Tea and Primroses (33 page)

Slipping from his arms, she reached for her dress and slipped it over her head. Her panties were on the coffee table, inside out. She grabbed them and put them on. “How’s my hair?”

He grimaced as he buttoned his shirt. “It looks like you just had sex.”

“Oh my God.”

She smiled and nestled her face against the collar of his shirt as she slipped her arms around his waist. “We should read the rest of the story in her office. It seems right somehow.”

He nodded and followed her into the office. “You read this time?”

“Yes.” She began.

T
HE
R
ETURN

And then one day, another man arrived at my doorstep. Not my wayward boy but my lost love.

Patrick arrived here to my home on an afternoon like so many others. It was raining and I was chasing words at my desk, a cup of green tea growing cold next to the keyboard when the buzzer sounded, indicating someone was at the gate. I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Constance, it’s Patrick.”

I almost dropped the phone. “Patrick?” My heart was a thousand birds’ wings fluttering in the sea breeze.

“Can I come in?”

I didn’t answer, simply pushed the button to let him through and went to stand at the closed door. In what felt like hours later, the doorbell rang. I opened the door, my hand damp on the knob. Then I stood there, staring at him for a long moment. Perhaps I whispered his name; I don’t remember. He was changed, of course. There were lines on his face and his hair was gray at the temples. But his long, slender body was remarkably the same, as were his eyes. They were the same deep green, with the same level of intelligence and intensity I saw so frequently in my dreams. There was something different about him though, something beyond his physical aging. It was the face of someone resigned to a permanent sadness. I recognized it, having the same in my own face.

I barely remember what I said. I was out of my body. “How did you find my house?”

“It’s a small town. I asked around.”

“Why?”

He did the thing where he pulled at his ear, his green eyes peering at me. “I wanted to see you.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, glancing around the yard. “Weather’s just like you described. Everything in shades of gray.”

I shook my head, still in amazement. “It’s not for everyone.”

His eyes were soft now, taking me in, perhaps adjusting to my new, old face. “You’re beautiful. No sunshine’s apparently good for your skin.”

I flushed at the compliment. And it was there, the old spark, as if thirty years hadn’t passed. “Well, sure, I guess. That and sitting everyday in my office working.”

“The books are good. Every one of them.”

“You taught me well.”

“I had nothing to do with it. It was all you. You know that.”

“Not true.”

He moved toward me, reaching out with one hand. I thought he was going to touch me but his hand stopped just inches from my collarbone. “You’re wearing the necklace I gave you.”

“I never take it off, except to sleep.”

“Do you remember us, Oregon?”

“God yes. Everything.”

“I thought it might just be me who couldn’t forget, couldn’t let go.” His lips trembled; he was trying to control his emotions. He was the same, I thought. People don’t change.

I placed my fingers on the necklace. “It’s not just you.”

“Can I come in? It’s teatime.” He held up his watch. “See?”

I looked up at the sky for a moment. Should I let him in? What good could come of it? But the truth was I couldn’t say no to him. I’d never been able to.

So he came inside, following me into the kitchen. Flustered and nervous, I set the kettle on and reached inside the cabinet for the tea bags. “Do you have a preference?” I asked, meaning in his choice of tea.

He said no, that anything was fine. His eyes never left me, following me around the kitchen as I prepared our tea. The kettle whistled. I turned off the stove. All of this done with the invisible current between us akin to electricity or lightning or white hot heat.

By this time the initial shock began to lesson and I started to shake. When I reached into the cupboard for teacups, my grip slipped and a cup dropped to the floor, breaking into many shattered pieces. He rushed to my side, putting his hand on my arm as we locked eyes. “Let me clean this up.” His voice was tender and soothing. His voice broke my heart.

“Oh, Patrick, what’re you doing here?” And the tears came, not the sobbing variety but the hot kind that leak from your eyes like an over-filled bucket. “After all this time?”

