“I’m trying to understand, darling. It’s just that I see things from a different angle. Do you remember the day we talked about how I view my role in your father’s life?” Danica nodded. “I am happy, but that’s not to say that there haven’t been times when I’ve wished for some things to be different. There was the guilt I felt in leaving you so much. There’s the guilt I feel now in leaving William in Washington and the selfish desire to have him here with me. We all have our crosses to bear in life. It’s simply a question of accepting them.”
“And when the cross gets too heavy? When bearing it exhausts you, when it becomes self-defeating?”
“It’s all a matter of the mind. You can do anything you want in life if you set your mind to it.”
Danica set her mind to finishing James Bryant’s book. By the end of February it was in her publisher’s hands. Then she set her mind to thinking of another project she might tackle. As it happened, James gave her the contact, and the recommendation she needed. At his bidding, she called a man named Arthur Brooke, who proceeded to express great pleasure that she had called and asked if they might meet to discuss a proposal he wanted to make.
Over lunch several days later at the Bay Tower Room, Arthur Brooke offered her the role of hostess for a weekly current affairs talk show that his radio station wanted to produce.
“I realize that you’ve never done anything like this before,” he explained while she sat in a state of shock, “but James has raved about how well versed you are in current affairs, and I can see, myself, after talking with you for an hour, that you’re poised and articulate. We want a fresh voice for our programs. I believe yours is it.”
Pressing a hand to her thudding heart, she forced herself to speak. “I’m so surprised. I never expected anything like this when James suggested I call you.”
“James is a rascal for not prewarning you. He’s probably sitting at home right now chuckling to himself.”
“He’s a wonderful man.”
“I agree. Well, what do you think?”
She sucked in a breath and let it out through her teeth. “I think that your proposal is…very exciting. I’m not as sure as you seem to be, though, that I can do the job.”
“There’s really nothing to it. For an hour every week, you’ll sit in the studio and talk with one or another of the local public figures. At the beginning we’ll set everything up. After a while, if you want, you can make your own decisions as to whom you’d like to interview. You’ll need to prepare beforehand, bone up on a particular issue. We’d like to stick to timely issues, which means that some of the preparation may be last-minute. On occasion, if there’s nothing pressing in the news, we might invite an author to be on the show, in which case you’d have to read his book. But with the awareness you already have of what’s happening in the world, I think you’ll do just fine.”
Danica still had doubts, but she was smiling. “When did you hope to begin?”
“In another month. We have a Wednesday evening slot that will be perfect. Is it a go?”
While one small part of her wanted to beg time to think, the other, larger part was driven by sheer impulse. She nodded quickly. “It’s a go.”
She felt better that night than she had in weeks, and spent hours wandering around the town house with a smile on her face. She called her mother to tell her the news. She sat down and wrote a long letter to Reggie. But when she thought of calling Blake, her smile faded. It wasn’t Blake she wanted to call. It was Michael. Only she didn’t know where he was or when he’d be back.
That weekend as prearranged she flew down to Washington. Blake was pleased for her in that same detached way he had reacted to her work with James Bryant. She waited for her father’s call, but it didn’t come. Only the part of her that had hoped he might be proud was let down. The other part, the larger part, was relieved that he hadn’t put a damper on what was to her a challenging prospect.
After her return to Boston she set about poring through the local papers with a thoroughness that managed to fill her time somewhat. Still, she couldn’t help but think of Michael, wondering where he was and what he was doing, whether he was well, whether he was missing her as much as she missed him. She wanted desperately to tell him about the radio show, to share the excitement, to express her uncertainties and savor his encouragement.
The following weekend, feeling that she would burst if she didn’t find an emotional outlet, she drove to Maine. But it wasn’t the seaside house in Kennebunkport at which she stopped. She drove on to Camden.
Gena, who was thrilled to see her, proceeded to chastise her for not having come sooner.
“But you’re so busy. I wasn’t even sure if I should come today.”
“Busy? Nonsense. I always have time for those I love.”
At the words, which were so freely and sincerely offered, something inside Danica broke. She bit her lip, but her eyes filled with tears, and before she knew it, she was being held by a cooing Gena.
“Hush, Dani. Hush. It’ll be all right,” Gena whispered, stroking her hair.
“I miss him…so much,” Danica breathed brokenly. “I thought it…would get better in time, but it hasn’t. And now, with…this new thing, I miss him all the more.”
“Whoa.” Gena eased her back and gently brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “What new thing?”
Slowly, regaining her composure as she went, Danica explained about the radio show. Gena’s excitement was every bit as genuine as her expression of love had been, but it was the last which stuck in Danica’s mind most.
“Gena?”
“What is it, pet?”
Danica struggled for the words, but she didn’t know which ones were right, so she simply started to talk. “We’ve only met once before and neither Michael nor I said anything, but you seemed to know.”
