For Stephen, Garrett suddenly ceased to be a mysterious threat who could swoop in some day to claim Sara —- and Kellen. Now, because of Ben, he and Kellen had a connection that no one could break.
Stephen could still feel Garrett’s ghostly presence sometimes, but it grew fainter all the time. He began to believe that Kellen felt the same.
Ben’s birth seemed to change her. Some of the changes were small, like the way she dressed. But it was more fundamental than that. There was a maturity and serenity about her now. She seemed more centered than she ever had in her life, as if she had finally found in motherhood something more important than herself.
Or even the newspapers.
Following Sara’s birth, Kellen had kept a consistent schedule at the newspaper, working in her office for a couple hours a day. But after Ben’s arrival, her schedule became erratic. From birth, Ben had been plagued with chronic bronchial infections and Kellen felt compelled to remain at home on careful watch.
“I don’t want my children raised by nannies and governesses,” she told Stephen. “I want them to know I’m here.”
By Ben’s third birthday, his health had stabilized and so had Kellen’s schedule, reduced to one day a week spent at the office, with a special trip in for the monthly vice presidents meeting.
Once, she brought up the possibility of assuming her former schedule, but Stephen gently discouraged her. “You might as well wait now until Ben’s in school,” he said. “He needs you at home right now, Kellen. They both do. Besides, I can act in your stead, you know that.”
Their life settled into a smooth routine. After a while, Kellen surprised him by joining the opera guild, where her mother had worked as a volunteer. She also took the children to church, being careful to balance this with exposure to their Jewish heritage, enlisting Anna Hillman’s help for instruction.
Stephen thought that her new conservatism and efforts to ingratiate herself with the social elite were a reaction against the notoriety she had endured during her own childhood. She was trying to buffer Ben and Sara against hurt, and he didn’t discourage her. He saw all her changes as a natural process of maturation. Kellen had finally grown up.
He glanced up from the fire, his eyes going from the Christmas tree up to the gold menorah sitting on the mantel.
Yes, it had been hard at first, he thought, and there were the recent moments of tension. But what couple didn’t experience that? Everything had worked out, he thought, much better than he had ever hoped.
Ben’s laugh drew his attention to the foyer. Kellen and the nanny came down the stairs with the children. Ben ran over and clambered onto Stephen’s lap, holding a stuffed bear.
Stephen drew Ben into a hug, tickling him into spasms of giggles.
“Hey, big man!” Stephen said, with a broad smile. “Where’d you get that bear?”
“Grandpa Josh,” Ben answered. “I named him Fred.” Ben looked up at him. With his hazel eyes and sandy-blond hair, he was the image of Stephen. “Daddy, can I have a real one?”
“A bear? No, I don’t think so. Maybe a puppy. When you’re old enough to take care of him.”
“It’s past your bedtime, Ben,” Kellen said gently. “Kiss your father good night.”
Ben threw his plump arms around Stephen’s neck then scrambled down. Sara hung back slightly, waiting. Finally, Stephen held out his arms. She went to him, and Stephen kissed her cheek.
“Good night, princess,” he said.
“Good night, Daddy,” she said, looking at him solemnly.
Stephen suspected Kellen had told her that he couldn’t go to the zoo, and he made a vow to himself to make it up to her.
The nanny led them away, leaving Kellen and Stephen alone. The room was suddenly filled with quiet.
“They got too many gifts this year,” Kellen said after a moment. “Do you think we’re spoiling them?”
“You’re the one who thinks they should get Christmas and Hanukkah presents,” Stephen said. He took her hand and tried to draw her down into his lap. She pulled back.
“I have to go,” she said.
“It’s much nicer here by the fire with me,” he said.
“I won’t be long.” She went upstairs. A short time later, he heard her leave.
Stephen sat staring at the fire, the newspaper still lying across his knee. He still felt perplexed and slightly annoyed by her insistence on going to the office tonight. He knew it was more than just a ploy to get out of the house.
Last night, she had brought up the idea of going back to work full-time. Stephen had sidestepped the issue, but he knew it would soon come to a head now that Ben had started kindergarten.
The truth was he didn’t want Kellen to resume a full-time schedule. And it was not really because of the children. He wanted her to stay home because it had made things easier for him at the Times. It was as simple, and as selfish, as that.
His marriage had elicited predictable ribbing from cohorts and employees, jokes about marrying the boss’s daughter. But beneath the kidding, he sensed people thought his marriage was just a grab for money and more power. Even his most faithful employees looked at him differently after his marriage, as if they thought that as long as Kellen was upstairs in the executive suite, he was just her puppet.
He stared at the Times lying across his lap and thought of the circulation report that Kellen had gone to the office to retrieve.
He hadn’t been truthful with her when he said it was unimportant. He knew that once she read it she would be upset with him. More important, it could be the thing to galvanize her resolve to go back to work.
