The House On Hope Street

by Steel, Danielle

  “I love you so much, Liz …”

  “I love you too …” she whispered to him. It was the first time she had actually said the words to him, but this time they came easily to her, as easily as what came next, as they kissed and then finally gave in to their passion. She was swept away by him and the longing she had felt for him, and suddenly all the sorrow and loneliness and fear seemed to fall away, like a cocoon she had wrapped herself in and no longer needed to protect her. She needed no protection from him, there was no place to hide, nothing she held back from him, as she gave herself to him. And afterwards, they lay breathless and sated and she smiled at him, but there was something bittersweet and nostalgic in her eyes, and he knew that the past and the memories still had their fingertips on her heart. It would have been impossible for it to be any different, and they both knew that.

  “Are you okay?” he asked gently, worried about her, and sorry that she still looked so sad. But no matter what he saw in her eyes, she was smiling at him.

  “I’m fine … better than that … you make me so happy.”

  It was almost true, as true as it could be at the moment.

  He saw that there were tears in her eyes. It was hard not to think of Jack at moments like this, as she gave herself to someone else. It was another important step away from him, a step she had postponed for as long as possible, but that she wanted to take now. It was like walking across a bridge from one life to the next. But she felt safe with Bill, and she could tell him anything. He wasn’t wounded or upset because she admitted that it wasn’t easy for her.

  They lay side by side in bed for a long time, talking about things, and he admitted that he had never loved anyone as he loved her. And she lay peacefully beside him, enjoying being with him, and trying to force herself not to think of Jack. But it was hard not to think of him, and Bill was sensitive to her feelings.

  As the weekend unfolded, she was less and less aware of Jack, and more and more aware of Bill and all that she shared with him. They went for long walks, and talked about a variety of things, their work, her children, their dreams. They avoided talking about the past as much as possible, and inevitably on Sunday morning, as they sat on the deck of their room, looking out over the Napa Valley, their conversation drifted slowly toward the future.

  He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and she was wearing a cozy wool bathrobe in the cool November morning. The day was warm, and it was pleasant just sitting there, basking in the sun, as they shared the paper. And when Liz glanced up at him and handed him the sports section, he was smiling at her.

  “What are you looking so happy about, Dr. Webster?” She smiled at him as he took the paper from her.

  “You. This.” He gestured toward the valley. The whole weekend had had the feeling of a honeymoon to both of them, and in some of the more important ways, she was his now. Jack was drifting slowly into the mists behind her. And although part of her still wanted to hold on to him, and always would, she knew she had to move on. And Bill was a wonderful companion to her. “What are we going to do about us?” he asked her gently.

  “What does that mean?” She looked suddenly worried as he said it. They were words she was not yet ready to hear, and he knew that, but he couldn’t help it. It had been on his mind since they started dating. “We don’t have to do anything,” she said, sounding nervous.

  “It might be nice though. Is it too soon to talk about that, Liz?” They had made love again the day before, and at night in front of the fire, and again that morning. They were amazingly compatible, and it was hard to believe they had never made love before that weekend. Everything about them seemed to mesh and blend, and be just what they both needed and wanted. It was hard to ignore that. “I never thought I’d be saying this to you,” he went on, suddenly feeling young and awkward, but he was so in love with her he didn’t want to lose her. “But I think eventually we ought to get married.” She was shocked when he actually said it. She had never expected him to say that, it was completely out of character for him.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in marriage.” She looked as though she wanted a recount, and he could see that she was frightened by what he had said.

  “I didn’t, until I met you. I guess this is why, because somewhere in my heart, I hoped it could be like this one day, and I didn’t want to waste my tickets with someone it wouldn’t work with, like my first wife. We damn near annihilated each other.” But in his eyes at least, this was perfect. And she could see being with him for a long time, maybe forever, but she was not yet ready to say it. It was too soon for her, and the memories of Jack were still too fresh. It hadn’t been a year yet, although it was close to it. “I don’t want to blow anything by talking about this too soon, Liz, but I wanted you to know that this is the direction I’m headed.” She wasn’t a woman one took lightly, and there were her kids to think of. He had thought about them a lot, and knew he could come to love them. He already did love Jamie, and had a strong bond with Peter. And he figured the girls would come around eventually. He had never had a problem winning over women and children, when he cared to, and in this case he did.

  “I don’t know what to say.” She had friends who went out with men for years who never took them seriously, never proposed, and had no desire to, and she had just spent her first weekend with him, and he was talking about the future. “It’s only been eleven months since Jack died. That’s not very long. I need time to readjust and get back on my feet again, and so do the kids.”

  “I know. I’m not in a hurry. And I know how important the year is to you.” She talked about it a lot, and it was a milestone she obviously respected, as did her children. And he had to respect it with her. “I was hoping we could talk about it again in January, after the holidays, and see how you were feeling. I was kind of hoping that Valentine’s Day …” Her heart give a little tug as his voice drifted off. Valentine’s Day had meant a great deal to her and Jack. But so many things had, and they were gone now, except for the children.

