Thorns of Truth (17 page)

Rose ducked her head, becoming suddenly absorbed in knotting the belt on her raincoat. “Oh, I don’t know,” she muttered. “I’m pretty busy.”

“What about the week after?”

Rose looked up at Sylvie and saw that she was struggling to maintain her composure: blinking rapidly to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling over, her bright smile tugging down at the corners. Despite herself. Rose felt a lump of sympathy form in her throat.
I can’t take this,
she thought.
Not another minute.

“Frankly, I don’t see the point.” Rose spoke more coldly than she’d intended, as if to freeze the emotions bubbling inside her.

Aching inside, she pushed past Sylvie.

Brian, thank God, was waiting at the door—with Rachel nowhere in sight.

Good,
she thought, stepping ahead of him into the outer foyer. Maybe it was time for the shoe to be on the other foot, for Rachel to know what it felt like to be the one left behind.

Climbing into the hired car beside Brian, Rose realized how exhausted she was. All she wanted to do when she got home was crawl into bed and pull up the covers. But first, she and Brian needed to talk.

On the ride home, they talked about everything
but
Drew and Iris. Brian told her about the novel he was working on, and about his last book tour—ten cities—which had nearly done him in. Rose, in turn, told him about her big case going to trial next month, and how Mrs. Esposito’s lawyers had squawked at the evidentiary hearing last week. Rose had introduced the receipts for a new TV and stereo their client had bought the same day she was supposedly bedridden, too sick to be deposed.

By the time they pulled up in front of the brownstone on Perry, Rose realized they hadn’t once mentioned the real reason Brian had wanted to come along. Was he saving the big speech for when they were inside?

Brian paused on the sidewalk outside the street-level entrance to her duplex, giving her a thoughtful look. “Hey, I was just wondering,” he asked. “You keep in touch with anyone from the old neighborhood?”

She smiled at him. “Just you.”

He smiled back. “Remember that fort we built up on the roof? It’s a miracle it didn’t fall in on us—all that scrap lumber held together with rusty nails and baling wire.”

“Instead, what fell apart was
us
.” She laughed softly, looking at him poised in the hallway just inside the door … and, yes, remembering that fort, which had been more than just a playhouse. It had become a kind of sanctuary really, where Brian had first kissed her, and she’d discovered the most powerful force on earth: love. “Life really
is
strange. Now, all these years later, it’s our kids who can’t live without each other.”

Brian climbed the stairs to the second-floor living room, and dropped heavily onto the sofa. She watched him kick off his loafers. He still wore Docksiders, she noticed. How could it be that so much had changed, and yet the little things remained the same?

“Strange, yeah.” He sighed, and forked a hand through his hair.

A watery light slanted in through the tall front windows, whose multitude of panes drove her housekeeper insane. On the marble mantel, silver-framed photos gleamed—one of Max with his arms draped around their sons’ shoulders; another, more recent one of Drew in cap and gown at his graduation. They made her sad for some reason, as if those cherished memories were no more substantial than the pale reflections of raindrops on the wall above.

Quietly, she said, “I’ll make some coffee.”

When she returned with a steaming pot and two mugs, she was surprised to find Brian screwing a new bulb into the brass sconce over the piano. She was grateful, and a little surprised, too—he’d remembered where she kept things like bulbs and picture hangers and loose string. She’d been meaning to replace that bulb herself—for months. That, and a million other small chores. Except usually by the time she got home she was either too tired or too loaded down with paperwork.

“You’re hired.” She laughed, handing him a mug. “When you’re finished with that, I have a leaky faucet in the bathroom that needs a new washer.”

Brian grinned. “Seriously, I wouldn’t mind. It’s nice to be appreciated for a change.”

She ignored his remark, not wanting to tread any further on what might prove to be thin ice. Already, she was beginning to regret her petty impulse to get back at Rachel through Brian. If he and Rachel were having problems, well, that was for them to work out. Anyway, her main concern right now was for Drew.

“Bri,” she began hesitantly, settling with her mug into the easy chair across from the sofa, “this engagement—please tell me you think it’s as bad an idea as I do. I don’t think I could bear it
if you
were against me, too.”

