Heartwood (24 page)

“I know you’ve been depressed. And things haven’t gone well for you. But moving isn’t going to solve that.”

“It will. Because I’ll be making money—you won’t be paying all of the bills. And we’ll be on my home ground.”

“Your home ground? This isn’t a game, where somebody wins and somebody loses.”

She heard him draw in a breath. “Remember when we were in college and we were young and dumb and we thought we had all the answers? Back then, I never would have dreamed I’d hear myself saying this, but when it comes to men and women, I think some of the old-fashioned ways are best. I’m not saying women need to stay at home like my mother did, God forbid, but I think most men still want to be the head of the household.” He chuckled ruefully. “Maybe it’s that our egos aren’t strong enough.” Then he got serious again. “I just know I can’t be the man who’s introduced as your husband. And I see that coming, Laura. Your book will be published, and your business is growing. You’re going to be even more successful than you are now. Where does that leave me?”

“You can be whatever you want to be. Do whatever you want to do. And I’ll back you.”

“I don’t want you to back me. Not by supporting me financially, or giving me a pep talk as you’re running out the door to your next business meeting. I want you at my side.”

“I understand what you’re saying … but to do this …?”

“It’s a fresh start for all of us, Laura. You think I want this just for me? I’m doing this for our marriage. And for Katie. She needs two parents who are happy.”

And if it makes you happy to be in Ohio, then I’ll be happy too. That is truly the way you feel
.

“Robby, you can’t just throw this at me.”

“I know. You have to come out to Blair’s Falls for a real visit—you’ve always just run in and out. And then we’ll wait until after New Year’s to move. I know it would be better for Katie if we could do it now so she could start the school year with her classmates, but it will take time to wind up everything in New York.”

Laura hadn’t agreed to move, she hadn’t even agreed to go out to Ohio to visit, and he was talking about Katie’s classmates and her new school as if it had all been decided.

“And this gives you plenty of time to help Katie adjust to the idea.”

What about me? How am I supposed to adjust to it?

But arguing would be useless. Robby’s mind was made up. Uncle Dan had already promoted him to the position of store manager, with a promise of a vice presidency to come. Now it was Landon’s Department Store and Blair’s Falls that would solve all of their problems.

–—

In the weeks that followed, Robby sang the praises of Blair’s Falls to Laura every night on the phone. He told her that during the summer he had already joined a couple of clubs in the town—he’d been that certain Laura would uproot her life for him. Membership in both organizations was limited to prominent men in the community, he told her proudly. It took everything she had not to say that he was so damn prominent because his uncle had handed him a business on a silver platter.

At the end of every phone call, Robby would urge her again to come out to Ohio for a real visit. And she would keep on
finding excuses not to go. And the next day, she would run to Nick’s loft where they would lock the door and for a few hours they would pretend that the world outside didn’t exist.

“I don’t know what I’d do without this place, and you,” she said to him one afternoon as she was leaving to catch her train.

“You won’t have to find out, I promise.” He liked to make everything light when they were parting.

“I mean it. I’ve loved so many people, but you’re … necessary. I need you. I don’t think I’ve ever needed anyone except Katie.”

“I need you too. Frightening, isn’t it?”

“Frightening in a good way, or a bad way?”

“Now you’re fishing.” She reached up and kissed him. “In a good way,” he whispered. “In the very best way.”

–—

As Laura rode home on the train the conversation came back to her. She needed Nick—in the same way Christina needed Steven. The same way her mother needed her father.

What do you know, Mom? All of my life I thought I was like Nana. She loved Grandpa, but I never thought she really needed him. Not like you need Dad. And now … I need Nick. We’re two of a kind, after all, Mom
.

But Laura needed the wrong man. That was what Iris would think.

“K
atie, there’s an empty cab on the corner, hurry!” Mom began running up Madison Avenue, with her hand up in an attempt to hail the taxi. Katie, who had been dawdling behind her, now slowed down even more. “Katie, come on!” Her mother turned back to urge her, and in that instant a man with a briefcase stepped into the street and took the cab. “Damn it!” Mom swore, which was something she almost never did unless she was really upset.

Good
, Katie thought with sour satisfaction.

“Honey, didn’t you hear me tell you to run? We could have gotten that one. Now we’re going to be late.” They were going to Uncle Jimmy’s apartment for dinner.

“You always are,” Katie muttered just loud enough for her mother to hear.

Mom looked hurt—and surprised. She didn’t expect this kind of thing from Katie. Katie didn’t expect it from herself. “I
don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Mom said. “Would you like to explain this attitude?”

Katie shrugged elaborately and began walking up Madison Avenue. After a second her mother followed.

Katie was scared, and feeling scared was making her angry. Not that she was going to tell her mother that. Their family was falling apart; it wasn’t Mom’s fault, Dad was actually causing it, but Mom was always the one who fixed things. Only now she wasn’t. And while it wasn’t fair for Katie take it out on Mom, she couldn’t stop it. Even though she was actually on her mom’s side.

The trouble was, you couldn’t get mad at Dad, because it would be like getting mad at a puppy or a little baby. Dad was always coming up with plans that were going to make them all so happy, but they never did. Now he’d come up with the worst plan yet. He wanted to move them to Ohio. Anyone who knew Mom would know she didn’t want that. But instead of telling Dad she wouldn’t go, she was acting like he’d never said anything. It was like she thought he’d drop it if she just didn’t mention it. But once Dad had an idea in his head he never dropped it. Mom should know that.

