Country

by Danielle Steel

  “Did Bill say that to you?” she asked with interest.

  “More or less. He didn’t have to. He said he wanted to marry her, and the facts spoke for themselves. She stayed with her husband, so he came back to me, and the kids. But he was never really there. We were both kind of dead after that. We went through the motions of being married, but it was never fun again. We never really talked. It never felt real. And once the kids were gone, we talked even less. There was nothing left to say except that the roof was leaking, or someone needed to clean out the garage. We spent almost no time together. He worked all the time, and I kept busy on my own.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a marriage. Why stay after the kids were gone?” Stephanie thought about it for a long moment, and then shook her head.

  “I don’t know. I guess neither of us wanted the pain of a divorce.”

  “But the life you’re describing sounds painful to me.”

  “I loved him,” Stephanie said, with tears in her eyes. “I just didn’t trust him anymore. I never trusted him again. For a long time I thought it would get better, but it never did.”

  “Did you ever think about leaving him then?”

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do now?” It was a good question, one that Stephanie had asked herself a thousand times in the last month. She had found no answers yet.

  “I don’t know. I’d like to get a job, but I have no idea what to do. Bill left everything organized and all of us very well set. I don’t have to work, but I’d like to find something to do. I can’t sit alone in the house for the rest of my life.”

  “I hope not.” Dr. Zeller glanced at her watch as she said it. Their session had come to an end, and they made an appointment for the following week, although Stephanie didn’t think it had really helped. All they had done was discuss the problems she was facing, they had found no solutions, to her anger or her children’s, or to how she was going to fill her days and nights now that Bill was gone. She felt even more depressed when she left the therapist’s office, and wondered if it was worth bothering to go at all. What difference would it make now? He was dead, no matter how she felt about it.

  She let Jean and Alyson talk her into going to dinner with both couples that weekend. She really didn’t feel like it, but her friends insisted that she needed to get out. They had discussed it with each other, and they were worried about her. She looked like a zombie and was obviously depressed. She hardly ever left the house. It bothered Jean that Stephanie’s kids were so tough on her whenever they spoke, almost as if they blamed her for their father’s death.

  In the end, Stephanie agreed to have dinner with her friends at a restaurant they all liked. Neither Brad nor Fred had seen her since the funeral and were concerned about her too, from everything their wives had said, although they weren’t surprised.

  Jean and Fred offered to pick her up in a Bentley Fred had just bought and wanted to show off, but Stephanie said she would meet them at the restaurant, she didn’t want to feel like a burden on them. She told Jean she was perfectly capable of driving herself, although she had hardly been out of the house in the past month.

  She was surprised at how nervous she was when she dressed for dinner, and told herself she was ridiculous. These were her best friends, and it would be just like old times, which she found made her anxious too. It would feel weird to have dinner with them without Bill. She wore a simple black dress, which hung on her now, and high heels. It was the first time she had worn decent clothes since the funeral, and it felt strange. She washed her hair and blew it dry, and put on makeup, and she was shaking when she got in the car, and scolded herself again.

  She was startled, when she got to the restaurant, to realize how noisy it was. She had never noticed it before, and instead of festive, as it usually seemed, it felt oppressive and overwhelming, and she looked pale and strained when she got to the table where the others were waiting for her. The two men were on their feet instantly, and gave her a warm hug. For a fraction of an instant, she thought Brad held her for too long, and Fred looked at her with such obvious pity that it almost made her cry. She kissed Jean and Alyson while fighting back tears, and then sat down. She was about to order a drink, when she realized she had to drive, so she decided not to. The conversation felt strained at first, and finally she relaxed. But for the entire evening, she felt as though she were sitting on the other side of a pane of glass. They were just as they had always been, but they were still couples, and she no longer was. She was a woman alone, even with them. She felt different and separate and inadequate, as though she hadn’t brought enough to the table to deserve being there with them. She was only a half, they were whole. She felt like a ghost, and as dead as Bill.

  The conversation touched on all the usual subjects, vacations they were planning, worries about their kids, a huge construction project Brad and Alyson were contemplating to add on to their house. Brad said they were exploding at the seams, and it would only get worse as the kids got bigger. And Alyson was distraught because her au pair had quit. Suddenly Stephanie felt like she had nothing in common with the problems they were dealing with, which all seemed superfluous to her. She was just trying to survive from one day to the next, and hanging on by a thread. It was exhausting listening to them, and she felt like she had nothing to add. She had nothing to contribute to the conversation, and Jean could see how uncomfortable she was, and was worried about her.

  “Are you okay?” she asked her on the way out, and Stephanie nodded and smiled. “It will be better next time,” she reassured her. “It’s bound to feel a little weird at first. We all miss him too.” The Big Six had suddenly become the Big Five, and it felt more like four and a half to Stephanie. She didn’t feel like a whole person in their midst. She was just a single woman with nothing to say.

