“But … that’s not fair.”
“Maybe not to you. You’d be just as happy to let things ride for years. But I can’t do it. I feel too much.”
She was incredulous. “You love me so much you’d give me up in a minute? That doesn’t make any sense, John!”
The only response he made was a slow shrug.
“John,” she pleaded. When he didn’t answer but simply sat there staring at her, she was suddenly lashed by conflicting emotions. She wanted to rant and rave, to hit him, to knock some sense into him; at the same time, she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to hold her, to love her, to keep on loving her while she did what she had to in life.
Overwhelmed and confused, she did the only practical thing she could at that moment. She reached for her shorts and pulled them on to cover her nakedness that had felt so right such a short time before.
“You’re leaving then?” he asked.
“I have to. I can’t think. I feel confused. I don’t know what to do. I need time.”
“I don’t have time, Nina,” he said in a grim voice. “The longer this goes on, the more it hurts.”
“Loving shouldn’t hurt.”
“But it does.”
She knew she should argue or plead or throw herself at him and make love to him again and again, until she was so firmly entrenched under his skin that he wouldn’t be able to shake her no matter how hard he tried.
But she had too much dignity for that. Pushing her feet into her sneakers, concentrating on willing away the tears that seemed bent on pooling in her lids, fighting the odd sense of near-panic gripping her insides, she stood, straightened her T-shirt and started walking toward the door.
One word from John and she would have stopped. But that word didn’t come, so she continued on out into the warm summer night and drove home, shivering all the way.
10
Nina went to work the next morning, but her heart wasn’t in it. She hadn’t slept well and was feeling tired and sore and, in general, disinterested in anything to do with real estate. When, after four hours of moving in and out of the office with and without clients, she’d had enough, she prevailed on an accommodating Lee to take over the few appointments she’d made for the afternoon.
Back in her apartment, she was at loose ends. There wasn’t anything she wanted to do there, and though she was tired, she couldn’t sleep. No sooner did she close her eyes than images appeared behind her lids that kept her awake—John standing on the beach looking out to sea, or kneeling by the tub bathing J.J., or lying naked from the waist down on The Leaf Turner’s carpet, between the shelves for Self-Help and Romance. Each image brought back a memory in vivid detail. Each one haunted her.
The one image that kept returning, though, the one that haunted her the most, was the scene in J.J.’s bedroom. She was on the bed with J.J. tucked up against her. A large book was open on their laps, but their eyes were on John, who was telling the story with his hands.
Over and over Nina saw that scene, each time struck by something different. Once there was the warmth—maternal, if she dared use that word to describe what she felt—of holding J.J. in her arms. Another time there was the magnitude of her feeling for John, the sense of trust and respect and attraction that she’d never felt for any other man. Yet another time—and repeatedly—there was the totally unexpected contentment of being a part of an intimate family scene.
John had said that loving her hurt. In those long hours at home, she came to feel the hurt herself. He had given her a glimpse of something she had never expected to experience, and where once ignorance had been bliss, she was ignorant no more. She knew the pain of tasting something exquisitely sweet.
But wasn’t independence sweet? Wasn’t self-sufficiency? Wasn’t freedom?
The more questions she asked herself, the more confused and unhappy she grew. Friday night passed on leaden hands creeping around the clock. By the time Saturday morning arrived, she was feeling no more like going to work than she had the day before, and that unsettled her all the more. She loved her work, at least, she always had. Now, somehow, it seemed inconsequential.
What she wanted to do was to see John, but she couldn’t.
Nor could she call a friend. Or take a drive. Or go to the beach. Or the supermarket. Or a movie. She couldn’t do anything frivolous, not when she was confronting the most momentous decision she’d ever had to make in her life.
What she did, acting on an instinct that was so nearly subconscious that she couldn’t possibly give it much thought, was to pick up the phone and call first the airport, then Lee, then pack a small bag and head for Omaha.
* * *
Within minutes of her arrival at the nursing home where her mother lived, Anthony Kimball strode out to greet her. “I’m glad you’re here, Nina,” he said. After shaking the hand she offered, he guided her down the hall. “I wasn’t sure you’d gotten my message. When you didn’t return the call—”
“What call?”
“The one I made this morning.” He frowned. “You didn’t get the message?”
“No.” She felt the rise of a cold fear inside. “Is she worse?”
He nodded. With quiet compassion, he said, “It won’t be long now. It’s good that you’ve come.” At her mother’s room, he opened the door. With a sense of dread, Nina stepped inside and moved toward the bed. The tiny figure that lay there seemed little more than a skeleton under a token blanket of skin.
Nina was horrified. “She’s so thin.”
“The last few months have been hard for her.”
“But she doesn’t know that,” Nina said a bit frantically.
“No.”
The reassurance was welcome but brief. The very same instinct that had put Nina on the plane that morning was telling her that, as the doctor had said, her mother’s death was at hand. And though she had never been close to Maria Stone, though Maria had let her down again and again, though there had been times when Nina had actually hated her, blood was thicker than water. Maria, for all her weaknesses, was still her mother.
