Promises to Keep (42 page)

Steffi had always shuddered at the phrase “making love.” She thought it was cheesy, sentimental, a ridiculous description for such an unbridled animalistic act. That was before Mason.

If he wasn’t softly kissing the length of her body, teasing her with his tongue, he was gazing into her eyes and whispering words of love. He moved slowly, and surely, surprising her with the way he seemed to know exactly what she would like.

Afterward, when he was sleeping, Steffi shifted onto her side and watched him, shocked at how gorgeous she suddenly found him, astonished she had never quite noticed it before.

 

As Mason pours the champagne and he and Ed hand out the glasses to everyone, the kitchen door opens and Eliza and Jack run into the room.

“Jack! Eliza!” The grandparents crouch down to welcome the children, who fling themselves into their open arms.

Reece follows them into the kitchen, his arms filled with gifts, his cheeks red with cold.

“Reece! We didn’t hear your car!”

“You must have been making too much noise.” He smiles, leaning in to kiss Steffi on the cheek. “The Tollemache family has never exactly been known to be quiet.”

They exchange smiles, for Callie was always the loudest of them all. She was the one always teasing, roaring with laughter at nothing other than the sheer joy she took in living.

“Where’ve you been?” Lila throws her arms around Reece, then steps back to berate him. “We’ve barely seen you since Carl was born.”

“Me?” Reece starts laughing. “You’re the one who keeps complaining she’s swimming in sterilizers and breast pads every time I phone, and oops, I have to go, the baby just woke up.”

“Okay, okay,” she grumbles. “Fair enough.”

“Can I hold the baby?” Eliza appears in front of Lila, looking up hopefully.

“Of course. But you have to sit down. I’ll bring him to you.” Then she takes Carl from Ed, and places him gently in Eliza’s arms. Eliza’s face lights up as she gazes at him.

“He’s so tiny!” she says.

“He’s actually pretty huge.” Lila laughs. “Off the charts in terms of percentile. Height and weight, I mean. Hey, baby,” she says, leaning down and looking him in the eye, “what do you think of your auntie Eliza?”

“Am I really his auntie?”

“Not officially, but I consider you my family, so I’d have to say yes.”

 

Reece leans back against the kitchen counter and smiles, watching his kids. He loved them from the minute they emerged from Callie’s body, but he didn’t know them in the way he knows them now, didn’t appreciate them the way he does now.

They are amazing. He finds himself hugging them tightly every day, marveling at how they squirm to get away, how resilient they are, how well they are doing, given everything that has happened.

Callie is still very much present. They talk about her, and talk to her. There are no subjects off-limits, nothing that cannot be said. It is hardest at night, the nights they can’t sleep, appearing next to his bed with tear-stained faces. He will take their hands and walk them back to their bedrooms, tuck them into bed and stroke their backs as he whispers stories of when they were babies, of Mommy.

It has been a while since that has happened.

It has been a while since Reece felt the pain and shock and grief overwhelm him to the point when he didn’t know how he was going to function.

Those first few weeks, he seemed like a facsimile of himself, there in person, but not all there. Drinking late at night, when everyone was asleep, and railing at a God who wasn’t fair.

Exploding at work with such regularity and force that eventually it was agreed it would be better if he took a sabbatical.

A year on, a year of therapists and psychiatrists and treatment for posttraumatic stress, the anger has given way to sad acceptance. Reece has accepted that Callie has gone, that there is a hole in his heart that can never be filled.

A year on, he works from home. Still traveling, but home most of the time, primary caregiver to Eliza and Jack, with the help of Patricia, their own Mrs. Doubtfire.

A year on, Reece is starting to believe that it is possible for him to be happy again. He spends time with old friends, and has, unexpectedly, made new ones—a couple on the next street whose kids go to school with his, whom Callie would have loved. It felt like an important step—making new friends by himself—and he is grateful they have taken him under their wing, that he and the kids see them most weekends.

There have been a few people who have asked tentatively if he might be interested in meeting someone, and a couple of times he has found himself at dinner parties sitting next to attractive divorcees. But not yet.

He is not ready to tell his stories again, not ready to entertain the thought of a date. Not yet.

For a long time he felt guilty at going out by himself. If he wasn’t at work, he felt he had to be with the children, even when he wasn’t in a position to look after them. It was Honor who gently sat him down and said he had to stop feeling guilty. It wasn’t his fault. Callie may have died, but he had to go on living.

One foot in front of the other, that was all he had to do. He had to act
as if
. As if he were happy, as if life were normal, as if he didn’t feel a huge gaping hole inside him. Then, one day, he suddenly realized he
was
happy. It didn’t last very long, an hour perhaps, but it was an hour when life seemed . . . normal.

And after that an hour stretched out to two, and life, he has indeed found, is still worth living.

He grabs Jack as he skips past him to find Fingal, and picks him up, swinging him over his shoulder and squeezing his small body tightly, planting a giant kiss on his cheek.

