Chapter 13
C harles arrived in New York the following day and stayed at The Mark, a few blocks from the apartment.
He called Oona the next morning and asked to come to see her, and she agreed to meet with him.
She wasn’t trying to avoid him, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.
The conversation they needed to have was long overdue.
It didn’t matter what happened with Ashley.
Whatever they did, her marriage to Charles was over and it needed to be buried.
He came on time, rang the bell politely, and she let him in.
Bertie had left for the day, which Oona had arranged on purpose.
She didn’t want her celebrating his homecoming like the conquering hero.
He didn’t live there anymore, unless he wanted to buy her half of the apartment from her.
She thought they should put it on the market.
She didn’t want to buy it from him.
She thought they both needed a fresh start, and she knew she did.
Seeing him again was odd, he felt like a stranger to her.
It felt like their marriage was years behind them, not just months. He looked thinner and older, and his eyes were sad after Roberto.
She offered him a cup of coffee, which he declined.
She didn’t offer him wine because she didn’t want him to get maudlin about their marriage.
She wanted to keep it as dry and businesslike as possible.
He spent the first half hour talking about Roberto’s final moments, which seemed inappropriate to her, and then she reiterated to him that she was filing for divorce, and they had decisions to make about the apartment and the house in East Hampton.
“I want another chance,”
he said to her in a pleading tone.
“After twenty-five years, we deserve that.”
“You forgot that a year ago.
You can’t take back the last year.
If Roberto hadn’t died, would you be asking to come back now? That’s opportunistic, and just plain wrong.”
“Is there someone else?”
he asked her.
She had never told him about Ashley.
It was none of his business.
He had Roberto, and she had a right to someone too, and she didn’t want to have to explain to him who Ashley was, that he was a film star, eight years younger, and of another race.
He had no right to that information.
She owed him nothing now.
“That’s irrelevant,”
she said coldly.
“No, it’s not,”
he said firmly.
“Is that why you stayed in France for so long?”
“No, it isn’t.
I was safer there.
Neither you nor the kids were home, so I stayed.
I had nothing to come home to,”
thanks to him, but she didn’t say it.
“I don’t want a divorce,” he said.
“I don’t need your permission, I can file it without your consent, and divorce you without it.
It would be better for both of us if we can make the financial decisions amicably.
But if we can’t I’m still filing for divorce.
You can buy my half of the apartment if you want it, or we can sell it.
I’m going out to East Hampton this weekend, to look at the house and see how I feel about it.
I’m not sure about that yet.
I might want to stay there this winter if the pandemic continues, but honestly, I think it will be too depressing.
The weather is so grim there in the winter.”
“I wanted to spend time there with Roberto,”
he said wistfully.
“I’m sorry,”
she said softly.
She could see how much pain he was in, and yet he wanted to be married to her again, because it was an easy solution for him, if she was willing—but she wasn’t.
Charles left the apartment a little while later, lost in his own thoughts as he walked back to The Mark.
He was thinking about everything Oona had said.
He wanted to convince her to try again.
With Roberto gone, he didn’t want a new life—he wanted the old one, like an old pair of slippers that fit comfortably with no effort.
But it would never be that way again.
Too much had happened, and Roberto would always be between them.
And her feelings for Charles were dead, except as ancient history.
And Ashley was an important part of the equation for her.
More and more she’d been thinking of the things he had said to her.
He called her faithfully morning and night.
She had called Simon and Alana to make sure they were all right and weren’t too lonely without their father.
Ashley had been touched when Simon told him about it.
He reported to his father that Oona didn’t know when she was coming to L.A., but she loved them.
She went out to East Hampton on Saturday.
There was a dusting of snow on the ground, and the house was cold, dark, and empty when she walked in.
Her mind flooded with the memories of the happy times there, and there had been so many.
If she was living a lie then, at least she didn’t know it, and now it didn’t matter.
The people they had been then were gone forever.
Charles had changed course radically, and was lost, trying to find his way back.
And she had become her own person.
She could no longer follow him blindly.
