The Night We Met

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Every night that summer, he beguiled Lori with stories about his own life and questions about hers.

  Her mother had remarried when she was three, and her stepfather was good to her. They'd never had other children. He was a doctor, recently retired at fifty, and her parents were vacationing in Europe for the summer before coming home to settle in their new house off the Cape.

  Lori had just graduated from Yale and been accepted at Georgetown's law school.

  Her appearance that summer freed me up to spend my days with Nate at the resort, getting the camp up and running—bringing me closer than ever to my husband. Other than my brief stint as a maid after Sarah's death, I'd never shared Nate's working life. I enjoyed it immensely.

  And after Lori returned east to enter Georgetown and the boys were back in school—-Jimmy going full days, starting that year—I continued to work at the resort as Nate's assistant, and to volunteer at the women's shelter in Denver.

  The next winter, in February of 1977, on the same day that San Francisco suffered its worst earthquake in ten years, James Kenneth Crowley, my father, passed away in his sleep. He was only sixty-eight.

  Nate, the boys and I went to California for his funeral. The visitation at the funeral home was the first time any of them ever saw my father. And the last. I cried bitterly, grieving for al that had been lost.

  He'd never seen his grandsons or met the man I loved with all my heart. Regret was like acid in my stomach. I'd grown up in the past few years and knew that one day I'd see my daddy again. And that he'd welcome me with open arms.

  My God would welcome me in His home again. I had to believe that.

  The time with my mother and sisters and their families was good for the boys. And for me, too.

  We got to meet William's girlfriend. At thirty-five, a year older than he was, she was a scientist with a pharmaceutical company. She'd never been married. She was quiet. Unassuming. And lovely. I told my brother he'd better marry her quick before he lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

  He did just that, in July of the following year. July 20th to be exact. In a double ceremony with two very handsome eight- and nine-year-old ring bearers, and a twenty-four-year-old maid of honor, Nate and I also walked up the aisle, celebrating our tenth anniversary with a renewal of our vows.

  I was twenty-nine. Much more seasoned than I'd been when I married this man. My hair was longer, my hips a little wider, my mind a bit wiser, but my heart was just as certain.

  The church was filled to capacity with Wil iam and Shelly's friends. We'd invited a few of my old high-school friends, too, including Patricia. Even Walt, Betty and Mary Blackwell came. Most important, my whole family, and of course Shelly's, were there to cheer us all on.

  Nate played piano for the reception, which meant I spent a lot of time without a partner, but I didn't mind. I used those hours to visit with loved ones I seldom saw. And sat on the piano bench whenever I needed my husband close.

  Toward the end of the evening, as the lights were dimming and the children were getting tired, Nate hit a familiar chord and I stopped in midsentence the conversation I was having with Patricia.

  Glancing over, I met his eyes—and held them as he sang.

  My gaze never wavered clear through to the last chorus of "My Cup Runneth Over" although my husband's image blurred as my eyes wel ed with happy tears.

  We'd come through so much, years of living and loving, and as I lay in my husband's arms the next night—back at Walt's cabin in Colorado, while our sons stayed with my mother in California—I could honestly say I was happy.

  And looking forward to the next forty years with anticipation and gratitude.

  * * *

  In the winter of 1978, shortly before Christmas, President Jimmy Carter doubled the size of the country's national park system. That brought about a resurgence of interest in outdoor sports, and business at our little resort picked up so much we had to expand. Nate hired a manager, but he was too hands-on to leave the running of the resort to someone else. He did take time, though, to teach the boys to ski. I fought him the whole way. I thought eight and nine was far too young, and feared broken legs and worse.

  Unfortunately, I was outnumbered and my men took to the slopes—to be joined by Lori when she came out over her winter break.

  By January, the four of them had skis strapped to my boots, too, and to my own surprise, once I got over the initial shakiness, I loved the sport I'd avoided for the first twenty-nine and a half years of my life.

  As long as I stayed on the baby slopes.

  I made the boys ski there with me that year, although Keith, the stronger and huskier of the two, was probably capable of doing more. He knew better than to push me on that one, though, and we waved off Nate and Lori as they took the more chal enging runs.

  I'd signed my sons up for piano lessons the previous summer and both continued to attend and to practice. Keith was the more talented of the two, not so much in the music-reading department—

  Jimmy had him beat on that—but my oldest son had clearly inherited some of his father's musical gift.

  If he heard a song Jimmy was practicing, he could usually manage to pick it out and find chords that complemented it.

  The problem was in stretching his hands to play the chords. One of the tendons had been damaged by his injury a few years before, and I feared that would prevent him from ever enjoying the piano as much as his father did.

  Nate and I told him he could quit piano lessons, but he refused, saying that if Jimmy could do it, he could, too.

  I was proud of his determination.

  Still, I began to dread the afternoons when he'd sit down to practice. More often than not, the session would be interrupted by frustrated pounding on the keys. I was afraid he'd built in his mind some idea that his father would be disappointed in him if he didn't succeed at the instrument. I knew Keith would rather die than let Nate down.

  One afternoon in March of 1979, I was in the kitchen scrambling to find something to make for dinner.

