For My Daughters

by Barbara Delinsky

  Or talked for so long without personal attacks.

  It struck Leah as rather nice. She guessed it had something to do with age. Maybe they had mellowed. Certainly they shared a dilemma—shared an enemy, so to speak—which was always good for unity. But they shared a past, too. That had to account for something.

  “So,” she said, “what are you guys going to do? Are you staying or leaving?”

  She expected Caroline to speak first, but Caroline simply took another sip of her wine.

  Annette said, “I don’t think my family wants me home yet.”

  “Of course, they want you home.”

  “No. They’re annoyed I’ve been calling. They want me to give it a rest. They have something to prove.”

  Quietly, Caroline said, “I’m getting the same thing from my office. And from Ben.” She looked off into the distance. “When I talked with him a little while ago, he suggested that I was the dependent one, having to call home all the time.”

  Leah held her tongue.

  They sat without talking for a while, picking at their food, sipping their wine, letting the sound of the surf on the rocks far below soothe over the rough edges of their predicaments.

  Leah felt for them. Their lives were more complex than hers—which wasn’t to say that all was forgiven. Caroline was still too high-handed about her work, and Annette took motherhood to the extreme. But apparently Leah wasn’t the only one who believed that, and the others who did were making themselves known. The fact that her sisters were struggling with their feelings said that they weren’t as insensitive as she might like to believe.

  Besides, they weren’t dumping on her. She wasn’t feeling as worthless as she usually did when she was with them. Maybe it was because she’d made them lunch.

  “I’ll stay a little longer,” Annette finally said. “It’s a good exercise, I guess.”

  “There’s one part of me that hopes they trip up,” Caroline groused, “then they’ll miss me more. But I’ll feel foolish running back now.” She drained the last of her wine and looked at her sisters. “Besides, I want to see those other galleries. There’s some fine artwork to be had. Ginny needs a lot.”

  Aside from brief spells when one or another of them wandered off, they spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool. Leah brought a third book down, since the second hadn’t grabbed her any more than the first. When Caroline told her she’d read it, her hackles went up, but then Caroline related information about the author that enhanced the reading tenfold.

  Caroline commandeered one of her other books and began to read.

  Annette found a Scrabble set and cajoled them into a game.

  The sun crept westward and lowered. The breeze picked up. The air cooled.

  “I’m getting hungry again,” Caroline announced.

  Annette set aside her crossword puzzle. “Don’t look at me. If this is my vacation, I’m not cooking dinner.”

  “You wouldn’t want me to,” Caroline advised.

  They both looked at Leah. “Okay,” she said.

  But Caroline was already reconsidering. With a belligerent frown, she said, “Then again, there’s Gwen. Let’s make her do it. It’d serve her right, being so sneaky about Ginny.”

  Leah had a better idea. “I heard there was a good restaurant in town. Julia’s. Did either of you see it today?”

  “Not me.”

  “No.”

  “Her specialty is seafood, but the menu is interesting.”

  Caroline looked dubious.

  “How interesting can seafood be?” Annette asked.

  “She’s a transplanted New Yorker,” Leah said.

  Caroline closed her book and smiled. “When do we leave?”

  “I know, Ben. I call too much. But I had to tell you the most amazing thing. I had dinner with my sisters tonight. Granted, I’d been drinking wine all afternoon, so I was fortified, but it was actually nice.”

  “Just the three of you?”

  She could hear the surprise in his voice and was glad she’d called. Smugly, she said, “Just the three of us. Not that we had much choice. Mother is still hiding out wherever, and Gwen is in the dog house for being in collusion with her, and since we don’t know a hell of a lot of other people up here, we were stuck with each other. It could have been awkward, but it wasn’t. You would have been proud of me. I was totally agreeable.”

  “Amazing.”

  “It was,” she insisted. “We’re three very different people.”

  “So what did you talk about?”

  “The restaurant. It was an adorable place. Could as easily have been in Chicago as not.”

  “People in Maine eat, too.”

  “I know, but this place was upscale.”

  “You’re a snob,” he said, but fondly. “What else did you talk about?”

  “Books. Movies. Music. The time passed quickly. And you’ll be pleased to know that I didn’t leave the table once to call the office.”

  “You waited ’til you got home.”

  “Not even then. I’m proving that you’re wrong. I am not dependent on anyone there.”

  “Except me.”

  “You don’t count. I don’t have to keep tabs on you. It’s my practice that I worry about.”

  “Your practice will be fine.”

  “Maybe. It’s just that I like knowing what’s happening.”

  “You like being in control.”

  “Don’t you? How would you like someone squeegeeing an odd layer of color on one of your prints?”

  “Uh-uh, babe. The analogy’s no good. An artist is, by definition, a single practitioner. But you work in a firm, which, by definition, means that you work in a team.”

  “So? My work can be done wrong. I can be stabbed in the back.”

  “But you choose to work in a firm.”

  “Because that’s where the security is. And the prestige. Especially for a woman. I wouldn’t have the kind of practice I do without the firm.”

