Loving (24 page)

"Oh, God, did you see her?" Mary began to cry as the door to delivery closed behind them and Seth took her into his arms.

"It's all right, honey. She's going to be all right." But Mary pulled away from him, staring at her husband in horror.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to do that to a woman? Do you know what they've done to her mind? They've treated her like an animal for the last twelve hours, for God's sake. She'll never want to have a baby again. They've broken her, damn you! They've broken her!" And then, wordlessly, she reached for her husband and began to sob. He stood there, feeling helpless as he stroked her hair. He knew that what she was saying was right, but there was nothing he could do. He didn't understand how John had let McCarney deliver her. It seemed like a foolish thing to do. The man was competent, but he was a ruthless bastard. There was no doubt about that.

"She's going to be all right, Mary. By tomorrow she won't remember all this."

But Mary looked at him sadly. "She'll remember enough." He knew it was true, and they stood there together, feeling helpless and unhappy, for another two hours. At last at four thirty in the morning Alexander John Fields came into the world, lusty and crying, as his father looked at him proudly and his mother just lay there, staring blindly as she sobbed.

"Bettina?" Mary knocked softly on the open doorway, wondering if she was at home. At first there was no answer, and then there was a cheerful call from upstairs.

"Come on up, Mary. I'm straightening up Alex's room."

Mary mounted the stairs slowly and smiled when she found Bettina at the top. "I spend half my life doing that. Where's the prince?"

"Today's his first day at school." And then she looked at Mary in embarrassment. "I don't know what to do with myself, so I thought I'd clean up his room." But Mary nodded in answer.

"That does me in every time."

"What do you do to combat it?" Bettina smiled at her and sat on the brightly covered bed. The room was done in reds, blues, and yellows, with toy soldiers marching everywhere.

But Mary was suddenly laughing. "What do I do? I get pregnant." She was grinning broadly as Bettina looked at her.

"Oh, no! Mary, not again?"

"Yup." They had had their third child two years before, and now there would be a fourth. "I just got the call from the doctor's office. But I think this is going to be it for the Waterstons. Hell, kid. I'll be thirty-nine this month. I'm not a baby like you."

"I wish I felt like one." She had just turned thirty-one. "But in any case for me pregnancy is not the solution." She looked pointedly at her friend, and Mary looked at her sadly.

"I wish it was." The experience of Alexander's birth had marked her. And she had made her stand to John very clear. There were going to be no more kids. But he had been an only child too, and he was satisfied with just one. "You ought to rethink that decision some time, Betty. I told you three years ago it doesn't have to be the way it was." She remembered their conversation in the hospital right after Alexander was born. Mary had been tearful, angry, furious with John and McCarney. She had been the only one on Bettina's side.

Bettina shrugged. "I have enough with Alexander. I really don't want any more." But Mary didn't believe her. For a woman who hadn't even been sure she wanted children, she was a marvel with the boy. Creative, loving, gentle. For three years Alexander and his mother had been best friends. Now she stood up and walked toward Mary with a smile. "But I must admit, I don't know what the hell to do without him today."

"Why don't you go into town and go shopping? I'd take you along with me, but I just got a sitter and I promised Seth I'd meet him to help pick out our new car."

"What are you getting?" Bettina wandered slowly downstairs in the wake of her friend.

"I don't know, something ugly and useful. With four kids who can drive anything lovely? We'll wait and buy our first 'nice' car when we're too old to drive."

"They'll be gone before you know it, Mary." The oldest one was already six, and she had seen how time flew with Alexander. It was hard to believe he was three. And then suddenly she looked at her friend with a chuckle. "Unless you keep having babies for another fifteen years."

"Seth would kill me." But they both knew that wasn't true. They enjoyed each other and their children. And after eight years of marriage they were still in love. Things were different with John and Bettina, they were very close, but they had never shared quite the same thing as Mary and Seth. And something had happened to Bettina. Part of her had closed up after the birth of the child. Mary had seen it happen to others. It came from being betrayed by people she had trusted. She would never trust anyone quite the same way again. It had often bothered Mary, but she had never dared to bring it up, just as she had never again dared to mention Bettina's play. But now that Alexander was starting school and Bettina would have more time on her hands, she wondered if now at long last she would start to write. "So? You going shopping?"