The report contained the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, and the news was not good. Figures showed that the Times’ circulation had dipped to 450,000, a loss of 2,000 subscribers in the last year. That brought the net loss over the last five years to 12,000. Now, the Times’ circulation was about even with the rival Journal's. But the most telling figure was that the Journal now had an edge of 15,000 over the Times in the city of San Francisco itself.
When these latest ABC figures were made public, everyone —- including advertisers —- would know that although the Times had the biggest circulation in the Bay area, it was no longer the dominant newspaper in San Francisco itself.
The Times was still superior editorially. But the Journal's publisher, Howard Capen’s son Edward, was getting more aggressive. Last month, he had lured two of Stephen’s best reporters away with promises of higher salaries.
And now Howard Capen had a new target -- Clark Able.
Clark had told Capen he wasn’t interested. But Stephen wondered if even Clark’s loyalty might be tested if the Times’ city circulation kept shrinking. Clark’s column was the newspaper’s most popular feature, and Stephen knew Clark’s defection could mean a loss of countless readers.
Stephen carefully folded the newspaper and set it aside. He should have told Kellen the truth about the report before she left. But he hadn’t wanted to face her reaction at that moment. He hadn’t had enough time to come to grips with his feeling of defeat. He felt like he had betrayed her trust.
And Adam’s.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Her desk was as neat as she had left it last week. Kellen tossed her coat aside, sat down and sifted through the papers Adele had left for her. There was nothing that really needed her attention. Some pressroom efficiency reports. A memo about a new marketing campaign. An invitation to speak on a panel from the American Association of Newspaper Publishers.
She picked the invitation up with a wry smile. She received many such invitations. The groups, consisting mostly of men, tended to see Kellen Bryant Hillman as a curiosity more than anything.
She turned to her telephone messages but only one caught her eye: Tyler had returned her call, finally agreeing to meet her for dinner Monday night.
She had not seen him for months. Part of it was natural, she knew. Tyler was eighteen now, with his own apartment on Russian Hill and his own l
ife. But she missed him and the house on Divisadero seemed different without him.
Ian had also moved out, right after Kellen and Stephen married. Not long after that, he had married a young woman named Clarisse Cross from Philadelphia and they had a young son.
Kellen had been surprised by Ian’s sudden marriage and embrace of fatherhood. But Stephen said he thought it had all come at Lilith’s prodding. There was no way she would stand back and watch the children of Stephen Hillman inherit the Bryant fortune. Ian had a duty to produce proper heirs -- and fast.
Kellen glanced at the photograph on her desk of Sara and Ben. It was strange how often she, too, thought of the newspapers in exactly those terms now —- as a legacy for Sara and Ben. The newspapers were, indeed, something precious that had been entrusted to her. Someday she, in turn, would teach Ben and Sara how to take care of the gift.
She leaned back in her chair, thinking of Stephen. Why was he fighting her need to go back to work fulltime? Was he just being protective of his turf? But she had always been careful not to usurp his authority.
Her eyes fell now on the photograph of Stephen, and she picked up the frame, thinking now about their marriage.
During the past seven years, she had come to love him, a simple matter of extending the affection she had always felt for him into her role as wife.
In an occasional dark moment, she wondered if her marriage had not been a sort of Faustian bargain. Stephen had offered his love and protection for her and Sara, and she had reciprocated with respectful deference to his ambitions at the newspaper, giving up many of her own.
But what else had she given up?
She set the photograph down carefully on the edge of the desk.
Passion, perhaps...the kind that lit a marriage from within, the kind that she suspected her own mother and father had.
Passion. She had felt that only once, with Garrett. She closed her eyes, allowing herself the indulgence of thinking about him. Usually, she kept his memory locked away, safely compartmentalized so as not to mix with other orderly emotions of her daily life. But sometimes she let it out.
Sometimes, she thought of him in anger. Sometimes, the thoughts were vivid sexual memories. But most often, she thought of him with just bittersweet curiosity.
What he was doing at a particular moment? Who he was with? What did he looked like now?
She glanced at her watch. It was nearly ten, and she had to stop daydreaming and deal with the ABC circulation report. She found it in a drawer, flipped open to the first page, and began to read.
After a half hour, she set the report down on the desk, stunned. Why hadn’t Stephen told her about the circulation losses in the city?
Maybe, she thought, I should ask myself why I didn’t see this coming.
She rose, stuffed the report under her arm, and grabbed her coat.
When she got home she noticed a light on in the study and went to the door. Stephen was sitting at the desk, reading. It was an odd sight; he usually conceded the study as Kellen’s territory. He looked up.
“You’re home,” he said. “I’ve been waiting.”
His eyes focused on the report in her hand. “Did you read it?” he asked.
“Yes.” She came in, slipping off her coat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He rose and went to a window, staring out. It was a while before he turned back to her. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he said.
“Worry? But you knew I’d eventually read it.”
He said nothing.
“Stephen, what’s wrong?” she said. “Are you afraid I’ll come on too strong at the meeting Monday? You know I’m always careful about —-”
“Yes, I know,” he said, without looking back at her.
