Heartwood (29 page)

The women nodded politely and smiled back at Robby, but it was clear that they didn’t really care what he thought because it was Laura who had their interest. Two of them had read her wedding book and loved it. Then the inevitable question was asked: “Will you be writing any more books?”

“Oh yes,” Laura assured them. “The next one will either be about gardening or restoring an old house.”

A lively debate ensued about the merits of both topics while she felt Robby stiffen some more.

“I want to buy a copy of your book,” said one of the women. “I’ll run fast to the book department. Would you mind waiting here so you can sign it for me?”

“I have a better idea, I’ll come with you,” Laura said.

“I’m afraid we don’t stock that book,” Robby broke in. Then he took Laura’s arm, gave the women another smile and said, “I’m sorry, but we do have to run. We’re having lunch with the senior management from the store and we don’t want to be late.”

After the women had gone on their way, Laura said, “So why aren’t you selling your wife’s book?” She was only half joking.

Robby’s face got bright red. “I … that is, everyone … thought … it would be a conflict of interest.” But from his shamefaced look she knew that the decision to boycott her book was his.

–—

Robby waited until they were getting ready for bed that night to bring up the subject of the move to Ohio. They were sleeping in his old room in his mother’s house, and Laura couldn’t help thinking that it was a pity the woman had chosen to keep it as a
shrine to his promising youth. Robby had piled up academic awards throughout his grammar school and high school career, and the local newspaper had reported his triumphs. His mother had framed those articles and hung them on the walls next to his plaques and certificates of merit. Now the faded pictures of the bright-eyed boy contrasted sharply with the faded man standing in front of Laura. For in spite of his recent success at the department store, her husband’s luster had indeed faded, there was no escaping that fact.

Suddenly Laura wanted her father. She hadn’t felt the loss of Theo this intensely since the day he died, and it hit her like a physical blow.

But Daddy, you told Mom that you had faith in me; that I’d work everything out. I don’t know if I can. I just don’t know
.

Robby moved to sit on the bed and gathered his thoughts. “Look, we both know what’s going on here—” he began.

“We have some decisions to make.”

He nodded. “Here’s the way I see it. It would be a crime to let Landon’s go out of family hands after all these years and there’s no one else but me to run it. Besides, I like doing it. I’m good at it.” He stopped and looked at her expectantly. Was he hoping she’d say that those few words had convinced her and she’d be leaving New York tomorrow? Did he think it would be that easy?

“I saw that.” She carefully committed to nothing.

“I like living here.”

“I know you do.”

“And I’m going to be honest with you. If you wanted to stay home and take care of Katie and me, that’s what I’d like best. And I think it would be good for you too. You get so involved in your work, I don’t know if it’s healthy …”

“Robby, let’s not get into that.”

“All right. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I just wanted to say that I want you to be happy here. So even though I’d rather you didn’t, if you prefer to work, I’ll put up with it.”

“That’s big of you.”

“You
are
angry. Damn it, I don’t know how to talk to you anymore, Laura.”

“I’m sorry. And I’m not angry. Go on.”

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I know I’m asking you to give up a great deal by moving here and leaving your family and your business. But if you’ll do it, then I’ll live with the television interviews and the books and newspaper columns—and you can even start your business all over again and work seven days a week, as long as you don’t do it in the house. I hated that so much. But I’ll live with all the rest. I love you, Laura. I love you and I miss you. And I want you here with me.” Then he flashed his old grin. “Hell, I’ll even stock your books in my store. I’ll have them put a display of them in the front window.” He stopped grinning. “I’ll do whatever you want if you’ll just come here and live with me,” he begged.

He stood in front of her, the pictures of his former self behind him on the wall. He wasn’t a bad man, and she didn’t want to hurt him. He’d scaled down his big dreams to small ones and now he wanted her to share them with him. He would “put up” with her dreams, and her career, and for him that was a big concession. And if all of this felt like a failure to her, all she had to do was lie and pretend she was fine with it, and he’d be happy to believe her. He just wanted her to be with him. Robby loved her as much as he was able to love anyone. It wasn’t his fault that he had so little to give her. And it wasn’t his fault that she’d come to know a man who did. The image of Nick’s face flashed through
her mind. Nick, who would never settle for second best and would always follow his dreams and make them work, just as she would. Nick, who had enough to give to last her a lifetime.

It was such a clichéd thought to be having at that moment. She was like the heroine of a hundred bad movies and plays, facing the choice between the man she loved and the man she’d married, between love and duty. And yet, like all clichés, this one was based in reality. And the potential for pain was real too. For so many people.

Daddy, I don’t know how I’m going to work it out
.

So she did what she’d been doing all along, she asked Robby to give her some more time.

“All right,” he said. “You know I’ve been hoping you’d move after the first of the year, but I realize you have to get used to the idea of this, and I can be patient. Besides, your mother will need to have you around for a while after losing your dad. So take your time. I’ll come back east in a month and we’ll talk. And maybe, in the spring, if you’re ready, we can decide when we want to put the house on the market.”

He’d misunderstood her. He’d decided that she had asked for the time so she could adjust to the idea of moving. Hating herself for being a coward once again, she didn’t tell him she still hadn’t made up her mind what she was going to do. But there was one thing she could tell him with certainty.

“I’d never ask you to come back to New York, now that I’ve seen how happy you are here,” she said.

–—

On the last day of her visit, she had a final lunch with her mother-in-law. They went to one of Mother McAllister’s favorite restaurants: a place with ruffled table mats and little salt
cellars shaped like ducks. Or maybe it was swans. The food was made with lots of mayonnaise; there were gelatin salads and thick floury sauces.