  “So? So what if you represented fewer clients and nicer bad guys? It wouldn’t mean you were any less self-sufficient. That’s what this boils down to, Caroline. You’ve always wanted to be the best, the toughest, the busiest lawyer in town. God forbid anyone should think you’re dependent on a man, or your friends, or your place in society the way your mother was. But you aren’t. You’ve already proven that ten times over, and as far as control is concerned, you’d have far more control in your own small law firm, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” she snapped, then said more quietly, “Where did all this come from?”

  Ben was silent for a bit. “It’s the same old thing. I’m just thinking about it more, with you gone. Maybe you should, too.”

  Caroline had the unsettling sense that she’d been given an ultimatum. She and Ben had been together on and off for ten years. He’d been patient. He’d been indulgent. But he was human, too. He wouldn’t wait forever.

  She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to tell him that she’d never promised him a thing, and that if he had a problem with their relationship, it wasn’t her fault. But she couldn’t say that. Too much of what he said made sense.

  “I have to go now,” she said around the lump in her throat, and hung up the phone.

  Annette waited until ten to call home. She figured that by then Robbie and the twins would be with friends, Nat and Thomas would be asleep, and Jean-Paul would be lonely enough to forgive her the call.

  No one answered the phone. She punched out the number a second time, with the same result.

  Assuming that Jean-Paul must have taken the little ones to a movie, she finished her crossword puzzle, then tried again. Still there was no answer. So she opened a book and began to read, trying the number every fifteen minutes, then every ten, then every five. She had worked herself into a state when Jean-Paul finally picked up.

  “Jean-Paul! Thank goodness! I’ve been worried! Where have you been?”

  “We were out, the children and me,”
he said calmly. “You know how they can be. One thing finishes, and they think of something else to do. By the way, I did make calls about your mother’s doctor. His credentials are good.”

  “Did you talk with him?”

  “Yes. He confirmed what Leah said.”

  Annette caught a tiny hesitation that one who didn’t know Jean-Paul as well might have missed. “Tell me, Jean-Paul.”

  “The initial tests found a minimum of problem. In a subsequent visit, though, he felt some concern.” When Annette gasped, he said, “Her blood pressure was up. He prescribed medication, and suggested that she watch her diet and avoid undue upset.”

  “Is there a problem with her heart?”

  “The EKG showed a small irregularity. Had she been ten years younger, he might have suggested a pacemaker. He did, indeed, give her that option. She declined it. Since the case was marginal, he let it go.”

  “Would you have let it go?” Annette asked.

  “I can’t say, since this isn’t my specialty. It is, in the end, though, the patient’s choice. He has suggested that she see someone on a regular basis. I have the name of a man in Portland.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least,” Annette said.

  “Of course, you heard none of this from me,” Jean-Paul cautioned. “Doctors do not like to discuss patients with a third party.”

  “You’re a fellow doctor.”

  “I am also the patient’s son-in-law, telling the patient’s daughter something that the patient, whatever her reasons, has chosen not to reveal.”

  “I will be very subtle when I ask about her health,” Annette promised, though she did plan to ask. Given what Jean-Paul had told her, she felt a responsibility toward Ginny, which was startling given their history, not at all so given Annette’s personality. She feared that it was her destiny to take people’s problems to heart.

  On a lighter vein, she asked, “So, what kept you out so late?”

  “We stopped for ice cream.”

  “At eleven-thirty?”

  “Thomas was hungry. He didn’t have much all day.”

  “He wasn’t feeling well all day.” She sighed in dismay. “Ice cream.” With his father a doctor. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She felt foolish for having worried.

  It suddenly struck her that, at the rate she was going, before she turned fifty she would have wrinkles from frowning and an ulcer from worrying, while everyone else in her family went along his or her carefree way. It didn’t seem fair.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “Ice cream,” she repeated. “Okay. Did he have it with marshmallow fluff, chocolate sauce, and nuts?” Jean-Paul didn’t see fit to worry; let him clean up when Thomas was sick.

  “Just chocolate sauce.”

  “You’d better leave the bedroom door open, in case he doesn’t make it through the night.”

  “Not to worry.”

  “Oh, I won’t worry,” she snapped. “I’m here, and you’re there, so if it’s anyone’s worry, it’s yours.”

  “Are you angry?”

  She was furious. “What makes you ask that?”

  “You don’t sound like you.”

  “Well, how would you sound if your family told you to buzz off?”

  “No one told you that.”

  “Not in as many words, but almost. The kids are impatient each time I call, and you keep telling me not to worry, like I’m being a total pest.”

  “You’re reading into things, Annette. You aren’t a pest.”

  “Then why can’t I call? I miss you all. Don’t you miss me?”

  “Very much. But we aren’t paralyzed without you. That’s a tribute to you. You trained us, and you did it well.”

  Her fury gave way to hurt. “That’s great. I’ve loved you all so well that I’ve enabled you to not need my love at all.”

  “We’ll always need your love. Just not crammed down our throats.”

  “Jean-Paul!”

  She heard a soft, “Merde. I am not handling this right.”

  “Maybe you are. If you’re saying what you feel.”

  “It’s not coming out right. I don’t like talking on the phone this way. This discussion would be better saved for your return.”

