Chapter 10
I was feeling very much alone. Peter had left me that way in what was probably one of the shrewdest nonlegal moves he’d ever made.
He’d made his share of shrewd legal moves, too, before he returned to New York.
It seemed that Benjie had overheard most everything we’d said to Cooper, and though he’d known the truth about Cyrill for years, something in Cooper’s manner had touched him.
That seemed miraculous to me, seeing as I’d always thought Benjie to be such a dyed-in-the-wool brat, though I supposed he had to inherit a little of Cooper’s character.
At any rate, Benjie had decided on his own, it turned out, with the barest encouragement from Peter, that Cooper deserved more than he’d gotten.
At that point Peter’s expertise came into play.
He made the appropriate phone calls, met with the appropriate officials and took Benjie into Portland when the wheels of justice shifted into gear.
He maneuvered U.S. Attorney Hummel so deftly that Benjie was all but guaranteed a suspended sentence based on his testimony against the others.
That testimony was a sore point, since it meant pointing a finger at Cyrill.
Again, Peter came through for us. Through a bit of clever arguing, before Cyrill’s name was ever introduced, he managed to extract a promise from Hummel that she would be given leniency if she, in turn, agreed to testify against the mastermind of the plot.
According to Benjie, this man had used them both.
We all knew that Cyrill could well blow it all by refusing to cooperate when she was apprehended, but at least the road was paved for her to have an easier time.
Though the charges against Cooper were dropped, he wasn’t thrilled with the goings-on.
His brain told him that what had happened was for the best. His heart wasn’t as cooperative.
Instead of simply fretting about himself now, he fretted about Benjie and Cyrill.
He wanted to be able to do something, but there was nothing to be done.
Though he had his boat back and his ability to work, he felt more upended than before.
So I couldn’t go crying on Cooper’s shoulder when Peter returned to New York without me. I couldn’t cry on Swansy’s shoulder, because she’d become less than sympathetic to my plight. Nor could I cry on the shoulders of any of my friends in town; that just wasn’t my role in their eyes.
Time and again, I wondered why Peter hadn’t confronted me before he’d left.
He knew that there would be no legal reason for him to return to the coast before the trial, which would now be at least four or five months off.
And it wasn’t as if I had another show coming up soon in New York.
Nor was it as if we’d had a fight or anything.
We were as close as ever. We had moments of explosive passion and moments of quiet camaraderie.
He continued to tell me he loved me, and he did it often.
But he didn’t ask whether I loved him back. He didn’t demand to hear the words. He didn’t ask what I was doing with the rest of my life. He didn’t even ask what I was doing with the rest of my week.
At least he hadn’t left with a dumb, “See ya.” And he did call, I have to stay that.
He phoned me every evening at seven-thirty or eight, almost as though he was coming home to me after a long day’s work.
He’d ask how my day had been and what I’d done.
I’d ask about his. But we didn’t make plans to see each other.
He was calling my bluff. He was sitting back there in New York waiting for me to do something.
I can’t say that he was waiting smugly, because deep inside, Peter wasn’t that kind of person.
I had the feeling that he was truly nervous that I’d decide to live out the rest of my life in solitude on the coast of Maine.
Certainly the solitude he’d afforded me gave me time to think, and I did that with the brutal honesty that I’d avoided before.
Given Peter’s retreat and the fact that if I didn’t do something I could well lose him, I knew that I couldn’t keep on playing the games I had.
Indeed, the time for brutal honesty had come.
I loved Peter. I’d known it for some time, but now I faced it head-on.
I thought of how wonderful I felt when we were together.
Cooper was right; I did come alive when I was with Peter.
He excited me. He made me feel intelligent and attractive, feminine, cherished, protected.
He made me feel that I could face the entire world—and then my family—with my chin held high.
He even made me feel sexier than Samantha.
Mostly, though, there was that feeling of wholeness, which I’d never known before.
Adam hadn’t made me feel whole. I spent a lot of time thinking about that.
Adam was handsome and honest and gentle.
He had a great voice and stars in his eyes, and I loved him very much at that time in my life.
But it was as though he was an adjunct of me.
Swansy had laid it out right; I was the stronger of the two of us.
I was the one who carried the emotional weight, as well as the material, if the truth were told.
Facing my guilt was something else. I spent hours shivering on the bluff in the freezing cold, looking out to sea, trying to communicate with Adam.
