would have preferred otherwise, and she felt foolish now for suggesting it.
“I guess this is kind of stupid, huh? We’re in love with each other, and I guess no one’s keeping track.”
Matters of the Heart Page 9
