The Night We Met (16 page)

My mom called to wish Keith a happy birthday. I stil hadn't told her about Nate. And decided this wasn't a good time to do it.

I'd also neglected to tell my siblings.

Lori called, too, the next day. For the same reason, I assumed. Keith was at work, but he'd be glad to hear she'd phoned.

Genuinely pleased to hear from her, missing her, I greeted her the way I always did. Asked how she was doing.

"My dad just called."

I slid down to the kitchen floor. "Oh." I'd been about to hit the cookbooks again, to occupy naptime with a new, more challenging recipe for dinner. I'd bought a book on gourmet cooking at the mall in Denver over the weekend and read it late Sunday night.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

The boys wouldn't love spinach soufflés.

"You've got your own stuff to deal with." And I still couldn't talk about what had happened between Nate and me.

"All the more reason you should've cal ed! I can't believe my dad," she said, sounding a lot angrier than I felt. "He's just like Wayne. A jerk. An absolute jerk."

I didn't know what to do.

"What did he tell you?" I asked.

"That he slept with some woman in Denver he'd been working with on a charity deal."

"Yeah." If slept with meant more than once.

"I'm so sorry, Eliza. You don't deserve this at al ."

"Life isn't about fairness and deserving, honey." I told her the one thing I'd managed to figure out, in case it could help her. "It's about living. And learning."

If I concentrated on Lori, on the fact that she'd revealed what I'd suspected all along, that Wayne had been unfaithful to her, I could get through this.

"What about loving?"

I didn't have an answer to that.

"He resigned from hosting the auction," Lori said.

That must have endeared him to his lady friend.

"He's got a suite at the resort."

My heart sank. So everyone there knew. That somehow made it official, his leftover clothes in my closet notwithstanding.

"He asked me to call you."

"He shouldn't put you in the middle like that. You tell him to call me if he needs something." Maybe I should wake Elizabeth from her nap, go to the park or a pool someplace.

The only pool I knew of was at the resort.

"He wanted me to call for you, not him. Said you probably hadn't told anyone about this, that you were handling it al by yourself. I want you to know that my loyalty lies with you, Eliza. Yes, he's my father, but you've both been family to me and he's dead wrong here. I've told him the same thing."

I started to wonder how he took that. But stopped myself. I didn't need to wonder. I knew. Nate would have seen the fairness in Lori's response. He would've been proud of her.

"He's your dad, Lori, and you've been without him for most of your life. Don't lose him again."

"I won't. But you have all my support, Eliza."

Tears sprang to my eyes and I wiped them away. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, I had this idea..."

I don't quite know how it happened, but somehow, before I'd hung up the phone, I'd agreed to a seven- day trip to London, to visit my almost ex-stepdaughter for a week before school. Nate had said he'd stay with the kids.

And while I was gone, he moved his stuff out of our house.

Except for the piano.

School started again. This year I had two sons in high school as Jimmy entered his freshman year. I didn't file for divorce. There was no reason to. I was a one-man woman and I'd had him. Whatever else life held in store for me, it wasn't going to be another relationship. Another marriage. I didn't have the interest.

I didn't have the heart.

I knew Nate would file. He'd had his fiftieth birthday that fall and would want to get on with his life.

Sometimes I dreaded seeing the mail, dreaded seeing the letter from his attorney. Yet sometimes I approached the mailbox with a strange kind of hope.

I wanted it over and done with.

I was tired of hurting.

Of waiting.

My mom called to say she was coming out for Thanksgiving, and I was final y forced to tel her that Nate and I had separated. She didn't say much, just suggested the kids and I fly out there for Thanksgiving instead.

We did. And the support my family showered on me—on us—went a long way toward healing some of the fissures in my heart. I might not have a soulmate, a one- on-one partner to share my days, but I had more love surrounding me, holding me in its arms, than most people.

I was blessed.

So very blessed.

Nate had been taking the kids, including Elizabeth, every other weekend since my return from England. The arrangements had been made through our son— who also continued to deliver Nate's check.

I started going to a Methodist church down the road—mostly when the kids were gone, but they occasionally came with me. It felt good to spend an hour now and then fully focused on God. And I volunteered a lot. I had friends, mothers of my sons' friends, women from church, but no one I got too close to. I'd always been a private person. And that didn't change even now that I was on my own.

The boys told me, shortly after we came home from California, that Nate had asked them and Elizabeth to spend Christmas Eve with him. He promised to have them back by the time I returned from the candlelight service at church.

I would have them to myself on Christmas Day.

I ached at the thought of him spending the day alone—or even with someone else without his children. I had to remind myself that this situation was of his own making.

Nate had not only betrayed me, he'd betrayed himself. And he was paying the price.

On New Year's Day, my sons lamented when All American Iowa running back Ronnie Harmon fumbled the ball four times during his last game. I didn't care. I'd never been a football fan.

Neither had their father, but since entering high school the boys had developed an interest in the sport.

That same day, my al -time favorite singer, Barbra Streisand, ended her relationship with Jon Peters.

I felt we were kindred spirits.

And Lori called. Wayne had flown to London for Christmas. He'd brought divorce papers for her to sign.

On January 2nd, 1986, just after Elizabeth went down for her nap, the phone rang and I grabbed it before it could wake her. "Hello?"

"Eliza?"

Six months, two weeks and three days, and still I knew his voice instantly

"Nate?" My heart started to pound. "What's wrong?" Something had happened to one of the boys. I just knew it.

A broken leg, maybe. The boys were working at the resort during their winter vacation, and sometimes they hit the slopes on their lunch break. My keys were on the table by the front door.