He looked at her, his expression flat and unsmiling. “No, Rose. I’m not against you,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I have no opinions of my own. though.” In his stockinged feet, he padded back over to the sofa and sat down. Leaning forward, elbows resting on his splayed knees, he fixed her with a keen gaze. “Look, I know how you must feel. If it were up to me …” He glanced away, reaching for the mug he’d placed on the coffee table. “It’s
not
, though. Rose, you know as well as I do we can’t prevent our kids from making the same mistakes we made. Hell, would
we
have listened to reason?”

Rose shook her head, not wanting to hear what he was saying. “I don’t care about what’s
reasonable.
” Her voice rose. “Bri, I’m scared. Mostly for Drew, sure. But, believe it or not, I care about Iris, too.”

“I know that.” He lifted his fine gray eyes to her. “Rose, if I spent the rest of my life trying, I could never begin to repay you. Don’t think I’ve forgotten it was you who brought us Iris.”

Rose shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. Brian didn’t know the
whole
truth, she thought. Only that Iris’ real mother had died of an overdose not long after they learned her identity—when she was picked up on drug charges. Rose had told no one about the night she’d been called down to the station. What would have been the point of repeating those disjointed ravings about Iris? Clearly, the woman had been out of her mind.

“You don’t owe me anything,” she told him, adding firmly, “Whatever you do, do it for Iris.”

Brian dropped his head into his hands, and spoke in a voice that was muted and hollow. “Do you think we haven’t tried everything already? She’s fine now, sure, but any minute … Christ, it’s like there’s this bomb ticking, and I can’t get to it … and I know if I don’t it’ll all just … blow up.” He raised his eyes, and she saw the anguish in them—anguish, she guessed, from what Rachel had hinted at, which had to do with more than just Iris. “Rose, I don’t know what else to do.”

She stared at him, the past and present coming together in a jarring rush, as if she were seeing two Brians—the young man she’d once loved, and would have died for … and the anguished father before her, who would do anything to save his child.

“I don’t know, either,” she replied softly. “But we can’t just sit back and do
nothing
.”

“Hell, it took a fucking war to come between
us
.” The smile he gave her was thin and mirthless.

“Rachel accused me of trying to hang on to Drew, because—because I can’t accept that Max is dead.” Rose, a hard stone of anger lodged in her chest, addressed the Chagall print between the two windows. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe there
is
some part of me that’s holding on.”

“At least you had something worth holding on to.” Brian’s voice was uncharacteristically bitter.

“You have to
fight
for what you love. With Max I didn’t have that chance.” She turned to him, furious all of a sudden, wanting to shake him, or startle him at least; make him see at least a fraction of the world of grief of which she’d been afforded a full view.

The expression on his face just then made her stop instantly, the anger draining from her. It was so bleak, so unlike the Brian who’d looked out for her when they were kids. He was always the one with a long fuse, and yet at the same time fearless with his fists when he needed to be. Nor would she ever forget what Brian had said to her when he was drafted to fight in Vietnam:
If I don’t go, somebody else’s number will be picked. I couldn’t live with knowing another guy might have died in my place.

Where had that young man gone? Was it Iris who had carved those lines around his eyes and mouth—constantly being faced with a battle that couldn’t be won? Or was it simply that they were getting older? Discovering that life was less a promise than a series of compromises?

Wordlessly, she sank onto the sofa beside him, and they held each other. She recalled a time when she’d believed she wouldn’t live through the pain of his leaving her. And now it was Brian’s despair reminding her that life
did
go on, that hearts mended.

Rose buried her face against his chest. Dimly, she was aware of Brian stroking her hair, murmuring softly. Responding to her, as he always had. With kindness. When he kissed her lightly on the lips, it seemed only natural that she kiss him back.

Tentatively at first … then with a desperation that seemed to rise from an aching hollow deep inside. She grabbed hold of Brian’s shirt, clung to him as if to keep from drowning.

“Please,” she whispered, not knowing what it was she was begging for. “Oh, please.”