Mother McAllister’s affection for Laura seemed to have waned during Laura’s time in Blair’s Falls. And now, as they faced each other over their sandwiches, it was obvious something was bothering her.

“I wish I understood you,” she finally said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” Laura responded. But she did. She would never understand Mother McAllister either. “I don’t think I’m that complicated.”

“I just don’t know what you want. I know Robby thinks you’ve agreed to move here, but I don’t. I think you’re still trying to make up your own mind.”

“It’s a big decision to make,” Laura said, noncommittal as ever. And a coward to the core.

“You could have everything here. A good home for Katie and for yourself. Nice friends. Robby has already joined the country club, and he’d take you to all the parties and the dances and show you off. He’d be so proud of you.”

Laura remembered Robby telling her that his father had never taken his mother dancing and he’d never acted as if he was proud to have her on his arm. In her mind, Laura saw a young wife who knew she wasn’t pretty, who was starved for affection and aching for kindness. Perhaps she could understand Mother McAllister a little after all.

“You’d have enough money to go back to New York anytime you wanted,” her mother-in-law went on, “Robby knows how close you are to your family. He’d never begrudge you that. He’d never begrudge you anything.”

“I know,” Laura said.

If only it were enough!

The check came and Laura paid it. Then, assuming that lunch was over, she started to stand. But her mother-in-law stayed seated. “I won’t make excuses for my son,” she burst out. “Robby’s not a strong man. He’s made some poor choices, and he can’t accept criticism. For years I hoped he would learn, or grow, or change … but now I see that he can’t. He is who he is, and I love him. He seems to be content now, working at the store, and living among old friends.” She paused, searching for the right words. “It’s important to him to … to be the man, Laura. To be the breadwinner. I hope, if you move here, that will happen.”

It was an honest statement from a woman who usually tried to hide her feelings. Honesty was required in kind.

“If you’re asking me if I’d stop working, I love what I do,” Laura said. “I don’t think you realize what it would mean to me to have to give that up.”

“No, I don’t. At your age I would have been thrilled to have a husband who was kind and loving to his child, and wanted to support me. I would have been grateful to help behind the scenes and let him be the one who was important.”

You’d send me back to the Dark Ages, if you could!
But Laura tried to be gentle. “Times have changed.”

Her mother-in-law nodded. She looked down at her hands, which were folded on the ruffled table mat. When she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes. “There’s never been a divorce in our family. We believe in honoring the vows we make and I don’t want my son to be the first one to break his. I don’t want …” she faltered, and trailed off. She stood up. She’d hung her handbag over the back of her chair. She retrieved it, opened it, looked around in it for something she did not find, then she
closed it again with a snap. “I want him to be happy, damn it!” she said fiercely. Then, without waiting for Laura, she turned and walked out of the restaurant.

–—

On the drive to the Cincinnatti airport and then again on the plane trip home, Laura tried to list in her mind the reasons why she should make the move. It would be a simple life, and wasn’t that a good thing? Katie would go to a nice All-American school in the middle of the country, where the kids were less sophisticated than they were in a town that was close to a big city like New York. That would be good too—wouldn’t it? Katie would have both her mother and her father full time. There was no doubt that that would be good. And Laura could still work, she could open another catering business and she could still write her books. Her collaborator lived in New York, so it wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done. It could.

She would miss her family, but she’d only be a plane ride away from all of them. And even though Iris would miss Laura and Katie, she would support anything that kept Laura’s marriage intact. And Robby would be happy at last. Laura could be a good wife, and a good daughter, and a good mother, and still do at least some of the work she loved. She couldn’t have it all, but she could come close. What she couldn’t have was Nick. Unbidden, a memory flooded her tired brain.

It was the day before she was scheduled for her first television interview, and she was with Nick, in his private living room behind the loft.

“I’m not sure I can do this,” she’d said. “I don’t know anything about television … or television cameras …”

“Don’t worry about the camera, it will love you.”

“I know you say I’m beautiful, but—”

He’d stopped her mid-sentence. “Let me show you something,” he’d said. He led her to a wall where he’d hung a collage he’d put together of the pictures he’d taken of her sitting at her kitchen table talking about her family. “Look at this,” he commanded. “Your face doesn’t have a bad angle.” He paused. “That’s not your problem.”

“What is?”

“You’re too damn perfect.”

“Oh for heaven’s sakes, that’s not true!”

“That’s the way you’re going to come off. You’ve built a successful business, you can cook and sew and do just about anything in a home, including restore one. You write advice columns and features in magazines and you’ve written a book. And on top of all of that, you’re gorgeous. My advice, darling? Tomorrow, be very, very funny.”

“What?”

“In real life, you tell jokes about yourself all the time. Do it when you’re on television tomorrow morning. Tell them about every mistake you’ve ever made, every disaster. Undercut the Perfect Laura image before it alienates all those women in television land who need to lose ten pounds and feel guilty about thawing out frozen dinners three nights a week.”

She’d tried to argue that there was no Perfect Laura image—or at least there shouldn’t be—but in the end, when she went into the interview the next morning she’d done what he’d suggested.

“And it worked, didn’t it?” he’d crowed a couple of days later.

“I gather I’m getting fan mail. Thank you.”

“You were the one who did it. Don’t thank me.”

“But you gave me the pep talk. You helped me. You always do.”

Suddenly he got serious. “I feel like … we’re in this together, Laura. It’s you and me. And I like that. I like not being alone.” Then he’d grinned. “And besides, you’re a very sexy lady.”

Now as she sat on the plane flying home, she thought once again that she was living the old weepy movie cliché about the woman trying to decide between the man she’d married and the man she loved. She despised those movies. Then she started to weep.