Ashley just wanted her to be happy, and to love and protect her. He didn’t have Charles’s demons, or anything to gain from her joining him in his fortunate life. He just wanted to share it with her, and even if there were hard moments later, he wanted to be there with her and to work them out with her. Charles wanted to recreate the past, and use her as balm for his loss of the man he truly loved. Ashley was offering her a clean future, with their past mistakes behind them. She and Ashley would make new ones, but it was a fresh start, in a very different world.
She closed the door to the house in East Hampton and had the answer she’d wanted.
She couldn’t go back.
If Charles wanted it, he could have it.
It wasn’t her house anymore.
She wasn’t the same person.
And the memories would go with her.
She was planning to have lunch with Gail that week.
Gail was having a Covid test on Monday, and Oona was too.
They would get their results on Tuesday or Wednesday, and then they could have lunch together.
Gail called her on Tuesday afternoon, sounding depressed.
“I can’t believe it.
I hardly go anywhere.
I wear a mask whenever I go out.
But I tested positive, so I can’t have lunch with you.
I have to be in quarantine for ten days.
We can have lunch after that.
I’m sorry, Oona.”
“Me too.
But don’t be silly.
We’ll have lunch when you’re okay.
Do you feel sick?”
Oona was worried about her friend.
“I’m asymptomatic for now.
That’s something at least.
But I wanted to see you.”
“Me too. We will.”
Oona started going through old files and letters that night.
She had them spread all over her desk when she got a call from an unfamiliar number, and a woman’s voice spoke to her when she answered.
It was Heather, her daughter-in-law, and she tried to shift gears to be nice to her and not angry about the wedding.
Ashley was right.
She had to make her peace with it, or she’d lose Will.
“Hi, Heather, how are you?”
Oona asked pleasantly.
“Not so good,”
Heather said, sounding young and scared.
“I just dropped Will off at the hospital, and I wanted to tell you.
He tested positive two days ago, and now he’s got a cough and a fever.”
Oona felt a chill run down her spine when she told her.
“They wouldn’t let me stay with him at the hospital.
I had a test too and I’m negative.
He doesn’t know how he got it.
He had a haircut last week and he had his mask off, so he thinks he might have gotten it at the barber.
Or maybe from an Uber.”
“Does he have his phone with him?”
“Yes, but he was feeling pretty rotten from the fever.
All they gave him was Tylenol.
He might be asleep.”
She sounded like a child while she told Oona what room he was in, and everything the doctor had said.
His oxygen level was low, so they had admitted him instead of sending him home.
They wanted to keep an eye on him.
“There’s no point coming out.
They won’t let you see him.
I can’t see him either, unless he gets worse.
Then he can only have one person.”
And that would be Heather, his wife.
Oona knew she couldn’t fight it.
Ashley was right.
Oona called Charles and told him, and he thanked her.
Heather had already texted Meghan.
She was good about giving all of them daily reports.
For two days Will stayed the same, and then he got markedly worse and they admitted him to the ICU.
Oona was terrified they would put him on a respirator, in an induced coma, but he was still breathing on his own.
When they put him in the ICU, Oona packed a bag that night.
He couldn’t talk on the phone because it took too much air to do so.
He was hooked up to an oxygen machine, and they allowed Heather to see him once for a few minutes, which wasn’t a good sign.
It meant he was seriously at risk.
She called the airline after Heather’s last report, caught a seven A .
M .
flight to San Francisco, and landed at ten A .
M .
local time.
She had Florence with her and went straight to Will and Heather’s apartment when she got there, to drop off the dog.
Heather had said she could.
Heather answered the door in a bathrobe and looked like she’d been crying.
She went straight into Oona’s arms, and they hugged each other and sat by the phone for the rest of the day, waiting for news. And Florence sat at Oona’s feet, as though she knew something bad had happened.
Oona didn’t want him to end up like Ashley’s ex-wife or Roberto.
They were both young, and Claire had health issues, but according to Charles, Roberto didn’t, other than asthma as a child.
It was a vicious virus that stole some and spared others and there was no telling who it would be.
Will was in the ICU for a week, and Oona and Heather kept each other company for seven agonizing days of waiting for the latest reports from the Covid team at the hospital.
