An Act of Love (19 page)

Linda always said that if any two females were ever meant to enter the lives of any two males, Emily and she were destined for Owen and Bruce. “We were like
The Sound of Music
bursting in on a Strindburg play,” she’d say, laughing. And it was true that the females brought laughter and color and movement and life into the males’ lives.

In return, he had made Linda and Emily happy.

At least Linda, that much he knew with complete certainty. He had changed her life as much as she had his, perhaps more, and more significantly. He was in his deepest heart profoundly proud of what he had brought to her life as her lover, her husband.

When he first met Linda, he had been attracted to her immediately by her ease and pleasure in the world, by her full, rich, musical laugh, her sumptuous beauty, so different from Michelle’s gaunt frame and cool poise.

Yet when finally he took her to bed, he’d been surprised by her reserve. She hadn’t wanted the lights on, and she’d been so passive he’d been puzzled. It was a conundrum, how she could cuddle her daughter and carelessly wrap her arm around Bruce’s shoulders, hugging him against her, yet come into their bed with a shyness that was almost a dread.

He’d been in love with her from the start, but her sexual reticence concerned him. He didn’t know if a long-term relationship would last with what was unspoken between them, and so he broached the subject one night as they lay together after an especially unsuccessful moment of lovemaking. She had come to bed with him eagerly, then turned into a different creature, something spiritless, and he could not bear it.

“Did you enjoy that?”

They were lying in the dark, spoon-style, and he felt her shrink in his arms.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No. No, not at all. I, well obviously I enjoyed myself. But you seem …”

Her voice was very small when she said, “Perhaps I’m frigid.”

He considered this in silence. He must be careful. He didn’t want to insult her. “Have you been with many men?”

“Only Simon.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, why should I kid about that?”

“It’s just that … you’re so lovely. Men must have wanted to take you to bed.”

“I married Simon when I was twenty. Divorced him when I was twenty-seven. Emily was only two. I was teaching freshman English at community colleges, and tutoring foreign language students, and trying to write my second novel at night. I didn’t have a lot of time or energy for men.”

“But still …” He went quiet as he realized that she was weeping. He felt her
ribcage shudder beneath his arm.

He tried to turn her to face him, but she pulled away.

“Linda, I’m sure you’re not frigid. Let me show you.”

“All right,” she whispered, but she stiffened in his arms.

He tried to ease the tension by lightening his voice. “It’ll be a real sacrifice on my part, you understand. It’ll take a lot of my valuable time. Lots of practice.”

With his voice he had eased her as if she were a nervous animal, and that night they spoke no more about it, but over the next months she came to bed with him with an innocent apprehension that in turn excited him. He had only to pull her down on the bed with him to feel her pulse flutter in her throat like a hummingbird’s wings.

At first she lay in his arms curled and guarded, and so he soothed her with stroking and gentling words. He kissed her, slowly, softly, lightly, everywhere; taking his time, taking infinite care. His mouth softly touched her shoulders, the fragile ladder of her spine, her soft buttocks, muscular thighs, the silky back of her knees. As the nights went by he was rewarded when she sighed with pleasure. He did not press her for more. It was enough, he thought, for that moment, to hear her sigh, to feel the ease of pleasure relax her body.

Owen caught himself staring down at a splintered, weathered post. He shook his head to clear it. That span of fence was satisfactory. He climbed back on his tractor and drove toward the far eastern boundary of his land.

Once again he stopped the tractor, turned it off. The engine pinged, then all was silent.

As the fence line neared the ascent into the forest, an abundant cluster of wild grapevines coiled up the fence posts, spilling leaves over the fence. The grapes were gone, the large leaves rusty and rattling with autumn. Long ago he had helped his father clear a path between the fence line and the trees wide enough for a man to pass through on a horse. Two feet, all the way up the hill. He began to walk, his hands checking the tension of the wire, his mind churning on other thoughts.

He was a good father to his son, a good husband to Linda. Was he a good stepfather? On the whole, he would say, yes. Yes he was. Although it had taken him a while to get used to the little girl.