Bettina shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I will go into town. Can I do anything for you?"

"Not a thing, Betty, but thanks. I just wanted to stop by and tell you the news."

"Thank you." Bettina grinned warmly at her friend. "When's it due?"

"April this time. An Easter bunny."

"At least you won't die of the heat for a change."

Bettina watched her leave, then got ready to go to town. She was wearing gray slacks and a gray sweater, and she put a raincoat over her arm before she left the house. It was one of those mottled days of autumn when it could turn out to be beautiful and sunny, or it could turn out to be windy and foggy and cold. For a moment Bettina hesitated, thinking that she might call John and ask him if he wanted to meet her for lunch. The nursery school where they had put Alexander kept him in school from noon until four. But she decided to call John from the city. After she decided what she wanted to do.

She parked her car downtown below Union Square, and then walked across the street to the solemn St. Francis and wandered through the elaborate lobby. She found a row of pay phones, called her husband, and discovered that he had already gone out for lunch. So she was left with a decision. To go shopping without eating, or stop somewhere for a sandwich by herself. She wasn't sure she was very hungry, and as she stood pensively for a moment she felt someone suddenly grab her arm. Startled, she jumped to one side, and then looked up to see who had grabbed her, and when she did, she fell silent, her eyes stunned and wide.

"Hello, Bettina." He had hardly changed in the five years since she had seen him. But just looking at him again, she felt like a little girl. It was Ivo, as tall, stately, and handsome as he had ever been, with as rich and full a head of snow-white hair. He looked scarcely older, and as she looked at him she was stunned to remember that now he had to be seventy-three.

"Ivo...." She didn't know what more to say. She was stunned into silence, but then, without saying more, she felt herself hold out her arms. There were tears blinding her eyes as he held her, and when he pulled away again, she saw that he was crying too.

"Oh, little one, how are you? Are you all right? I've worried and worried about you."

But she nodded, smiling slowly. "I'm fine. And you?"

"Getting older but not wiser," And then, "Yes, darling. I'm all right. You're still married?" He checked her left hand quickly and saw that she was.

"Yes. And I have the most wonderful little boy."

'I'm glad." His voice was gentle as the crowds ebbed around them in the lobby. But as he looked at her, she felt ashamed. Three husbands. It was disgraceful. She looked at him and sighed. "You're happy?" he asked.

She nodded. In many ways she was. It was different than life had been with him. She wasn't a little girl living a fantasy life anymore. It was a real life with lonely moments and hard spots. But through it all was the knowledge that she was respectable now, and there was always the joy she derived from her child. "Yes, I am."

"I'm glad."

"And you?" She wanted to know if he had remarried, and he laughed when he saw her eyes.

"No, darling, I'm not married. But I'm perfectly happy as I am. Your father was right. A man should end his life as a bachelor. It makes a great deal more sense." He chuckled softly, but the way he said it did not deny what they had had. He put an arm around her now and drew her to him. "I always wondered what had happened when my lawyers told me what you'd done about the money. It took every possible ounce of effort not to set investigators on your trail to find you. For a while I was going to do that, then I decided that you had a right to your own life. I had always promised you that." She nodded, feeling oddly sobered and still overwhelmed to be standing there in his arms.

"Ivo.... " She looked up at him happily and he smiled. "I'm so glad to see you." It was like going home. For years and years she had almost forgotten what she had come from and who she was, and now here was Ivo in San Francisco, with an arm around her shoulders. She was so happy, she wanted to dance. "Do you have time for lunch?"

"For you, little one, always." He glanced at his watch, and then excused himself and went to the phone. When he came back, he was smiling. "I'm here to visit an old friend. Rawson Remember him? He's the editor of the paper here now and I promised him some advice. But I have two free hours. Will that do?"

