Belonging (51 page)

“That’s true, yes,” Madaket agreed. “And you were genuinely interested in what I knew.”

“We’re very compatible,” Gardner declared.

“But it was when I was in the hospital in Boston that I knew.”

“Knew that you loved Gardner?” Joanna asked.

“Knew that Gardner loved me.” Now her other hand went to Gardner, and he reached for her and they sat close to each other, both hands clasping. “Even when I was not quite conscious and partly blinded by pain, I knew. I could tell by the way he touched me.” Tears welled in Madaket’s eyes. “And when I could see, I could see his face, when he looked at me. I could see how he cared.”

Joy burst like fountains within Joanna’s heart. “I wondered,” she said to Gardner, “why you were at Mass General so often. I guess I just assumed you gave that kind of attention to all your patients.”

“I’m afraid I rather ignored my other patients for a while,” Gardner confessed. “But I needed to see her. To see for myself that”—his voice roughened with emotion—“she stayed alive, and returned to health.”

“We spent so much time talking. Well, I spent so much time listening, at first. It helped the time pass. It kept me from focusing on my pain. He told me about his family, and their pets, and medical school, and his vacations as a child, and even Tiffany. He even talked about Tiffany.”

“How did you know Madaket wanted to hear all that?” Joanna asked. “How did you know how she felt?”

“She reached for me,” Gardner said. “The first day her arms came out of the troughs, she reached for me.”

“We held hands,” Madaket said. “Sort of. I could feel—something—his steadiness, his strength, even through the bandages and the wounds.”

“But I didn’t want to tell her how I felt, to talk about the future, until she was strong, and well, and back where she felt steady. I wanted her to have real choices. So I waited until now.”

“This is all so marvelous,” Joanna said. “I’m so happy for both of you.”

“It’s an amazing thing,” Madaket said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I can explain it, how it feels to realize that someone you’ve known and admired suddenly becomes someone you love and desire.”

“I think I can understand,” Joanna replied. And she thought of telling Madaket about Jake, about Jake and his declaration of love and his offer of marriage, and her own
surprising eager emotional response; but Joanna waited. Now was the time for rejoicing in what Madaket and Gardner had found.

In spite of her best intentions, Joanna discovered she could not wait very long. Something in the way Gardner and Madaket brightened when they saw each other, in the way they couldn’t stop touching one another, made Joanna wild to be with Jake, and one day only a week after Madaket and Gardner had told them about their marriage plans, Joanna interrupted them.

“Madaket. Gardner. Could I talk with you a moment?”

They’d just finished lunch and were all roaming between the shack’s kitchen and the crowded living room.

“Sure.” Madaket sank onto the sofa, holding Christopher on her lap, and Gardner settled so close to her he seemed to be vying with the baby for that spot.

They looked at her expectantly. Joanna took a deep breath. “Last month Jake asked me to marry him. I didn’t tell him yes—I told him I had to think about it.” She skated over the truth; someday she’d tell Madaket everything, so that Madaket would know that she truly came first in Joanna’s life. “I’ve thought about it, and I’ve tried to be rational about it, and I’ve arrived at the knowledge that in fact I do want to marry him. Desperately.” She felt her face flush and tears rush to her eyes. “Oh, God!” she laughed. “I really love him!”

“That’s wonderful, Joanna,” Gardner said.

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Joanna,” Madaket exploded, “what are you waiting for? Think how Jake must feel! Why not call him and tell him?”

Joanna looked at Madaket and saw only happiness in her eyes, and she heard only impatience in Madaket’s voice. Madaket was not threatened by Joanna’s love for Jake. She was purely happy, and baffled by Joanna’s reluctance, and even bossy in the way that one can be only with one’s family. So there was to be no either/or in the love between them, no choosing between people. There was to be no leaving, no loss. She smiled at Madaket, and reached for her hands, and met her eyes. “You’re right. Yes, I will. Right now!”

She rose, intending to head for her bedroom and the privacy of the phone there, but suddenly, struck through with an idea, she paused.

“No,” she said slowly, speaking to herself as much as to the others as the plan
unfolded in her mind. “I don’t think I will call him.” She turned and looked at Madaket, a smile of conspiracy in her eyes. “I think I’ll leave Christopher in your care, and take the first plane to New York, and show up on Jake’s door, and surprise him.”