The slight edge to his voice surprised her. She stared at his back. “What’s going on here?” she asked softly. “Talk to me, Stephen. This isn’t like you. Or us. We’ve always been able to talk things out before.”
“Well, we’ve never had quite this problem before,” he said.
Finally, he turned and faced her. “I thought the circulation problem would stabilize. But it hasn’t. It’s only gotten worse.” He shook his head. “And I’ll be damned if I know how to fix it.”
He went back to the desk and began to turn the pages of the newspaper slowly. “I’ve been sitting in here for the last two hours waiting for you to get back,” he said. “I started looking through some of these old copies of the Times you keep around, the ones from when your father was alive. I got to comparing them with the Times as it is now.”
He didn’t look up at her as he continued to turn the pages. “Funny how you can get so close to something you can’t really see it. On first glance, the Times looks as healthy as ever. But then you begin to notice some differences. I remember it being a bulky thing. But it’s smaller now.”
She came over to the desk and looked down at the two newspapers. In her entire life, she had never once heard Stephen sound so negative.
“There are some problems, Stephen, but it’s as good now as it ever was,” she said. “Because of you, we’ve won two Pulitzers in the last five years and —-”
“Prizes don’t mean a damn if people stop reading your paper,” he said. “We’ve lost a lot of advertising, the news hole has shrunk, we’re running fewer pages.” He paused. “And it’s only going to get worse.”
He closed the newspapers and looked at her. “I guess that’s why I didn’t tell you about what was in the report. Until it came out, I thought I could turn things around. But I was fooling myself.” His eyes held hers. “I just couldn’t stand your being disappointed in me.”
She stared at him. “Stephen, you shouldn’t take this personally. It isn’t your fault. It’s just as much my —-”
“How can I not take this personally?” he said. “Your father gave me this job because he trusted me. And you trusted me, too, Kellen. Call it a misguided sense of honor, or maybe just plain old-fashioned ego, but I took that responsibility seriously.”
His face was lined with fatigue. She understood now why he had been working so hard during the past year and she was angry with herself for not shouldering more of the burden. Now, she knew with certainty, that she had to go back to work full-time. More than her own satisfaction was at stake. The Times needed her more than ever.
But she knew that right now she couldn’t tell Stephen that. All her life, she had looked to him for strength and reassurance, and suddenly she had to provide those things for him. If she told him now that she was going back to work, it would only confirm his feeling that she didn’t trust him. She would have to tell him of her intent, but not at this moment, when he needed her faith.
“You didn’t fail, Stephen,” she said softly. “You’re only one person and you can’t shoulder all the blame. It’ll work out. We’ll keep looking for answers. We’ll find a way.”
She hesitated then put her arms around his neck. “It will work out, Stephen. You’ll see.”
Stephen’s eyes were locked on hers. Finally, he kissed her, slowly at first, then with more intensity. His ardor surprised her; it had been so long since he kissed her that way and she felt herself responding. Slowly, a sense of renewed hope came over her.
Everything is going to work out, she thought.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The vice presidents’ meeting was into its fifth hour and the strain showed on everyone’s faces.
Ian, who had showed up an hour late and taken his spot at the head of the long mahogany table, did nothing to hide his irritation. Kellen sat in her place at the other end of the table. Stephen sat along the table with the six other division heads. Before each person was a copy of the blue-bound circulation report.
“Look, we can sit up here all day, and these figures will not change,” said the vice president of advertising, Dennis Dingman. “If circulation doesn’t start coming around, we can look forward to a drop in revenue next fiscal year of at least twenty percent. And that is the bottom line
.”
Harry Beebe, the vice president of circulation who had been taking the brunt of the fire all afternoon, rose slowly. “Well, my bottom line went to sleep an hour ago,” he said testily.
He went over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. “Anyone want any more?” he asked, looking around.
No one answered.
“I have to say something here.” It was Fred Chase, the production vice president. “It all starts with your guys, Harry. We’re getting a lot of cancellations because of late delivery. Maybe if you got the papers out to folks on time, we’d hang on to subscribers better.”
“And maybe if you guys got the paper off the press on time, we could make our delivery schedule,” Harry shot back.
“Look, don’t blame us,” Fred said. “We can’t print the thing until editorial gives it to us. And they’ve been playing pretty loose with deadlines lately.”
Kellen glanced at Stephen. “Fred, we’re just trying to get the latest news in,” she said evenly. “We can’t push the deadlines up again just to allow for press downtime.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “We’re not going to hear that one again, are we? Next you’ll start in again about getting computers, how we can solve all our composing room problems for the paltry fee of two million.”
“It’s two point five six million,” added George Avare, the vice president of finance. “Money that we don’t have. For a system no one’s sure will replace good, old-fashioned Linotypes.”
“Look,” Stephen said. “We won’t get anywhere pointing fingers. We have to solve this together. If we don’t, we’ll sit here and watch the Times die a slow death.”
He looked at Kellen, knowing how the words would sting. But her face was a mask.
“I had some extra materials prepared for you,” Stephen said, holding up another report.
There a few weary sighs.
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