He pulled me into his arms, tilting my face upward. “I came to make amends.”

“Amends?”

“Yes. And to explain a few things.”

“Why now? After all this time?”

“I’m dying, Oregon.”

I felt my legs go weak. “What?”

“Cancer.” He moved his hand to his chest. “It’s spread to my lungs. Doc says probably a year.” He said this all without flinching, the sure sign of resignation, acceptance. But I didn’t want to accept it. Voices screamed inside my head:
No, no, no.

“But you don’t look sick.”

He took my hand and led me over to the table. “I know. And I don’t feel sick, either.”

“What about chemo?”

“I did it, four years ago and it almost killed me, and the cancer came back, anyway. Doc says chemo might slow the cancer but I’ll feel like shit for the last months of my life from the poison they pump inside me.” He left me at the table and went to the pantry, as if he’d lived here all his life, and grabbed the broom and dustpan, then swept up the glass. After the floor was clean, he filled two teacups with the hot water from the kettle. “I want to go out on my own terms.”

“How long have you known?”

“I found out last week. I closed my old life and came here. To you.” He held his hands up in the air in a gesture of weakness. “Not to say you want me here or anything but I have this list, you see, of things I need to do before I die. Coming here was the first thing on my list. I wanted to tell you the truth of what happened, why I ended things.”

“Why you ended things,” I repeated, but without the question. My mouth was so dry it came out no louder than a whisper. I clasped my hands in my lap in an attempt to stop the trembling.

He sat at the table, looking down at his cup of tea. “I’m going to tell you the truth. Bear with me while I try to get through it. Okay?”

I nodded, never taking my eyes from him.

“When I went to New York in March to finalize the divorce, I went to our apartment to gather a few things—just a few photographs and books of sentimental value. As you know, I didn’t care about any of our possessions—I’d already signed them over to her. I didn’t expect her to be there. Her father said she’d been staying with them. But she arrived after I was there twenty minutes or so. I believed then, given that you were almost run down by a car, that she was having me followed. She had a knife and cornered me in the kitchen, raging at me. When I tried to push her aside, she cut me with it.” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and moved it aside. There was a long, thin scar running from one collarbone to the other. “Like she’d done before with her nails, but this time with a knife. She admitted she knew about us and that unless I broke it off with you immediately she would hunt us both down and kill us. She said, ‘I know people, Patrick, who do this for money. I won’t hesitate and there’ll be no way they can trace it back to me.’ My mind was racing at this point, thinking through whether or not I could protect us by going to the police. But the Templetons were powerful people. I knew Maurice had ties to organized crime but I had no proof. And I was powerless against them.” He paused, moving his cup up a few inches closer to him. “She told me her father also knew about us and about your book. She said if I didn’t end it with you they would pull your deal and make sure you never got another.”

“My book deal?”

“Yes. And I couldn’t let that happen.”

“But what about later? After my books were so successful that I didn’t need them any longer? Why didn’t you come for me?”

“Her father told me he would destroy you in the press by telling everyone you’d had an affair with his son-in-law, which would kill your good girl image and alienate your core audience. He said he would dig up every ounce of dirt on you and make some up if there wasn’t any. You have to remember, Sigourney and I were the toast of New York when we married. Everyone knew us and had bought into our fairytale story. There wasn’t a week we weren’t in that goddamn society section. Sigourney made sure of that. I knew he would do it but I told him I didn’t care and that you wouldn’t either, that I had enough contacts in the press of my own to expose his scheme. I was bluffing, really. I was certain he would do it and that it might ruin your career. I stayed up all night, pacing, wondering if there was any way to fight against him. Your career was the one thing I couldn’t have you sacrifice. You wanted to write more than anything and I couldn’t bear to kill your dream. I loved you too much for that. And I knew you’d resent me for it in the long run but still I thought I could figure a way out of this. But the nail in the coffin happened the next day. I was pushed into an alley coming out of my hotel by some thugs, sent by Maurice. They told me in no uncertain terms that they would kill us both if I ever made contact with you again. End it and do not tell her why, they told me. Or some bad people will come for you. Everyone in the family knew it, including Sigourney. Including me. These were serious people. There was no protection for us. And Maurice wanted me punished for giving up Sigourney and my career. It was the last, final measure to make sure I suffered.” He paused. “When I went back to the hotel, that awful hat your mother made you was on the bed, covered with blood. It was a message, obviously. About you.”