“What a good idea, Joanna,” Madaket said.

Joanna was gripped by a sense of urgency. “I’d better hurry. What time is it? Madaket, will call you the airlines and make me a reservation on the first plane out of here? I’ll pack.”

“Sure, Joanna. Here, Gardner, hold Christopher.” Madaket grabbed up the phone while Joanna raced into her bedroom. She grabbed a canvas carryall from the top shelf in her closet and filled it with clean underwear, socks, and a silk shirt; she would wear her jeans and loafers and silk sweater and navy blazer on the plane. Then she reached for her robe and was struck with paralysis. She would spend the night with Jake—she hoped. But she had no nightgowns that were even slightly sexy. The silk nightgown Claude had given her after the fire had gotten stained with breast milk, and the cashmere robe was stretched from constant wearing and soiled from baby spit.

Madaket stuck her head into the bedroom. “Bad news, Joanna. The last shuttle to New York has already left. I tried to connect you through Boston, but nothing will get you there tonight.”

Joanna stared at Madaket. She could wait, of course. She’d waited a week already. She could take tomorrow to go shopping, to buy some attractive new nightgowns

“Charter a flight,” Joanna ordered. The words were out of her mouth almost before she thought them.

“Right!” Madaket replied, her face lighting up with a smile.

Joanna turned back to her closet and tossed the old nightgown and robe into the bag. Jake didn’t want to marry her because she had great clothes.

She rushed into the bathroom to gather up her toiletries. Perfume, toothpaste, toothbrush …

“I’ve got someone!” Madaket called. “He wants to know how soon you want to leave.”

“Now!” Joanna called back.

“You got it!” Madaket yelled.

Joanna hastened to her bureau, opened the top drawer, and grabbed up the satin
jewelry bag she’d bought to hold the few pieces of costume jewelry she’d purchased or been given since the fire. She tossed the bag into her carryall, added her cosmetics bag, and checked her reflection in the mirror. She was clean, alive, glowing; she’d never looked better.

“Let’s go!” she announced. Madaket bent over Christopher, zipping him into a lightweight hooded sweatshirt.

“Shall we take my car?” Gardner asked.

“Can’t,” Madaket replied. “We need the baby seat. But you drive. I’ve got the car keys.” She tossed them to Gardner and they all rushed out into the bright spring evening.

Madaket settled Christopher into his car seat and fastened the seat belts, then crawled into the front seat beside Gardner. Joanna sat in the back, talking to Christopher. “I have to go off again, little guy, but you know I’ll come back soon, I always do. And Madaket will take good care of you.”

Christopher blew bubbles and shrieked and banged his hands on the plastic beads on his car seat so that they rattled and clattered. He seemed to have picked up Joanna’s mood.

The evening air as they sped through it was cool but clear. “You’ll have an easy flight,” Madaket predicted as they hurtled along the road toward the airport.

“I hope so. God, I wish I could just be there. I feel really a little insane. Like I’ll explode, truly explode, if I can’t get to Jake right now.”

“I know how you feel,” Gardner said. “That’s how I felt when I made up my mind to tell Madaket. I had to leave my office, I had to ask my nurse to reschedule all my poor patients. I’ve never done anything so irresponsible in my life.”

“You’re both being so wonderful about this. I’m so grateful.”

“The charter plane is at the east end of the airfield,” Madaket informed Joanna. “The pilot’s name is Will Turner. He said he’d be waiting for you at the Nantucket Airlines gate.”

“Great. Thanks.” As they pulled into the parking lot, Joanna leaned over and kissed her baby boy on his cheeks, then turned and planted a fat smooch on Madaket’s head. “Don’t get out. I’ll find him myself. God, I’m so excited I think I could fly there without the plane!” She jumped out of the car the moment it slowed in front of the terminal. “I love you all!” she shouted, and raced off.

Streaking through the entrance and along through the long, well-lit building,
Joanna came at last to the counter where Will Turner waited. She introduced herself, and wrote him a check on the spot, and just as they headed out to the gates, Joanna heard her name called. It was Madaket.

