"Why not?"
"Because I won't let you. You're better than that." He always made her feel as though there were nothing she couldn't do. It was remarkable how much she had come into her own in the months with him.
And Andrew had changed too. He was almost five now, and no longer a baby. And in August, Daphne had plans to join him and some of the other children and parents on a camping trip, under the aegis of Mrs. Curtis. It was a special event for every one involved, and Daphne wanted John to go on the four-day trip, to share the experience with Andrew, but he couldn't get away. They had twenty college kids at the logging camp, and all of the senior men were needed to keep an eye on the "greenies."
"Can't you get away?" She was so disappointed.
"I really can't, love. I wish I could. You're going to have a great time."
"Not without you." She almost pouted and he laughed, he loved the child-woman in her.
On the third week of August they went, with sleeping bags and tents and horses. It was a new experience for the children to travel through the woods, and all around them were thrills and discoveries. Daphne had brought one of her journals along, so she could write everything down for John, all of the funny things Andrew did, and the little moments she was afraid she might not remember. But most of the time she found herself writing about John, and thinking of the night they had spent together before she left. This was the first time they had been apart in nine months, and she had ached at the prospect of being without him. Having lost someone she loved once, she had a wild fear of leaving John too. There were even nights when she had nightmares that one day she might lose him.
"You won't get rid of me that easy, little one." He had whispered it into her neck as she shared her fears. "I'm a tough old bird."
"I couldn't live without you, John."
"Yes, you could. But you won't have to try. Not for a very long time. So have a good time with the kids, and tell me all about it."
She had lain beside him at dawn, after they made love, and had felt his smooth, cool male flesh touching her thigh. It always sent the same thrill through her.
"I may suffer withdrawal in four days." In their lovemaking, he had spoiled her. He may have called himself an "old man," but there was nothing old about his passion. He had the ardor of a man half his age, blended with an experience that taught her things she had never known before. She wondered sometimes if it was so good simply because she really loved him. And it was about things like that that she wrote in her journal while she was away, whenever she wasn't playing with Andrew. She was relishing these special days with him, watching him with his friends, living together in the woods, and waking up in the morning to see that small sunny face she hadn't woken up to in so long.
They came home after four days, like any respectable bunch of campers, dirty and tired and relaxed, and pleased with what they'd done. The parents had enjoyed the trip at least as much as the children. She left Andrew at the school, and put her sleeping bag and her backpack in her car, and yawned as she slid behind the wheel. She could hardly wait to get home to John, but when she reached the cabin, she didn't find him. There were dishes in the sink, and the bed was unmade, and she smiled to herself as she stepped gratefully into the shower. She would have everything in order when he got home. But as she stood in the kitchen, washing dishes in her jeans, the knock on the door was unfamiliar. She went to open it with hands still covered with soap and she smiled when she saw one of John's friends, a man they seldom saw but whom she knew John was fond of.
"Hi, Harry, what's new?" She was tanned and relaxed and happy, but John's friend looked strained.
"When did you get back?" His face was grave and his eyes were sad, as they always were. John always teased him that he looked like his best friend had just died, but he had a fat wife and six kids, which would have been enough to depress anyone, John said. "How's Gladys?"
"Daphne, can I talk to you for a minute?" This time he looked genuinely troubled. And suddenly somewhere behind her she heard the ticking of the kitchen clock.
"Sure." She wiped her hands on her jeans, put down the towel, and came to where he stood. "Is something wrong?" He nodded slowly, with no idea how to tell her. He couldn't begin to say the words, and there was an eerie silence between them.
"Let's sit down." He moved nervously toward the couch, and she followed him as though in a dream.
"Harry? What is it? What's wrong?"
His eyes were like two sad black stones as they looked into hers. "John's dead, Daphne. He died while you were gone."
She felt the room spin around her as she saw Harry's face in the distance.... John's dead ... John's dead ... the words were from a bad dream, not reality, this hadn't happened, not to her ... again. And suddenly, in the stillness around them, she heard a woman laughing, hysterically, a raucous sound.
"No! No! No!" The shrill laughter turned to sobs as Harry watched her, anxious to explain how he died, but she didn't want to hear it. It didn't matter. She'd been here before. But impervious to what she was feeling, Harry began talking. She wanted to put her fingers in her ears and scream and run. "There was an accident at the camp the day you left. We called the school, but they said there was no way to reach you. Some of those damn college kids lost control of a winch, and a load of trees hit him...." Harry began to cry, and Daphne stared at him with wide eyes. "... broke his back and his neck. He never knew what hit him."
Neither had Jeff. Or so they had said. What difference did it make? What did it matter now? She sat staring at Harry, and all she could think of was Andrew. What was she going to tell her son?
"We're all so damn sorry. The kids were sent home, and we had the funeral home keep the body. He has no family here, or anywhere, I think. They're all gone. And we didn't know what you'd want to do.... Gladys thought--"
"It's all right." She jumped up looking tense and white-faced. "Never mind." She had passed this way before. It was only when Harry left that the tears came, great rivers of silent, anguished tears. She looked around the room and sat down again. John Fowler would never be coming home again.