Emily had been seven years old when she moved to the farm. She’d been a chatterbox and pretty much of a baby. Just about everything on the farm frightened her:
the horses, the attic, the farm implements. But to give her credit, she’d adjusted fairly easily. She’d been anxious about starting school in a new place, then quickly she made friends, got invited to their homes to play, and invited them to the farm. Her quarterly grades were excellent, the comments from teachers at family nights and conferences glowing. She and Bruce bickered a lot, over normal family issues: who got to hold the remote control, whose turn it was to do the dishes or take out the trash, whose friends were geekier. But almost from the start she slept well at night, ate well, laughed a lot, and with each day had seemed to feel more at ease with Owen, who, she had once confided to Linda, sort of scared her with his booming voice.

He had tried to be a good stepfather. He had kept his distance; he’d been available but not pushy. Every night of that first year he and Linda lay whispering in bed, going over the day, calculating how happy each child was and how comfortable, how close, they were each becoming to the other’s child. They’d agreed that since both kids had been taught to call the stepparent by his or her first name, they’d keep it that way, unless the child specifically asked to call Linda “Mom” or Owen “Dad,” and that hadn’t happened, and that was fine.

They developed a ritual for bedtime. Owen would tuck Bruce in; Linda, Emily. They’d spend a few moments with their own child, giving them a chance to talk privately, to be together intimately before sleep, and then they’d visit the other child. Owen would sit on Emily’s bed, talk a few moments, kiss her goodnight, and Linda would do the same to Bruce. Owen and Linda would cross between the bedrooms like dancers in an elaborate ceremony, and Owen always did think there was something slightly affected about it, something stilted. But Linda had felt strongly about this, and he’d agreed to it. After two or three years, as the children grew older and their bedtimes began more erratic, the ritual had changed, then disappeared completely.

But that first year Owen and Linda had kept to it religiously, just as they always sat together at the dinner table every night, eating the slightly elaborate meals Linda insisted on, talking about their days or, when one of the kids was in a bad mood, sulking, preoccupied, pretending to.

He and Linda had tried hard. Had felt they were doing well.

Now, suddenly, a memory, an important memory, slid out of the vault of his mind and clicked into place.

When Emily was younger, she had lied about something of significance.

What year had she been in school? Third grade. He remembered Mrs. Tenner, Emily’s teacher, with her high Minnie Mouse voice. She’d asked them in to a private conference after school to tell them that Emily was inventing a series of ever more elaborate lies about the way her father died, rescuing her from a sinking boat in the middle of the lake.

Linda had not been alarmed. “I guess that’s what happens when your parents are writers.”

“I’m concerned,” Mrs. Tenner had said, “not because of the lie, which is understandable—most children in this school are fortunate enough to have both parents living with them. We have a low rate of divorce in this county. So perhaps Emily is embarrassed by her particular situation. It is the elaborateness of the lie that troubles me. And perhaps
troubles
is too strong a word.”

Linda asked, “Do you think Emily needs to see a psychiatrist?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. No. I don’t want you to be alarmed. I just thought you two should be aware of this story, and perhaps discuss it with Emily. Sometimes children can get themselves boxed in by their own fantasies.”

That night they’d gone together into Emily’s bedroom. Emily had been wearing her pink-and-white nightgown, and she’d held a grimy stuffed rabbit in her arms. Her two front teeth had been missing. Her hair had been still slightly damp and smelled of baby shampoo.

Linda had sat on one side of the bed, Owen on the other.

“Honey,” Linda had begun, “we talked with Mrs. Tenner today. She told us how well you’re doing in school. You have so many friends. And your schoolwork is great. But she’s concerned because you told the class that your father is dead. That he died in a lake, rescuing you.”

Emily only looked at her mother, wide-eyed.

“You know that’s not true, don’t you, sweetie?”

Emily nodded solemnly.

“You know your birth father is alive, and living in Pennsylvania, and is a cellist.”

Emily nodded again.

“And you know I’m your stepfather now,” Owen said softly. “I’ll help your mother take care of you.”

Emily looked at him. “On the television,” she said, “a house was on fire and a
little girl was trapped inside and the daddy ran in and rescued the girl.”