Gena smiled. “I know my son. I could see very quickly that he loved you. He’s never come right out and said anything, maybe because he was afraid of my reaction. He told you about my own marriage, didn’t he?” Danica nodded. “Well, what he may not know is that his father is happy with his second wife. More aptly, Michael may not want to see it. He feels a loyalty to me, which is fine, except that he doesn’t realize that I’ve come to terms with what happened.” She reached for Danica’s hand. “The only thing that saddens me is that the two of you have such hurdles to cross. I know you love him. I felt that affinity with you from the first.” She smiled. “The sight of the two of you talking together, your heads so close, your hair so similar in color, your eyes smiling into one another’s…it was beautiful. I couldn’t have wished for a better woman for my son than you. You’ll make his life very full and rich.”
“You sound so optimistic, as though we really will be together some day.”
“I know it, Danica. I said that there were hurdles to cross, but I didn’t say there were uncrossable. If you set your mind to it, you’ll see yourself clear and happy.”
Danica remembered what her mother had said about matters of the mind, and she thought of the irony that these two women should express such similar thoughts with such different meanings. Eleanor implied that Danica should set her mind to making her marriage work, Gena that she should focus on extricating herself from a marriage that was obviously a source of pain.
“Have you heard from him?” Danica asked hesitantly.
Gena grinned. “I certainly have.” She patted Danica’s knee. “Wait here.” Within minutes she was handing over a series of letters.
“But these are for you,” Danica argued. “I shouldn’t be seeing them.”
“Nonsense. You love him as much as I do. I think he intended them for you as much as for me.”
“He hasn’t written to me.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t for not wanting to. Go ahead. Read the letters. You’ll see.” When Danica still hesitated, Gena coaxed her with a short nod. “Read them.”
Carefully, Danica unfolded the first letter and read about Michael’s adventure
s in Portugal, then Spain. Though his script was uneven, she presumed because of his injured hand, his style was familiar and flowing, and she took pleasure in his description of the people, the cities, the countryside he had seen. What caught her breath, though, were occasional breaks in the compelling narrative. “I wish Dani could see this with me,” he wrote of Barcelona. “The port is so different from the ones we’ve seen together.” Then, again, in a second letter, when he had crossed up into the Loire Valley in France: “I’ve been biking from place to place. Dani would absolutely love it here. There are long stretches of level road with views to the far horizon. On the other hand, she’d probably think I’m crazy. It’s cold as hell some days.”
All told, there were five letters. After leaving France, he had traveled through Belgium and Holland, in both of which places he had friends, before moving on to Denmark. She lingered over the last letter, rereading its final lines many times. “I miss you, Mom. I was never one to be homesick, but it’s different this time. Either I’m getting old or simply sentimental, but I keep comparing things I see to what I have at home. I wonder how Dani’s doing. Have you heard from her?…See? My mind must really be going. You have no way of answering my question since you don’t know where I’ll be next. I’m reminded about something I read once, actually, on one of Danica’s tea bags. ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there,’ it said. When I started out on this trip, I think I wasn’t sure where I was going. But I sure as hell am now. I’ll be home by the middle of April. Can’t wait to see you. All my love, Michael.”
Lowering the letter at last, Danica blotted her eyes. “He’s a wise and wonderful man,” she whispered.
“I think so. Has he been any help?”
Danica knew Gena was referring to the messages that had been meant for her in the letters. She nodded. “He’s always a help. Even when he’s gone. I can see that now. He was right to go. I needed time to analyze my priorities.”
“And have you?” Gena asked gently.
With growing confidence, Danica smiled. “Yes, I believe I have.”
Two days later she flew to Washington and flat out asked Blake for a divorce.
fourteen
“hE WON’T DO IT, MICHAEL. I ASKED HIM point-blank, and he said no.”
They were in Kennebunkport, at Michael’s house, where Danica had flown the instant he had called her to say he was back. It had been a happy reunion on both sides, with Danica’s tears flowing freely and Michael’s contained only with great effort. They had talked about his trip with the excitement of two children, though both of them knew the excitement was primarily in being together again. He told her that his book on sports would be hitting the shelves any day, and she informed him that it already had, that she had read it and loved it. When she told him about her radio show, the first installment of which had come off with high praise the week before, he was beside himself with pride, hugging her, telling her that he had known all along she could handle anything she wanted, demanding to hear the tape she had brought with her. But Danica was anxious to tell him that she had definitely decided to divorce Blake.
“He refused, even when you bluntly said you didn’t love him?” Above and beyond his own slightly biased feelings on the matter, Michael couldn’t comprehend a man clinging to a dead cause.
“He refused. Absolutely refused. It was a repeat of last winter, when I mentioned divorce as a possible mutual option.”
“Did he say why he was so against it?”
“At first he just stomped out of the room like he did last time. When I followed him and pressed, he informed me that he needed a wife and that I had signed papers nearly ten years ago and that that was the end of it. I kept arguing, but he didn’t want to listen. It was really heated, I mean, not like me at all. I’m usually more docile. I think he was shocked. He kept asking what was wrong with me. When I told him about you, he didn’t bat an eyelash.”