  I'd forgotten to take the chicken out of the freezer before I'd driven the boys to school and headed to the resort to check last-minute details for a wedding that was taking place there that weekend. I was now in charge of overseeing al events. There'd been a glitch with the florist, and I'd been tied up until it was time to pick up Keith and Jimmy from school.

  I'd decided on omelets with cheese and bacon when the banging started in the living room where we now kept the piano. I cringed, trying to tune out the discordance. And didn't immediately notice that the sound had changed, down to one note at a time, with an added percussion beat that sounded strangely like something cracking—-over and over again.

  Dropping the seasoning I'd been planning to put in the egg mixture, I ran for the living room just as I heard Jimmy's call.

  "Mo-o-ommmm! Keith's breaking the piano!"

  "I am not!" Keith called back. I was close enough, at that point, to hear his hissed "shut up" to his brother.

  "Mo-o-ommm!" Jimmy cal ed again. I'd reached the archway to the living room.

  "Keith Armstrong Grady! What have you done? Get up off that bench! Go to your room! And don't ever, ever come out again, do you hear me?"

  I rarely raised my voice to my children. I'd never shrieked at them before. Two sets of brown eyes stared up at me. Both mouths hung open.

  "Now!" I said, my heart breaking as I saw the little white chips all over the floor—and the tiny, misshapen grooves at the end of almost every key.

  "Both of you," I added when neither boy moved.

  "But I didn't do anything," Jimmy said.

  "Now!"

  The boys jumped up and ran from the room. I sat down on the bench, rubbing my fingers along the jagged edges of the chipped ivory.

  Nate cherished this old piano. He'd had it since he was a child. It was all he had left of the family he'd grown up with.

  It was ruined.

  And I felt responsible.

 
I had no idea how I was going to break the news to him.

  "Where are the boys?"

  Nate had already put his briefcase in our small home office. He'd washed his hands. And was standing in the kitchen watching me put the finishing touches on dinner. He'd just noticed the table set only for two.

  "In their rooms."

  "They're not coming down for dinner?"

  "I told them they couldn't come down again—ever."

  Nate's silence behind me was my cue. All I could think about was those unsightly keys on his beloved piano.

  And the crumbs of ivory he'd see if he looked in the wastebasket beneath the sink.

  "Mom?" Keith's voice was tentative—behind me on the stairs.

  "I told you to stay in your room."

  "I know, but is Dad home?"

  "Yes, son." Nate moved to the bottom of the steps. "But if your mother said you have to stay in your room, then I suggest you get your butt back up there immediately."

  I heard Keith turn on the stairs. And then stop.

  "Mom? Can I tel Dad, please? I was the one who did it and I should be the one who he gets mad at."

  For a nine-year-old, my son was pretty smart. He'd already figured out that I'd set myself up to deflect his father's anger.

  And if he was mature enough to figure that out...he was right. He should be the one to tell Nate what he'd done.

  "Okay," I said. "Come on down."

  Keith's step was slow. Heavy. And my heart went out to him. He was a little boy dealing with a kind of frustration—a kind of fear—that had broken grown men.

  "What's going on?"

  Nate, his voice patient, stood in front of Keith.

  The boy looked his father straight in the eye. "I broke your piano."

  "Broke it how?"

  "With your screwdriver and hammer."

  Nate didn't move, but I could see the muscles in the back of his neck tighten.

  "Maybe you'd better show me."

  Looking as though he'd been sentenced to death, Keith led Nate into the living room, around to the piano, and pointed.

  "See?"

  Nate stared for a solid minute. I loved him so much for taking the time to collect himself, to handle the worst of his anger, instead of exploding on the boy.

  "Why?" That was all he said.

  "I was mad."

  "At the keys?"

  "At my hands." Keith's voice wobbled, his chin against his chest.

  "Then I guess we need to get you some physical

  therapy—see if we can stretch and strengthen what tendon you have left, huh?"

  Keith's head jerked up, his eyes wide. "Can they do that, Dad?"

  "I don't know, but I suspect there's something they can do. We'l call the doctor tomorrow."

  That night, when the boys went to bed, my husband sat down at his piano and without hesitation began to play—just as he always had. The notes sounded perfect.

  Chapter 10

  In November, fifty-two Americans were taken hostage in Iran. Our country was in shock. We couldn't believe such a thing could befall any of our own. We were protected, weren't we? Wasn't that what being American meant?

  But the world was changing, and America was, too. Anytime I started to feel secure in my life, something happened to remind me that the only protection any of us had was loving and being loved.

  ABC launched a nightly "Iran Hostage" program that, in the spring of 1980, was renamed Nightline.

  We watched it every evening. And in May, our little family traveled to Washington, D.C. to see Lori graduate from law school. We took the boys to see everything—the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House. We visited the proposed site of a Vietnam Memorial.

  And I met Holly.

  I'd expected the occasion to be fraught with tension (everyone's) and jealousy (mine). The worst part was the anguish I put myself through before it took place. The woman was still lovely at forty-five, slim with blond hair that curled around her shoulders. A little taller than I was, maybe a bit heavier, she was elegant, confident and so in love with her husband, Todd, that there was no doubt in anyone's mind that she and Nate had made the right decision when they'd ended their young marriage.