Reeling, I could do nothing but stare at him. Finally, tears streaming from my eyes, I reached for his hand across the table. “Are we still in danger?”

“I don’t think so. Maurice is dead. Sigourney’s locked up. Her mother died several weeks ago. No one can hurt you now or I would never have come.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kept it there for a moment, his lips pursed against my skin. “I never stopped loving you. Not for one minute. There was never anyone but you. All these years, no one but you. It devastated me when I heard from Janie you married Miller and yet I knew I had no claim on you.”

“I had to get married.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was pregnant.” This was said so softly that it caused him to lean forward to hear me better.

“You were pregnant?”

I stood, then, and offered my hand. “Come into my office. There’s something I want to show you.”

We walked down the hall and he coughed, deep in his chest, stopping to lean against the wall for a moment. I could see then that he was indeed older and fragile, and yes, ill, too.

“Damn cough,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Never mind that.” I took his arm and led him into my office. I had him sit on the sofa and opened the curtains to let more light into the room. I switched on the gas fireplace, hoping to get warm and perhaps stop shaking. “This is my place, Patrick. My favorite place.” I spread my arms to indicate the room. Outside, the sea and sky were shades of gray.

“It’s just as I imagined.” He crossed his legs, interlacing his hands around his knee, smiling at me. “I used to sit in my yard in my jeans and bare feet in the grass and read your books. With every word I imagined you here on the coast. I remembered what you looked like when you wrote, how your face would reflect whatever your characters were doing or saying. And I would close my eyes and concentrate on sending rays of light to you, knowing it was the only way I could love you.”

On the table near the door was a table with photos, mostly of Sutton and Declan. I picked up two of Sutton. The first was a photo of her on her second birthday, her light brown hair in ringlets, her green eyes shining with tears. The other was a recent photo I’d snapped myself of her working at the bakery in Portland. She was stunning in it, her teeth perfect and her smile wide. And her green eyes. “This is my Sutton.” I pointed at the baby photo. “She was terrified of this photographer. He was dressed as a clown. She hates clowns.”

He looked up at me, a question in his eyes.

“Just like you,” I said. “And this is her at work. She apprenticed under this awful but talented man for almost five years. He owns one of the finest baked-good shops in Portland.”

“A baker?”

“Yes. Patrick, look at her eyes. Look at her body. What do you see?”

“I see my mother.” His eyes were shiny with tears now. “Oh my God.”

“Yes,” I said. “She looks just like your mother.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“I was going to. I’d only just started to suspect it the weekend you went to New York. But then, well, you know what happened when you came home. And I was so afraid and alone and Miller was just there, like he’d always been, waiting for me, hoping I would come back. I told him the truth about the baby and he asked me to marry him anyway and I said yes, in some kind of misguided attempt to give Sutton a normal home and because the bitterness and loneliness were eating me alive. I had to choose a life, some kind of life with people who loved me, who wanted me.” I told him, then, of my mother’s death, and how it had changed me. I grabbed another framed photograph and turned it around to show him. “This is my mother. She died while reading my book.”

“So you were wrong.”

I nodded, knowing immediately what he meant. “Yes, she read my work.” I sat next to him. “Sutton’s so much like you. Principled and smart, loves working with her hands—there’s nothing practical she can’t do. And she hates writing. Can you imagine? From the moment she could talk she wanted to be in the kitchen baking so I gave her my blessing, never tried to make her be like me, as my mother did.”

“Does she know the truth?”

“No.”