Daddy (30 page)

Chapter 29

The day before Thanksgiving, Sarah arrived to take Mel and Sam to San Francisco with her to see friends. She had even agreed to take Aggie and Alex, and Benjamin was going to get in some early skiing at Squaw Valley. Sarah had finished her book a few weeks before, and Oliver thought she looked well. The odd thing was that when he kissed her on the cheek, she felt like a stranger. He never longed for her anymore, and now her perfume was an unfamiliar smell. The woman who haunted his dreams at night was Charlie. His heart still ached each time she came to mind or he saw her name in the papers.

“When are you getting married, Ollie?” Sarah asked as she held Alex on her knee the morning they left, and Oliver looked startled.

“I thought the children would have told you.” His voice was tense and quiet.

“Told me what?” She seemed surprised, as the baby drooled happily all over her clean shirt. Aggie had gone to get the children's things, and Sarah was waiting in the kitchen.

“Charlotte's doing a Broadway play. She should be leaving pretty soon, in fact. And, well … we decided that was a better move for her than marriage.” He smiled gamely, but Sarah wasn't fooled. She knew him too well. And she felt desperately sorry for the pain she knew he felt. It was different from what she had gone through with Jean-Pierre, but loss of any kind was painful. “Guess I just have a knack for falling for that kind of lady. The smart ones with ambitions of their own.”

“You'll find the right one, one of these days, Ollie, you deserve to.” And she really meant it.

“I'm not sure I'd have time for her, if I did,” he smiled to hide his sorrow, glancing at Alex, “this guy keeps us all on our toes all the time.” Benjamin took him from his mother then, and took him out to the car to put him in his car seat in Sarah's rented Pontiac wagon. He hated to leave the baby at all, but Oliver had insisted that the skiing would do him good. And he himself was happy that Sarah was taking the children. The punch of losing Charlie was still too great and Oliver felt anything but festive.

Sarah and the younger children left a little while later, and Benjamin's friends picked him up only moments later. Ollie was alone in the house, trying to get through a stack of bills and mail. It seemed strangely silent, and as Ollie leaned back in his chair, he sighed, as though trying to decide if he liked it. Too quickly, he found himself thinking of Charlie again, and even Sarah. He wondered if things could ever have been different, with either of them, but deep in his heart, he knew they couldn't. Maybe if they'd done things differently at first, Sarah wouldn't have bolted later, he thought to himself as he sat back at his desk, and then realized it was a foolish thought. She would have done what she'd done anyway. She was meant to be free, and live alone, and write her novels. As Charlie was, with her Broadway play. Megan, in her penthouse in New York. And even Daphne, with the man who would never leave his wife in Greenwich.

It only irked him that Charlie had made such an issue about marriage and children and “real life” being so important to her, and then in the end, she had made the same choices as the rest. Independence. Her play, New York. With a promise to commute that would never have happened, no matter how good her intentions.

It was late that afternoon before he left his desk again, and went to make himself a sandwich. And then he saw her standing there, hesitating, near her car in the driveway. It was Charlie, he realized, in a T-shirt and jeans, with her hair in the familiar pigtails that made her look more like one of Mel's friends, than the woman who had broken his heart and their engagement. She stood there for a long time, staring at him through the window, and he didn't know whether to open the door to her or not. He thought it was cruel of her to come to say good-bye if she had. And then finally, unable to resist the pull he still felt for her, he walked to the door and pulled it slowly open. And she walked up to him looking very nervous.

“I didn't know if you'd be here or not. … I was going to leave you a note …” He saw she held it in her hand, but he didn't want to read it. “I guess I should have called before I came by.”

“Mailing it might have been a lot simpler.” He had nothing left to say to her now. He had said it all. And cried too often.

She looked beyond him then, into the kitchen, as though hoping to see the children but the room was empty and silent.

“How is everyone?” Her eyes sought his, and he nodded, still wondering why she had come.

“Okay.”

“I still miss them,” she admitted, looking sad and feeling guilty. She had never come by to explain any of it to them. She knew it would have been too painful.

“They miss you too.”

“How's the baby?”

