Bittersweet (31 page)

“I understand,” India said quietly. “It's all right. I don't expect anything from you, Paul. All we can do is be here for each other as friends right now. Hopefully, later on, we'll both be in a better place to make it on our own.” But right then, they were both acutely aware that they needed each other's hand to get over the rough places they were facing. But he had certainly made himself clear to her. He would not be at the end of the tunnel for her. He didn't want to be there. It was a taste of reality for her, and left her few illusions. It was not what she had been hoping for, whether she had faced it or not, but it was honest. Paul was always honest with her.

They talked for a little while longer, and finally she knew she had to go home. She was frozen to the bone
by then anyway, and it had not been a happy conversation. And with tears in her eyes, she wished him a Merry Christmas.

“You too, India …” he said sadly. “I hope next year is better for both of us. We both deserve it.”

And then, for no sane reason she could fathom given what he'd said to her, she wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she didn't. That would have been crazy. But it was something they both needed, and had too little of, except from each other. The words remained unsaid, but the gifts they had given each other, of time and caring and tenderness, spoke for themselves, whether or not they heard them, or chose to.

She went back home after her call, with a heavy heart. He had told her what she had been wondering for months, and didn't want to hear, but at least she couldn't fool herself now about what might happen someday, or what she meant to him. It was precisely what she had told herself it was, nothing more than an extraordinary friendship. She could not use him as a safety net into which to leap from her burning marriage. And in her heart of hearts, she knew he was right not to be that.

She and Doug went to midnight mass, as they always did, and took all four children with them. And when they got home, she put the last presents under the tree, while Sam put out cookies for Santa, and carrots and salt for the reindeer. The others were good sports about leaving him his illusions.

And in the morning, there were squeals of delight as they opened their gifts. She had chosen them carefully and spent a lot of time on it, and even Doug was pleased
with what she gave him. She gave him a new blazer, which he needed desperately, and a handsome new leather briefcase. The gifts were without fantasy, but they suited him to perfection, and genuinely pleased him. And he had given her a plain gold bracelet, which she also liked. What she didn't like was the continuing atmosphere of hostility between them.

The cease-fire between them was brief, and by that night, she could sense the tension increasing, when they retreated to their bedroom. And she was afraid that he was going to leave again now that Christmas was behind them. But when she brought the subject up, somewhat anxiously, he said he had decided to stay until after New Year's. He was taking the week off between the holidays, which she thought might help, but in fact it made things worse and they seemed to be fighting daily.

She went out to call Paul whenever she could, but she missed him a couple of times when he was off the boat, and she had told him he couldn't call her until after New Year's.

And it was just after New Year's in fact when Doug walked into the kitchen carrying an envelope, with his face as white as the paper he held, and his dark eyes blazing. He had just picked their mail up, and he stood in front of her, while she was folding towels, and waved the envelope in her face. It looked like their phone bill.

“Just exactly what is this?” he said, almost too enraged to speak as he threw it at her.

“It looks like our phone bill.” She wondered if it was too high, and then suddenly she remembered with a sense of panic. She had called Paul several times from home during the week Doug had left her.

“You're damn right it is,” he said, pacing around the room like a lion. “Is that what all this was about? Is that it? It had nothing to do with your ‘career,’ did it, all this crap for all these months? How long have you been sleeping with him, India? Ever since the summer?”

She picked the bill up and looked at it. There were five calls to the
Sea Star.

“I'm not sleeping with him, Doug. We're friends,” she said quietly, but her heart was pounding. How could she ever explain it to him? It was obvious what it looked like, and she wasn't sure she blamed him. But it truly was nothing more than a friendship. Even Paul had confirmed it. “I was upset. You had walked out on me. He's called a couple of times to talk about his wife. He knows I liked her. He's desperately unhappy. That's all it is. Two unhappy people crying on each other's shoulders.” It was embarrassing to admit, but in truth there wasn't a lot more to tell him.

“I don't believe you,” Doug said with utter fury. “I think you've been sleeping with him since last summer.”

