Summer’s End

22

Deanna sat up straight in her bed, looking paler than the whitewashed wall behind her head. “You’re wrong. It’s a lie!”

Marc was staring at her and wearing a very small smile. He was completely calm. “It most certainly is not. And six months from now, my darling, you’ll have a very hard time convincing anyone of that, I’m afraid.”

“But I can’t be.”

“And why not?” His eyes searched her face.

“I’m too old to be pregnant, for chrissake.”

“At thirty-seven? Don’t be absurd. You will probably be able to have a child anytime in the next fifteen years.”

“But I’m too old!” She was shrieking it at him and she looked near tears. Why had they not told her first, given her time to absorb the shock before she had to face Marc? But no, that was not the way of things here, in France, where the patient was always the last to know anything. And she could well imagine the scene Marc would have made: a determined man, an important man who must be informed of Madame’s condition first; he did not wish his wife to be upset, and they had just been through so much, such tragedy…

“Darling, please don’t be foolish,” Marc was saying. He stood up and walked to the side of the bed, where he gently rested his hand on her head, and ran it slowly down the long silky black hair. “You’re not too old at all. May I sit down?” he asked. She nodded, and he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“But… two months?” She looked at him with eyes filled with despair. She had wanted it to be Ben’s. She had thought of it too, for the first time just before she fell asleep. It had dawned on her, and she had argued with the thought, but as she drifted off to sleep she suddenly wondered-the dizziness, the nausea, the constant desire for sleep. All she had been able to think of was Ben. She didn’t want it to be Marc’s. She looked at him now in disappointment and pain. Two months pregnant meant it was Marc’s, not Ben’s.

“It must have happened that last night before I left. Un petit au revoir.”

“That is not funny.” Tears filled her eyes. She was far from pleased. Now he understood even more than she knew. But now he understood that there was not only another man, but someone she loved. It didn’t matter. She would forget him. She had something important to do in the next months. She owed Marc his son. “I don’t understand.”

“Darling, don’t be naive.”

“I haven’t gotten pregnant in years. Why now?”

“Sometimes that’s how those things happen. In any case it makes no difference. We’re getting a whole new chance-another family, a child.”

“We’ve already had a child.” She looked like a petulant little girl as she sat cross-legged in her hospital bed, wiping away tears with the palm of her hand. “I don’t want any more children.” At least not yours. Now she knew the truth too. If she had truly loved him, she would have wanted his baby. And she didn’t. She wanted Ben’s.

Marc was looking embarrassingly pleased and painfully patient. “It’s normal to feel that way at first. All women do. But when it comes… Remember Pilar?”

Deanna’s eyes flashed into his. “Yes, I remember Pilar. And the others. I’ve done that, Marc. I won’t do it again. For what? For more heartbreak, more pain? For you to not be there for another eighteen years? At my age, you expect me to bring up a child alone? And another half-breed, another half-American, all French? You want me to go through that again, competing with you for the allegiance of our child? Dammit, I won’t do it!”

“You most certainly will.” His voice was quiet and as solid as steel.

“I don’t have to!” She was shouting at him now. “This isn’t the Dark Ages! I can have an abortion if I want to!”

“No, you cannot!”

“The hell I can’t!”

“Deanna, I won’t discuss this with you. You’re upset.” She was lying in her bed now, crying into the pillow. “Upset” was barely adequate for what she felt. “You’ll get used to the idea. You’ll be pleased.”

“You mean I don’t have a choice, is that it?” She glared at him. “What’ll you do to me if I get rid of it? Divorce me?”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Then don’t push me around.”

“I’m not pushing, I’m happy.” He looked at her with a smile and held out his arms, but there was something different in his eyes. She didn’t come to him. After a moment he took her hands and brought them one after the other to his lips. “I love you, Deanna. And I want our child. Our baby. Yours and mine.”

She closed her eyes and almost cringed as he said it. She had been there before. But he said nothing; he only stood up and took her in his arms, then stroked her hair briefly. Then he pulled away. She watched him leave, looking pensive and distracted.

