Alix and Ben could hardly wait to get to Provence. They were planning a couple of short trips too. They’d covered several stories back to back for the last month, and they were tired, but excited to see Isabelle, and spend time in France with Faye. Alix was embarrassed that she hadn’t explained her relationship with Ben to her daughter. It was obvious that they were living together and had been for several months, Faye knew her mother hadn’t moved back to their apartment, but all Alix had acknowledged was that they were roommates and good friends, and it was comfortable staying with Ben, and nothing more. She kept meaning to tell her but hadn’t found the right time. She or Faye was always busy. And Faye had left for France as soon as school was over. Alix wanted to at least tell her by Skype or in person, not by email or text. But she never found the right moment. Faye had stayed with them for a few days before she left for France, but Alix had stayed in the guestroom again with her, so there was no obvious evidence of her mother’s romance with Ben. It was a crazy situation that didn’t make sense even to Alix and complicated their lives.
“Why are you hiding it from her?” Ben asked Alix frequently and felt awkward about it too. “She’s not a little kid. She’s a nineteen-year-old woman. You had her when you were only a year older.”
“I don’t know how to explain us,” Alix said, feeling stupid every time she said it, but it was true, she didn’t.
“We love each other. Isn’t that enough?” was his simple answer, and Alix knew he was right. Her mother knew about them and had no problem with it. And Faye wasn’t shocked by her grandmother’s relationship with Gabriel, when he traveled with them, or spent the night on weekends. She thought it was nice that her grandmother had someone in her life. Alix had promised herself to say something to her when they got to Provence. Otherwise they couldn’t sleep in the same room, which would ruin the vacation for them.
“What are you afraid of?” Ben finally asked her on the way to Provence, trying to figure it out. It was the only thing about Alix that made no sense to him. She was an honest person, and morally courageous, with strong beliefs. She was a good mother, and had integrity. And she was happy in her relationship with him. It seemed ridiculous to keep their romance a secret.
“What if it doesn’t work out with us? Look at the mistakes I’ve made in my life. I slept with a boy I hardly knew when I was her age, got pregnant, married into a family that hated me, was a widow four months later, and his parents wanted nothing to do with us, so she was cheated out of grandparents and lost her father at three months. I never had a father to give her. And I left her with my mother for the first five years of her life, because I was too busy doing my own thing, and preferred it to taking care of her. What kind of credentials do I have for relationships? What if she asks me if we’re getting married? Neither of us believe in marriage, and I’m happy the way we are and so are you, and at our age it makes sense. But what kind of example am I setting for her?”
“Your credentials are that you’re a human being and a good person, and I think you’re a great mother. And you’re allowed to make mistakes. You were a kid when you had her, and it was probably the right thing to do to let your mother take care of her for a few years. And you’re a prize-winning reporter for chrissake, you didn’t just have a little job. I think you’ll wind up with an Emmy one day. And you deserve it. The stories you cover, and how you cover them, make a difference in the world. You’re the white knight in a very dark world, like when you went after Tony Clark. You saved Olympia Foster and the country from a corrupt Vice President. And I thought you were insane when you said he killed Bill Foster, but you were right. So what are you apologizing for? Does it really bother you that we’re not married? Is that the issue? Does it mean that much to you?” He was asking her honestly and would have married her if it was important to her, but he’d never said it to her.
“No, I’d prefer not to. I don’t want to screw up what we have or change anything. I just don’t know how to explain it to her. I don’t want her to think I’m a slut.” He smiled at what she said. “And I can’t promise her we’ll be together forever. Nobody knows that. One of us could die, or we could get tired of each other. I want to believe in happily ever after, but I don’t know if I do. How many people do you know that that works for? Not very many. Only a lucky few.”
“Maybe we’ll be one of them,” he said hopefully. He was optimistic by nature.
“I’m not sure marriage improves the odds of that happening,” Alix added. “I guess all my life I’ve done whatever I wanted, regardless of what anyone thought. I do what I believe in, and that applies to us too. I believe in you, Ben. I love you. I admire you, I think you’re the best person I know. But what if you get tired of me a year from now, or bored or fed up? Then what? I tell her today that you’re the love of my life, and a year from now, oops, I guess not. What kind of lesson is that? What kind of shining example am I then?”
“You’re teaching her about life, that people love each other and you try like hell to make it work. And sometimes shit happens that fucks it all up. You fall flat on your face, and then you pick yourself up and dust yourself off and you go on and you try again. Maybe that’s the best lesson of all. Look at us. You made a stupid mistake when you were twenty, but you got her out of it, which was a fantastic gift. I thought I had a real marriage, and our son died, and the whole thing fell apart, and now here I am with you, and I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. And look at Olympia Foster. She had a great marriage, and their best friend murdered her husband, and it damn near killed her. You say she’s up and running again, her kids are okay, and she’s going back to school in the fall. Maybe the lesson is that you try and try and try and keep trying, and loving, and doing the right thing. Other people don’t always play by the rules, but you still have to do it right, and do it with your whole heart. Isn’t that what we’re doing?” He made it all sound so obvious and simple. Alix loved him for that.