“Fine.” Ollie smiled. “Benjamin is great with him.”

“Where are they all?”

“Away for Thanksgiving.” For a mad moment, he wanted to invite her in, but that wouldn't get them anywhere except straight into more pain. And then, with a shrug, he stepped back, and waved her in. “Do you want to come in for a minute?”

She nodded and followed him into the kitchen, thinking how handsome he was, and how much she still loved him. She looked around and slipped the note she had brought back in her pocket.

“When do you leave for New York?”

She seemed to hesitate, as though she wasn't sure what to say to him. She knew how badly she had hurt him, and there was no way to repair it. And now there was so much to explain. She didn't know where to start, or even if she should, as he watched her. “That's a long story.”

“You must be excited.” He tried to keep his voice noncommittal, but it wasn't. In it were anger and grief and hurt and the love for her that wouldn't go away, no matter how hard he had tried to kill it.

“A lot's been happening,” she tried to explain. The last few weeks had been hell for her, but she didn't tell him that. She could see in his eyes that it was too late. She had been foolish to come, and now she knew it.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he offered. Part of him wanted her to leave, so he could be alone with his grief again, but part of him wanted her to stay. Forever.

She looked at him long and hard, and despite the pigtails, her eyes said she was not a girl, but a woman. They were the eyes of someone who had paid a price for what she'd done. And then she spoke very softly. “I'm not going to Broadway, Ollie.”

“You're not?” He looked thunderstruck. What the hell did she mean? She had told him. And after that he had seen it on the news and read it in the papers. What had changed? And when and why?

“No, I'm not. I'm staying with the show here.”

“Wouldn't they let you out of your contract?”

“They would have, but …” He waited, stunned, for the rest of the story. “I decided it was wrong to go.”

“For your career?” It was barely a whisper.

“For us. Although I guess it's too late now. But it was the wrong thing to do and I finally understood that. I kept talking about how much marriage and family meant to me, and then I was willing to dump every-thing and run, no matter how much it hurt all of us, you, and me, and the children.

“It was the wrong thing to do. It was too high a price to pay for giving up someone I loved, no matter how much I thought I wanted to do it. It wasn't right, so I turned it down. And even if I don't get any of you back, turning them down was the right thing to do.” She smiled a bittersweet smile. “I felt better as soon as I did it.”

Oliver looked stunned as he looked at her, and then he grinned. “They must have been furious.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “That's the end of Broadway, I guess. But the network loves me.” And then, “I was afraid to call you, Ollie.”

“Why?”

“Because I hurt you so much. One minute I leave you to go to New York, and the next minute I come back and tell you everything's okay. I couldn't do that to you. That's what the note is about. I thought I'd let you know before you read about it somewhere, and I figured if you wanted to get in touch with me, you would. But I didn't really think you'd want to.” She looked as though she expected nothing more from him, but would regret what she'd done till her dying day. And then, to lighten the moment as he absorbed it, she looked around the kitchen for Charlie's cage. “How's my namesake, by the way?” The guinea pig was nowhere to be seen, and Ollie grinned at her, feeling a ten-thousand-pound weight lift from his shoulders.

“He's relegated to the garage in Sam's absence, the noisy little bastard. I have enough trouble sleeping at night, without listening to him play.”

She looked more than a little apologetic. “I haven't been sleeping all that well either. I really screwed things up royally, Ollie, didn't I?” Her voice was soft and sad as he nodded.

“Could be.” He smiled slowly at her. “Maybe … maybe not. It's what you do in the end, that counts in life. We all stumble along the way.” They were still standing awkwardly in the kitchen, their lives in the balance, their eyes full of fear and pain and tension. They had so much to lose … and so much to gain, depending on what he did now.

“I've missed you, Ollie. I'm going to miss you for a long, long time if you don't forgive me.” She loved him enough to come back and ask him to forgive her. “Every day I wanted to call you … to come over … to tell you I was sorry … what a total fool I was … how wrong I was to think that the play on Broadway mattered more than you did. It was a stinking decision to make, even if I came to my senses in the end.”

“But it was honest,” he defended her, “it was what you'd always wanted. You had a right to that, Charlie.”

