Love Walked In (31 page)

“Don’t forget these,” she said.

I sat down on the bed.

“Mom.”

She sat down next to me.

“You’ve sure shaken things up around here,” she told me, and my heart dropped, because I knew as well as I knew anything that shaken-up things were the last things my mother wanted.

“I love him with my soul,” I said, because I knew this, too.

She looked at me. “Well, why wouldn’t you? He’s a wonderful boy.”

“He’s the best man in the world.”

“Your father is the best man in the world.” The force of her love for her husband rolled over me like a wave. Wow, I thought. Has that been in there all this time?

“Look at us,” I said. “Two lovesick peas in a pod.” And she smiled at me.

“When will their divorce be final?” she asked. So I gave her the explanation Teo had given me, along with his plan to wait a year.

“A year?” said my mother sharply. “That’s crazy.” And I felt like I was the one who was crazy. Or else she was. I’d been sure she’d want Teo to do the noble thing and wait.

“He won’t say terrible things about Ollie.” I sighed. “He just won’t.”

My mother’s eyes gleamed. “But Ollie might be persuaded to say bad things about him, don’t you think? With a well-placed nudge from her mother?”

“Mom!” I was out-and-out shocked.

She lay a hand on my cheek. “Baby,” she said, “why the surprise? I’ve always been on the side of love. Didn’t you know that?”

When I thought about it, I realized I did know it. Of course. I’d known it all along.

The
next morning, Clare didn’t come down for breakfast.

“I’m sorry, Cornelia,” said Viviana. “More sorry for her than for you, because she’ll hate it that she didn’t say good-bye. Later, she’ll hate it.”

Then she paused, and I braced myself for another thank-you.

But Viviana just smiled and said, “When you come visit, you’ll have three places to stay, now. This house, Teo’s parents’ house, and Mrs. Goldberg’s house.”

An invitation. I smiled back at her.

“Your house, now,” I said.

After a long conversation that had involved my insisting on giving it to them, and Viviana’s insisting on buying it, I’d agreed to sell.

“And Clare’s house,” I added happily, even jubilantly, because that’s what love does: You give up a house that’s been your heart’s home most of your life and come away feeling like you’ve been handed the sun and moon.

“Plan on extended visits,” Viviana told me.

She
waited a long time. She scared me with her waiting. But, as I was putting my bag into the trunk of Teo’s car, suddenly there she was. Not there, then there, then in my arms.

“Call me honey,” Clare said, her cheek against my cheek.

“Oh, honey, honey, honey,” I told her, “Clare. Child of my heart. Honey, I hate to leave you.”

I hated to leave her. I was sick with leaving her.

“But you’ll come back,” she said, “and see me soon.”

“You know I will.”

Then she looked at my face with her matchless brown eyes and smiled.

“I want you and Teo to get married,” she whispered, “and be together forever.” She was crying. “I want all of us to be together forever. I wish someone could promise me that.”

I kissed her. “Is that the hardest promise you’ve got? Because that’s an easy one.”

I remembered Teo saying, “Why do you think I love you so much?”

“Our loving each other is just the world we live in, like the grass under our feet,” I told Clare. “No matter where we are, it’s the world we live in. Do you know what I mean?”

And into my shoulder, Clare was nodding yes, yes, yes.

I
waited to cry until Teo and I were driving away, and then I couldn’t stop.

“How can I leave her?” I said. “I can’t leave her.”

He reached over and held my hand.

“Do you think she knows how I love her?” I asked him.

“I know she knows,” he said.

Suddenly it seemed vitally important that everyone I loved know exactly how and how much. I felt feverish with wanting them to know. I turned to Teo.

“Do you know how I love you?” I demanded.

“Yes.”

“No, I mean, I’m not fooling around here,” I said vehemently. “This isn’t—dating.”

“I know.”

He drove and I stared at him, at his glowing beauty that was beautiful because it was beauty, but mostly because it was his. Teo looked like no one who had ever lived. I was seized with a frantic thought.

“Teo,” I said, “I don’t love you for your beauty.”

He laughed. “Uh-oh,” he said. “What else is there?”

Like no one who had ever lived, I thought. Except maybe Lawrence Olivier, the tiniest bit, but only around the cheekbones.

We rode for a long time after that without saying anything.

“And I should probably just tell you that I want to have a baby. Not right away, but soon. Really soon.” I just said it. I rushed right out on that limb and stood there for all I was worth, with wind in my face and birdsong in my ears, not looking down or anywhere but at Teo.

“OK,” said Teo, so serenely that I thought he must have misunderstood.

“With you,” I said. “I want to have a baby with you. Soon.”

He didn’t laugh. He pulled the car to the side of the road and kissed my wet face.

“The sooner the better,” he said.

And
we keep driving, the mountains blue and beneficent in the distance, then gone. Gone but not gone. The mountains, Clare, Mrs. Goldberg, my mother and father, Ollie, Cam, Toby, Linny, Martin, Viviana, all right here. You, too. My heart is large; it can contain everything at once, and the road I’m on with Teo, can you see it? It runs forward and backward and no matter which way we travel on it, the direction is the same. You know the direction I mean: Homeward.

I offer heartfelt thanks to the following people:

Everyone at Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner, especially my agent, Jennifer Carlson, for her immense sanity and patience and for believing in this book before it
was
a book;

All the folks at Dutton, especially my editor Laurie Chittenden for her clear eyes and ever-judicious guidance, along with her kind assistant Erika Kahn;

The amazing Shari Smiley at CAA;

My treasured brain trust—Ralph Ashbrooke, Julianna Baggott, Susan Davis, Dan Fertel, Rebecca Flowers Schamess, Annie Pilson, Kristina de los Santos, and David G. W. Scott—early readers who provided advice and resounding cheers along the way;

Mark Caughey and Kym Pinder for keeping my edges sharp and for turning over the little house in Vermont to me and Cornelia and Clare;

Diane Sheehan, my lucky children’s third parent;

Arturo and Mary de los Santos, my parents, for steady, steadying love;

My children Charles and Annabel who wear me out, make me laugh, and grace my life every day;

And, most of all, thank you to my husband David Teague: leading man, first reader, resident genius, and joyful collaborator. There aren’t enough words in the world.