Thorns of Truth (30 page)

“Why don’t you?”

“Can’t you just see it? I’d be climbing the walls within a week.”

“What about a vacation?” Cagily, Kay added, “Unless you don’t trust me to look after everything until you got back.”

The thought glimmered in Rachel’s mind, as tantalizing—and ultimately false—as a mirage. As much as she’d like to believe there was a quick, obvious cure to what ailed her marriage, she knew better. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea right now,” she said. “Plugging holes in a sinking marriage is one thing,” she said. “But when the boat’s about to tip over, you don’t set out to sea in it.”

“A quiet dinner, then.” Kay was not giving up. “A restaurant where you can sit down like two civilized people. And talk.”

“For someone who solved her own problems by getting a divorce, you sure seem to have all the answers,” Rachel observed dryly.

“Yeah? Well, maybe it taught me something.” Kay’s expression turned wistful. As tough as she sometimes talked, and as many calluses as she’d built up around her heart, she had truly loved her husband. “Look, Simon and I—there was nothing much either of us could have done to make it work. But I happen to think what
you
have is worth fighting for.”

“So do I.” A reluctant smile forced its way to the surface, surprising Rachel. She eyed Kay with a mix of admiration and fond exasperation. “Have I ever told you that you remind me of my mother?”

“Practically every day since college. Except now I’m even starting to
look
like I could be.” With a rueful laugh, she pushed a hand though her graying mop, which more and more these days reminded Rachel of an owl’s ruffled feathers. “Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten serious about anyone since Simon. Every guy I meet, I wind up nagging him to put the lid down and pick up his socks.” Kay shook her head. “Speaking of your mother, how
is
she?”

“About the same,” Rachel sighed. “She insists she’s happy with Dr. Choudry. It’s just that I’d feel better if she got a second opinion.”

“What about
you
?” Kay suggested. “I know cardiology isn’t exactly your specialty, but when was the last time you visited her and saw for yourself?”

Rachel felt a twinge of guilt. “It’s been a few weeks.” Part of her problem, she realized as she spoke, was not wanting to face the fact that her mother might
not
be doing as well as she insisted she was.

“Go see her. But first, see to your husband.” Kay’s brisk tone left no room for argument. She squatted down in front of the toddler, now growing droopy-eyed on Rachel’s lap. “Hey, little man, you ready to go back to
your
mama? It sure smells that way.” She wrinkled her nose as she scooped him into her arms.

Kay was halfway out the door when Rachel, still seated cross-legged on the floor, feeling a little foolish, and wondering if the snag she’d just noticed in her pantyhose was on the verge of becoming a full-fledged run, called softly, “Kay? Thanks.”

Kay grinned over the toddler’s dark curls. “I know you don’t quite believe it yet, but things
will
get better. You won’t regret taking my advice.”

Watching her go, Rachel wondered if even dear, wise Kay could know how regretful she already was. It was killing her that she couldn’t just pick up the phone and call Brian. Share with him everything that was troubling her, the way she used to.

But when the person you want most to comfort you is the one making you ache, what then? When the love you need isn’t there because you allowed it to wither?

Something tipped over in her, and the blood drained from her head as if from an upended bucket. Feeling suddenly dizzy, Rachel—for the first time in more than twenty years as director of the East Side Women’s Health Center—allowed herself to stretch out on the carpet and close her eyes.

The restaurant was only a ten-minute stroll from their apartment, but as far as Rachel was concerned, it might as well have been a journey to the dark side of the moon. Along the way, she and Brian hardly exchanged two words. Ambling along at her side with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his oldest twill blazer, Brian seemed distracted, and not the least bit apologetic about the other night. Rachel, despite her every good intention, felt her outrage mount with each silent step.

Who was the injured party here, anyway? Who’d been left high and dry the night of Iris’ party? How dare he act as if all this was somehow
her
fault.