“Here,” she cried, rushing up to Joanna and putting a paper bag in her hands. “I got this for you. It’s dinnertime, and you haven’t eaten since lunch, and you won’t have a chance to eat, and the flight takes about an hour—”

“Oh, honey, thanks, but I’m too excited to eat.”

“I know, but once you’re in the plane it will help to have some food. You’ll be edgy and nervous and this will help pass the time.” Madaket looked at the pilot. “There’s stuff in there for you, too. Since you were good enough to come at a moment’s notice—”

“Thanks,” Will Turner said, and headed off for the gate to the airfield, and Joanna hurried after him, turning to blow Madaket a kiss.

“I’ve already checked the plane for takeoff,” Will said as he handed Joanna into the twin-engine Cessna.

The little plane shot down the runway and lifted up into the air. Below them, the outline of the island came into view, then drifted away as they flew toward New York.

“I gather this is a good emergency, rather than a bad one,” Will said.

“It is,” Joanna told him. Then a new thought hit her—what if Jake wasn’t in New York? Or what if he was in New York but with another woman? Why shouldn’t he be? She’d made no promises to him, and she’d asked nothing of him. “Or I think it is,” she muttered to the pilot. “I hope it is. I guess you never know with love, do you?”

“Oh, it’s love,” Will Turner sighed. “Well, you’re right, you never do know.”

Joanna dug into the paper bag and found two Styrofoam cups of coffee. Madaket was right; it did help to pass the time. She fussed with the little containers of sugar and cream and handed a cup to Will, and drank her coffee and toyed with a sandwich and still they weren’t there. The engines of the small plane droned steadily, and she put her head back and closed her eyes and tried to rest. But she couldn’t rest. Beneath them the ocean spread in vast darkness.

“Talk to me,” she said to the pilot. “Talk to me about anything.”

Will cleared his throat. “Well, uh …”

“Tell me about your home. Your family.”

“This is my home,” Will said, patting the instrument panel of his plane. “This is my family.”

“Then tell me how you started flying.”

That was the right question to ask. Will regaled Joanna with tales of his love for flight, which began in childhood and continued right up to the moment. The buzz of his words calmed her for a while, until the lights of New York came into view, and then she was overcome with an irrational urge to shout, “Shut up, shut up, just get us to New York!”

She was relieved when Will curtailed his monologue in order to turn his attention to the routines of landing. Joanna took her compact from her purse and looked in the mirror; not an efficient way to judge her makeup since the lights inside the plane streaked her face with shadows, and as she attempted to refresh her lipstick, the little craft shuddered and bumped. She brushed her hair, which didn’t need it, then brushed it again. Finally she subsided against her seat, eyes closed, as they descended toward the landing lights.

She knew where Jake lived. He had a handsome apartment in the East Eighties. She’d been there often when Emily was alive; they gave wonderful parties. She tried to remember if she’d been there since Emily’s death, and decided she hadn’t. Jake’s children were grown. He would be lonely in all that space.

The plane touched down, bumped, skidded, then settled firmly against the landing strip. She opened her eyes and watched the blue lights flash by the windows of the plane as they slowed, the little plane sputtering just outside the windows. They decelerated to a crawl. In the distance, the lights of jumbo jets in line for takeoff moved in a stately procession. Blasts from other planes in transit hit their little plane so hard it rocked. They seemed to be idling at the edge of the airfield.

“What are we waiting for?” Joanna asked.

“There’s a lot of traffic here tonight. We’ve got to wait our turn to approach the terminal.”

Joanna closed her eyes again, and crossed her arms over her chest and forced herself to take deep breaths to calm down. She could call Jake. His home number was unlisted, but she knew it. But the shuttles that made the New York/Nantucket run, and this small plane as well, were situated in a small building apart from the regular terminals and she wasn’t certain where the pay phones were. It would be quicker simply to run out, hail a cab, and jump in. Besides, she didn’t want to call Jake, she wanted to surprise him.

It was a torturous eternity before the plane slowly crept its way across the dark
pavement and into the civilization of lights and ground crew and buildings. Will let down the door, stepped out, and handed Joanna down. Reaching for her bag stowed at the back of the plane, he gave it to her and told her good luck.

“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for everything.”

Then she raced off. Through the small, rather shabby terminal, which was mostly shut down for the night. Out the front doors, to the street. Which was dark and empty. No taxis awaited.