“I wanted you more. I just didn't know it for sure till I lost you. And then it was too late.” His eyes told her that it was, and she was sorry she had come then, but he was moving slowly toward her with an odd look on his face.

“Who told you that?” he whispered as he pulled her closer. “Who told you it was too late? And who tells you that you were wrong and I was right? A thousand times I told myself that I could have moved back to New York with you, that we could have moved into the house in Purchase, what right did I have to stand in your way?”

“You had every right … you had your kids to think of too. All I was thinking of was myself.”

“And now?” He could barely get the words out as he held her. He still loved her so much. It hurt just standing this close to her again.

“Ollie, I love you so much.” She barely breathed the words, and then slowly he kissed her. It was all he had wanted to hear, all he had cared about, all he had lived for after she went away.

“I love you too … you'll never know how much I miss you. I thought I'd go crazy for a while. …”

“So did I.” She was smiling suddenly, as he swept her off her feet and carried her through the house while she laughed. “Where are you taking me?” Suddenly she was happy again. She was in the arms of the man she loved. He didn't hate her, and he had been as unhappy as she was. She had been such a fool, but thank God she hadn't left to do the play on Broadway.

“What are you doing?”

He marched solemnly up the stairs toward his bedroom. “Taking you to my bed where you belong, until you learn to behave yourself … goddamn famous actress … don't ever pull a stunt like that again!” He railed as she laughed and he carried her through his bedroom doorway. It looked familiar and warm and wonderful as she looked up into his eyes.

“Ollie, I'm so sorry….” He was still holding her, as though he would never let her go this time, but he smiled at her.

“Don't be. I was as big a fool as you were.”

“And now?” She looked up at him, as he deposited her on his bed.

“I figure we're both fools and we deserve each other.”

She smiled as she held her arms out to him, and as they lay in his bed for most of the next four days, it was a magical weekend. The kids found her in her jeans and his shirt, barefoot in the kitchen, when Sarah dropped them off Sunday night on her way to the airport. She came in to say good-bye to Oliver, but only briefly, and she looked intrigued when she saw Charlotte, looking tousled and happy in the kitchen.

“Is that who I think it is?” Sarah whispered with a smile, as Oliver walked her to the car. He had tried to introduce them, but Sam and Alex had made so much noise, it was impossible to hear anything, and Charlotte looked faintly embarrassed to be found barefoot in Oliver's kitchen.

“It is.”

“Does this mean you're moving to New Yoik?” Sarah looked faintly amused, and pleased for him as she slid behind the wheel of her car. She and the children had had a very good weekend.

“No, I'm not moving to New York.” He looked faintly smug, and tried to pretend he wasn't.

“She's staying.”

“She is?” Sarah looked impressed, and he smiled at her.

“I got lucky, I guess.” This time.

“No, Ollie.” She smiled up at him, the past no longer painful for either of them. “She's a smart girl. Congratulations to both of you, or am I premature?”

“A little.” He grinned, and they both laughed.

“Good luck then.” She waved and backed out of the driveway, and he walked back into the kitchen, still feeling startled as he saw Charlotte with one arm around Sam, and holding Alex with the other, talking animatedly with Mel above their heads, as Aggie made hot chocolate amid the confusion.

“I can't believe how lucky I am,” she whispered to Ollie as they sat at the kitchen table.

“I'm the lucky one.”

“We both are.” She thought of the ring she had had sent back to him and wondered what had happened to it. She glanced at her hand as she thought of it, and as she looked up, she saw that Oliver was laughing. “What's so funny?”

“You are. And in answer to your question, I threw it away.” In truth, he hadn't had the heart to send it back to the store, and it was in the safe in his bedroom closet.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“Because I'm smarter than I used to be, and I love you.” They exchanged a long, slow smile over the baby's head, and Oliver felt as though a miracle had happened. A miracle that had brought her back to him, whether or not he thought he deserved it. “Will you exchange it for a plain gold one?” He wanted to grab her before she changed her mind again, or another play came up, or a film or a handsome leading man. He wasn't even sure he'd be willing to wait another four weeks till Christmas.