Alone in the dark, she cried for a while, wondering what she should do. This changed everything. Why hadn’t she known? Why hadn’t she guessed? She should have figured it out before, but she’d only missed it once, and she thought that was nerves, there had been the opening of the gallery, her constant lovemaking with Ben, then the news of Pilar, the trip… She thought it was just a matter of a couple of weeks. But two months? How could that be? And Jesus, it meant she had been pregnant by Marc the whole time she had been with Ben. Allowing that baby to stay in her now was like denying everything she’d had with Ben and tearing out her heart. This baby was a confirmation of her marriage to Marc.

She lay awake in her bed all night long. The next morning Marc-Edouard checked her out of the hospital. They were driving straight back to Paris, his mother’s, before he left the next day for Athens. “And this is it. I’ll be gone for five or six days. After that, I’ll have it all wrapped up in Greece. A week from now we’ll leave Paris, go home, and stay there.”

“What does that mean? I stay there, and you travel?”

“No. It means I stay there as much as I can.”

“Five days a month? Five days a year? Something like that?” She stared out the window as she asked. She felt as though she had been condemned to a replay of her first eighteen years as his wife. “When will I see you, Marc? Twice a month for dinner, when you’re in town, and don’t have to have dinner somewhere else?”

“It won’t be like that, Deanna. I promise.”

“Why not? It always has been before.”

“That was different. I’ve learned something now.”

“Really? What?” She looked bitter as she watched him drive, but his voice was soft and sad when he spoke and he kept his eyes on the road.

“I’ve learned how short life can be, how quickly gone. We had learned that together before, twice, but I had forgotten. Now I know. I have been reminded again.” Deanna hung her head and said nothing. But he knew he had hit his mark. “After Pilar, after the others, could you really have this one aborted?”

She was shocked that he had read her thoughts, and she didn’t answer for a long time. “I’m not sure.”

“I’m quite sure. It would destroy you.” The tone of his voice frightened her. Maybe he did know. “The guilt, the emotional pain, you’d be finished. You’d never be able to think or live or love, or even paint again. I guarantee it.” The very idea terrified her. And he was probably right. “You don’t have the temperament to be that cold-blooded.”

“In other words,” she sighed, “I have no choice.”

He didn’t answer.

They were in bed at nine-thirty that night, and nothing more was said. He kissed her gently on the forehead as he left her in their room. He was taking a taxi to the airport.

“I’ll call you every night.” He looked concerned, but also undeniably pleased, and he no longer had that terrifying worry in his eyes, the only sorrow left there was what he felt for Pilar. “I promise, darling. I’ll call every night.” He repeated it, but she looked away.

“Will she let you?” He tried to ignore the remark, but she looked pointedly at him from the bed. “You heard me, Marc. I assume she’s going with you. Am I right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is a business trip.”

“And the last time wasn’t?”

“You’re just upset. Why don’t we stop? I don’t want to fight with you before I leave.”

“Why not? Afraid I’ll lose the baby?” For an insane moment she wanted to tell him that the baby wasn’t his, but the worst of it was that if she was two months pregnant, it was.

“Deanna, I want you to rest while I’m gone.” He looked at her with an air of fatherly tenderness, blew her a kiss, and softly closed the door.

She lay there for a while, listening to the sounds of her mother-in-law’s house. So far no one knew. It was “their secret” as Marc called it.

When she awakened the next morning, the house was still. She lay in bed for a long time, thinking, wondering what to do. She could fly to San Francisco while Marc was in Greece, she could have an abortion and be free, but she recognized the truth of what he had said to her. Having an abortion would destroy her as much as it would him. She had suffered too much loss already. And what if he were right? If it were a gift of God? And what if… what if it were Ben’s? A last ray of hope flickered and then died. Two months, he had said, and the young, shy-looking doctor had nodded her agreement. It couldn’t have been Ben’s.

So she would lie in this beige silk cocoon for a week, waiting for Marc to return, to take her home, so they could begin the same charade again. She felt panic rising in her at the thought, and suddenly all she wanted to do was to run away. She climbed out of bed, steadying herself for a moment against a wave of dizziness, then dressed quietly. She had to get out, to go for a walk, to think.

She turned into streets she barely knew and discovered gardens and squares and parks that delighted her. She sat on benches and smiled at passersby, funny little old ladies in lopsided hats, little old men playing chess, children babbling at their friends, and here and there a girl pushing a pram. A girl-they all looked twenty-one or -two, not thirty-seven. Deanna watched as she rested. The doctor had told her to take it easy, to go for walks, but stop and rest; to go out but come home and nap, not to skip meals, and not to stay up late, and in a few weeks she’d feel better. She already did. And as she walked around Paris, she stopped often, and thought. About Ben. She hadn’t called him in days.

