Mourning Glory (32 page)

"You are to me."

He kissed her on the forehead, then insinuated his arm
under her neck until her head rested on the crook of it.

"We're lovers, aren't we?" Sam asked.

"I'll buy that," Grace acknowledged. She reached
for his hand, grasped it and kissed his fingers. She felt secure and
comfortable in his arms, although her mind churned with nascent possibilities.

Again she contemplated revealing what she knew about Anne.
Perhaps in some way such a revelation would have some benefit to her. The
evidence remained in the pocketbook that sat on a chaise in the bedroom not ten
feet from where they lay. She even considered a new ploy, an accidental
discovery. Maybe she would simply tell Sam that she had found the letters on
Anne's closet floor, which wouldn't be that far from the truth. She would, of
course, have to deny reading them. Another lie. No, she decided, not now, not
yet, maybe never.

"I love you, Grace," Sam whispered.

"Love?" His assertion, coming when least
expected, stunned her. It occurred to her now that they must have deliberately
avoided the word, as if it were a dangerous shoal. Even in the throes of sexual
ecstasy neither of them had uttered it out loud since, she was certain, the
saying of it would somehow diminish its sincerity. Now he had said it. It was an
admission that she wanted with all her heart but had dared not hope for. Nor
did she expect what followed.

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Grace. I long for you,
yearn for you, hunger for you." He paused, kissed her on the cheek and
placed one hand on her heart and one on his. It was a gesture she had never
experienced before, a kind of oath, she assumed, made to dispel any doubts in
her mind. "I swear it. I love you, Grace." He sucked in a deep breath
and appeared to have entered a state of deep and demonstrative emotion. "I
know I'm playing in a young man's arena. I don't even know how it happened or
why. But I'm sure of it. I do love you, my darling. I do."

He embraced her lengthwise, flesh to flesh, and looked into
her eyes, searching, it seemed, for affirmation. His breath tasted sweet and
his lips were warm against hers, just touching lightly.

She felt a wave of giddy elation roll over her. Yet she
could not find a touchstone for her own reaction. She was too confused, too
overwhelmed and, despite hearing his words and wanting desperately to believe
them, she sensed in herself a growing feeling of doubt; not doubt in his
assertion, but doubt of her own worthiness.

Suddenly, a brief phrase entered her thoughts.
Beware of
what you wish for; it may come true and be more than you bargained for.

Above all, she wanted to accept his revelation as an
indisputable fact.
He loves me.
The phrase rolled over and over in her
mind. Had it come naturally, or was this the result of her blundering but
apparently effective manipulation?
Accept it,
she goaded herself.
Run
with it. Tell him what you feel.

She knew he was waiting for her declaration, knew that he
was too clever a man to declare himself without having concluded what her own
response was likely to be. Certainly she had demonstrated the supposition by
her action, by her sexual response, by her body language, by the hundred little
special ticks of affection, deep affection that could be interpreted as
"love."

"I seem to have the same symptoms," she said,
emphasizing it with the physical pressure of her embrace. She felt him waiting
in silence for the ritual words to emerge. "I love you, Sam," she
whispered finally. "I love you with all my heart, soul and body."
They struck her as clichés, but they were the only time-honored way to
articulate her feelings.

She kissed him long and hard on the lips, reaching down to
caress his genitals. His penis had hardened again.

"I salute you, my sweet love," he whispered.

"So I observe," Grace said, tracing his smile
with the fingers of her free hand.

"Is such an emotional condition possible for a man
over sixty? Well over."

"Apparently more than you think," Grace replied,
caressing him. "As possible for a woman nearing forty."

She giggled and kissed him again, then moved under him and
inserted him.

"We belong like this," she said.

"Absolutely," he agreed. Eye to eye, they watched
each other.

"Say it again, Sam," she said, giggling with
playfulness about that old movie line.

"I love you, Grace."

"Say it again, Sam."

