Hers the Kingdom (33 page)

     Willa quickly jumped down to help him, while Trinidad and the children scrambled out the other side. There was no torrent of homecoming noise. Owen's appearance had sobered us all, even Trinidad's children were quiet.

     Owen kissed each of the boys carefully. He seemed glad that they had not greeted him in the old, wild ways, but had rather shyly accepted his kiss.

     I found my tongue and said, stupidly, "Owen, you
have
been ill!" Then I did something I had never done before. My eyes filled and I reached to put my arms about him. He looked so very fragile. I felt a wave of great sorrow and hurt, for all that he had been through, in the East and at home, in his absence and unknown to him.

     We settled Owen in the front parlor. The morning's trip and the short walk from the carriage had spent his strength. The boys sat on the floor near him, one on either side. For a moment
he rested a hand on each small head. Their silence reflected my despair. When Willa's eyes met mine, hers were full of concern and confusion, and we both looked away.

     I hurt for them, for Willa and for Owen, and I was afraid, more than I could ever remember being.

     "I had no idea he was so very ill . . ." I said to Willa as we passed in the hallway.

     "Nor I," she muttered, shaking her head. "I would have gone to Boston," she said, "I would have. I can't imagine how he managed the train trip home."

     She hurried on then, concentrating on the small tasks at hand. Returning to the parlor, she asked him, "Shall I send one of the girls to turn down your bed, or would you like for me to ready a chaise here, so you needn't walk up the stairs?"

     In a voice that seemed as weary and defeated as his body, Owen said, "Let me sit here a bit, Willa. Perhaps I could have some hot tea?"

     We scurried about, making him comfortable. Trinidad came with the tea tray and entered in a torrent of Spanish. It seemed to be a continuing diatribe—a curious, motherly mix of chastisement for not having taken proper care of himself, as if the sickness were all his fault, and affectionate concern. It proved to be good medicine for us all.

     "Welcome home, Owen," I said. "We will suffocate you with care, whether you want it or not."

     "Yes," he answered, "now that I've had a Trinidadian tongue-lashing, I do feel at home," and he gave us his first real smile, though it was a weak reflection of the glittering one we all remembered.

     "Boys," he said to Wen and Thad, who had remained shyly awkward in his presence, "you must have games to be played, be on your way. Papa will talk to you later."

     The boys, glad to be released, left quickly.

     "They've grown," he said to me.

     "Four months is a long time in a child's life," I answered.

     "Four months is a long time in any life," Owen said.

     I only nodded, and sipped my tea.

     "More than anything, four months is too long to be away from one's family, one's own hearth," he went on, taking Willa's hand in his. "I will never leave again for that length of time, not ever." His words, it seemed to me, had a hollow ring to them, the quality of a prepared speech rather than the feeling of having come from the heart. But he had had time, long hours in bed, to think of them, to rehearse them, to wait until the moment when he could say them.

     Neither Willa nor I replied. The silence that ensued threatened to become ominous, so I said, "The boys have become accomplished gardeners. The man Wing Soong has given them the most careful instructions. Wen has his own little vegetable patch and so has Thad—you will be proud of their carrots and radishes."

     Owen puzzled for a moment, then he remembered. "Yes, the big Celestial—an interesting chap with a British accent. Good. Well, good." He lay back his head and closed his eyes.

     "Would you like to nap now?" Willa asked. "The doctor said you should have as much rest as possible."

     Without opening his eyes, Owen said, "Did McCord stay on as I asked?"

     Perhaps Willa tensed; perhaps I did.

     "Yes," she said hurriedly, "but he wants to leave today, and I told him that would be acceptable, now that you are home and Ignacio will be arriving tomorrow." She said it as she moved some magazines in place, as if it were a routine matter. I admired her calm.

     "No, no, it is not acceptable," Owen said testily, "I want him to go over everything with Ignacio, to tell him what has been done, what needs to be done. I want a smooth transition. Surely he can stay one more day, after so long a time."

     "He has another job waiting, Owen," Willa said in the same quiet tone. "He is expected in Santa Barbara."

     "Call him here, Willa, I want to speak to him," Owen said, pulling the blanket about him as if to close off the discussion. But Willa was not ready to close it yet.

     "Owen, you must not strain yourself, there really is no need. You forget that I know . . ."

     "I must look the very devil," Owen answered with a grimace that may have been meant to seem a smile, "I suppose Charles was right."

     "You saw Charles?" I blurted, "Are they back from their wedding trip? How could that be, so soon?"

     "Yes, they've just returned," Owen answered me. "They got only so far as Washington when business delayed them. They didn't get to Italy after all, something came up that made it necessary for Charles to return to Los Angeles. He met me at the Arcade station with some papers that needed to be signed. I seem always to be signing papers for Charles."

     I sat thinking about this new information—brooding, really. Sara had been elated by the idea of a trip to Italy, of traveling alone with Charles, of introducing him to Florence, the city she loved best in the world. I could imagine her disappointment.

     "What was Charles right about?" Willa asked.

     "He said I looked like death itself," Owen answered, and Willa shuddered. "I told him to bring Sara out for the weekend," he went on in the same weary voice. "I thought you would want some company. Charles says you've become hermits in my absence."