“I guess it is.” She smiled at him. “Maybe all I need to tell her is that I love you and we hope it will work out. Maybe that’s enough.”
“I think so.” And then after a minute, he turned to her and asked a question. “Do you want to get married?”
“Not really. I’m too scared it would screw it all up.”
“I don’t think it would, but I’m not dying to get married either. I don’t think it’s necessary if we’re not going to have children.”
“Then let’s not get married,” she said clearly. “But I’d want Faye to get married if she has a baby,” Alix said, and he smiled.
“She might not. She’s got her own ideas, just like you do, and she’ll do whatever she wants, no matter what you tell her.”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Alix said honestly. “I believe in marriage, just not for me. But I hope she gets married one day.”
“That might be tough to sell if you don’t want it for yourself. Why don’t we wait ten or twenty years, and see how it works out? If we still like each other twenty years from now, we’ll get married. Is that a deal?” He grinned at her.
“Maybe. Ask me in twenty years. I’ll think about it in the meantime.”
“You’re just a coward. Or maybe you don’t love me enough to marry me.” He was teasing her.
“Look at my mother, she doesn’t want to get married either.”
“It must be hereditary,” he concluded, “or some kind of family curse. The women in your family are phobic about marriage.”
“So are you,” she reminded him. “I think my mother is afraid Gabriel will die if she marries him, like my father did.”
“That’s crazy. You really think that’s why she won’t?” Alix nodded.
“She told me so once. She’s convinced he’ll keel over and die as soon as they leave the church.”
“That’s sad,” Ben said, thinking about it.
“She’s happy the way she is. And so are we.”
“Just tell Faye that. That’s all she needs to
know. She doesn’t need to know all the complicated crazy stuff that goes on in our heads, of what we’re afraid of and why. I never wanted another child because I was afraid it would die like Chris. That’s foolish too. I love Faye and she makes me realize I would have enjoyed having another child, but I deprived myself of that, out of fear. We cheat ourselves sometimes.”
“Now you have Faye,” Alix said and he smiled.
They arrived at Isabelle’s house half an hour later, and Isabelle and Faye ran out to greet them and threw their arms around Ben and Alix, and the four of them went into the house together. Gabriel was coming to dinner that night. And Alix was delighted to see her mother and to be with Faye again. She had missed her.
Ben left Alix’s bags at the top of the stairs to avoid making a faux pas of which room he put them in, which reminded Alix that she had to say something to her daughter so she could unpack her bags in the room she planned to share with Ben. Faye had Alix’s usual room, which was too small for both of them, although it was a pretty room.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Alix said to Faye when Isabelle went out to pick some lettuce and vegetables for that night, and Faye looked surprised.
“Is something wrong, Mom?” Faye wondered if something bad had happened, but she grabbed a sweater and followed her mother.
Once they were walking, Alix looked at her seriously. “I have a confession to make. I’ve been living with Ben, not just as roommates, since you went back to school. I love him, and we’re happy together, but I can’t promise you it’ll work forever and we have no plans to get married. Does that sound terribly immoral to you?” Alix looked solemn and worried, and Faye laughed at her.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mom. I figured that out when I stayed with you before I came to France. Your stuff was all over his room, and his bathroom. I think he’s the best. I love him, and if you’re happy with him, that’s good enough for me. I don’t care if you get married. He’s nice to you, and to me. I hope it works out for you, and it works forever, but if it doesn’t, we’ll survive it together. You and I are forever. What you do with him is up to you.”
“Simple as that?” Alix looked at her in amazement. She was a remarkable girl, and so mature. She’d been through a lot in her life.
“Simple as that. Is that okay with you?” Faye smiled at her mother.
“It sounds perfect to me.” They had their arms around each other when they walked back to the house, and both of them were smiling. Faye went to help her grandmother in the garden, and Alix bounded up the stairs and carried her bags into Ben’s room. “It’s all worked out,” she said, beaming at him.
“You told her?” Alix nodded and reached up to kiss him. “What did she say?” He looked worried.
“That we’re idiots, and she figured it out when she stayed with us before she came here, and she said she loves you, she’s happy for us, and she doesn’t care what we do.” It was all he needed to know.
“Wow. That sounds easy.” He kissed Alix harder then, relieved by what she’d said. “She’s a terrific kid.”
“So are you,” Alix told him and meant it. “So now we can live in sin forever and it’s fine with her.” He laughed at what Alix said. He would have loved to make love to her to celebrate it, but he was afraid someone would hear them, it was a small house, and it seemed safer to wait until that night.
Ben and Alix unpacked and went downstairs. Ben took a bike ride into the village, and Alix helped her mother get dinner ready, while Faye set the table, just as she had done as a child. And Gabriel arrived with wine from his cellar, and they spent a wonderful evening together. The two men sat outside afterward under the stars, while the women cleaned up the kitchen and joined them a little while later. They talked for a long time about life and politics, medicine, and people, and when they were tired they went to bed. And the next morning, they all met again for breakfast, and then Faye went off to see her friends, and Ben and Alix went for a drive, and checked out the local farmer’s market and came home with baskets of fruits and vegetables and cheese and bread for Alix’s mother.
