Summer’s End

by Danielle Steel

  “To San Francisco?” he asked. She nodded. “I don’t know. I haven’t given it any thought. Are you in a hurry?”

  “I just want to get back. It’s … harder for me here.”

  “Bon. But I have work I must complete here. I need at least another two weeks.”

  Oh, God, no. She couldn’t survive two more weeks there under her mother-in-law’s roof—and without Ben. “There’s no reason why I should stay, is there?”

  “What do you mean? You want to go home alone?” He looked distressed. “I don’t want you to do that. I want you to go home with me.” He had already thought about it. It would be too hard for her to face the house alone: Pilar’s room, all her things. He didn’t want that. She’d have to wait for him.

  “I can’t wait two weeks.” She looked frantic at the idea, and he noticed again how exhausted and overwrought she was.

  “Let’s just see.”

  “Marc, I have to go home.” Her voice trembled as it rose.

  “All right. But first, would you do something for me?”

  “What?” She looked at him strangely. What did he want? All she wanted was to get away.

  “Will you go away with me for two days? Anywhere, for a weekend. Some place quiet, where we both can rest. We need to talk. We haven’t been able to here, and I don’t want you to go back until we do talk. Quietly. Alone. Will you do that for me?”

  She waited for a long moment and looked at him. “I don’t know.”

  “Please. It’s all I ask. Only that. Two days, and then you can go.”

  She turned away to stare out at the rooftops again. She was thinking of Ben and Carmel. But she had no right to rush home to him just to make herself feel better. She owed something to their marriage, even if it was only two days. She turned to look at Marc and slowly nodded. “All right. I’ll go.”

  20

  “Merde alors! What do you expect of me? My daughter dies three days ago, and you want me to announce to Deanna that I want a divorce? Doesn’t that seem a little hasty to you, Chantal? And has it occurred to you that you’re taking unfair advantage of this situation?” He felt torn between two women, two worlds. Once again he felt an odd kind of pressure from Chantal, a kind of emotional blackmail that told him there would be tragedy if Chantal suffered a loss. Both women wanted him to make a choice, a painful choice. He’d realized that all the more this week. Deanna seemed as though she would be only too happy to leave him right now. She had yet to forgive him for what she had seen at the airport the night of Pilar’s death. But he didn’t want to lose Deanna. She was his wife, he needed her, he respected her, he was used to her. And she was his last link to Pilar. Leaving Deanna would be like leaving home. But he couldn’t give up Chantal either—she was his excitement, his passion, his joy. He looked at Chantal now with exasperation and ran a hand through his hair. “Can’t you understand? It’s too soon!”

  “It’s been five years. And now she knows. And maybe it isn’t too soon. Maybe it’s the best time right now.”

  “For whom? For you? Dammit, Chantal, just be a little bit patient. Let me sort things out.”

  “And how long will that take? Another five years, while you live there and I live here? You were supposed to go back in two weeks, and then what? What about me? I sit here waiting for two months until you return? Et alors? I was twenty-five when we met, now I’m nearly thirty. And then I’ll be thirty-five, and thirty-seven and forty-five. Time passes quickly. Especially like this. It goes much, much too fast.”

  He knew that was true, but he was simply not in the mood. “Look, could we just put this away for a while? Out of simple decency, I’d like to let the woman recover from the loss of her daughter before I destroy her life.” For a moment he hated Chantal. Because he did care, because he didn’t want to lose her—and because that gave her the upper hand.

  And she knew it. “What makes you think your leaving her would destroy her life? Maybe she has a lover.”

  “Deanna? Don’t be ridiculous. In fact I think you’re being absurd about this whole thing. I’m going away for the weekend. We have a lot of things to discuss. I’ll talk to her, I’ll see how things are. And in a while I’ll make the right move.”

  “What move is that?”

  He sighed imperceptibly and suddenly felt very old. It had come to this. “The one you want.”

  But as he hailed a cab two hours later to go back to his mother’s apartment where Deanna was waiting, he found himself wondering. Why did Chantal have to pull this on him? First the arguments over Cap d’Antibes, then that terrible night he had returned to find her gone—perhaps forever— when she had stopped taking her insulin. And now this. But why? Why now? For an odd reason he did not understand, it made him want to rush back to Deanna and protect her from a world that was about to be very cruel.

  They left for the country in the morning. Deanna was strangely quiet as they drove out of town. She sat lost in her own thoughts. He had wanted to take her some place neutral, where there wouldn’t be a cascade of memories of Pilar. They both had enough of that to deal with at his mother’s house. A friend had offered his country house, near Dreux.

  He glanced over at Deanna distractedly and then shifted his concentration back to the road, but he found himself thinking of Chantal again. He had spoken to her that morning before they left:

  “Will you tell her this weekend?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to see. If I drive her to a nervous breakdown, it won’t do any of us any good.” But Chantal had sounded petulant and childish. Suddenly, after so many years of patience, she was getting out of hand. Still she had been the mainstay of his life for the past five years. He couldn’t give her up. But could he so easily give up Deanna? He glanced over at her again. Her eyes were still closed and she hadn’t said a word. Did he love her? He had always thought so, but after the summer with Chantal he wasn’t as sure. It was impossible to know, to figure it out, to understand— and damn Chantal for pushing him now. He had promised Deanna only two days ago that he would end the relationship with Chantal, and now he had made the same promise to his mistress about Deanna.