"You can make it on your own, little one." She remembered his words from the past. But she didn't want to make it on her own. She wanted her life with him.
"Oh, John ..." It was a soft, broken whisper in the silence of their cabin, and she remembered all that they had said before, he about losing his wife, and she about losing Jeff. This made no more sense than that had, and she understood it no better, and yet this was different, she knew the futility of hanging on. She walked out into the woods at sunset, and the tears came again as she looked into the summer sky and thought of him, the broad shoulders and big hands, the deep voice, the man who had loved her and Andrew.
"Damn you!" she shouted into the mauve and orange sky. "Damn you! Why'd you have to do it?" She stood there for a long time, her tears flowing freely as the sky grew dark, and then wiping her cheeks on the sleeves of the logger's shirt she wore, she nodded. "Okay, my friend. Okay. We'll make it. Just remember that I loved you." And then, still crying, she looked at where the sun had been on the hills a little while before and whispered, "Good-bye," and then with her head bowed, she walked home.
Daphne woke before dawn the next morning, lying on the bed that suddenly seemed too large as she slept in it alone. She lay there, thinking about John and remembering their early mornings, side by side, and often their bodies joined as one before the dawn.
She lay there as the sun crept slowly through the windows, feeling leaden, wanting never to get up again. There was none of the horror and the panic she had felt when Jeff had died. There was only emptiness and loss, an abysmal kind of sorrow that weighed on her like her own tombstone as she ran the fingers of her mind over the wound again and again and again ... the words ran rhythmically through her mind ... John is dead ... is dead ... is dead. ... I'll never see him again ... never see him .... and the worst of it was that neither would Andrew. How would she tell him?
It was almos
t noon when she forced herself out of bed at last, and she was dizzy for a moment when she stood up. There was a sick, empty feeling, born of not having eaten anything at all since the previous morning, and she could eat nothing now as the same words continued to echo in her head ... John is dead ... John is dead. ...
She stood in the shower for half an hour, staring into space as the water beat down on her like angry rain, and it took her almost an hour after that to put on a pair of jeans, a shirt of John's, and a pair of shoes. She stared into their closet as though it held a lifetime of precious secrets, but she had been through this once before and could not let it demolish her again. When Jeff had died, the knowledge that she carried their unborn child had eventually pulled her through, but she wouldn't have that this time, the miracle of life to counterbalance death. What she had this time was Andrew himself. She knew she had to find her way to him now, for his sake and her own. She still had him.
She drove to the school, looking dazed and still feeling numb and strange, and it was only when she saw him happily playing with a ball that she began to cry again.
She stood watching him for a long time, trying to sift through her thoughts, and stop the tears, but they wouldn't stop now, and finally he turned and saw her, frowned, and dropped his ball, and walked slowly toward her, a worried frown in his eyes. She sat down on the grass and held out her arms toward him, smiling through her tears. He was the center of her life now, as he had always been.
"Hi," she signed to him, once he sat beside her.
"What's wrong?" All the love and protection they felt for each other was mirrored in his eyes.
There was an endless pause as she felt her hands shake. She couldn't bring herself to make the signs.
At last she did. "I have something very sad to tell you."
"What?" He looked surprised. She had sheltered him from all sorrows and disasters, and there had been none like this in his lifetime. But there was no way to keep this from him. The boy had grown very close to John. Daphne's chin trembled and her eyes filled as she put her arms around her son, and then released him to sign the words she dreaded. "John died while we were away, sweetheart. He had an accident. I found out yesterday and we won't see him again."
"Forever?" Andrew's eyes grew wide in disbelief.
She nodded and signed back. "Forever. But we'll remember him forever, and love him, just like I do your Dad."
"But I don't know my Dad." The small hands trembled as they signed. "And I love John."
"So do I." The tears rolled down Daphne's face again. "So do I...." And then, "And I love you too." They clung to each other then as the small child began to sob, great gulping broken sounds that tore at her heart as they held each other close. It seemed hours before either of them was ready to let go. They took a walk then, in silence, hand in hand, and every now and then Andrew would sign something about John, the things they had done, the way he had been. It struck Daphne again how remarkable it had been that the big woodsman had so captivated her son without a single word. He hadn't been a man who needed words. There was some rare and powerful essence within that transcended all else, even Andrew's handicap and Daphne's fears.
It surprised her when Andrew asked her later, "Will you stay here without him, Mom?"
"Yes. I'm here for you, you know." But they both knew that for the past six months that hadn't been entirely true. Andrew had gotten more and more independent and Daphne had stayed in New Hampshire because of John. But she couldn't leave now. Andrew needed her, and more than ever, she needed him.
The remaining weeks of the summer crawled by, as Daphne ached silently for John. She stopped crying after a while, and she no longer wrote in her journals. She barely touched food, and she saw no one, except Andrew. It was Mrs. Obermeier who finally stopped by, and was aghast at what she saw. Daphne had lost twelve pounds from her tiny frame, her face was anguished and drawn, and the old Austrian woman took her in her arms, but even then Daphne didn't cry, she simply stood there. She was beyond pain, she was simply hanging on to survival, and she wasn't even sure why, except for Andrew. Even he didn't really need her now. He had the school, and Mrs. Curtis had suggested that she cut back her visits.