  “We’ve already had this discussion,” she argued, but she was feeling as though a hole had been carved out of her center. “Many times. You say I don’t give you breathing space. Okay. I’m giving you breathing space. Ginny keeps putting off her arrival, and I can’t leave until she gets here, and besides, I’m actually having a nice time with my sisters. So I’ll leave everything there to you. If something comes up, you can call.”

  Jean-Paul was silent.

  She wanted to cry. She didn’t understand why they were disagreeing on this, when they rarely disagreed on anything. She didn’t understand why Jean-Paul wasn’t hurting the very same way she was. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t missing her more.

  She was a majority of one, it seemed, when it came to defining motherhood and love. Devastated, she said, “I’m hanging up the phone now. Goodnight, Jean-Paul.”

  She waited for him to call back, but the phone didn’t ring.

  ten

  MIDNIGHT FOUND LEAH SITTING OUT ON THE bluff, wrapped in the afghan, engrossed in the sea. The air was dark and full. Moonshine tipped the water a silvery black, and far below, where she couldn’t see but could only hear, waves met the rocks with an explosion of spume.

  Everywhere she went at Star’s End she found richness, and this was no exception. There was beauty in the night, a wealth of sensation that should have filled her to overflowing. Still, a small, lonely part of her ached.

  She turned around until she faced the house. The dark expanse of the pool was broken only by the rhythmic movement of a pair of ropy arms. She had been on the bluff for an hour. He had been swimming for nearly twenty minutes. If past nights were a precedent, he would be finishing soon.

  No more than two minutes later he set his elbows on the deck. He rested for a bit before hoisting himself up and out. After drying off, he draped the towel around his neck and stood with his back to her, a lone, dark figure in the night. Her heart began to thud. He turned her way.

  She held her breath as he approached. When he was just beyond arm’s reach, he lowered himself to the rocks.

  “Been here long?” he asked gently.

  “No. Yes. It’s nice. Peaceful.”

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “Uh-huh.” Between the afghan and her nightgown, she was adequately covered, which explained warmth. It didn’t explain why her insides hummed. Being with Jesse Cray did that. She was drawn to him—to his honesty, his kindness, and, oh yes, his body. The force of the attraction was startling. It evoked curiosity and yearning. She ached to touch him.

  No doubt because he wasn’t her type at all.

  “We ate at Julia’s tonight,” she said, and worked harder to steady her voice. “I enjoyed it. Thanks for the recommendation.”

  “My pleasure.” He wiped his face with the end of the towel. “Did your sisters like it, too?”

  “Uh-huh. You had prepared me for what I’d find there, but they were surprised. They’re used to the city. Caroline lives in Chicago, Annette in St. Louis. Caroline is a lawyer.”

  “And Annette?”

  “Wife and mother. Her husband is a neurosurgeon. They have five kids.”

  Jesse settled down on the rocks. “What about you?”

  “No kids. No husband.”

  “How do you spend your time?” It was diplomatically put, but without studied tact. His seemed a natural sensitivity.

  “I work for charities and the like. I am,” she drawled, “what they call a professional volunteer.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  No, nothing wrong with it. Except the lack of a paycheck—or a pack of children—to show that she’d done something. And then there was the loneliness at night.

  “Is Caroline married?” he asked.

&
nbsp; “No. She’s too busy. Or so she says.”

  “Are you too busy?”

  “Oh, I’ve been married,” she said without pride. “Twice. It didn’t work out either time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So was I at the time. At both times,” and Ginny had been furious. She had liked Charlie and Ron, each being well-rooted, successful, and able to support Leah in the style Ginny wanted them to—which might have been fine with Leah, too, if there hadn’t been an awful hole where the heart of those relationships should have been.

  “Things that ought to be right, sometimes, just aren’t,” she told Jesse. “What looks right in theory can be a bust in fact. The needs of the mind don’t always jibe with those of the heart.”

  “You didn’t love them?”

  “I did. Just not the right way.” She had loved intellectually, but without the sustenance of passion. She had been far more in love with the idea of being in love, than with the men themselves.

  “They must have been upset.”

  She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “They weren’t. Neither marriage lasted long. Both break-ups were mutual. Since there weren’t any children, we just went our separate ways. That sounds cold, I know. I don’t mean it to. I liked being married.”

  “Just not to those guys.”

  She nodded. “So now you know. I’m a big failure in the love department.”

  “I’ll bet you date a lot.”

  She turned until she faced the sea, wrapped her arms around her knees, and said, “I hate dating. It’s awkward and embarrassing. I avoid it whenever possible.” She dared a look at him. “How about you?”

  He shrugged. “I see women. Nothing serious.”

  “Ever?”

  “I’ve been waiting for the right one. I’m a dreamer.”

  A dreamer. So different.

  He tossed his chin toward the waves. “It’s a wild night down there.”

  “Sounds it.” So different. So refreshing. So physical.

  “Want to go down?”

  “Over the bluff?” she asked in surprise. “I didn’t think I could.”

  “There are steps. Not really steps, but rocks that serve the purpose. I could take you down. It’s a sight, when you’re right in the middle of it.”