Lone Eagle (47 page)

“It's not that, Kate. It's about me, and who I want to be when I grow up. Your mother was right. And I guess I was too. The planes come first. Maybe that's why she always hated me so much, or distrusted me, because she knew that this was who I really am. I've been hiding it from both of us, mostly from myself. I can't be what you need, and you're young enough to find someone else. I can't do this anymore.”

“Are you serious? Just like that? Go out and find someone else? I love you, Joe. I have since I was seventeen years old. You don't just walk away from that.” She started to cry as she said it to him, but he didn't reach
out for her. It would only have made things worse, or so he thought.

“Sometimes you do walk away, Kate. Sometimes you have to take a good look at who you are, and what you want, and what you don't have. I don't have what it takes to be married to you, or anyone else, and I'm tired of feeling guilty about it.” He was sure, as he sat in bed with her, that he would never marry again. In marrying her, he had made a huge mistake. She was so loving and so giving, and she wanted so much from him. And all he really wanted was to build and fly his planes. It sounded childish when he said it out loud, and incredibly selfish, but it was enough for him.

“I don't care how much you're gone,” she said reasonably, “I can keep myself busy with the kids. Joe, you can't just throw us away. I love you… the kids love you…. I don't care how little we see each other, I'd rather be married to you than anyone else.” But he couldn't say the same. He knew he wanted freedom more than anything. The freedom to continue building his empire, and design extraordinary planes, the freedom not to love her anymore. He had given all he had to give. He had realized that summer that he'd been faking it for the last year. He didn't want to do that to her, or to himself. He had nothing left. He'd been running on fumes. He hated calling her, hated being there, hated getting home for holidays, making excuses when he couldn't get back for things that were important to her. He had given her nearly four years. It had been enough for him.

She sat in bed looking shell-shocked, and when he was through, she started to cry again. She could sense
with everything she'd ever felt for him that she had already lost him, perhaps had years before. He had slipped away quietly one day, and she had never seen him go. And now all he was doing was picking up his things. The one thing he didn't want to take with him was her. She had no idea what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Die, she hoped. After being married to him, and seeing her dreams come true, no matter how hard it was sometimes, she couldn't imagine living without him. But she knew she had to now. It was as though someone had come to tell her he had died. In a way, he had. He had opted for work and success, and not love. It seemed a poor choice to her.

“You and the kids can stay in the apartment for as long as you like. I'm going to stay in California for the rest of the year.” He had asked Hazel that morning if she would move out to L.A. till the end of the year. She had grandchildren in New York, but she had thought it would be a fun thing to do. She'd had no idea he was planning to leave Kate behind permanently.

Kate looked horrified. “You've already decided all that? When did you make up your mind?”

“Probably a long time ago. I think I knew this summer. And when I came back to New York, I thought it was the right time. There's no point hanging on anymore. I think I've been gone for a long time.” What had happened? What had she done? How had she failed him? It was impossible to believe that she hadn't done something terrible to him. But the truth was she hadn't, other than marry him. It was the one thing he didn't want, and thought he had. But he'd been wrong. She fascinated him, she intrigued him, she excited him, but
that was all it had ever been for him. He had been drawn to her like moth to flame, but he wanted the sky rather than her warmth, and he had flown away.

She lay beside him and cried quietly all night. She stroked his hair, and looked at him as he slept. If he had been anyone else, she would have thought he was insane. But there was something very cold and calculating about what he had said. It was the only way he knew to save himself, and it reminded her of their ending in New Jersey years before. Not knowing what else to do, Joe shut down emotionally and ran away. She had been dispensed with, dismissed, as she understood it, he didn't want her anymore. It was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to her. In some ways, even crueler than her father's suicide. In Kate's eyes, the reasons Joe had offered weren't adequate to justify his leaving her, although they were to him. Gouging her out of his heart, no matter how painful to him or her, was all he knew how to do.

She never slept all night, and at first light she got up, washed her face, and then went back to bed. He lay close to her, as he always did, when he woke up. But this time, he said nothing, he simply rolled over and got out of bed.

And when he left the apartment for his flight to London, he said goodbye to her very carefully. He didn't want to raise any false hopes that he'd change his mind. He was leaving her forever, and she knew it to her very soul.

“I love you, Joe,” she said, and for an instant he saw the girl he had once met, in her pale blue satin evening gown, with the dark auburn hair. He remembered her
eyes that night, and they were the same ones he saw now. But as he looked into them he saw immeasurable pain. But she looked scarcely different than she had sixteen years before. “I'll always love you,” she whispered, as she realized she was seeing him for the last time. They would never be together this way again. He had purposely not made love to her during his entire stay in New York. He hadn't wanted to mislead her and he didn't want to now. He was sending her back to her own life, so he could reclaim his.

“Take care of yourself,” he said softly, taking one last long look at her. It was hard to let her go, in his own way he had loved her as best he could. Not the way she had loved him, but in the best ways he knew how. It would have been enough for her, but not for him. The funny thing was, he wanted less and not more. “I was right, you know,” he said, as she stood looking up at him, engraving him in her memory, the face she loved so much, the eyes, the cheekbones, the cleft chin. “It was an impossible dream. It always was.”

“It didn't have to be,” she said, her blue eyes blazing at him. Even now, in so much pain, she was more beautiful than he wanted to see. More beautiful than he needed her to be. “We could still have this, Joe. We could have it all.” What she said was true, he knew, but he didn't want it anymore. He told himself he had enough without her.

“I don't want it, Kate,” he said cruelly, but he wanted her to understand, he couldn't hurt her anymore. He couldn't stand the guilt or the pain.

She watched him without saying another word as he walked out and closed the door.