"I love you, Grace."

For the first time since they had been intimate she sensed
that they were sharing another dimension, beyond the pure pleasure of sexual
stimulation and culmination. She felt a bonding process at work, an
understanding that what was happening between them was important and enduring.
She could not remember ever feeling happier or more joyful.

"Good God, Sam, I am so happy, so fucking happy,"
she cried.

"Say it again, baby."

"I am so fucking happy."

Tears welled in her eyes. Yet somewhere in the back of her mind,
a nagging thought had begun to emerge. Would this have happened without the
lies? She had no doubt about the shared truth between them, the fundamental
essence of their genuine feeling for each other. Would it have happened
naturally, without deliberate embellishment? Had the crooked means justified
this honest end?

They began moving in tandem, her pelvis circling as her sex
tightened around his until they reached a simultaneous orgasm. No instructions
were needed now. No words. Their bodies melted into each other, in perfect
rhythm.

In the languor that followed she waited through the silence
for what she believed would be the next phase of his revelation, the plan for
their future. They had discussed loving and need. That bridge had been crossed.
What she wanted now was some practical assurance of permanency. Wasn't that
supposed to happen next? Or was she being naïve?

It did not come, not through the later walk along the
beach, not during lunch or their afternoon lovemaking, not through their
romantic candlelit dinner. Perhaps, she reasoned, their joint declaration of
love had an odd silencing effect on him, on both of them, as if any further
discussion beyond their feelings about each other was moot. Still she waited
for his declaration. Surely it was running through his mind. Surely.

The day slipped by in a euphoric haze. But as they stood
sipping champagne on the back patio, watching the moon and stars throw spangles
on the water, she began to feel a tremor of anxiety. Questions began to nag at
her.

Wasn't it in the natural rhythm of the mating process that
commitment followed the affirmation of mutual love? And didn't this joint
profession of love, in the case of two unattached lovers, define as its
ultimate goal some traditional binding state, some promise of meaningful
attachment? If that was the case, she told herself, then he was now supposed to
declare himself.

Why was he holding back? she wondered. Was such an idea
really under consideration by him? How high was it on his list of priorities?
No, she had vowed to herself repeatedly, she would never consent to being a
mere mistress, whether she lived on or off the premises. Discounting what she
had been doing for the past month, she understood that consenting to such a
role would sooner or later undervalue her. Ring around the finger; the words
echoed in her mind.

She wanted to be a wife, Mrs. Samuel Goodwin, with all the
perks consistent with the role, the same perks that he had afforded to the
deceased wife, the faithless Anne. Knowing what she knew, she was ashamed,
ashamed for Sam, to see the props of his undeserving Anne worship strewn around
the house. Row on row of photographs of her in silver frames scattered in every
room, her image elaborately portrayed in three oil paintings, the endless racks
and drawers of clothes, these assets of her memory, tangible and intangible.

Destiny again had intervened to point the way. The Anne he
had lived with was a fiction, her life with him a story written in disappearing
ink. Grace must think of herself now as a protagonist, an armed warrior in the
battle against Anne's memory. It was a tissue of lies, pure bullshit.

She was well aware of her changed mission, which was to
wipe out all visible elements, remnants really, of the old Anne. The idea of
eliminating Anne's clothes from the house now had a much higher priority than
when it had first been suggested. Before it was a device for meeting Sam by
allegedly sparing him the pain of removal. Now it was a first step in a
campaign to rid the house of Anne's memory.

Her growing belligerence surprised her. Was she simply
taking out her frustration on the dead Anne, the memory of the dead Anne,
because of Sam's unwillingness to speak about further commitment?

She felt no serenity in the situation, despite her acknowledgment
of loving him, which, to her total surprise, felt like the real thing. Now the
dilemma for her was whether she had to take the bull by the horns and broach
the subject of marriage. But how? Despite her earlier cleverness in insinuating
herself into his life, she was frightened. Did he really love
her,
or
the image of herself she had concocted out of thin air, out of desperation?