They were good about calling and sharing his current status.
Three days after Oona had flown, she had a PCR test to make sure she hadn’t caught Covid on the trip.
It wasn’t required, but it was the responsible thing to do.
There was no quarantine on entering California.
The test was negative.
Will still couldn’t talk on the phone, but he was fever-free after a week, though he had lost his sense of taste and smell, and finally, two days later, he was allowed to call them.
He sounded tired, and he was hoarse, but he was no longer in danger.
Ashley knew Oona was in San Francisco and called her frequently for updates too.
They had been the longest days of Oona’s life, and Meghan called whenever she could.
She was terrified she would lose her brother.
It had reminded all of them that no matter how young and healthy, they were all at risk of catching the virus, and no matter how careful you were, there was a constant margin of error and unpredictability.
It struck where it chose and was merciless.
Oona had found a small hotel in Pacific Heights that was open and allowed dogs, and she stayed there.
Will and Heather didn’t have a guest room.
But she and Heather had had plenty of time to talk since Oona had gotten there.
The two women had found a comfortable level of entente that centered entirely around Will.
And Oona could tell that Heather loved him.
Will was weak and exhausted when he got home, and had never been as tired in his life, but he was alive and on the road to recovery.
He was no longer contagious.
The doctors believed he would make a full recovery soon.
When Oona first saw him, she had tears in her eyes.
He looked like he had lost ten or fifteen pounds and his eyes were sunken, but they were bright and lively, and he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
He looked thrilled to see his wife and mother.
In the end, it had been nearly three weeks of anxious days and terrifying nights, but he was no longer in danger.
Even he couldn’t believe all that he’d been through.
When he’d been home for a few days, and was anxious to get out, Oona had breakfast with him and then they went for a walk.
The world had never looked as bright and shining to Will.
He was still exhausted and tired easily.
“Thank you for being here with Heather, Mom, while I was in the hospital.
She said you were really nice to her.
I know you’re mad about our getting married, and how we did it.
Thank you for not taking it out on her.”
“We were both worried about you,”
she said as they walked slowly.
He still got short of breath easily.
“Nothing else mattered.
The pandemic has been the great equalizer.
No one is exempt, and who lives and who dies is unpredictable.
We just didn’t want it to be you.
She’s a good girl and she loves you, no matter how you got married.
You have a right to make your own decisions.”
He had survived his trial by fire and had won her respect.
And Oona had learned some things about herself while praying he’d recover.
One had to seize the good moments, because life could change in an instant.
She wondered now if Charles had been right, to abandon everything for the man he loved.
It had ended all too quickly for Roberto, and for Charles as a result.
They had spoken every day while Will was sick.
He was still in deep mourning for Roberto and had agreed to whatever Oona wanted.
The house, the apartment, their material possessions, even his job no longer mattered to him.
He didn’t care about becoming CEO. He realized that he had wasted years waiting, instead of living. His life had been empty until he met Roberto, and he and Oona had lost each other along the way. Neither of them could figure out when. And he no longer cared what anyone thought of his being gay.
In the same vein, Will knew he’d been right to marry Heather.
It had been a decision, not an accident, even if his mother didn’t approve.
He was man enough now to live with the fallout of his mother’s anger, rather than miss the opportunity.
And Oona knew now that he had done the right thing, and she thought the marriage would endure.
Heather had been strong and caring and compassionate, while they waited hour by hour and day by day, and she had won her mother-in-law’s respect.
The same was true of Meghan.
Oona didn’t like the career path she was choosing, but it was her passion, and she had to live it fully, or feel cheated and useless forever.
It made the loss of Oona’s career seem insignificant.
She liked the security the job gave her, and the money.
It was satisfying but not her passion.
And no one was better because of it, except a handful of young intellectuals writing for a tiny audience of literary snobs.
The world wasn’t a better place because of her imprint, and now that mattered to her.
While Will had been sick, he had decided to go to graduate school for a combined business and law degree, and Heather supported it.
She had a good job and Will had some money saved.