At the Gotham, she waited until they were seated at her favorite table—on the raised area that skirted the main floor, where it was a little quieter than among the Deco-chromed banquettes below. As soon as their waiter, a young man with the slicked-back hair of an extra in a Fred Astaire movie, had taken their drink orders, Rachel leaned forward and with quiet emphasis said, “I can see this isn’t going to be the romantic evening of either of our dreams. But I
was
hoping we could at least talk.”

“I’m listening.” Brian leaned into the soft glow of the candle, his gray eyes, which had always struck her as wonderfully pensive, now merely remote.

She wanted to stay mad, damnit. Mad kept her from having to face the truth: that a good portion of why she was so angry at her husband was because she knew she’d mostly brought it on herself. Yet she pleaded, “Don’t do this, Brian. Don’t make
me
out to be the bad guy here.”

She caught a flicker on the lenses of his glasses, a spark of reflected candlelight that made her think of the thin rind of ice that forms on pavement when a rainstorm is followed by a sudden drop in temperature.

Then he reached across the table, and Rachel had to suppress a small shudder of delight at the familiar warmth of his hand. She gave it a light squeeze and withdrew—he mustn’t think she was making too much of it.

“Do you
really
want to talk about it?” he asked. “Without pointing fingers?”

“Yes,” she said. “But first, I need to know the truth. About you and Rose.”

There it was again. His face closing against her, shutting her out. “I told you already.”

“You haven’t told me anything!”

“That’s because there’s nothing to tell.”

Rachel felt her blood heating, swelling upward, making her scalp feel like a too-tight cap. She whispered furiously, “How can you say that? After … after the way you … that night. The way you made love to me.”

Brian’s eyes cut away; if he’d said something cruel, it couldn’t have hurt more. Clearly, she’d struck a nerve in him. “Nothing happened,” he insisted softly, still not meeting her gaze. “But I won’t lie to you. I won’t pretend that part of me didn’t
want
to just turn back the clock.”

Rachel clapped a hand over her mouth. Just like in a bad play, some distant corner of her brain observed dispassionately. Or that fairy tale about two princesses, one who spewed forth diamonds whenever she spoke, and the other toads. The image of a toad popping out suddenly made her want to giggle—a knee-jerk reaction to extreme circumstances that she’d struggled for years to curb. Apparently without success.

She dropped her head, both hands pressed to her mouth now, squeezing hard to keep from laughing hysterically. Tears rose in her eyes.

“Rachel, are you all right?” she heard Brian ask, his voice full of concern.

Her head jerked up, and now the words came with no trouble at all: “No. I’m not. How could I be?”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” His face softened, and once again, he reached for her hand. “Rachel, I …”

She jerked away. “Do you love her?” There. She’d spit it out: a toad, a great slimy waited thing with yellow pop-eyes and a long forked tongue.

Watching Brian sit back, Rachel felt unexpectedly bewildered, as if she’d been groping for a light switch in a dark room and been hit with the sudden realization that there was none; she was doomed to stumble about, sightless.

“That would make it easier for you, wouldn’t it?” he said. “Having someone else to focus on. Someone to keep you from looking at the
real
problem.”

“I see. It’s all
my
fault, then. Everything.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

When he spoke at last, her husband’s voice was flat with defeat. “Look, it’s my fault, too, okay? Nothing in a marriage, good or bad, happens in a vacuum. All I know is that, with Rose, she needed me. As a friend,” he was quick to add. “It was nice to be needed for a change.”

“
I
need you.” Rachel dared not raise her voice above a whisper. Otherwise, she might burst into tears.

“No … you don’t.” Brian shook his head with regret. “You don’t need anyone. It’s the other way around—
you
trying to hold the world on your shoulders.”

“Look, if you’re referring to the clinic—”

“I don’t want to
hear
about the clinic,” he cut in, as sharply as a jab. Then his voice softened. “Max’s death changed something for me, too,” he said. “I look at Rose, and think, ‘Damn, life really
is
short.’ And I don’t want to spend it alone. Yeah, I know—there’s always some crisis you have to rush off to, usually at ninety miles an hour. What I want to know is, when does this particular train ever stop?”

“That isn’t fair. It’s not as if you’re sitting still yourself.”