23

A
FTER LEAVING KATE
, Joe went to California for six months, and moved to London for five months after that. He offered her a huge settlement, which she gracefully declined. She had her own money, and she didn't want anything from him. All she had ever wanted for sixteen years was to be his wife. She had been that for four, which was all Joe Allbright had to give, or so he believed when he left.

Kate had caused him so much pain, and inflicted such intense guilt on him, that all Joe wanted was to flee. He had wanted her more than anything, loved her more than he had ever dared, given more than he had known he was capable of. And in spite of everything, it hadn't been enough for her. For all the years of their marriage, he felt she had wanted more and more and more of him. It had terrified him, and brought up all of his old wounds. Every time he listened to her, he could hear his cousin's voice telling him what a rotten kid he was, and how disappointed she was in him. Just seeing Kate, whenever he came home, reminded him of how inadequate he had felt as a child, and what a failure he believed he was as a human being and a man. It was a
demon he'd been fleeing all his life. And even the vast empire he had built couldn't protect him from it. The pain he saw in Kate's eyes catapulted him back to the worst of his boyhood again and conjured up all his guilts. In the end, it was easier for him to be alone than to be tormented by her, or cause her pain. Every time he knew he hurt or disappointed her, it was agony for him. And there was a selfish side to him as well. He didn't want to meet anyone's needs but his own.

It took Kate months to understand what had happened to them. The divorce had been filed by then, and they had been separated for nearly a year. He had refused to see her during that time, but called occasionally to check on her and the kids. For months, Kate had wandered around the house they'd rented, in a daze. The hardest part was learning to live without him again. It was like learning to live without air.

She thought constantly about what had happened to them, trying to understand her part in it. And through the months of her despair, the light began to dawn, slowly at first, and in time she could see how her reaching out and wanting more time with him had panicked him. Without meaning to, she had terrified him. Not knowing how else to deal with her, or stop the deadly dance, he could think of nothing else but to run away. He had never wanted to do that to her, but in the end, he knew that he would hurt her more, and himself, if he stayed.

At first, all Kate could think about was what she had lost when he left, and for months her own panic grew worse. She thought about losing her father years before. And she endured another blow when Clarke died in the
spring. And just as she had years before, Kate's mother retreated into her own world, and all but disappeared. Kate cried herself to sleep at night, and the loneliness she felt was overpowering. But as the months drifted by, she slowly found her feet again.

Joe had suggested she go to Reno to speed up the divorce, but she had filed it in New York instead, knowing it would take longer. It was her final act of clinging to him. She was still holding on to him by a single rapidly fraying thread. And in fact she had nothing left of him but his name.

It would have been hard to say when the change happened in her. It didn't come suddenly. It wasn't a sudden awakening. It was a slow, arduous winding path up a mountainside toward maturity and growth. And as she climbed the mountain day by day, she grew strong. The things that had once so desperately frightened her seemed less ominous. She had lost so much of what mattered most to her that abandonment was finally a monster she had faced and conquered on her own. Of all the things that terrified her, losing him had been her worst fear. But she had, and lived.

Her children were the first to see the change in her, long before Kate was even aware of it herself. She laughed more often, and cried less easily. She went on a trip to Paris with them. And this time, when Joe called when she came home, to see how they were, he heard something different in her voice. It was ephemeral and intangible, and he would have been hard put to explain what it was. But Kate no longer sounded terrified or desperate about being alone. She had gone on endless walks in Paris, down backstreets and on boulevards,
thinking about him. She hadn't seen him in nearly a year by then. He had stayed well away from her, and had every intention of never seeing her again, although he had moved back to an apartment in New York.

“You sound happy, Kate,” Joe said quietly. He couldn't help wondering, in spite of himself, if there was a new man in her life. He wanted that for her, and yet at the same time, he hoped not. He had avoided all the available women he had met for the past year. He didn't want to get tangled up with anyone. Perhaps ever again, he told himself. As always, for Joe, it was easier to be alone. But he had missed Kate, and the warmth she brought to his life, for many months. What kept him away from her was that the price of being with her and loving her was too high for him. He was certain that to approach, or even see her again, would only sear his wings again.

“I think I am happy,” Kate laughed. “God knows why. My mother is driving me crazy, she's so lonely without Clarke. Stevie cut most of her hair off last week. And Reed knocked out both of his front teeth playing baseball with a friend.”

“That sounds about right,” Joe laughed. He had forgotten what it was like living with them. But at the same time, he had not.

As Kate did every morning when she woke up, he remembered only too well what it was like waking up next to her. He had not touched a woman for an entire year. Kate had begun seeing other men for dinner from time to time, but she could not bring herself to do more than that. They all paled in comparison to him. She couldn't imagine being with anyone else. And when she came
home at night, she was relieved to climb into her bed alone. In truth, being alone no longer seemed menacing to her. It had grown comfortable, she had the children and friends. She had looked loss in the eye and she had not died of it. And slowly, she realized that nothing would ever frighten her in just that way again. She could see it all so much more clearly now. She could see how frightening being married had been for him. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was. But she knew from everything he had said to her that it was too late to make any difference to him.

It was a month later, when she was writing quietly one day, in a journal she kept, that Joe called about some detail of the divorce. She had continued to refuse to take money from him. Clarke had left half his fortune to her, and she had never wanted to take anything from Joe. He suggested his lawyer send some documents to her. It was about a piece of property he had just sold, and he wanted her to sign a quitclaim deed. She agreed, but for a moment on the phone, her voice sounded odd.

“Am I ever going to see you again?” she asked, sounding forlorn. She still missed seeing him and touching him, the smell of him, the feel of him, but she accepted now that he was gone forever from her life. She knew she would not die of it, but it still felt like losing an essential part of her, like a leg or an arm, or her heart. But she was entirely prepared to go on without him. She had no other choice, and she had made her peace with it at last.