Mating for Life (19 page)

Helen had spoken again: “Are you doing this to prove it, to prove you aren't like me?”

“You make it sound like I'm doing something wrong. I'm marrying a man whom I love and who loves me. A good man. A dependable man!”

Helen had nodded. “Yes, he is those things. And he certainly has made his intentions with you quite clear. But, Ilsa, you might need more than good, you might need more than dependable. You might not think that now, but there might come a day . . . and he's not the type to . . . be flexible in his arrangements.”

“Do you think that's what I want? Because I could have had that with Eric, and I didn't want it! To live that way—why bother making the promise in the first place, then? If I wanted to live like that, I wouldn't get married at all. But I am. I'm making this choice. I need you to support it.”

“I just want you to be happy. Forever. I'm sorry I didn't have the correct reaction to your announcement and I
do
support you.”

“I will be happy,” Ilsa had said, defiant. “And by the way, even though you never got married, you didn't always seem to be so happy. What about when—” She had been about to say,
What about when Wes killed himself?
but she stopped because even in her anger, she knew that would be a cruel thing to bring up.

But Helen had known what Ilsa had been about to say. “Even if I had known the outcome, I wouldn't have changed anything,” she said, her mouth smiling but her eyes sad. “
I think love is a good thing, in any form. Even when it hurts. The pain often leaves behind a beautiful memory.” She had seemed to realize something as she spoke. She had reached out and put both her hands on Ilsa's shoulders, squeezed, and then let go.
Go forth and get yourself hurt,
was what the squeeze had seemed to say.
There's nothing I can do.

They never spoke of the discussion again. At the wedding, Helen had smiled, smiled, smiled. So had Ilsa, so had every
one. Especially Michael. He hadn't wanted the big wedding at first, had insisted it be small. “This is my second, after all,” he had said to her. “And yours, too. Let's be reasonable.” “But last time . . . last time, I eloped,” Ilsa had said. “This time, I
want
it to be extravagant.” In fact, she had needed it to be extravagant. And he had never said no to her, not in those days, so she had her lavish wedding. And it was a perfect day.

One day, though. That's all a wedding is. Ilsa knew that now. One day, and perhaps a few golden weeks away, during which time your new husband might schedule conference calls and suggest you go shopping to keep yourself busy, and you might realize you've already painted yourself into a ­corner.

• • •

Lincoln didn't call, or text, or visit her studio, or leave any notes. Three weeks passed. Ilsa couldn't eat. She couldn't stop thinking about him. The only time she was happy was when she was with Ani and Xavier, and even then it was tinged by guilt. She could hardly stand to be around Michael. When she sat beside him in the car, she would think,
I could tell him, right now, what I've done. And it would probably all be over
. The fact that there was something between them that could end everything began to wear on Ilsa. She became silent—and Michael was
already
silent, lost in his own concerns. So when they were together, they barely spoke.

One day, Ilsa heard a song on the radio, and the lyric “the opposite of love is indifference” made her cry, instant tears that felt sharp. She had never been the type to cry over songs, and hadn't she known that line all through her life? It was nothing unique or new. The problem was she now felt it, acutely. Indifferent to the man upstairs, the man in her bed. Ani was coloring at the table and she looked up. “Mommy?”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, darling.”

• • •

Weeks passed. Ilsa tried to forget, tried not to feel used and humiliated. Then, one morning, there was a knock at Ilsa's studio door. She sat in front of the canvas and thought,
No, I just won't answer.

But when the knocking stopped she felt sick. Was he gone? She stood.

Knock, knock.
She nearly fell to her knees with relief. She opened the door and she didn't say,
Why haven't you called?
She simply said, “Hello,” and pretended to be happy to see him, pretended it was normal that he would just be surfacing now, pretended she had other lovers, that she hadn't been pining for him, no, not at all.

He didn't look at her paintings this time. And this time he also didn't press her against the wall. He asked her if she had a blanket and she laid one out on the floor. She said to him, “We should really use a condom, last time we . . . it was all so rushed, but we really should,” and she fumbled with it and he didn't help her. Afterward, her spine hurt. “I'll call you,” he said, before he left, and she despised the way she clung to the hope that he would.

• • •

The night Ilsa went into her husband's office with a chemise on and carrying a bottle of wine, she had known she was pregnant for about a week. And she knew it was Lincoln's because she was unable to remember the last time she and her husband had had sex.

I'll try again tomorrow,
she decided after the rebuff. Then she repeated it inwardly like a mantra:
Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

She was terrified, she was sick, both literally and figuratively, but she also knew that she didn't have any options. She wasn't going to get an abortion. She had considered it, yes,
but had known it would be a secret too terrible to keep. And it wasn't the baby's fault.
Baby. It's not your fault, baby.

Days passed, and she didn't try again with Michael.
What are you going to do?

She nearly lost track of the passage of time, until Fiona called and said, “I'm not doing Thanksgiving dinner,” her voice sounding strange, as though she had just woken up, and Ilsa had realized that time was passing alarmingly fast.
How far along does that make me?
She hadn't been feeling well that day. A stitch or a cramp had been bothering her. Probably the uterus starting to stretch.
I can't ignore this much longer.

“I'm . . . traveling. Going away a few days. So I can't.”

“You're traveling? Alone?” Ilsa had said. “Where?”

“It's—nothing. Nothing. Just something I couldn't avoid.”

“Fiona, are you all right?” Ilsa and Fiona had never discussed what had happened that night at the party. Like everything else, it seemed, Fiona had swept it away, pretended it wasn't an elephant in the room, but every time Ilsa had seen her, she had sensed some sort of distress. She could hear it in her voice now, over the phone line.