"Perfectly. After that I have to be home when my little boy comes home from school."

"How old is he?" He looked at her gently.

"Three, and his name is Alexander."

He looked at her for a moment. "Have you given up the theater?"

With a small sigh she nodded. "Yes."

"Why?"

"My husband doesn't approve."

"But you're writing?"

And then gently, "No, Ivo, I'm not." He waited until they were seated at a comfortable booth deep in the rear of the restaurant. Then he took a deep breath and faced her.

"Now what's this nonsense about your not writing?"

"I just don't want to."

"Since when?" He was scrutinizing her carefully as she spoke.

"Since I got married."

"Does this husband of yours have anything to do with that too?"

She hesitated for a long time. "Yes. He does."

"And you accept that?" She nodded again.

"Yes." She thought for a moment. "John wants our life to be 'normal.' He doesn't think that writing is." It was painful but true.

And then he watched her. He was beginning to understand. Slowly he nodded and reached for her hand. "You'd have been a great deal better off, my darling, if you had led a normal life from the first. If you had had a normal mother and father, if you had been allowed to be a normal little girl. But you weren't and you didn't. There has never ever been anything 'normal' about your life." He smiled gently. "Not even your marriage to me. But sometimes normal can mean ordinary, or boring, it can mean run-of-the-mill, or banal. And nothing that has ever touched you, from the moment you were born until now, has been any of those things. You were an extraordinary woman, right up until now. You can't pretend to be otherwise, darling. You can't be something that you're not. Is that what you're doing here, Bettina? Pretending to be some nice ordinary man's ordinary wife? Is that what he wants you to do?" Silently she nodded and he let go of her hand with regret. "In that case, Bettina, he doesn't love you. He loves a woman of his own creation. A painted shell in which he has forced you to hide. But you won't be able to do it forever, Bettina. And it isn't worth it. You have a right to be who you are. Materially your father left you nothing. All he left you was a piece of his genius, a flash of his soul. But those precious gifts you are denying each day you pretend to be someone you are not and refuse to write." And then after a long pause, "Can't you do both. Bettina? Couldn't you write and be this man's wife too?"

"I haven't allowed myself to consider that possibility." She grinned at him mischievously. "I'm considering it. What about you?"

"I'm doing my share. The intrinsic exhaustion you may remember turned out to be a bout of anemia, which, thank God, they cleared up. I've written a book, and now I'm writing a second. But nothing like Justin's, of course. This is all nonfiction." He smiled at her with pleasure.

"I'd love to read it."

"I'll send you a copy." And then, regretfully, he looked at her. Their two hours were over and he had to leave. "I'm leaving tonight. Do you ever come to New York?" She shook her head slowly.

"I haven't been back in almost five years."

"Isn't it time?"

"I don't think so. My husband doesn't like big cities."

"Then come alone." She rolled her eyes and laughed.

It gave him hope to see the spark in her eyes now. It hadn't been there before lunch.

"Maybe when I've written my play. I suppose it is time." Seeing him made her realize with a start how much she had sacrificed, all along, for the play. It would all be for nothing if she never wrote it.

He nodded. "What about your husband? Will you tell him you saw me today?"

She thought for a moment, and then sadly she shook her head. "I don't think I can." He was sorry for her then. She could always tell him everything. Except that foolishness she'd gotten into with the young actor at the end.

Bettina nodded slowly, and then she reached out and held Ivo close. "This is all like a dream, you know. It's as though you're some sort of deus ex machina dropped from the sky to change my course."

He chuckled softly. "If that's how you want to think of me, Bettina, that's fine. Just be sure you do it. None of this nonsensical housewife routine, darling, or I'll come back and haunt you, and then you'll be up the creek." They both laughed at that. "Now, you promise you'll send me what you've written?"

"I promise." She looked at him solemnly as they stood up and walked back to the lobby. It felt good to be with him again, to be tiny and elegant at his side. For a moment she longed for her old wardrobe, the expensive European clothes, and the jewels, and then as though he knew what she were thinking, he looked down at her and spoke softly.