  “Is it very far?” Deanna’s eyes fluttered open, but she did not move her head. She felt weighed down by the same exhaustion that had plagued her for days.

  “No. It’s about an hour. And it’s a pretty house. I haven’t stayed there since I was a boy, but it was always lovely.” He smiled at her. There were circles under her eyes. “You know, you look awfully tired.”

  “I know. Maybe this weekend I’ll get some rest.”

  “Didn’t you get some sleeping pills from my mother’s doctor?” He had told her to the last time the man had come to the house.

  She shook her head. “I’ll work it out for myself.” He made a face, and for the first time, she smiled.

  They arrived before she spoke again. It was indeed a beautiful place, an old stone house of considerable grandeur and proportion, almost in the style of a château, surrounded by magnificently manicured gardens. In the distance were fruit orchards that stretched for miles.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” He said it tentatively, and their eyes met.

  “Very. Thank you for arranging this.” Then as he reached for the bags, she spoke again, barely audibly. “I’m glad we came.”

  “So am I.” He looked at her very cautiously, and they both smiled.

  He carried the bags into the house and set them down in the main hall. The furniture was mostly English and French Provincial, and everything in the rooms was faithful to the seventeenth century when the house had been built. Deanna wandered down the long halls, looking at the beautifully inlaid floors and glancing out the tall windows into the gardens. She stopped at last at the end of the corridor, in a solarium filled with plants and comfortable chairs. She sat down in one and stared silently out at the grounds. It was a while before she heard Marc’s footsteps echoing down the hall.

  “Deanna?”

  “I’m in here.”

>   He entered the room and stood in the doorway for a while, looking outside and occasionally glancing at his wife.

  “C’est joli, non?” He spoke absentmindedly, and her eyes reached up to his. “It’s pretty.”

  She nodded. “I understood. Marc?” She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. And she knew he wouldn’t be pleased. “How’s your friend?”

  For a long time he didn’t answer. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do.” She felt nausea rise in her as she searched his eyes. “How have you decided to handle it?”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little too soon to discuss it? We just got out of the car.”

  She smiled at him. “How French. What did you have in mind, darling? That we spend the weekend being charming and then discuss it on the way home Sunday night?”

  “That was not why I brought you here. We both needed to get away.”

  She nodded again, her eyes filling with tears. “Yes. We did.” Her mind immediately sped back to Pilar. “But we have to talk about this too. You know, I suddenly wonder why we’ve stayed married.” She looked up at him again. He came into the room and slowly sat down.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Maybe I am.” She looked for her handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “Deanna, please….” He glanced at her, then looked away.

  “What? You want to pretend that nothing has happened? Marc, we can’t.” Too much had happened over the summer. She had had Ben, and now she knew Marc had someone too. Only in Marc’s case, it probably had gone on for years.

  “But this is not something for you to worry about now.”

  “What better time? We’re both already in such pain, we might as well lance the whole boil. If we don’t, it’ll go on throbbing and hurting forever, while we try to make believe it’s not there.”

  “Have you been so unhappy for so long?”

  She nodded slowly, turning to look outside. She was thinking of Ben. “I never realized until this summer how terribly lonely I’ve been, how constantly alone … how little we do together, how little we’ve shared. How little you understand what I want.”

  “And what is it you want?” His voice was very low and soft.

  “Your time, your affection. Laughter. Walks on the beach….” She said the last without thinking and then turned her head toward him in surprise. “I want you to care about my work, because it’s important to me. I want to be with you, Marc. Not all by myself at home. What do you think will happen now, with Pilar gone? You’ll travel for months, and what will I do? Sit there and wait?” The very thought of that existence made her tremble inside. “I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” He wanted her to say it, wanted her to ask for the divorce.

  “I don’t know. We could call it a day, or if we decide to stay married, then things would have to be different, especially now.” Jesus, what was she doing? If she stayed with him, she couldn’t have Ben. But this was her husband, the man she had lived with for eighteen years.

  “You’re telling me you want to travel with me?” He looked annoyed.

  “Why not? She travels with you, doesn’t she?” Deanna had finally figured that out. “Why couldn’t I?”

  “Because … because it’s unreasonable. And impractical. And—and expensive.” And because then he couldn’t take Chantal.

  “Expensive?” Deanna raised an eyebrow with a small, vicious smile. “My, my. Does she pay her own way?”

  “Deanna! I will not discuss this with you!”

  “Then why did we come here?” Her eyes were fierce in the narrow white face.

  “We came here to rest.” They were the words of a monarch, her king. The subject was now closed.