Nina didn’t realize that the mournful sound she heard came from her own throat until the doctor touched her shoulder. “If you’d rather wait in my office—”
“No,” she said and, though determined, her voice was thin, “I want to stay here with her.”
She did just that. Sitting in the chair that the doctor brought to the side of the bed, she held her mother’s frail hand, studied her expressionless face, stroked her thin gray hair and pretended that things had been different.
Hours passed, still she stayed in that chair. After a time, though, she stopped pretending, because memories started coming from nowhere at all, memories that she hadn’t known she had for events she hadn’t known she’d lived through. She remembered being very little, falling off a curb and skinning her knees, then being held by a woman with the same delicate profile as this woman on the bed. She remembered fishing funny little noodles out of a soup that she loved, while the woman who had made that soup, a woman with the same bow-shaped mouth as this woman on the bed, looked on and laughed. She remembered the sound of that laugh, and the smell of perfume. She remembered the way that smell had clung to her after she’d been hugged tightly by a woman with slender, fine-shaped hands that, in a healthier time, could well have been those of this woman on the bed.
There had been good times, she realized with a start. There had been some smiles between the frowns, only she’d been so overwhelmed by the need to survive in those frightening times that she’d forgotten them. They had been lost, probably would have been lost forever, had she not, through the force of fate, taken the time out to spend these last hours with her mother.
She wondered at the solace she might have had over the years if she’d taken that time sooner. She wondered whether she would have felt less anger toward Maria and less pity for herself. She wondered whether she might have been more complete a woman. For so long, she had believed that she’d rise
n way above anything her mother had been. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Her mother had given her life, then in her own way and working around her own limitations, had loved her. Nina hadn’t given anyone life or love. She had been too wrapped up in her own drive to prove that she didn’t need either.
But she’d been wrong. Sitting there by her mother’s bedside, holding tightly to the hand that had long ago held hers, Nina understood things about herself that she would never have considered before. As the hours wore on, as Maria’s skin grew more waxy and her breathing more shallow, Nina was humbled.
Anthony Kimball stopped in before he left for the day. Nurses checked in and out, monitoring Maria’s state at the same time that they offered Nina hot coffee and snacks, most of which she refused. She felt a great emptiness inside, an emptiness that wasn’t totally foreign to her, but she wasn’t hungry. All she wanted to do was to sit by her mother’s side, to talk softly on the chance that she could be heard, to warm Maria’s cold hands, to let her presence be felt.
She never knew if it was. Shortly after dawn the next morning, when the sun rose with a joy Nina didn’t feel, Maria took a last breath and slipped away.
* * *
Nina had her buried later that afternoon under a pretty dogwood in a small cemetery on the outskirts of town. After thanking the priest for his kind words and Anthony Kimball for his kind care, she took a cab to the airport. From there, just as her flight was being called, she phoned John.
As though he’d been waiting, he picked up after the very first ring. “Hello?”
With a fast indrawn breath, she said a timid, “John?”
His voice softened. “Nina. Ah, Nina, thank goodness you’ve called. I’ve been so worried. Are you in Omaha?”
She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see, and said a small, “Uh-huh.”
“How is she?”
“Gone. Early this morning—” Her voice cracked. She pressed a hand to her mouth.
“Oh, God, baby, I’m sorry.”
“Maybe—” she cleared her throat of the tightness there “—maybe it’s for the best.”
“Maybe,” he said quietly.
“But it’s hard—” Again her voice cracked.
“Are you all right?” he asked very softly.
“Uh, I think so.” She gulped in a breath. “John?”
“Yes?”
“I’m coming home now. I want—I need—you. Can you—”
“What time? What flight?”
She gave him the information, then hung up the phone and, brushing the tears from her eyes, boarded the plane. She didn’t cry during the flight. Nor did she eat or sleep. She felt in a state of suspended emotion, too tired to think or feel, but waiting, holding herself together as best she could.
The plane was fifteen minutes late in landing, which was late indeed, given that it was due in well after eleven Boston time. Putting the strap of her overnight case on her shoulder, Nina followed the rest of the passengers down the aisle of the plane. Passing through the jetway, her throat began to tighten. By the time she made it into the terminal, her eyes were filling up again. Her step slowed as she looked around. She swallowed. She said a silent prayer.
Then she saw John. He was standing off to the side, out of the path of the passengers. Wearing his glasses and a somber expression, he looked tense.
Slowly she started toward him. Her heart was in her mouth, ahead of every other one of the emotions that were clogging her throat, but she kept her feet moving, kept her composure intact. Only when she stood directly before him, when she could feel the warmth, the strength and caring that were hers for the taking, did everything she’d been keeping inside swell up and spill over. Wordlessly she slipped her arms around his waist, buried her face against his throat and began to cry.