The time went by too quickly. It was the perfect holiday for all of them, and before they left, Isabelle told Alix something that she hadn’t expected and shocked her. She said that she and Gabriel were thinking of getting married, and Alix looked at her, surprised.
“Why?”
“Because I love him, and I want to. And at our age, why not? I think I’d like to be his wife, legally, I mean.” She seemed happy about the idea, although she hadn’t before.
“I thought you were afraid he’d die if you got married, like Daddy.”
“He convinced me that was ridiculous, and I suppose he’s right. He’s in good health, and he’s not working in war zones like your father.”
“When are you going to do it?” Alix asked her.
“Sometime when it feels right to us. There’s no hurry. We won’t make a big fuss. We’ll just do it at town hall and go away for a few days, for a honeymoon, maybe to Italy. I’ll let you know if I do it. But it sounds like a good plan to me.”
Alix told Ben about it that night, and he looked surprised too. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“That your mother is breaking the curse on the women in this family being afraid to get married. Watch out!” he warned her. “It could happen to you!” He was teasing her, and she laughed.
“Well, not anytime soon.”
“I think it’s a nice idea, if that’s what they want to do, and have the right attitude about it,” he said sensibly. “I like him a lot, and they’re good together.” Alix nodded in agreement. Things seemed to be simpler and simpler in her family these days. Her mother was getting married after being widowed for more than thirty years. Faye was growing up, and she and Ben were happy living together and didn’t need more than that. It all seemed very easy to her.
The next day she and Ben drove back to Paris, and spent a night there before they flew back to New York. The vacation had been idyllic, and Faye was staying for another week with her grandmother before she came home. She was going back to Duke for a semester, but applying to spend the spring semester at the Sorbonne, and was excited about it.
It had been a relaxing holiday interlude for both of them, and Ben had enjoyed it as much as she did. They looked tanned and relaxed and healthy when they boarded the flight to New York, wondering what was in store for them when they got back. There was never any way to predict where they’d be sent, or what they’d be covering, or how dangerous or interesting it might be. But as long as they were together, they knew that they’d have a good time working on the story, and it would turn out well. It was all they needed to know. And they enjoyed their personal life now too. Neither of them was coming home to an empty apartment, or ruled by their losses of the past.
When they landed in New York, they got in a cab to Brooklyn and he kissed her. “Welcome home.”
“I love you,” she said and smiled at him as they headed into the traffic leaving the airport and Felix texted them both.
“You’re leaving for Tokyo tomorrow. Okay with you? Government scandal. Welcome home.”
Ben grinned as he read the message and put an arm around her. “Sounds like fun,” he commented. And she laughed. Their life had never been better. They had everything they wanted for now.
Chapter 19
Olympia and Darcy started their master’s programs on the same day. Darcy had an early class and took the subway to NYU before Olympia had to leave for Columbia. She had a last cup of tea with Jennifer before she did, and said she felt like a kid leaving for school with her books and her computer, wearing jeans and flat shoes. Jennifer smiled at the image, and once in her classroom, Olympia was relieved to see that there were some students older than she was in the seats around her, and there was a palpable feeling of anticipation in the room before the professor walked in. Olympia thought it was the most exciting thing she had done in years. And she couldn’t wait to tell D
arcy about it that night, and hear about how her classes had gone at NYU.
When the professor walked in, Olympia sat up straighter in her chair and paid close attention to everything she said. She was one of the most prestigious professors in the school, and Olympia was thrilled to be in her class. She had read two of her books in anticipation during the summer.
Her life was full and busy, Darcy was home and would be living with her for the year, and she had survived everything that had happened to her.
She glanced over to her left and saw a young girl looking at her with interest, wondering what she was doing in the class, and why she had come back to school. Olympia was curious about the stories of each of them in the class, what they had done and had to overcome in order to be there. You could never tell about people, and she was sure that most of them had interesting stories to tell. She would have liked to know them all. And for now she wanted to get through the next year, learn everything she could, and get ready to work again. She had so much to look forward to.
—
Alix was working at her desk the week after Labor Day, after their trip to Japan a couple of weeks earlier. Faye had already gone back to Duke after a perfect summer in Provence, and Alix had decided to give up her apartment in the city. It seemed a waste to keep paying rent if she didn’t live there anymore. She and Faye had discussed it and she said she didn’t mind if her mother gave it up, now that she could have the guest room at Ben’s to herself.
Ben thought they should get a bigger place in Brooklyn eventually, but they were fine where they were for now, and they liked the neighborhood. But they wanted more space for when Faye was home. Ben’s apartment was a suitable bachelor pad, but a little crowded for the three of them.
Alix was talking to Ben on her cellphone when Felix walked into the room, and looked like he had something important to tell her. He was smiling broadly. She told Ben she’d call him back in a few minutes and hung up as Felix slipped into the chair across from her.
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