  “I see. Then all we have to do is get through the weekend, be polite, and go back to Paris pretending nothing happened. You go back to your little friend, and in two weeks we go back to the States and go on as always. And just how long will you stay there this time, Marc? Three weeks? A month? Six weeks? And then you’ll be gone again, and for how long, and with whom, while I sit all alone in that goddamn museum we live in, waiting for you to come back. Alone again dammit. Alone!”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is, and you know it. And what I’m telling you now is that I’ve had enough. As far as I’m concerned, those days are over.” She stood up suddenly then and was about to leave the room, but when she got to her feet, she felt faint. She stopped for a moment, looking down and holding on to her chair.

  He watched her, at first saying nothing, then with concern in his eyes. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Nothing.” She straightened herself and glared at him from where she stood. “I’m just very tired.”

  “Then go and rest. I’ll show you our room.” He gently took her elbow until he was sure that she was steady on her feet, then led the way down the long hall to the other end of the house. They had taken over the master bedroom, a splendid suite done in silks the color of raspberries and cream. “Why don’t you lie down for a while, Deanna.” She was looking steadily worse. “I’ll take a walk.”

  “And then what?” She looked up at him miserably from the bed. “Then what do we do? I can’t do this anymore, Marc. I can’t play the game.”

  He was tempted to say “What game?” to deny it all. He said nothing, and Deanna went on, looking directly into his eyes as she spoke. They looked troubled and a little too full.

  “I want to know what you feel, what you think, what you’re going to do. What’s going to be different for me, other than the fact that we no longer have Pilar. I want to know if you’re going to go on seeing your mistress. I want to know all the things you think it’s rude to say. Say them now, Marc. I need to know.”

  He nodded silently and walked to the other side of the room, looking out the window toward the gently rolling hills. “It’s not easy for me to talk about those kinds of things.”

  “I know.” Her voice was very soft. “Half the time we’ve been married, I’ve never been sure if you loved me.”

  “I always did.” He spoke without turning around, and all she could see was his back. “I always will love you, Deanna.”

  She felt tears sting her eyes. “Why?” She could barely say the word. “Why do you love me? Because I’m your wife? Out of habit? Or because you really care?” But he didn’t answer, he only turned to her with a look of intense pain on his face.

  “Must we do this? Now … so soon after Pilar’s … death?” Deanna didn’t speak. His whole face had trembled as he spoke of Pilar. “Deanna, I—I just can’t.”

  Without another word he strode out of the room, and she next saw him, with his head bent, walking in the garden. Her eyes filled with tears again as she watched him. The past few days felt like the end of her life. For a moment she didn’t even think of Ben. Only Marc.

  He did not return to the house for an hour, and when he did, he found her asleep. There was still a look of exhaustion around the black-circled eyes. For the first time in years, she was wearing no makeup, and in contrast to the raspberry silk bedspread he thought her face looked almost green. He wandered back into the main hallway and into a study beyond. For a moment he sat there, staring at the phone. And then, as though he had to, he started to dial.

  She answered on the third ring. “Marc-Edouard?”

  “Oui.” He paused. “How are you?” What if Deanna woke up? Why had he called her?

  “You sound odd. Is something wrong?”

  “No, no. I’m just very tired. We both are.”

  “That’s understandable. Have you talked?” She was relentless. It was a side of Chantal he had never known.

  “Not really. Only a little.”

  “I suppose it’s not easy.” He could hear her sigh.

  “No, it’s not.” He paused. There were footsteps in the hall. “Look, I’ll call you back.”

  “When?”

  “Later.” And then: “I love you
.”

  “Good, darling, so do I.”

  He hung up with a trembling hand as the footsteps approached. But it was only the caretaker, come to see that they were comfortably settled. Satisfied, the man went away, and Marc sank slowly into a chair. It would never work. He couldn’t keep up the charade forever. Calling Chantal, pacifying Deanna, flying back and forth between California and France, hiding and excusing, and showering them both with guilt-inspired gifts. Deanna was right. It had been almost impossible for years. Of course Deanna hadn’t known then, but now that she did, it made everything different. It made him feel so much worse. He closed his eyes, and his mind went immediately back to Pilar, to the last time he had seen her. They had walked on the beach. She had teased him and he had laughed, and he had made her promise to be careful with the motorcycle. Again, she had laughed. … The tears flooded his throat again, and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of his sobs. He didn’t even hear Deanna come in, catlike, on stockinged feet. She went to him slowly and held his shivering shoulders in her arms.

  “It’s all right, Marc. I’m here.” There were tears on her face as well, and he could feel the warm wetness through his shirt as she rested her cheek on his back. “It’s all right.”

  “If you only knew how I loved Pilar. … Why did I do it? Buy her that damned machine! I should have known.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. It was meant to be. You can’t do this to yourself for the rest of your life.”

  “But why?” His words shook with pain as he turned to look at his wife. “Why her? Why us? We already lost two boys, and now the only child we had. Deanna, how can you bear it?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “We don’t have any choice. I thought—I thought I would die myself when the two babies died…. I thought I couldn’t go on another day. Each day I just wanted to give up, to hide in a corner. But I didn’t. I went on … somehow. In part, because of you. In part, because of myself. And then we had Pilar, and I forgot that kind of pain. I thought—I thought I’d never feel that way again. But now I remember what it’s like. Only this time it’s so much worse.” She lowered her head, and he reached out and took her in his arms.