Elizabeth's parka was hanging on the hook above it.

"Nothing's wrong. The boys are fine."

He could still read my mind. There was some comfort in that.

And some pain, too.

"I had an offer on the resort." He named a wel - known, moderately priced hotel chain. Gave me the amount. "What do you think?"

"It's a good offer." I focused on the question. Anything else hurt too much. "If you want to retire, or do something else, you should take it. If not, then don't. There can always be another offer."

Perhaps a bigger one.

But we didn't need the money. Even when we'd had far less, finances had never been a problem.

"That's what I thought, too. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

He hung up before I could ask him which he was going to do.

* * *

Both boys seemed relieved.

And I guess I was, too.

Two weeks later, Nate called again. Based on national test scores, Keith had been offered a ful scholarship to a private boarding school in Denver the next fal for his final two years of high school.

Over the weekend, he'd told his father about the recruiter who'd visited his school to make the offer.

I'd heard during a meeting with Keith and the private school's headmaster the previous week.

"I don't think he should go." Nate's stance was unusual y adamant from the outset.

I wasn't sure I did, either. "Why not?"

"He'd advance academically, probably get a better chance at a university scholarship, but we can afford to pay his tuition. The most important lessons he's going to learn in high school aren't necessarily academic."

I didn't disagree. "I went to a private high school."

"You had specific goals that were very different from Keith's."

I'd reached the same conclusion.

"I don't want to deny him this chance because of some perception that I need him here," I said.

"You have to admit it's a help that he's been driving Jimmy around."

"Yes, and in a few years they're both going to be gone and I'll be back to driving around—with Elizabeth."

I ran my fingers through my hair. I'd been letting it grow. And had it streaked as a Christmas present to myself. I was now the proud bearer of blond highlights.

"It's convenient having Keith's help, but not imperative." I wanted that clear. "Besides, Jimmy'll have his license before Keith leaves."

"If he gets it as soon as his older brother did," Nate said. "I'm not so sure he's going to be ready."

Remembering an incident with Jimmy and an electric cart at the resort the week before, I wasn't so sure, either. Jimmy was more of a dreamer than practical like Keith.

"Keith and I have had several conversations about the scholarship," I said now, needing to focus on the task at hand before my thoughts carried me places I couldn't afford to go. "But I can't get a feel for what he really wants. Does he want to go because he'd like us to be proud of him? Because it's an honor to be asked? Is his hesitation to go because of me?"

"Maybe some of both."

"I real y believe this should be his decision. I'll support him either way. I just want to be sure he's making it for the right reasons."

"I don't think he can, Liza." It was the first time he'd called me that since the day he left. "As mature as Keith is, he's still a kid, like most guys his age. He's trying to be responsible. And his head's being turned by the school's headmaster. I'm not sure he even knows what he wants."

"Maybe we should give him some time to think about it, then."

"He told me the offer expires at the end of the month."

"Maybe they'll give him more time. They seem to want him badly enough."

"I think now's the time you and I have to be parents and make the decision for him. Hell, Liza, he hasn't even been on a date yet. How's that ever going to happen if he's stuck away in an al boys'

school?"

He had a point there. Though from the stories I'd heard, and the movies I'd seen, boys did manage to find a way.

Some boys. Probably not Keith.

"I also hate to see him and Jimmy split up," he said. "They're opposite enough that they're good for each other."

Their differences caused a lot of squabbles. But my sons were close, too.

I thought about al of that and finally said, "Okay."

"We're agreed then? He won't go?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to tel him or should I?"

I handled most of the kids' problems singlehandedly. "You can."

Nate said he'd talk to Keith the next time he saw him and rang off.

He didn't ask how I was. Or if I needed anything.

And I didn't ask him, either.

That was the way it was between us now.

"Jimmy said last night that Elizabeth counted to five this week."

"Nate?" I glanced at the clock. Six a.m. On Saturday morning—Nate's weekend with the kids. I'd stayed up half the night playing Atari games on television and drinking wine.

Feeling sorry for myself.

Thinking I had all day today to sleep it off.

It had been a couple of weeks since our last conversation about Keith's school.

"Did I wake you? You're always up early."

Not anymore. Not when I had to wake up alone. Spend the waking hours without my family.

"I'm awake." Lori had called the night before to tell me she'd met someone. We'd talked a long time.

She was taking it slow, but found herself getting excited about life again.

She also told me her father hadn't so much as shaken another woman's hand since the day I'd kicked him out.

"The boys tried to make Elizabeth count again last night, but she wouldn't," he was saying, and I pulled my thoughts back.

My youngest child, four months shy of her third birthday, already had a very strong will.

"She can count to twenty," I told him. "She just hasn't done it for them yet so they think I'm making it up."

"She sang her ABC's last night. All the way through. Got Q and W, too."

I didn't know Nate was aware that those letters had stumped her. But I guess it made sense that he would be.

"Anyway," he said, "I was wondering if maybe we should put her in preschool."

That woke me up. "No."

"It would free you up some, Liza. Let you do things for you."

"Raising my child is doing for me. It's what I want to do. Besides, I'm a teacher, Nate, remember? I'm as qualified as anyone else to give her her best start."

"Stil ..."

"I'm not sending her to preschool. The boys didn't go."

"They had each other to play with."

"I really don't want to, Nate. I'd like to give her a couple more years of unstructured time, of learning her values from us."

"She needs socialization skills."

I wasn't sending her. Period. I'd divorce him first. And sue for complete custody. I'd move back to California and live with my mother. I'd—

"I have a compromise."

It occurred to me, when I heard his tone, that Nate Grady had just played me.

"What?"