  “That’s just three months away,” she said with a look of panic. But it meant a lot to her too that he was asking.

  “We’ll have known each other for six months by then. It’s fast, but respectable. A lot of people know each other for less, and have very happy marriages.” She knew that was true, but she and Jack had known each other for a long time. And she had been unprepared for what Bill was saying to her. She wasn’t averse to it, but she needed time to think it over. He looked at her then, with everything he felt for her in his eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want, Liz. I just want you to know how much I love you.”

  “I love you too, and I feel very lucky. Some people aren’t that lucky once, I’ve been blessed twice, but I still need some time to get over what happened.”

  “I know that. I’m not rushing you. But I guess what I want to know is if, in time, you might want the same future I do.”

  “I think so,” she smiled shyly, and then took a breath and let her emotions rule her for a moment. “I just need time to get there. Let’s talk about it again after Christmas.” She wanted to honor the year, for Jack’s sake, and her own, and the children’s.

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” he said gently, and took her hand from across the table. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere. We’ve got all the time in the world to put this together. As long as it’s what we both want, there’s no hurry.” He was reasonable and kind and compassionate, she couldn’t have wanted more from any man, and she wasn’t even sure Jack would have been as understanding. He was far more impatient and stubborn, and less willing to follow her lead. More often than not, it was Jack who determined both their pace and their direction. In some ways, it was more of a partnership with Bill, and she liked that.

  They drove slowly back to Tiburon that afternoon, and the children were all home when they arrived. She could see Megan raise an eyebrow when she got out of Bill’s car, but nothing was said until later that evening, when the younger children were in bed and Peter
was busy doing his homework in his room.

  “Why were you in Bill’s car?” Megan finally confronted her in her bedroom that night. “Did you spend the weekend with him?” Liz hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. If she was going to marry him eventually, which was the direction they seemed to be heading in, from everything they’d said over the weekend, she wanted to be honest with her daughter.

  “Yes, I did. We went to the Napa Valley.”

  “Mom!” Megan shouted at her. “That’s disgusting!”

  “Why? He cares about me a great deal, and I care about him, there’s nothing wrong with that, Meg. We’re not hurting anyone. I think we love each other.” But it was a heavy dose for her daughter to swallow.

  “What about Daddy?” There were tears in her eyes when she said it.

  “Daddy’s gone, Meg. I loved him with all my heart and always will. This isn’t the same, it’s different, for me, and for all of us. But I’m not going to be alone for the rest of my life. I have a right to someone in my life.” She spoke to her daughter as gently as she could, but it needed to be said.

  “That’s sick!” Megan chastised her, furious with her mother. “It hasn’t even been a year since Daddy died. I never knew you were a slut before, Mom.” Her eyes were blazing and Liz stood up in anger as she said it. She had never laid a hand on her and she didn’t intend to start now, but she wasn’t going to let her behave that way either.

  “Don’t speak to me that way. Now go to your room until you can be civil. If you want to talk about it with me, you can, but you can’t be disrespectful.”

  “I have no reason to respect you!” Megan said grandly from the safety of the doorway, and then slammed the door, and ran into Peter’s room and told him what had happened. But instead of sympathizing with her, he called her a bitch and told her to apologize to her mother. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

  “Hers,” he said bluntly, “she’s done everything for us, and she loved Dad just as much as we did. But she’s all alone, there’s no one to help her or take care of her, she works like a dog for us, and to keep Dad’s law office open. And besides, Bill’s a nice guy and I like him. We could do a lot worse, so if you want to know whose side I’m on, I’m on their side. Don’t ask me for sympathy if you’re acting like shit with Mom, Meg.”

  “You’re an asshole!” she shouted at him, with tears brimming in her eyes. “And besides, she has us, she doesn’t need some guy to sleep with.”

  “She can’t sleep with Jamie for the rest of her life. What happens when we go to college? I’ll be gone next year, you’ll be gone in two years. Then what? She’s supposed to sit here waiting for us to come home from school so she has a life again? She has no life without Dad, Meg. Look at her, all she does is work and drive carpool. She deserves better than that, and you know it.”

  “Not yet,” Megan said, overwhelmed by what he’d said, as she sat down on his bed and started crying. “It’s too soon. I’m not ready.” He sat down next to her and put his arms around her then, he had grown up immeasurably in the past year, even more so since his accident, and they all knew it. “I miss Daddy,” she wailed, sounding like Jamie.

  “So do I,” Peter said, fighting back tears of his own. No matter how much he had grown up, or how sensible he was, he still missed him. “But whether or not Bill is here, it won’t change that. Nothing will. We just have to accept what happened.”

  “I don’t want to,” she wailed, getting mascara all over his T-shirt. “I want him back.” There was nothing he could say to her, he just held her while she cried, and they both thought about their father.

  And finally, after Peter talked to her for a while when she had calmed down, Megan went and apologized to her mother. She stood awkwardly in the doorway, after opening it without knocking.