“That's not true, and you know it. If I were, I wouldn't be as upset about us, or trying so hard to get through to you.”

“Bullshit. All you've done is fight for your ‘career,’ so you could dump me and the kids and get out of here. Did you meet him in London?”

“Of course not,” she said calmly, although she didn't feel it. She felt sad and afraid and somewhat guilty. It was as though the last shred of what was left between them had just gone up in smoke. There was nothing left to fight for. It was hopeless.

“Did he call you?”

“Yes, he did,” she said honestly.

“What do you do? Have sex on the phone with him? Some kind of kinky disgusting kicks that turn you both on?” The image he painted for her made her shudder.

“No, he cries about his wife. And I cry about you. It's not exactly sexy.”

“You're both sick, and you deserve each other.” She wished she did, but unfortunately, that was not the case either. “I'm not going to put up with this, India. I've had it. You're of no use to me, and you'll be of no use to him either. You're a lousy wife, and a lousy lover,” he threw in for good measure, though she wasn't even sure why he did it, except maybe to hurt her. “All you're interested in is your career, that's all you care about now. Well, India, you've got it.” And as though to punctuate his words and the plummeting of her heart, the phone rang. She picked it up, praying it wasn't Paul, to make matters still worse, but it wasn't. It was Raoul, and he sounded excited. She told him she couldn't talk just now, but he insisted she had to, and she saw that Doug was watching, and she was afraid he would think it was Paul, so she let him tell her what he wanted.

He had an assignment for her, right here in the States. In Montana. It was about a religious cult that had cropped up and seemingly gone berserk. They were laying siege, holding hostages, and the FBI was camped around them. There were over a hundred people involved, at least half of them children.

“This is going to be a biggie, India,” Raoul promised, as she listened.

“I can't do it now.”

“You have to. The magazine wants you. I wouldn't call you if it wasn't important. Do you want it or not?”

“Can I call you back? I'm talking to my husband.”

“Oh shit. Is he back? All right, call me back in the next two hours. I have to give them an answer.”

“Tell them I can't, and I'm sorry.” She was definite this time. She didn't want to add any fuel to the fire Doug had just set, using their marriage as kindling.

“Call me back,” Raoul insisted.

“I'll try,” was all she'd promise.

“Who was that?” Doug asked, looking suspicious.

“Raoul Lopez.”

“What did he want?”

“He has an assignment, in Montana. I told him I can't take it. You heard me.”

“What difference does it make now, India? It's over.” He said it with such venom that this time she knew he meant it. “I've had it. I'm finished. You're not the woman I married, or the one I want. I don't want to be married to you anymore. It's as simple as that. You can tell Raoul, or Paul Ward, or anyone you want to. I'm calling my lawyer on Monday.”

“You can't do that,” she said, with tears in her eyes, begging for mercy.

“Yes, I can, and I'm going to. Go do your story.”

“Right now that's not important.”

“Yes, it is. You were willing to fuck up our marriage for that, India, now go get it. It's what you wanted.”

“It shouldn't have been a choice. I could have done both.”

“Not married to me, you couldn't.”

But suddenly, being married to him wasn't an option
she wanted. Just looking at him, staring at her angrily, she knew he didn't love her. And as painful as it was to realize, she knew it was something she had to face now. And as she saw it in his eyes, all the fight went out of her, and she turned and left him standing alone with their laundry.

She grabbed her coat and went outside, and took a deep breath of the cold air, feeling it sear her lungs. She felt as though her heart were breaking, and yet at the same time she knew that, as terrifying as it was to her, she had to be free now. She couldn't live with his threats anymore, or her terror that he would abandon her, she couldn't live with the mantle of guilt he tried to make her wear, or the constant accusations. She just couldn't do it. She had to let him take it all from her, and leave her to stand alone naked. She had nothing but her children now, her camera, her life, her freedom. And the marriage she had cherished for so long, clung to and hung on to, and tried to fight for, was dead and gone. It was as dead as Serena. And as she had told Paul about his own life, all she had to do now was hang on, be strong, and live through it.