"Why don't you go back to New York?" Mrs. Obermeier suggested over a cup of tea Daphne barely drank. "To your friends. It is too hard for you here. I can see that." Daphne knew it too, but she didn't want to go back. She wanted to stay in the cabin forever, with his clothes, with his boots, with his smell, with his aura around her. He had long since given up his own apartment before he died.
"I want to be here."
"It's not good for you here, Daphne." The wise old woman sounded firm. "You can't hold on to the past." Daphne wanted to ask her why not, but she already knew all those answers. She had been through it before. But it only made it that much worse this time.
Her story came out in Collins in October, and Allison sent her a complimentary copy with a note. "When the hell are you coming back? Love, Allie." In Daphne's mind, the answer was never. But at the end of the month she got a note from her landlord in Boston. Her lease was up, and the cabin had been sold. They wanted her out by the first of November.
She no longer had the excuse that there was someone in her apartment in New York. Her tenant had moved out on the first of October. Which left her nowhere to go except to New York. She could have found another cabin or apartment where she was, but it didn't make much sense. She was only seeing Andrew once a week, and he barely paid any attention to her. He was more and more self-reliant now and Mrs. Curtis had recently pointed out that it was time he turn his full attention to the school. In some ways Daphne's visits held him back, allowing him to cling to her. But in truth, it was Daphne clinging to him.
She packed all her things, as well as John's, put them on a bus to New York, and stared around the cabin for a last time, feeling a terrible catch in her throat as a terrible sound finally escaped her. The sobs wracked her for an hour as she sat on the couch, crying into the silence. She was alone. John was gone. Nothing would bring him back. He was gone forever. She closed the door softly behind her, and leaned her face against it for a moment, feeling its wood on her cheek, remembering all the moments they had shared, and then she walked slowly away to her car. She had given John's truck to Harry.
At the school Andrew was busy with activities and friends. She kissed him good-bye, and promised to come back in a few weeks for Thanksgiving. She would stay at the Austrian Inn now, like the other parents. Mrs. Curtis made no mention of John as Daphne left, although she had known him and was very sorry.
The drive to New York took seven hours, and there was no thrill for Daphne as she drove into town and caught the first glimpse of the Empire State Building. It was a city she didn't want to see, a place she didn't want to come home to. There was no home left. There was only an empty apartment.
The apartment was in decent shape. The tenant had left it clean, and she sighed as she tossed her suitcase onto the bed. Even here there were ghosts. There was Andrew's empty room to contend with, the games he no longer played, the books he no longer read. He had taken all the treasures he loved most to the school with him, and the rest he had outgrown.
And Daphne felt as though she had outgrown the apartment too. It had a dreary city look to it, which depressed her after months of living in the cabin, looking out over the New Hampshire hills. Here there was only a view of 'other buildings, a tiny kitchen totally unlike the cozy one she had grown used to, a living room with curtains that had grown dingy, an old rug too well worn by Andrew's toys, and furniture that was beginning to show signs of nicks and chips. Once, she had cared so much about it, wanting to make it a happy, cheerful home for herself and her son. Now, without him, it had no meaning. She cleaned the rug the first weekend she was home, and changed the curtains, bought some new plants, but for the rest she simply didn't care. She spent most of her time out walking, getting used to New York again, and avoiding going home to the apartment.
It was actua
lly a beautiful time of year, the best possible in New York, but even the cool, golden sunny weather didn't cheer her. She didn't give a damn, and there was something dead in her eyes as she got up every morning and wondered what to do with herself. She knew she should go out and look for a job, but she didn't want to. She still had enough money to live for a while without working, and she told herself that after the first of the year she would think about it. She stuck her manuscript in a desk drawer and she didn't even bother to call her old boss, Allie. But she ran into her one day in a store downtown, where she looking for pajamas for Andrew. He had grown two full sizes in the past year, and Mrs. Curtis had sent her a list of what he needed.
"What are you doing here, Daff?"
"Shopping for Andrew." She sounded matter-of-fact, but she looked worse than she had the year before, and Allison Baer couldn't help wondering what in hell had happened to her.
"Is he all right?" There was worry in her eyes.
"He's fine."
"Are you?"
"Pretty much."
"Daphne"--her old friend touched her arm, concerned by what she saw--"you can't hold on to the child forever." Was it possible that she was grieving to that extent, from leaving the child at the school? It just wasn't healthy.
"I know. He's fine. He really loves it."
"And you? When did you get back?"
"A couple of weeks ago. I meant to call, but I've been busy."
"Writing?" Allie looked hopeful.
"Not really." She didn't even want to think about that now. That was all part of her life with John, and it was over. As far as she was concerned, so was her writing.
"What ever happened to that book you said you were writing, and promised to send me? Did you finish it yet?"
Once in a Lifetime (1982) Page 10