Katie didn’t want to go to Ohio any more than her mother did. She liked her school—except for arithmetic, but she was going to have to take that anywhere—and she had friends here. There were only two of them; Katie wasn’t the kind of person who said hi to dozens of people in the school halls every day, but those two friends were really great. She didn’t want to lose them. And she didn’t want to live far away from Grandpa Theo and Grandma Iris. Katie had come to love them both an awful lot. She didn’t feel the same way about Grandmother Mac, who made you take your shoes off when you walked into the house,
and when you were trying to tell her something you could see that she wasn’t really listening because you were just a kid and she was the kind of adult who thought you wouldn’t have anything worthwhile to say. No, there was no way Katie wanted to move anywhere and especially not to Ohio, and she wanted her mom to do something about it fast.

“We’ll have to walk to Uncle Jimmy’s apartment. We’ll never get a cab in rush hour,” Mom broke into Katie’s thoughts. “I’m sorry, honey.”

For a moment, Katie was sorry too. Mom tried so hard, and Katie shouldn’t have made her lose the cab. But Katie wasn’t about to say that.

Her mother sighed. “Still sulking, I see.”

They walked up Madison Avenue in silence. Suddenly, Katie looked around. She didn’t come into the city often with her mom and the streets tended to melt together, but this stretch of Madison Avenue was looking very familiar. Then she remembered. A year ago when she and Mom were coming home from Rebecca Ruth’s birthday party, somewhere around here they’d seen the weird picture that looked exactly like Grandma Iris in the thrift shop window. She started scanning the store windows. After a couple of seconds she saw what she was looking for on the other side of the street. She ran to the corner, caught the tail end of the “walk” light and dashed across Madison Avenue.

“Katie, what are you doing?” her mother cried out.

But Katie was safely on the other side. She heard her mother calling out again, but she raced to the shop and peered into the big window. The picture wasn’t there.

After a minute or two, her mother ran up behind her. “You scared the life out of me,” her mother panted. “What did you
mean by running off like—” She stopped short and looked at the window. “This is that shop,” she said.

“Yes. The one with the picture,” Katie said. “But it’s not in the window.”

Her mother let out a breath. “Oh. Well, they’ve probably sold it.”

But Katie didn’t want to give up so easily. She turned back to the window, and by putting her eyes right up to the glass and squinting she could see all the way to the back of the shop.

“Katie, that picture is gone. Let’s go.”

But Mom was wrong. “It’s still here! It’s on the back wall, right over there. We can go inside and look at it again.”

“No, we can’t. There’s no point in going in to look at the picture if we’re not going to buy it. We’d just be wasting the saleswoman’s time. And anyway, we’re late,” Mom said in a tone Katie had never heard from her before. Then she grabbed Katie’s hand and almost dragged her away from the window.

“Why are you being so weird?” Katie demanded as they resumed their walk up Madison Avenue. “I hate it when you’re like this.”

–—

Katie’s words came back to haunt Laura later that evening, after they were home from the city and Katie was in bed. Laura settled into a chair in the living room. The truth was, she was feeling weird. And very, very guilty.

Robby is pressuring me every night to come west. Nick doesn’t pressure me about anything, but he should. We’re sneaking around now, that’s what it feels like anyway, and it’s humiliating and degrading. Nick deserves better. And Robby deserves more too
.

This is unfair to everyone, and I should stop it. But I’m stuck
.
Me. The one who could always make up her mind in a flash. Sometimes I think I’ll just tell Robby I’m not leaving New York. This is where I belong, and I’ve earned the right to be here. But for the first time in years I’m hearing hope in his voice. He’s getting his confidence back, and he’s working so hard. For us. For Katie and me. But I love Nick
.

I know divorce doesn’t have the stigma it once had, people end their marriages all the time. But I don’t know how they do it. I have a daughter who loves her father. I stay awake nights worrying about what it would do to Katie if Robby and I split up
.

And what about the rest of my family? My brothers think they’re so liberated, but I’m not sure how they’d react if they knew I’ve been having an affair. How would my father take it? He was no saint when he was younger, but he’s an Old World man, and they have different standards for men and women. And of course I know how Mom would react. But I love Nick
.

Laura went to bed. And the next morning, as she did almost every morning, she told herself that she was going to stop being a coward. She was going to make a decision and live with the results. But not today. She just couldn’t do it today.

I
ris loved the first weeks of a new school year. She liked walking into a classroom and seeing the bright faces of the freshmen turned toward her, waiting to hear what she had to say. She knew some of these youngsters were sitting there because they had to fulfill an academic requirement, but there were always others who were genuinely excited about the subject—and hopefully they would be about their professor too. During the course of the semester she would discover who the eager ones were, and she would enjoy their energy and enthusiasm.

An even greater pleasure could be found in the familiar faces who returned for her advanced classes. These were the students who knew what she had to offer them and wanted more of it. Teaching them was a privilege that genuinely humbled her. So she was pleased when one of her favorites came up to her as she was entering the main building of the university on a crisp morning in October. The girl’s name was Debbie.