I wanted him to know that whatever I’d done I’d done with the best of intentions.
If I’d been blind to his needs or wants in my own drive for independence from my family, I was sorry.
The last thing I’d ever wanted was for him to be hurt.
For so many hours I concentrated, looking out to sea that way.
And I kept waiting to feel his forgiveness, but it never came.
Adam was dead and gone. For the first time I accepted the finality of it.
And with that acceptance came the realization that the forgiveness I sought had to come from myself.
In time it did come—largely with the realization that what I felt for Peter didn’t detract from the memory of what I’d felt for Adam. I loved both men, Adam, then, Peter now, and I loved them in very different ways. Adam was an important part of my past. Peter was my future.
Increasingly I began to dream about the future.
I dreamed about keeping my place on the shore and Peter’s place in the city, and maybe even buying a country place in between.
I dreamed about taking trips with Peter to the far-off and unusual places he favored.
I even let myself go and dreamed about having children.
Peter’s children. It was a … heart-catching thought.
I think what finally did it, though, was that Monday noontime at Swansy’s. I hadn’t seen Peter in two weeks, and two long, lonely weeks they’d been. I’d just come off another weekend with seemingly everyone doing fun things but me, and when I arrived at Swansy’s, she was listening to her soap.
I stood there with my eyes glued to the television set, watching a kaleidoscope of human drama.
In the space of thirty minutes, I heard mention of birth, death, feast, famine, crime, adventure and mischief.
I felt like a voyeur, like a fly on the wall of life, and it struck me that that wasn’t the way I wanted to live.
I wanted to do things, to experience life firsthand, well beyond the scope of my potting. And I wanted to do all that with Peter.
After two weeks alone, time was suddenly of the essence. Without a word of explanation, I gave Swansy a long, tight hug. Then I rushed home, changed clothes, packed a light bag and drove to the airport.
I was in New York by five. Knowing that Peter would still be at the office, I taxied to his place on Central Park South. The attendant didn’t know me. He wouldn’t let me up without Peter, but that was fine. I was here. I could wait.
That was just what I did for three hours until finally he returned from the office. I was sitting in the lobby watching the door when he came into sight. I stood quickly, then folded my hands in front of me and waited.
Our eyes met. My heart did the same catching number that I was sure it would do for Peter until the day I died. Slowly and with deliberate steps, I walked over to where he stood.
“I didn’t know you were here,” he said a little apologetically, a little cautiously. “Have you been waiting long?”
I nodded. “The time was good, though.” I felt a tiny smile escape. “It gave me a chance to back out.”
Something like hope flared in his wonderfully luminescent green eyes, and only at that instant did it hit me that I had never once doubted he’d want me. I had never feared he’d change his mind. It was a tribute to the way I trusted him, to the way I trusted his love.
When he continued to eye me with a very cautious hope, it occurred to me that he hadn’t been as sure of me. He still didn’t know what my verdict was. It wasn’t that he trusted me any less than I trusted him, but that not once had I told him in words how I felt.
It was time. I raised a hand to his cheek, then slid it down and grasped the lapel of his topcoat. “I do love you, Peter.”
The hope in his eyes became less cautious and more sure, but it was still only hope.
“What is it you want?” he asked in a whisper, as though he was almost afraid to say the words at all, let alone aloud, lest he didn’t like the answer.
I understood. For all he knew, I could love him but not be willing to make the commitment he craved.
“I want,” I said taking a deep breath, “years and years of things like afternoons at the museum and weekends at the shore, long nights of loving and breakfasts in bed. I want a very small wedding, a house in the country with a studio out back, and two or three or four kids, or as many as is necessary until we get at least one of each sex.”
“One of each, eh?” he asked, grinning now and pleased enough with my proposition to slide his arms around my waist.
I nodded. “I want a little boy to carry on the best of you, and a little girl to carry on the best of me. I think we’re both pretty special.”
His grin widened. “Y’do?”
I nodded, but I’d had enough of cuteness. My expression sobered. “I want us to be together always, Peter. I’ve felt only half-whole these past two weeks. I can live with making that deposit you wanted as long as you stick around to fill the void.” I paused for the beat of my heart. “Will you?”
The look on Peter’s face was so rich with love that he didn’t have to answer. But he did it anyway. “Will I ever,” he said with such feeling that I burst out laughing. It was a laugh of pure happiness, the first of many, many to come.