Certainly there was no logical explanation for her being in
love with him. Was it possible to induce such a feeling based on tangible
considerations—his wealth, his character, his sexual performance? If so, it was
certainly not in her frame of reference. Wasn't love, the romantic variety she
was now experiencing, one of life's eternal mysteries? These were heady
thoughts for a poor, not well-educated lady perched on one of the lower rungs
of the ladder, looking upward, just another wannabe looking for a way to climb
out of the crapper.

As she looked out to sea, she contemplated the disaster
that was waiting to happen. She had, she realized, done the unthinkable,
according to the Millicent Farmer gospel. She had gotten emotionally involved,
the ultimate no-no.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The lies, as
originally conceived, were only to be little white lies, inducements really,
tiny falsehoods meant to boost herself in his esteem, a harmless sales device,
not anything that might endanger the ultimate objective.

Maybe, despite her deliberate effort, she hadn't really
expected this to happen, not in her heart of hearts. He was, after all, far
above her in background, status and intelligence. He was successful, older,
presumably wiser, of another religion and background. Against that, what did
she have to offer?

It struck her that maybe, despite his declared feelings, he
wasn't buying. So far he had made no further commitment. And if he had? She
would be faced with yet another dilemma. How could she possibly explain away
the lies? Perhaps she could downgrade them to silly little fictions of no merit
or importance, even laugh them away as ridiculous notions, the figment of an
overheated imagination.

Would such explanations fly? she wondered. And the business
about the disposal of Anne's clothes, the revelation that it was only a ploy to
get to know him. Then further back in the chain of events, the deliberate
haunting of funerals to find Mr. Big Bucks.

Didn't love conquer all? Supersede judgment? She pondered
her own reaction if the tables were reversed and he was the one concocting
lies, piling lie upon lie about the state of his finances ... that he owned
nothing, was in debt over his head, that he was on the verge, or already in
bankruptcy, that he was not sixty-four but seventy-four, that he had been
diagnosed with terminal cancer, that he had used these lies for the express
purpose of getting him through his grief, consoling himself through sex.

How would she react to those revelations? Not well. It was
something she was almost too frightened to contemplate. She was certain his
reaction would be explosive. He would surely ban her from his sight, like some
stalker who is prevented from coming within a hundred yards of him by court
order.

But then it struck her that, perhaps, if she was clever
enough and if she coached Jackie carefully or, better yet, bribed her with
Sam's largesse, she might take this tangle of lies with her to the grave, just
as Anne had done. How clever the bitch must have been. Grace envied her lying
skills. For twenty-five years she had a secret lover to whom, wonder of
wonders, she was apparently faithful, leaving poor Sam to fend for himself in
the sex department. It continued to infuriate her. Perhaps it was time for him
to learn the truth about that two-timing wife of his who had brainwashed him
into believing she was little madame wonderful.

Not yet, she decided. She needed time to consider her next
move. She could blow the whole thing between them out of the water. People in
such situations were known to shoot the messenger. Hold off, she begged
herself. But for how long? Time was running out. She was going broke. Her
personal position in practical terms was getting hairy.

She fully realized now how out of step she was with her
generation. Yes, she told herself, she had been overlooked, uninformed, left at
the post. Absolute candor would have been the way real women, aware women,
stronger women, today's women, would have handled this situation. And let the
chips fall where they may.

She envied them their courage and fearlessness, their
arrogance and independence. She was no better than her mother, and all the
women who came before her, frightened and dependent. Jackie would tell him to
fuck off. Shit or get off the pot. Where would that have got her? She dismissed
such a course, not only because of her lack of courage but because she was
fearful that Sam would be confused by this new attitude on her part.

Let it simmer, she told herself, disappointed but
optimistic. They went through the ritual of parting for the night with their
usual fervor.