I
NDIA TURNED
down the story in Montana after all, and instead she and Doug told the children they were separating. It was the worst day in her life, and one she hated herself for. This was something she had never wanted to do to them, just as she had never wanted to lose her father. She knew it would change their lives, as it would hers, and yet at the same time, she knew that, because she loved them, they would survive it.

“You mean you and Dad are
divorcing}”
Sam asked with a look of horror, and she wanted to rip her heart out. But Doug had done it for her.

“Yeah, stupid, what do you think they've just been saying?', Aimee said, choking on a sob, looking daggers at her parents. She hated them both for destroying the perfect life she'd had. They had destroyed all her illusions in a single instant.

Jason said nothing at all, but ran to his room and slammed the door, and when they saw him again, with red, swollen eyes, he pretended nothing had happened.

But at the end of their explanations to them, Jessica turned on her mother. “I
hate
you,” she said viciously. “This is all
your
fault, with your stupid magazines and stupid pictures. I heard you fighting with Daddy about it. Why did you have to do that?” She was sobbing and childlike, and had lost all her grown-up airs in an instant.

“Because it's important to me, it's part of who I am, Jess, and I need to do it,” India tried to explain. “It's not as important to me as you are, or Dad, but it meant a lot to me and I hoped that Daddy would understand it.”

“I think you're stupid, both of you!” she shouted, and then ran upstairs to her own room, to lie on her bed and sob, while India wished she could explain it to her. But how did you tell a fourteen-year-old that you no longer loved her father? That he had broken your heart, and destroyed something inside you? She wasn't sure she even understood it.

And then Sam came to sit in her lap and sobbed. He cried for hours, shaking piteously as she held him.

“Will we still see Dad?” he asked, sounding heartbroken.

“Of course you will,” she said, the tears on her own cheeks flowing like rivers. She would have liked to take it all back, to tell them it wasn't true, to make it never have happened. But it had. There was no turning back. Now they all had to face it.

No one wanted to eat after that, but she made them all chicken soup for dinner. And while she was cleaning up, Sam wandered back into the kitchen, looking stricken.

“Dad says you have a boyfriend. Is that true?” India looked horrified as she turned to face him.

“Of course not.”

“He said it was Paul. Is that true, Mom?” He needed to know, and she understood that. It had been a vicious thing for Doug to do. But nothing surprised her.

“No, it's not true, sweetheart.”

“Then why did Daddy say that?” He wanted to believe her.

“Because he's angry, and hurt. We both are. Grownups say stupid things. Sometimes when they're upset. I haven't seen Paul since you did last summer.” She didn't tell him she had talked to him. He didn't need to know that. And in any case, he wasn't her boyfriend. He was never going to be an issue in Sam's life, except as a friend, and fellow sailor. “I'm sorry Daddy said that to you. Don't worry about it.”

But what she said to Doug that night was a great deal stronger. She accused him of using their children to hurt her, and told him that if he ever did it again, he'd regret it.

“It's the truth, isn't it?”

“No, it's not, and you know it. It's too easy to blame this on someone else. This is our doing, we screwed this up, no one helped us. You can't blame a man I talked to on the phone, no matter how often I talked to him, or didn't. If you want to know who's responsible for this, go look in the mirror.”

Doug left the house with his bags packed the next morning. He said he was going to find an apartment in the city. And he told her that once he got settled, he
wanted to see the kids on the weekends. And suddenly she realized how many things they'd have to work out, how often he saw the kids, and when and where, if she got to keep the house, what he was going to pay her for child support. Suddenly she realized how totally all their lives would be affected.

She stayed home and cried for five days after he left, mourning what she had had with him, and what she had lost. And sensing the distress she was in, Paul kept a discreet distance, and didn't call her.

She finally called him a week after Doug had left, and talked to him for a long time about the children. They were still upset, and Jessica was still furious with her, but the others seemed to be adjusting. Sam was sad, but Doug had come out to visit them, and took them out for lunch and a movie on Sunday. She had asked him if he wanted to come in when he dropped them off, just to talk, but he had looked at her as though she were a stranger.