Linda said, “Oh, honey, we take great precautions to see that this house won’t burn down. That’s why we have smoke alarms everywhere.”

“But what if the house did burn down?” Emily insisted. She was kneading her bunny. “Or what if I was in a boat and it tipped over?”

“Well, I’d be there, silly, and I’d save you,” Linda said.

“But what if you weren’t there? You go away a lot. You go to Boston. You go to England. What if I’m in the house with Owen and Bruce? What if I’m in a boat with Owen and Bruce? Owen will save Bruce, but who would save me?”

Linda looked at Owen. There was a moment of silence. Owen was proud of the fact that he never lied, never made easy promises, always kept his promises, every single time.

And so he meant it when he said to Emily, “If the house burns down, I’ll save Bruce and I’ll save you. At the same time. I’m strong enough, I can carry you both at once.”

“What if we’re in a boat?”

“Then I’ll swim and get Bruce and you both.”

“How can you swim if both arms are full?”

“You and Bruce can hang onto my shoulders.”

Emily looked at Owen’s shoulders, as if measuring their width.

“Okay,” she’d said finally. Simply.

Standing at the edge of the woods with a strand of barbed wire in his hand, Owen remembered the radiance of Linda’s face as she looked across her child’s bed at Owen, at Owen, who would rescue her child.

That was the night he felt her body relax, as if her bones were melting inside her skin. That night he at last had brought her to an arching, moaning, sexual release.

“Oh, oh, that’s what it’s all about,” she had sighed when she had caught her breath. “Owen, I never knew. Owen, Owen … why, that is
rapture
.”

She’d thrown her naked, sweat-dewed body around his, she’d wrapped her legs and her arms around him, she’d kissed his face, his neck, his chest, his shoulders, she’d been laughing and crying at the same time, and though the lights were off he could feel a radiance steaming from her skin. She had been happy. “Owen,” she’d said, nuzzling him greedily. “Owen.
I want more
.”

And he had given her more.

And now it seemed that the meaning of his world resided in her body, and the meaning of her world in his. They were soul mates; they were comrades; they were husband and wife.

There’d never been one single event during which Owen had saved Emily’s life, but over the years Owen had
been
there for Emily, and he was proud of that. Over the years he’d driven her to a friend’s house when Linda was gone, or driven into town to pick up a prescription or a liter of 7UP when Emily was sick. He’d led Babe or Fancy Girl around the pasture with a gaggle of giggling little girls on their backs at one of Emily’s birthday parties. He’d spent hours looking at Emily’s homework, helping her with math, admiring her artwork, listening to her read her essays.

Did he
love
Emily?

Yes. Unquestionably. He hadn’t loved her at first. At first he’d only accepted her into his life because he loved and needed Linda. But over the past seven years he’d come to care for the girl, to enjoy her company, appreciate her humor, admire her strong points, and wish her well in all she did.

And, damn it, he
would
save her from a fire if he had to, and he’d rescue her if a boat tipped over.

He would give his life for hers.

But how could he help her now?

He’d come to the far boundary line that ran over the ridge of the hill. He’d work on that another day. Most of the fence around his land was in good shape for the winter; he’d accomplished something with his time.

He only wished the troubles they were facing with Emily could be so easily mended.

Chapter Sixteen

Monday morning while
Linda made breakfast, Owen called Hedden and arranged for Bruce to be excused from his classes and to be waiting in front of Bates at nine-thirty.

Linda prepared a mug of coffee for each of them to drink during the drive to Basingstoke; they needed the warmth and the boost of caffeine. They were both anxious, and the weather suited their moods. The sky was low, iron gray; the temperature frigid. Their sleep had been restless and in the hush of the rushing car they were awkward with each other. Finally Linda twisted the dial on the radio until she found a Beethoven symphony that filled their silence.

Owen thought they’d arrive early at Hedden, but because of Monday morning traffic, they pulled into the drive in front of Bates Hall with only a few moments to spare. Bruce stood in front of his dorm as straight and radiant as a flame, his red hair shining in the gray day. He hopped into the back seat of the car.