At what point his arms closed around her she didn’t know, though she felt his support from the start. She cried softly but steadily, unable to stem the tears, barely trying. She cried for her mother, for the years and the love that had been lost, and when she was done crying for those things, she cried for all she’d put John through.
His collar was damp from her tears by the time her sobs slowed, and by then, the strain of the past thirty-six hours was taking its toll. Bone weary, she mustered scattered bits of strength to raise her eyes to his and utter a whispered plea. “Take me home?”
Something in her tear-damp eyes must have elaborated on the request, because, without a word, John slipped an arm around her waist and helped her out the door to the car. Once inside, he brought her close to his side. Then he drove straight to the small white Victoria that he called home, led her upstairs and, with the most heartrendingly gentle kiss, put her to bed.
* * *
The sky was newly pink in the east when Nina opened her eyes again. Though her memory of the night before was vague, she knew instantly that she was in John’s home, in John’s bed, wearing another one of John’s large shirts. John wasn’t as decently dressed. Bare to the hip, at which point he disappeared under the sheet, he was propped on an elbow, watching her. His expression didn’t give away anything of what he was thinking.
The lack of knowing, the fear that brought, dashed all remnants of sleep. With a nervous half smile, she said, “Hi.”
“How are you feeling?” he returned without any kind of smile.
She was quiet for a minute, looking into his eyes, wanting to melt into him but knowing it was time to talk. So she said, “Sad. Happy. Scared.”
“That’s a lot. Want to run through them for me one by one?”
Thinking about what she wanted to say was difficult. For a minute, her throat knotted and she thought she might cry again. Determined to be stronger than that, she forced the words out. “Sad, because she’s gone and I never really knew her. Happy, because being with her Saturday taught me something that I might not have otherwise known. Scared, because I know where I want to go now, but I’m not sure I’m worthy of it.” Her voice broke, still she went on. “I’ve been blind about lots of things.”
“Like what?” he asked, his eyes level.
“Like her, and the fact that she loved me, even though she was so screwed up she couldn’t show it much of the time.
“That happens to lots of parents.”
“I know. But I didn’t know it when I was growing up, so I got bitter and angry and blamed her for everything that was missing in my life.” Her voice dropped. “But I was the one responsible for lots of those things being missing.”
“What things?”
“A home and family. Close relationships. I set out to become independently rich, which was something my mother had never been. I was sure that would be a panacea, and I wasn’t letting anyone or anything get in my way. Work would fill up my life, I thought. I thought being busy and successful would be enough. But it isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” she searched helplessly for the words, “it just isn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” she wished she could say what she was feeling, but the emotions were so strong, so momentous, so frightening “—it’s not the same.”
“The same as what?”
“Being with people.”
“Being?”
“Living with people.”
“As in cohabitating?”
“Loving people.”
John was very still. His amber eyes grew darker, more alert than before. “Are you in love?” he asked softly.
Eyes large and locked with his, she nodded.
“With me?”
Again she nodded.
For the first time, she saw a softening of his expression. “For a lady who can talk up a storm when she wants to make a sale, you’re sure having trouble with this.”
“That’s because it’s so important.”
“Is it?”
She nodded. “More important than anything I’ve ever said or done before in my life.”
“So. Tell me what you’re think
ing. Just spit it out.”
Taking courage from the gentleness of his face, she said, “I’m thinking that I don’t want to be like that lady you once described. I don’t want to wake up one day and be alone and empty and too old to have kids.” She took a tremulous breath. “I’m thinking that I love you, and want to live here with you and be a mother to J.J. and maybe be a mother to kids we could have. I mean,” she hurried to add, “I don’t know anything about changing a diaper or making a bottle, but I could learn, if you wanted more kids. But you may not. J.J. is special, and he takes twice as much love.”
“I’ve got more than that,” John said softly. Cupping a hand to her face, he rubbed his thumb over her lips. “I’ve got more than enough for you and him and a bunch of others.”
“I want a bunch. That’s what I want.”
“What about work?”
“I’ll work. Just not all the time.”
John looked skeptical. “Will that be possible?”
“You were the one who said it was.”
“But is it for you? You love your work. It’s been your life for so long—”
“Until I met you. It hasn’t been the same since. Nothing’s been the same since.”
He grinned then, the grin she found so sexy, the one that could make her insides go all hot and soft. “I like the sound of that. Now, if I could just hear those other little words again.”
She knew which ones he wanted. Swallowing down the last of her fears, she said, “I love you.”
“Again.”
They came more easily this time. “I love you.”
“One more time.”
She grinned. It was a snap. “I love you.”
Shifting under the sheets, John rolled over so that his long body fit hers. Linking their fingers on either side of her head, he effected a slow undulation of his hips. “Now if we could have the words with a little kiss, then a little touch, then a little—” A loud sound in the hall cut him off. “Damn,” he muttered, rolled off Nina and yanked the sheet up to cover her completely. “J.J.’s up.”
The Dream Comes True Page 18