  Nate's face was stiff at first, but he managed not to express his anger at his ex-wife for keeping Lori from him all those years. He and I took a long walk the night before we met Holly to talk about the way he felt.

  And we found a private corner in the grounds of the hotel and necked for a while. Even after almost twelve years of marriage, that stil seemed to do the trick. For both of us.

  Lori had accepted a job with a private firm and would be staying in D.C., at least for now. Nate had been hoping she'd find work with a firm out west, closer to us, but he was proud of her accomplishments—and the honor bestowed on her with such a prestigious offer.

  I was proud—and disappointed—too. I'd found a true friend in Lori Gilbert and had been looking forward to having her around for more than a visit. I'd been hoping to share the next phase of her life.

  Still, the trip was good. Nate and I enjoyed our boys on a whole different level. Instead of having to constantly watch over them, caring for their physical safety every second of the day, we were starting to debate with them, to challenge their thinking. In spite of the climate of the world in which we were living, we spent a lot of time laughing.

  I was sorry when our vacation came to an end. Keith would be eleven that summer, going into sixth grade in the fal , and I knew my life would be changing again. He'd want to spend more time with his friends than with me. And my opinions were going to be challenged more than they were blindly accepted. Slowly but surely my boys were growing up—and away from me.

  On January 20, 1981, the day of President Reagan's inauguration, $8 bil ion in Iranian assets were released by the United States and the U.S. hostages were freed after 444 days in captivity—giving us al a sense of renewed hope. And on November 13th, almost two years later, the Vietnam Memorial was final y dedicated. The Wall had 58,027 names on it, the names of all the U.S. servicemen and women who'd lost their lives in the Vietnam war.

  Keith's was among them.

  I was sitting in the doctor's office that afternoon, watching the dedication on TV with the rest of the women waiting their turn—keeping my mind focused on bigger matters than my missed period. I was only thirty-three. Too young for menopause. But I couldn't possibly be pregnant.

  It'd been eleven years since I'd had a baby. Eleven years without birth control. My sons were in junior high. My husband was three years away from fifty.

  Pregnancy and babies no longer fit our lifestyle.

  I prayed to God I didn't have cancer.

  "Congratulations, Eliza! You're pregnant!"

  Well, of course, she was kidding. Dr. Eleanor Brown was just lightening my tension. But... She wasn't laughing. In fact, she seemed completely serious.

  "How far along am I?"

  "About two months."

  I did the math—backward. Nate and I had run away to Las Vegas for a weekend after the boys started school. I'd been having a hard time dealing with Jimmy's departure from elementary school.

  I did the math again. In the other direction. A June baby.

  "You're sure?"

  "One hundred percent."

  I should be doing something besides sitting there, but I was too shocked to figure out what.

  My heart pounded with excitement. And dread. What if... I couldn't live through a second...

  "What...um..." My lips were dry and I ran my tongue across them. "What happened to...Sarah... What are the chances of..."

  Dr. Brown hadn't been my doctor then. But she knew my history. Had al my records.

  "Next to none," she said. "Anything can happen, of course, but it's extremely rare for one woman to suffer two separate cases of crib death. It's not genetic, nor does it have anything to do with how you care for your child. It's just one of those inexplicable flukes of nature that are nearl
y impossible to understand— or accept."

  I wouldn't ever understand it. I wasn't sure I'd even get to the point of acceptance. But' whether I liked it or not I was going to be a mother again.

  "You're young. Everything looks good. I see no sign of anything but a perfectly normal pregnancy."

  Dr. Brown was concluding our meeting. I'd have to get up and go soon.

  I'd have to leave this little room where my secret was safe. Go back to my life—and the men in it—

  who'd be wanting their dinner. Expecting me to behave just like I did every other night of their lives.

  "I won't need to see you again for another month We'll schedule an ultrasound for the month after that."

  I rose to my feet, but didn't move. "I thought you said there wasn't a problem."

  "There's not."

  "Then why the ultrasound? I didn't have them with my other pregnancies." If there was any chance she suspected something amiss, I had to know. Immediately.

  Dr. Brown smiled. "Miracles of modern medicine," she said. "It's been, what, ten years since you had a baby?"

  I nodded. "Eleven."

  "Technology has come a long way since then, and with it, more affordable equipment. Ultrasounds are as common as physical exams nowadays. They tel us a lot more, too. Not only will we be able to see the baby's placement, which will al ow us to prevent possible birth complications, but we can watch his growth rate, predict delivery dates and even, if you're lucky, find out his— or her—sex."

  "In two months? I'll know all that?"

  "Most of it." The doctor pul ed open her office door. "You'l only know if it's a boy or a girl if the baby's lying right. And even then, we can't always tell."

  "Bring your husband next month," the kindly, middle-aged woman said. "I'd like to meet him."

  "I don't know...."

  We stopped just inside the door. "What?" the doctor asked. "You don't think he'l want to be involved?"

  Nate? Of course he would.