     "But are you up to house guests?" Willa asked. "Don't you think we should see you well first?"

     "I will be well soon enough," Owen answered, "now that I'm home." He reached for Willa's hand and held it against his chest. "I will get well, my dear. The sea and the sun and the sand will cure me, just as it did you after Thad's birth. Now be a good girl and get McCord for me."

I have often tried to imagine the meeting between Owen and Connor that hot August midday. I have tried to think what Connor would have thought, seeing the ruined health of the man whose wife he coveted. I wanted to protect Owen, though I believed Connor to be a kind man, gentle even. I could not think that he would deliberately hurt a man, especially such a sick man. Yet I could not think that Connor would go gently away, would remove himself from Willa's life without so much as a word. Unless she had convinced him that he must. Neither was I certain of Willa. Since I had removed myself from her deliberations, I was not privy to her thoughts. For that I was both sorry and glad. Had she asked my advice, I would have been hard put to separate my fate from hers, to go against my own interests.

     The only thing I did know was that Connor planned to leave for Santa Barbara, that he had secured a job in a shipping firm. I sensed that he had wanted Ignacio to return first so that he could depart before Owen's homecoming.

     Connor was with Owen no more than five minutes. I was in the garden, waiting, with the boys and Soong.

     "You are wringing your hands, Lena," he said. (We had come to call each other by our given names when no one else was about. It pleased me to hear him speak my name.)

     "I am feeling jangled," I answered distractedly.

     "McCord is leaving, is that right?" he pressed.

     It no longer surprised me that he should know what was on my mind. "It is what Connor wants, but Owen is asking that he stay until Ignacio returns."

     "I see," he said.

     "I wish I did," I answered.

     "I believe you see too much, as it is," he countered.

     "Yes," I agreed.

     "Ahh," Soong said, "the curse of those who have pity for all but themselves."

     "That sounds vaguely Confucian," I replied, looking at the house, wondering.

     "You have been reading as you type," he accused me. Some weeks before I had discovered, in a box in the library, some rare Chinese manuscripts forwarded by Owen's agent in San Francisco. Wing Soong agreed to translate them, so that I could type the translations as a homecoming gift for Owen.

     "Oh, yes," I said, just as Connor walked out of the house, striding purposefully back to the barn.

     "Perhaps McCord is going to leave after all," I said, addressing the issue that was on my mind. "I do want to say goodbye to him." In fact, I hadn't a notion what I would say.

     I found him in the dim light of the tack room. The smells of oiled leather and clean straw and horses mingled. I stood for a moment studying the way the blue shirt stretched taut across his back.

     "Connor," I said softly.

     He spun around, eyes bright, his face alive.

     He thought me to be Willa; our voices are alike. He was expecting her, then.

     "I'm sorry," I said awkwardly.

     "Oh, Lena, it's you," he answered, struggling to cover his disappointment.

     But I had seen how he looked at her, I felt what she would have felt, I had the briefest glimpse of what was between them. I pushed it away from me.

     "I wanted to be sure to see you before you left, to say goodbye— things have been so confused here . . ." I stammered.

     "I was to be off today," he answered, "but your brother-in-law has convinced me that I should stay until Ignacio arrives."

     "Tomorrow?" I asked.

     "Yes," he answered.

     The silence that settled between us was not uneasy, there was no discomfort in it. Connor was not a man who needed to talk into the silences. I put out my hand.

     "I hope you find what you want, Connor," I said somewhat formally.

     He held my hand in both of his and said to me with just a trace of a brogue, "I have always had the good fortune to meet lovely women like yourself, Lena Kerr. For that, I am thankful. But as for what I want, well—what we want we cannot always have, that's the truth of it, now, isn't it?"

     I shook my head yes and left, feeling miserable. Yet even as I walked out of the barn, a wave of relief swept over me. He had, in his way, told me: He could not have her. I knew then what I should have known all along. Willa would never leave her family or the Malibu. It had never been possible, not from the very beginning, no matter what storms of passion washed over them.

     Feeling free of fear now, for the first time, I hurried up to the garden and waved the boys in for their midday meal. Wing Soong, I noticed, sat back on his haunches and studied me.

     "Everything is going to be fine," I called to him.

     "That is good to know," he replied, repeating the words as if they were part of some private litany.

Ignacio did not return until late the following afternoon, having been delayed by a broken cartwheel. Trinidad, happy to be back in her kitchen, had been cooking all day long.

     "I had almost forgotten how beautiful our vegetables are, and how huge," Owen said, caressing a large tomato. "It is good to be back in paradise."

     If Willa was quieter than usual, she was at the same time ever at hand, attentive to his needs. When he touched her she did not withdraw, yet neither did she reach for him. The concern on her face was genuine. If it was mixed, as I supposed, with confusion and guilt and regret. I could only feel relief. The choice she had made had been inevitable, after all. I was only sorry that Connor could not have been away, that they could not have been spared each other's presence now that the end had come. (I could not
erase from my mind the look on his face when he thought me to be Willa.) It would be easier, I was sure, when he was gone.