“I'm fine. Just busy. What else is new, right?”

“Right.” Ilsa held the phone tight to her ear. She wished she could confide in Fiona. Fiona always knew exactly what to do about everything. “Will Tim and the boys be on their own? Should I have them over, cook them something?” Ilsa had never offered to do this for Fiona before and was sure her sister would decline, explain that she had precooked a seven-course meal that she would have the housekeeper serve in her absence.

“Could you? It's why I'm calling.”

“Oh. Well, of course. Will you ask Tim for me? Find out what time works best?”

“Why don't you just call him yourself? He's at the office.”

So Ilsa had called, feeling nervous as she punched in
Tim's extension, even after all this time. She had never actually called him directly before, so she had had to use the company directory, and felt odd about calling the office and not speaking with Michael. When Tim picked up he sounded distracted. “That would be good,” he said. “We were probably just going to order pizza again.”
Again.
Strange. Ilsa wondered for a moment if perhaps Tim and Fiona were having problems, and tried to catalogue how this made her feel. Nothing. It didn't make her feel anything. She felt relieved by this, but still concerned for her sister and for Tim.
But no, not possible. Those two are the most solid couple in the world.

“Five o'clock, then.”

She had hung up and wondered what she would make. She'd never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner before and it seemed a bit late to get a turkey.

Her phone rang, and she looked down at it.
Lincoln.

“Where have you been?” she asked before she could stop herself, and hated the sound of the words when she said them.

“At a retreat in the Himalayas. No phones. No wireless. Poor Ilsa. Don't you like waiting for release?”

She was silent. Her eyes stung. “Hello?” he said. “Are you still there? I have a few hours free. I can be there in ten minutes.”

“I'm busy,” she said. “I'm planning
Thanksgiving
.” She placed emphasis on the word as though it gave her credence in some way.
I am a woman who plans Thanksgiving dinners for people, for my family.
She understood, finally, what it might feel like to be Fiona, to be able to hide behind pressing responsibility.

“How about a drink, then? Tonight? Come on. Surely you can get away from your turkey for a few hours?”

She hated that she felt such elation. She didn't answer him.

“Ilsa,” he said, and his deep voice turned her name into something like a purr. “I can't stop thinking of you. Your heat, the way you feel on my fingers, the way you respond to me, the way you're not afraid to
want.
”

She held her breath.

“
Ilsa
.”

“Yes?”

“Have a drink with me at least? I must see you.”

“Yes,” she said.

• • •

They went to a dark, wood-paneled pub. It seemed like a mistake, to be out in public together in such a small town.

“You have a Mona Lisa smile,” he said to her. And she thought,
That's one of the most trite things I have ever heard a man say.
It was a line he probably used on other women, too. She pushed the thought away and showed her teeth the next time she smiled.

He was attentive, different than she had ever seen him. Sweet, even.
This is when he falls in love with me,
she thought, and started to relax and allow room for relief. He was going to fall in love with her. Maybe it would be easy.
But even if he falls in love with you, what will you do?
Ilsa didn't know, but still clung to the comfort of her thoughts.

As if to confirm what she was feeling, he said, “Your eyes are amazing, what color are they, I can never remember.” To which she replied, with insouciance that felt too studied, “Gray? Blue? They're always changing.” He smiled like she had said something brilliant; his foot was out of his shoe and nestled against her calf. They talked about nothing, about everything, about childhood and family and her, a lot about her. How her art was going, what she had been doing. He said he had missed her.

Later, he excused himself to go to the restroom and it
was twenty minutes before he returned to their table. She watched him, pausing at a table, not just nodding and smiling at the people who had noticed him, but stopping and talking, having a conversation that seemed to her to be unnecessarily long. She felt irritated and hot. The half glass of wine she had allowed herself had upset her stomach. She waited and tried to maintain a sexy, alluring pose, crossed her legs, uncrossed them, sat this way and that, grew tired of it, slumped a little, then sat up and crossed her legs again at just the right moment; rare, lucky timing.

She wondered who the people, who now were watching him and talking to each other as he walked away, thought she was—for she was clearly not his blond-gray, birdlike wife, the one who so often appeared alongside him in the society pages, who had been with him that night at the party.

Whoever they thought Ilsa was, at that moment she knew with clarity that if they suspected she was his lover, they would judge
her,
not him. She felt resentful of this.

His mood had changed. “Have you had enough yet?”

“What do you mean?”

“Shall we go to your studio?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I just . . . I don't want to. Tonight I just want to sit here and talk.”

“We've been talking.” He sounded tired. She sat looking at him. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?”

She thought for a moment. “Do you think we were meant to meet? Do you ever think it was . . . destined?” She realized how stupid she sounded, how girlish, and wished she could rewind the words back into her mouth, the way her mother would have tried to do.

His expression was disinterested. “I don't know, maybe,” he said vaguely. “I try not to think too much about fate.” His
eyes were roaming the room, but returned to her, intense once again. “You have secrets, don't you? Tell me some of them. If we're going to sit here and talk, you might as well make it interesting for me.” He leaned in.

She felt like she was in shock. She shook her head slightly. She felt the anger she had been trying to suppress surface and begin to simmer. She thought about saying it, saying,
I'm pregnant, and I know it's yours because my husband and I never have sex
. She imagined that his expression probably wouldn't change very much. Then she thought of how she had felt that night at Fiona's party, when he had watched her, his unwavering gaze like a dim spotlight. Wherever she moved around the yard that night, the beam had swung along with her.

“I do have a secret,” she said. “You were right that night, about me being a bored housewife.”

“I don't know that I ever said that—”

“I never should have married my husband. It was a mistake.”