  They all agreed to have dinner again soon, and they kissed each other goodbye. Stephanie was relieved when she finally got home, took off her dress, threw it onto a chair, kicked off her heels, and lay down on her bed in her underwear and pantyhose. She had hated every moment of the evening, and felt ill at ease with her old friends. She had felt anxious all night, and wondered if she would feel that way forever now.

  Jean called her as soon as they got home. “Look, okay, it’s not the same. But this is still new for all of us. Pretty soon you’ll feel like you always did with us.” Fred had commented on the way back to Hillsborough that Stephanie hadn’t said a word all night, which was almost true.

  “No, I won’t,” Stephanie said miserably, feeling sorry for herself. “I’m not a couple anymore.” She had lost not only a man but the status and protection that went with it, and a way of relating to people as part of a larger whole. She was different than they were now, and no longer one of them.

  “That doesn’t change anything. We don’t care. You don’t have to be a couple to be part of the group. We love you. And you’re not going to be alone forever. Sooner or later, there will be someone in your life. At your age, you’re not going to be on your own for long. Not the way you look.” Stephanie smiled at the compliment, but she didn’t want someone else in her life. Her options now were to be alone forever, or eventually start dating, which sounded horrifying to her. She hadn’t dated in twenty-seven years, and she had no desire to start now. “Just take it one day at a time.”

  She talked to Dr. Zeller about it the following week, who acknowledged that it was going to feel very strange and unfamiliar being single now, and not part of a pair.

  “All our friends are married,” Stephanie said with a look of despair. “I feel like I’m a misfit with them now. A fifth wheel. I don’t belong anywhere. I can’t even hide behind my kids anymore, they’re not here.”

  “No question, Stephanie, this is very new for you. It’s also an opportunity. You get to choose what you want to do now, and who you want to be. You can change things in your life that you didn’t like before, or add new people to your life, eliminate people Bill liked and you didn
’t. You get to choose everything in your life, and everything you do. That’s a rare opportunity, even if it comes at a high price. But there are real benefits to it too. It’s something for you to think about. The only person you have to please now is you.” It sounded frightening to hear her say it, like too many doors and windows open. She no longer felt secure, about anything.

  She was still thinking about it on the way home. And when she called her children that night, none of them answered. They were either busy or out.

  What the therapist had said made her think of something Jean had said too, about how lucky she was to be on her own. She didn’t feel lucky though, she felt scared, even terrified at times. Bill had been her buffer to the world. Now he was gone, and all the protection he offered, even theoretically, had gone with him. Jean said that if it happened to her, she wouldn’t want another man. But it was easy for her to say, after thirty years of marriage to Fred, however imperfect he was—she had no idea what it was like to really be alone. It gave Stephanie a feeling of panic just thinking about it. It made her realize again that she needed something to occupy her time, either a charitable activity of some kind, or a job. She needed something to do. And she had no idea where or how to start. Suddenly all the things she had put off dealing with, after twenty-six years of marriage, even if it was sadly lacking in some ways, had to change. She couldn’t coast along, blaming things on Bill anymore, or wondering why she had stayed married to him or why she didn’t have a job. It was all up to her. And thinking about it made her angry at him all over again. Furious in fact. Just like the affair he had had, everything that was happening to her now was his fault. He had left and taken everything with him, her sense of security, her image of herself, and her status as a married woman, along with his protection. And this time she knew he was never coming back. She wasn’t sure she would ever forgive him.

  Chapter 4

  The second time she had dinner with the two couples went better than the first. They had dinner in Marin, at a steakhouse they all liked, and she felt more relaxed. It wasn’t as noisy, and she hadn’t gotten all dressed up. She had started looking into charities where she could do volunteer work, and talked about it at dinner. Brad suggested she volunteer at a hospital, and Fred thought she should take finance classes to better understand how to handle the investments Bill had left her. But she wanted to do something with young people, which was what she knew best. She had narrowed it down to two foundations, and was planning to visit both in the coming weeks. One provided housing, education, and family reunification to homeless adolescents, and the other was a shelter for teenage girls with babies, and both sounded interesting to her. And in addition, at some point, she still wanted to find a job. But at least this was a start.

  This time, when she said goodnight to her friends after dinner, she felt less depressed, although she still felt different from them now. None of them had any idea what it was like to face every day alone, with no one to talk to, spend time with, or even ask her how she was. The same things had bothered her in her marriage, but at least then they had the option to talk to each other if they wanted to. Now she didn’t. Her friends took for granted the fact that they had each other to rely on. They had someone to keep them warm at night. And the silence in the house was deafening when she went home.

  It was a long lonely haul from February to May, but in April the two couples and she had discussed the trip they took to Santa Barbara for Memorial Day every year. They stayed at the Biltmore, and she and Bill had always enjoyed it. Both Alyson and Jean were encouraging her to come, and she wasn’t sure what it would be like going away with them now alone.