“It’s not the same,” he told her. “And you know it.”

She
did
know. Brian, unless he was on tour or racing to meet a deadline, had always been there—not just for her, but for their daughter. Yet, for some reason, that only made her more defensive. “You’re right. It’s
not
the same,” she shot back. “The difference is that when
you
slow down your novel still gets written. And even if it didn’t, no one would
die
as a result.”

He offered her the crooked smile that had made her fall in love with him all those years ago. Only now it was more like a treasured keepsake she’d somehow lost … or given away. “Rachel, let’s face it. If you were any less driven, I wouldn’t
be
here. I’d have been shipped home from Nam in a body bag. But”—the angles of his face seemed to grow sharper—“the war is over. It’s been over for a long time.”

Rachel looked out at the tables below, each a candlelit island no doubt with its own quiet little drama. Husbands, wives, lovers, friends, business partners … all struggling in their own way to maintain what they believed were their inalienable rights.

Hadn’t she, too, once believed her marriage was inviolate?

“Are you saying …” She stopped, unable to get the words out. Divorce. Did Brian want a divorce? She swallowed hard. “Look, I know there are things we need to work on.”

She waited in stricken silence for Brian to answer.

“You have to be around in order to work on things,” he reminded her gently.

She took hold of the wineglass their waiter had set in front of her, clutched it with both hands as if to steady herself. “It won’t always be this way,” she said. “I’ve already talked to Kay about taking some time off. In a month or so, when things settle down.”

Brian smiled, and shook his head. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that, Rachel? How many plane reservations we made that had to be canceled? It’s
now
I’m talking about. Right now. I can’t wait for an opening in your busy calendar. And neither can Iris.”

“What’s Iris got to do with this?”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but she seems to have gone into hiding.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s at Drew’s.”

“Then why is it so hard to reach her? And when she
does
pick up the phone, it’s like talking to a stranger. She can’t get off fast enough. Drew, too. It’s like anything other than the weather is suddenly classified information.”

“I’ve noticed.” Rachel sighed, relieved that this was a concern they could both share. “I figured she was just busy. You know, with starting school, finding an apartment. Oh, Brian, I guess I
have
been preoccupied. I didn’t stop to think that maybe—” She broke off abruptly, too superstitious to say aloud what she was thinking, for fear it might come true: that Iris might be slipping back into that dark place, beyond their reach.

She looked across the table at the husband with whom she’d shared so much through the years—the agony of coming to terms with the fact that they would never have children of their own, coping with Brian’s overnight celebrity, but, mostly, the crises with Iris that they’d weathered by holding tightly to each other’s hands, like a pair of mountain climbers negotiating a sheer drop.

“There’s one thing we tend to forget.” Brian’s richly textured voice, with its hint of Brooklyn, was like a tonic—healing and, at the same time, cruelly tantalizing her with the illusion of a quick fix that simply wasn’t possible. “Iris is tougher than anyone thinks. She’s survived this far, hasn’t she?”

‘True,” Rachel acknowledged, though at times she wasn’t so sure. “We’re survivors, too, in a way.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “That we are.”

“You know,” she said softly, “there’s one thing I’ve always envied about you and Rose—the fact that you never grew old together. You never had to fight about who was spending more money. Or which one was doing most of the housework. You never had to take turns getting up in the night to take care of a sick child. When you look back, it all must seem so perfect and beautiful … like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.” She took a shaky breath. “That’s what makes memories so precious. If they’re not handled carefully, they fall apart.”

“The only thing falling apart is us.” Brian shook his head, and this time the glint in his eyes wasn’t a reflection.

It was as if they’d found themselves, near the end of a long sea voyage, facing yet another tempest. Her first instinct was to reach for his hand. She held on, squeezing hard. She didn’t know what else to do.

“Oh, Brian. What can I say?” she managed in a choked whisper.

“Nothing,” he told her. Firm but kind. “We’ve talked enough. Things have to change, Rachel. That’s all. Something has to give. And it won’t be me. I’ve given my fair share already.”