“Geddoff,” Jack squeals, giggling and kicking his legs to get free. “Put me down.”

“Reece?” Steffi commands. “Put that giggling monster down and set these crackers out on the table. We’re ready to sit down.”

 

Steffi sits at the head of the table, smiling as Mason blows her a kiss from the other end. Eliza and Jack are ducking underneath to retrieve napkins and party hats that somehow—can’t imagine how—keep ending up under the table. Honor and Walter are smiling, both of them more at peace than Steffi would ever have believed. Lila is bouncing her baby, and Ed is deep in conversation with Reece. And Mason. This beautiful man who has brought her to a place she never thought she would reach.

Looking around the table, Steffi sees pain, and grief, sadness and loss. And yet . . . and yet . . . there is love, and laughter, and life.

Love, Steffi suddenly thinks, looking around the table, is actually a
verb
. It requires acts of love. She didn’t realize this before Callie became ill, was too self-absorbed to think about what it meant,
to love someone
.

Now she knows.

Love was all the times she was too tired to drive over to Callie’s house, but went anyway. It was thinking of what she could do to make Callie more comfortable and doing it, instead of merely telling Callie that she would be there for her. It was tucking in behind her sister on her giant king-size bed, and crying with her when Callie said she was done, she’d had enough, she was ready to go.

Steffi looks around the table as she thinks about the journey she has been on the past year. How far she has come, how much she has learned about seizing the moment and appreciating everything she has, showing her love by actions as well as words.

Love was, is, and will continue to be Callie. For the way she lived her life, for her spirit, her beauty, her grace, and her unique ability to bring a touch of magic into every room she entered.

Look! Even now, her light remains. It sparkles in the eyes of every single person sitting in this room.

Steffi rests her chin on one palm and smiles, and as she does so a tiny white feather drifts down and lands, as softly as a breath, on her other hand.

T
o borrow the words of Erich Segal:

And brave.

That she loved, in no particular order and among other things: her children, her husband and soul mate of twenty-four years, broken-up pieces of Munson’s chocolate, clothes from Lucy’s, her family, haggling to get a bargain (although she never did manage to get the lamp at Bungalow down to the right price), her cottage on the lake in Canada, the wapomeo girls, the Fab Five, Beef Negimaki Bento Boxes at Matsu, skiing, Heidi’s Angels, Art Smarts, coaching her son’s soccer team.

That she had a smile that lit up the world. That her glass was always half full. That she only ever saw the good in people, in life, in any situation that came her way, and that she had more joie de vivre than anyone I have ever met.

Heidi didn’t just live life. She sparkled.

She was an extraordinary friend. Through thick and thin, she was always there, offering tremendous wisdom, common sense, support and love.

I called her the Eskimo on my blog because when it snowed here in winter she would take her children outside and build
quinzhees
(snow houses) with them—something she learned to do as a child in Toronto.

She knew everything about survival: you could dump her in a rainforest with a pocketknife and backpack, and I guarantee that a year later she would be thriving, probably having built a small village.

But she couldn’t survive the cancer that swept through her body like wildfire over seven months.

I was with her almost every day throughout her illness. One day, as we left the hospital, she turned to me and said, with a twinkle in her eye, “I hope you’re going to write about this.”

And so I did.

Callie is not Heidi, nor is this Heidi’s story, although there are some details that I have borrowed. Primarily, that Heidi fell into the tiny percentage of cancer sufferers who contract leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.

As for Steffi and Lila, it was a privilege and an honor for me to accompany my friend on this most heartbreaking of journeys. Her courage, her laughter and her grace taught me extraordinary lessons about life. And love.

Despite dedicating
Dune Road
to Heidi, this is the book that is really for her, the book that was written with an angel at my shoulder.

She leaves an indelible handprint on all our hearts, and I shall miss her for the rest of my life.

 

Useful Resources:

Dr. Richard Zelkowitz and the entire wonderful staff of the Whittingham Cancer Center at Norwalk Hospital.

Adam Green, Carole Lipson, Bob Armitage Sr., Bobby and Natalie Armitage, Judith Loose, Rachel Horne, Stacy Greenberg, Wendy Gardiner.

Louise Moore, Anthony Goff, the brilliant Clare Parkinson, and the two most unexpected and delightful gifts of the past year: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and Pamela Dorman.

For her unparalleled wisdom, guidance and friendship these past ten years, my gratitude and thanks go to Deborah Schneider.

Sharon Gitelle and Dani Shapiro, for pointing me, as ever, in the right direction, and in doing so changing the course of my life.

I cannot forget the extraordinary cooks and cookbook writers who inspired some of the recipes here, and particularly Diana Henry, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Claudia Roden, Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson. Some of the recipes were culled from other sources, some are my own invention; however, the vast majority are not from cookbooks but from my family. To that end, my endless thanks and love go to my mother and grandmother.

And finally Ian Warburg. My husband, my beloved. Who carries me through.

I love you.