  “I don’t like him, but I’m sorry for what I said about you.” It was the best she could offer, and her mother acknowledged the apology with a serious expression.

  “I’m sorry you’re so unhappy, Meg. I know this isn’t easy.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like for us, you have him now,” she said accusingly, and Liz sighed as she looked at her.

  “Being with Bill doesn’t make me miss Daddy any less. Sometimes it makes me miss him more. This isn’t easy for any of us. And I know how hard it is for all of you.” It was getting better for all of them, but slowly.

  “Do you really love him, Mom?” Megan still looked horrified by what her mother had said, and she wished she’d never heard the words.

  “I think I do,” Liz said honestly. “I need time to figure it out. He’s a nice man. That’s all I know right now. I still have a lot to sort out about Daddy.”

  “It seems like you want to forget him,” Megan said sadly.

  “I can never forget him, Meg. No matter what I do, or where I go … I loved him for half my life, and we had all of you … things just happened. It wasn’t fair, for any of us. But now we have to make the best of it, and go on, the way he would want us to.”

  “You’re just saying that to make yourself feel better.”

  “No, I’m saying it because I believe it.”

  Megan just shook her head then, and went back to her own room. Her mother had given her a lot to think about, and she didn’t even want to share it with her sisters. And after Megan left the room, Liz went quiedy to the jewel box she kept in her closet, and took off the wedding ring Jack had once placed on her finger, and she felt as though she were ripping her heart out as she did it. But she knew that the time had come. Peter noticed it the next morning, but said nothing to his mother or the others, although it even made him sad to see it.

  But for the next two weeks, whenever Bill came to pick Liz up, Megan was a little more respectful. She didn’t say much to him, but she wasn’t rude to him either, and Liz was grateful. It was the best she could hope for, for the moment. Jamie and Peter were still his most ardent fans among the kids.

  Liz was spending a lot of time with Bill, and they went to his apartment and made love whenever he had some time and was off duty. Sometimes they spent time together when he was on call, and he would have to leap out of bed and grab the phone, but Liz never objected. She had a strong respect for his work, more than for her own these days. She had told him more than once that her family law practice depressed her. She no longer seemed to enjoy what she was doing. It had been fun with Jack, but it wasn’t anymore. It seemed frivolous and argumentative and so pointless. The only thing she really liked these days was structuring good custody arrangements for people’s children.

  “Maybe I’m losing it,” she said to him one day when they met in the hospital cafeteria for a sandwich. She had just been to court, and she was furious with one of her clients, who had behaved like a boor to his wife in court in front of the judge. She had been tempted to walk off the case, but she hadn’t. “I don’t even enjoy going to court anymore.”

  “Maybe you just need a breather.” She’d only had two weeks off in the past year, she worked weekends and nights, and she was carrying a double workload.

  “Maybe I should go to beauty school and get a job in a beauty parlor. It might be more useful.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he smiled at her, but she still looked unhappy.

  “Jack loved family law work, it was really more his thing than mine. I just got good at it from working with him. But I don’t know now …” She was one of the best divorce lawyers in the area, and it was hard to believe she didn’t like it. Her clients would have been stunned by what she was saying. She was always so full of energy, bright ideas and creative suggestions. But lately, she felt like a windup doll whose batteries had run down. She didn’t enjoy it anymore, and she wasn’t happy. But she felt she owed it to Jack to keep going, for him.

  She asked Bill what he was doing for Thanksgiving. They had talked about it once before, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be working. He had just found out that he had the day off, and he wouldn’t even be on call. He was free
to do whatever he wanted, but he hadn’t made any plans since he had expected to be working over the holiday.

  “Why don’t you spend it with us?” Liz said easily. The children were getting used to him, and it might be a nice way to break everyone in, she thought, over the holidays. They all loved Thanksgiving, or at least they had, when their father was alive. Liz knew it would be different this year, for all of them and her too. And trying to keep the tension level down, she had discouraged her mother from coming out.

  But she wasn’t prepared for the children’s reaction when she told them that Bill would be joining them. Megan had a fit, predictably, Rachel and Annie said that he wasn’t part of the family and didn’t belong there, and even Jamie looked a little startled. She talked to Peter about asking Bill not to come, but he thought that would be mean, and he thought it might be nice to have him. And in the end, she didn’t say anything to Bill about their reaction. She just hoped they’d settle down, and be good sports when the day came, but she realized on Thanksgiving Day that her optimism had been unfounded. When the doorbell rang and he arrived, all three girls were still very angry with her.

  Bill walked in wearing a tweed jacket, gray slacks, and a red tie, and Liz was wearing a brown velvet pantsuit. The children were all neatly dressed, and Peter was wearing the same suit he’d worn at his father’s funeral, Jamie his gray flannels and blazer. They were a handsome group, and as Liz poured Bill a glass of wine, she was suddenly glad that he had joined them. She realized suddenly how empty the table would seem to all of them without their father there. It would have turned into another mournful memory of him, and this way they had to keep up a good front, and talk to Bill, and each other.