“You told him about me?”
“I had nothing to lose. I said that I loved you. Strange, he wasn’t even surprised. Or maybe he just covered it up. Do you want to know what he said?”
“You bet I do.”
“He said that he didn’t mind if I had a dozen lovers, as long as I was discreet about it and kept up the front of our marriage.”
“He said that?”
“More. He said that he was glad I’d found someone and that if it made things easier for me, he was happy. What kind of a husband would say something like that?” There was no hurt in her voice, only confusion.
“Beats me,” Michael said. “So where does that leave us?”
“Not much further than we were before. When I threatened to call a lawyer myself and file for divorce, he assured me that he’d fight it. He harped on how cruel I was to even think of hurting my parents this way, but I’m telling you, Michael, it’s getting to a point where I really don’t care.”
“You’re angry, sweetheart.”
“Aren’t you? It’s not fair that he can manipulate us this way. What does he hope to gain? What could possibly be in it for him?”
Michael thought for a minute. “If he had a mistress he liked but didn’t particularly want to marry, staying married to you would be a convenient excuse.”
“I asked him about that once, and he said that there wasn’t another woman. He seemed so repulsed by the idea that I believed him.”
“Do you think that his refusal to consider divorce may have something to do with his ties to your father?”
“I don’t see how. They were friends long before Blake met me. I’m sure my father pulled his weight when it came to getting Blake his appointment, but that’s a fait accompli. Blake has plenty of power on his own now.”
Michael blew out an exasperated breath. “So we are back to square one.”
“No,” she said. “Not really, because I’ve made up my mind.” She smiled gently at Michael. “Being without you helped in the perverse way I’m sure you intended.”
“Dani—”
“Shhh. I’m not criticizing. I’m admiring. You were right. I did function on my own. The publishing house is thrilled with James’s and my book. The radio station is pleased with my show. I know now that I can manage on my own, but the point is that I don’t want to simply ‘manage.’ There’s so much more. Am I making any sense?”
He slid his fingers into her hair and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “You’re making lots of sense. I think I realized many of the same things when I was abroad. It wasn’t the same without you.” His eyes explored her features. “Being away made me bolder, or perhaps just more desperate. I don’t care who in the hell fights us; we’ll somehow find away.” He kissed her once, then a second time when their lips didn’t want to part. At last, they sat back holding hands.
“Blake might come to his senses when he’s had time to think about what I said,” she ventured hopefully.
“Maybe, but I doubt it. This wasn’t the first time you mentioned divorce as a possibility, so he couldn’t have been totally stunned.”
“I just don’t understand the man. You’d think he’d have more pride than to want me now.”
“It can work the other way round, though. He may be too proud to admit that his marriage has failed.”
“But if that were true, you’d think that he would have been furious when I told him about you. I can’t figure him out! He’s making this all so difficult.”
“No one ever said life was easy.”
“I suppose. Michael?”
“What, sweetheart?”
“Will you wait it out with me? If nothing happens by the end of the summer, I’ll go ahead and see a lawyer, but I’d rather Blake could see his way to an amicable agreement.”
“So would I. And of course I’ll wait. That’s what my coming back was all about.”
She raised his hands to her lips. “You’re so special, Michael. You know how much I love you, don’t you?”
“I could use a reminder from time t
o time.”
“Now’s the time.”
“Where’s the place?”
She looked around. “That sofa looks about right.”
“Okay. How?”
She grinned and slid to his lap. “I think you’ll figure that out soon enough.”
Cilla joined Jeffrey at the restaurant in Georgetown where they had been meeting for dinner every Friday. They settled at a table in a quiet corner and ordered drinks. She smiled at him; he smiled back.
“So,” he breathed, “what’s doin’?”
She shrugged. “Not much. How about with you?”
“The same.”
“Nothing new at the Pentagon?”
“Nope. The city room’s still humming?”
“Uh-huh.” She took a long sip of her drink.
Jeffrey did the same, then set his glass down. “I bumped into Stefan Bryncek yesterday.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Great. Sheila had another baby. Their third. A boy this time.”
“Stefan must be pleased by that.”
“He sounded it. He’s been waiting for a boy.”
Cilla nodded. She spread some cheese on a cracker and handed it to Jeffrey, then made one for herself. “Did you read that Norman was promoted?”
“Mmmm. Managing editor to associate editor, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh. Jason Wile left to be editor-in-chief of a magazine in Minneapolis, so the space opened up. I’m pleased for Norman. He deserved it.”
“Do you ever think of editing?”
“Me? I’d make an awful editor. I get too involved. Besides, I like the action of chasing stories down. I can’t see myself in an editorial position.” Her eyes narrowed. “And if you’re thinking that I could have whatever position I want just because my father owns the paper, you’re wrong. He’s a chauvinist. In his mind, women are far too emotional. Many people think that.”
Within Reach Page 28