It was late afternoon when she finally stopped at a post office. She couldn’t stay away any longer. She gave the woman the number and nodded at her, surprised, “L’Amérique?” It seemed aeons before she heard him, but it was less than a minute before he answered the phone. For him it was eight o’clock in the morning.

“Were you asleep?” Her voice sounded intense even across six thousand miles.

“Almost. I just woke up.” Ben settled back in bed with a smile. “When are you coming home?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and fought back tears in answer. “Soon.” With Marc-and his baby. She felt a sob lodge in her throat. “I miss you terribly.” The tears started to roll, silently, down her face.

“Not as much as I miss you, darling.” He listened, trying to hear. There was something she wasn’t saying, something he didn’t understand. “Are you all right?” He knew she would still be distraught over Pilar, but she sounded as though there was something more. “Are you? Answer me!”

She was saying nothing, only standing in the booth, in silence, in tears.

“Deanna? Darling?… Hello?” He listened intently. He was sure she was still there.

“I’m here.” It was a sad little croak.

“Oh, darling…” He frowned and then smiled. “How about if I come over? Any chance of that?”

“Not really.”

“How about next weekend in Carmel? It’s Labor Day weekend. Think you’ll be back?”

It was light years away. She was about to say no, then stopped. Next weekend in Carmel. Why not? Marc would be in Greece. If she left tonight, they would have until the end of the weekend, and maybe even one more day before he got back. Together. In Carmel. And then it would be over, as they had foreseen. The end of the summer would have come. Her mind raced. “I’ll be home tomorrow.”

“You will? Oh, baby… what time?”

She made a rapid calculation in her head. “About six o’clock tomorrow morning. Your time.” She stood in the booth, suddenly beaming through her tears.

“Are you sure?”

“I certainly am.” She told him the airline. “I’ll call you if I can’t make that plane, but otherwise, count on it.” And then as she laughed into the phone, she felt tears sting her eyes again. “I’m coming home, Ben.” How long it seemed since she’d left. It had only been a week.

That night she left a note for her mother-in-law. She explained only that she had been called back to San Francisco, that she was sorry to leave in such a rush. And, incidentally, she had felt an irresistible need to reclaim her portrait of herself and Pilar. She was sure her mother-in-law would understand. She instructed the maid to tell Marc, when he called, that she was out. That was all. That would buy her a day at least. But there was nothing he could do. He had to finish up in Greece. She thought about it on the plane on the way home. Marc would leave her alone for a week. There was no reason why he should not. He would be annoyed that she had flown home from Paris, but that was all. She was free now. For one more week. It was all she could think of.

An hour before they landed she could hardly sit still in her seat. She felt like a very young girl. Even the occasional waves of nausea didn’t dampen her mood. She would just sit very still for a few minutes and close her eyes, and the nausea would pass. She kept her mind on Ben.

She was one of the first off the plane in San Francisco, after it had seemed to drift down through the clouds, racing the sun as everything around it turned pink and gold. It had been a splendid morning, but even that wasn’t enough to take her mind off Ben. He was all she could think of as the plane finally ground to a halt at the gate, and she waited impatiently to be released from her seat. She was already wearing a half-smile, as she shrugged on the black velvet jacket over white slacks and a white silk shirt. Her ivory face and ebony hair added to the portrait in black and white. She looked considerably paler than she had when she had left, and her eyes told a multitude of tales, but they danced and sang too as she inched her way toward the door.

Then she saw him, standing there, alone in the terminal at six A.M., waiting for her beyond the customs barrier, with a jacket slung over his arm and a smile on his face. They rushed toward each other as she came through the door, and she was instantly in his arms.

“Oh, Ben!” There were laughter and tears in her eyes, but he said nothing, he only held her close. It seemed an eternity before he pulled away.

“I worried about you terribly, Deanna. I’m so glad you’re back.”

“So am I.”

He searched her eyes but wasn’t quite sure what he saw. One thing he knew was there-pain, but more than that he couldn’t tell. She only reached out to him and held him tightly.

“Shall we go home?”

She nodded, her eyes filled with tears again. Home. For a week.