  They finally convinced her to go. She had recently started working at the shelter for homeless adolescents, and found it challenging and interesting, and it gave her a sense that there was some purpose to her life. She had something to contribute to the kids at the shelter after twenty-five years as a mother. Some of them didn’t know who their mothers were, and had been in foster care for years before they ran away and preferred to become homeless on the streets rather than face the agonies and terrors in bad foster homes, or even on their own. The life experience of the young people she was dealing with was a whole new world to her. She enjoyed working with them, and she was able to go away before the shelter tried to set up a regular schedule for her. For now, they were having her come in on a haphazard basis, so she was free to come in when it worked for her.

  Right before Memorial Day weekend, Jean tried to convince her to fly to Santa Barbara with them on their plane, and Alyson offered to have her drive down with them. But Stephanie didn’t want to go with either one, and decided that she’d rather drive herself. She thought the time to think in the car would do her good. And she had often done most of the driving when she went with Bill, if he was tired or wanted to read some work. Jean said she didn’t like the idea of her driving alone, but Stephanie was definite about it, even though she knew it would take her six or seven hours. She played music on the way down, and stopped for lunch at a truck stop. She left early in the morning, and arrived in Santa Barbara by early afternoon. She felt a pang of loneliness as she checked into the hotel, but then felt happy when she saw her room, and was glad she had come. It was hard to believe that Bill had been gone for almost four months by then. It felt like a thousand years since she had been fending for herself.

  She met up with Fred and Jean at the beach club across the street, and Brad and Alyson joined them there when they arrived. They sat by the pool and lay in the sun, and Stephanie swam before she went back to her room. Bill would have been anxious to get ready for dinner by then, and it felt like a luxury to swim for as long as she liked.

  She met the others in the lobby for a drink before dinner. Jean was wearing a slinky white dress that showed off her figure. She had had liposuction recently on her hips, stomach, and thighs, and she looked fabulous. Alyson was wearing a silk blouse and matching skirt, and said it felt great to be out of sweats for a change. It was all she wore running around with kids all day. Stephanie was wearing white jeans and a hot pink shirt and high-heeled silver sandals. Her figure looked better than it ever had after nearly four months of grief and near starvation. If anything, she was still a little too thin, but she looked less strained than she had earlier.

  They had a good time at dinner, and went for a walk afterward. Fred had had too much to drink and went to bed, and Brad escorted the three women and lingered talking to Stephanie, and reminded her that he was always there to help her, if there was anything he could do for her. She knew it was well meant, but it felt a little strange. He had been extremely nice to her ever since Bill’s death, and he asked her about the shelter where she was working, and told her how much he admired her for doing it.

  The girls went to the bar for a drink afterward, and Brad went to their room to read. It was nice being just the three women for a little while, and Jean reminded Stephanie of how lucky she was not to have to go upstairs to a drunken husband who would snore so loud he would keep her awake all night. Alyson laughed and said that Brad snored too. But listening to them, Stephanie didn’t feel as lucky as they said. There were good things that went with it too that she no longer had. She didn’t miss their sex life, which had been uninspired and tedious for years, but she did miss just knowing that there was another human in the bed with her, and someone to wake up to in the morning, no matter how uninterested he was. Old habits were hard to break, and after twenty-six years of marriage, she missed Bill every day. She missed knowing he’d be coming home to her at night, no matter how disconnected they were. A dozen times a day, she thought of things she had to tell him, about insurance, the kids, or something he needed to care of or do, only to realize again that everything rested on her now. There was no one else to take care of anything except her, and it weighed heavily on her.

  “Maybe a snoring drunk in your bed isn’t as bad as you think,” she said to Jean. “At least he’s there. What would you do without him?” Stephanie said wist
fully, and Jean could see how lonely she still was and how much she missed Bill.

  “I’d probably have a very pleasant life,” Jean said confidently, convinced that Stephanie now had the better deal. It was easy to think when you had never experienced it. And Stephanie knew only too well how hard it was. The other two women had no idea. Jean envied her the freedom to do whatever she wanted, but it had been more difficult than they realized. She was still working her way through anger and grief, but she was feeling better.

  They sat together for an hour, talking easily, and then went upstairs. Alyson knew Brad would be waiting up for her, and they’d make love that night and again the next morning before they got up. She thoroughly enjoyed their weekends away. And as much as she loved her children, it was nice having some romantic time together. Jean admitted readily that she and Fred hadn’t had sex in almost five years, and said she didn’t care. Listening to them, Stephanie felt a pang of loneliness again. It would have been nice to have the option to have sex with Bill. She wondered if she’d ever make love again, and recognized the possibility that she might not. Falling in love again didn’t seem likely to her at forty-eight. It wasn’t a sure thing at any rate. And it made her sad to think that she might never be kissed again.

  She left the others outside her room, took off her clothes, put on her nightgown, washed her face and brushed her teeth, and ordered a movie she’d been wanting to see. She watched the movie until two a.m., ate chocolates from the mini-bar, and slept late the next day. It only occurred to her when she ordered room service for breakfast, that she could never have done any of those things with Bill. And he would have hated the movie she had seen. They were small compensations for her loneliness, but maybe they counted for something.

  And when she saw him, Fred looked fiercely hungover and was in a bad mood when she met up with the others at the Coral Casino Beach Club, across from the hotel, at noon.