They would manage, and Oona would help if she could, and Charles said he would too.
Will didn’t want to end up like his father, in a meaningless job thirty years later and a life that had become a lie years earlier than he admitted.
Roberto had helped Charles face the truth and become the man he had never been before they met.
Whom he loved had allowed him to become real, whatever others thought.
He no longer cared.
It was the legacy Roberto had left him: himself.
Had Roberto lived, Charles suspected now that they would have stayed in Buenos Aires. Without him, he had come home to be more than he’d been before.
Charles quit his job while Will was sick.
He wanted to spend the final chapters of his career working for a foundation with global impact, not in advertising in a job that didn’t challenge him, waiting to become CEO, which would mean even less now, and feed his ego more than his brain.
Oona knew she had her own decisions to make about Ashley, not about his age or her own, or the starlets who might catch his eye in future, or whether or not she was equal to joining him on the red carpet.
It was about whether or not she had the courage to have a full life with him, and stand beside him whatever people thought, no matter what color he was, or how old or young he was, and whether his new series was a failure or a success.
They loved each other and she was proud to be with him.
That was all that mattered in the end.
She’d been hiding not from him, but from herself.
She’d done a great deal of soul-searching while Will was sick, and she couldn’t let her own fears and other people’s opinions make her choices for her.
He’d been honest and faithful to her since the day they met.
He was due for a week off the set, the week after Will came home and they knew he’d recover.
It was her turn now, if she was brave enough to step forward, and follow her heart.
She had dinner with Will and Heather the night before she left.
Will was looking better day by day and had gained back a little weight.
Heather was busy cooking for him, and the three of them laughed and had a good time.
It had been a long time since Oona had laughed and enjoyed her life fully.
She realized that now.
She and Charles had stopped having fun together years before.
They had filled the void between them with their children and their jobs.
She had no excuses now if she wanted a life with Ashley.
No one was standing in her way, except herself.
She had a return ticket to New York, and she changed it at the airport the next day.
She had the small rolling carry-on bag she had brought with her when she had packed in half an hour to come to San Francisco, after Heather called her, and she had Florence in her travel bag.
She had nothing glamorous to wear when she saw him, just jeans and sweaters and T-shirts and the running shoes she was wearing.
She could shop in L.A.
She had had another Covid test the day before, to be responsible.
Oona knew what Ashley was doing that day, and what time he was leaving the set to go home.
The kids were eager to see him after two weeks, and he’d have a week with them now, spend three days isolated afterward, and have a test before he went back to the set.
They were rigorous about their protocols, and there hadn’t been a single case of Covid on the set so far.
The cast and crew were all getting a week off for Thanksgiving, and wrapping the first season in December.
If they got green-lighted for a second season, they’d come back in January.
They were almost sure of a second season now, and Ashley loved the show.
He thought it was the best work he’d ever done, and the audiences would love it.
There was something in it for everyone—pathos, drama, love, danger, heartbreak, and hope.
Oona took a cab from the airport in L.A.
an hour before Ashley was due to leave the set.
She walked to the main gate and told the guards she was meeting Ashley Rowe, and by some miracle, they let her in without a pass.
She didn’t look dangerous or like a crazed fan.
She looked like a serious woman, and they took a chance.
She was walking down the main road of the studio as Ashley drove out five minutes later.
Her timing was perfect.
He saw Oona walking toward him, with her long red hair in a loose bun, with wisps blown around her face in the wind.
She wasn’t wearing makeup—she’d had a rugged few weeks. It was noon, and he had been shooting since six o’clock that morning and looked impeccable as usual, in a brown leather jacket, a beige turtleneck sweater, jeans, and brown suede boots, with his hair in the distinctive style he never changed whatever the role.
He hadn’t seen her since he left France six weeks before, but they had talked every day, sometimes several times. He stopped the car and got out, and she smiled at him and didn’t say a word as he walked toward her.
“Need a ride?”
he asked her, as a slow smile came over his face, and she nodded.
“Where are you going?”
he asked her.
“Home,”
she said, “with you, if you’ll have me.”
Their whole future together was in the first word.