A memory rose in her, at once both exquisite and painful: pennies scattered over the floor of Brian’s college room, hundreds of pennies from a jar she’d shattered in a moment of fury when he told her he’d been drafted to go to Vietnam. Winking up at her like crazed stars as she sank to her knees, sobbing. She and Brian had made love one last time, on the carpet—silently, furiously, with the kind of passion that can only come from knowing it will all too soon be spent. Their faces wet with tears, all those pennies—such small things, worth next to nothing on their own, unless collected over time, like memories—pressing cool circles into her hot naked flesh.

Now Brian brought a hand to her throat, caressing it with his thumb. With his fingertips, he stroked the tiny hairs on the back of her neck, and brushed his lips over her temples. His breath came in small, warm bursts. His need was evident in the faint trembling of his fingers. When at last he drew back, it seemed to require a tremendous effort from him.

“Rose,” he murmured thickly. “Rose, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.… We haven’t done anything. And we won’t.”

“No, not about this. About
us.
All these years, I’ve wanted you to know. It wasn’t that I’d stopped loving you.”

She touched a finger to his mouth, the urgent passion of a moment ago spent like a struck match. There are some things, she thought, that can never be recaptured. Part of her wanted to sink back into the comforting burrow of the past … but mostly she knew it was just an illusion. At the time, she’d have done anything to hold on to Brian. Through the years, however, she’d learned that some relationships are made to last, and others are to be tucked away, precious reminders of the elusive joy that lies at the sweet heart of life.

“That was another time. We aren’t even the same people anymore. You have Rachel. And I have … I
had
Max,” she finished in a small, choked voice.

“I didn’t mean …” He dropped his head, looking pained.

“I know you didn’t,” she said. “We’re tired, is all. And wrung out. I miss my husband. I miss being
married
.”

“I know what that’s like,” he replied bitterly.

“It’s not too late for you,” she urged, wishing she could express how utterly final it is when someone you love dies; how every harsh word, every unspoken endearment, becomes magnified in your mind. “You’ve just lost your way. Whatever’s wrong, there’s still time to fix it.”

Rose thought of Max, of how long it had been—
years
after losing Brian—before she’d felt able to relinquish her whole heart. Never again would she allow herself to be trampled, she’d vowed. And now here she was, a survivor once more, learning that there was more than one way to lose a loved one, or for a heart to break.

An image of Eric rose in her mind, and suddenly she felt afraid. She didn’t want to go through it again, all that grief. She didn’t want to fall in love, only to have it snatched away.

“Do you think our kids will have any better luck?” Brian asked.

“God, I hope so.”

A long, uncomfortable silence passed, in which the only sound was the lonesome yowling of a cat somewhere out back—one of the colony of strays that had decided her garden was the next best thing to kitty litter. She hadn’t the heart to report them to the Humane Society. It didn’t seem fair somehow, having them put to sleep, just for doing what came naturally.

He pulled away from her, reluctantly unfolding to his feet one length at a time. As tall as ever, but with a slight stoop to his shoulders that hadn’t been there when they were young, when the illustrations of princes in her books of fairy tales all seemed to look like Brian.

“I’d better go,” he said.

Watching him head for the door. Rose thought wearily:
Yes, go home to your wife. And be glad you still have one.

As he was leaving, Brian turned and said, as if he wished it could be more, “I’m glad we talked.”

“Me, too,” she said, meaning it.

Downstairs, Rose heard the faint click of the lock as he let himself out.

Alone, listening to the rain dripping from the eaves, a sound like the uneven ticking of a clock, she thought again of Eric.

What if it had been Eric kissing her? Eric, who wasn’t married … who’d have been free to stay the night. And with whom she shared no complicated past. Would she have been so quick to see him leave? So able to resist the powerful longing to know again the feel of a man’s naked body in her bed. A man who clearly wanted her, too.

One night, that’s all she’d ask. All she’d dare risk.

Brian strode along the sidewalk, ignoring the cabs streaking like minnows down the rain-slicked stretch of Seventh Avenue where it intersected with Perry. He’d decided to walk back, needing the air, needing to think before he returned home. To Rachel. And to the scene that no doubt awaited him. He wondered what it would be like just to keep on walking, like in those songs about wandering cowpokes—just to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you couldn’t go any farther.