Where the Heart Chooses (15 page)

Mother studied him, a thoughtful expression
on her face. “Bryan, if you didn’t wish to get married—”

“Nonsense, Mary!” Father spluttered.
“Everything was planned! The church, the country club…LBJ even
hinted he and Ladybird might drop by!”

“But they didn’t,” she said ironically, and
he flushed and subsided. “Now then, Bryan—”

“It’s nothing more than settling into a new
situation, Mother. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

I knew he’d had plans of moving to a big
house in the county, but Johanna’s mother had offered them the
house in Baltimore that had been in her family for more than a
hundred years, and Johanna dug in her heels—that was to say, she
pleaded very prettily—so they lived there instead.

There was an old saying about love being a
matter of give and take, but it seemed to me that my brother did
all the giving and his wife all the taking.

Still, it had been his choice.

“If we could get back to the topic at hand?”
The look on Tony’s face was indecipherable, but before I could
question it, he growled at me. “Portia, you can work from home if
you’d like.”

“No.” Nigel answered for me, although I
could have answered for myself. “She wants out of this.”

Tony was at a loss. “Can I at least call on
you…?” He gave an exasperated huff as I shook my head. “What will
you do with your time?”

“Raise my son? Do charity work?”

“Do you really think you could be satisfied
with something so—”

Mundane? “Mother has, for as long as I can
remember.”

He bit off what he’d been about to say when
he caught her gaze on him. She could be quite formidable.

“I’ll help you, Portia,” she promised. “I
can provide you with the contacts you’ll need, and there are your
Tau Zeta Epsilon sisters as well. I’m so pleased you went to
Wellesley. That will impress those Washington matrons!”

“Thank you, Mother.”

Father muttered under his breath, “All those
contacts she made while in London. Shot to—”

A glance from Mother silenced him.

“Dinner is served, Mrs. Sebring.” Plum stood
in the doorway.

“Thank you. Shall we dine? Anthony, kindly
restrain your choler before you give yourself indigestion.”

I was uncertain to whom she addressed those
words, but both my brother and father responded.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Yes, my dear.”

Nigel cleared his throat and took my arm,
and we went into the dining room.

* * * *

I worked for various charities, taking up
where Mother left off. There were the very public ones, which I
either chaired or sat on the boards, and there were the ones that
were less publicized but which needed funding all the more, the
inner-city Family Planning clinic, the soup kitchen in Anacostia, a
shelter for women trying to get out of abusive situations.

And gradually it was forgotten that I had
once deciphered Russian codes for the Venona Project.

* * * *

Nineteen sixty-eight was the year of
assassinations: Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy.

It was the year Tricky Dick was elected to
the presidency, and Nigel shook his head. He worked for the
country, not the man, however, and he continued doing his job.

Quinton was given his first pony, a fat
little Shetland he named Darling.

* * * *

Nineteen seventy-two saw the start of the
Watergate scandal. Nigel knew, and it broke his heart.

Quinton took home his first blue ribbon.

* * * *

Nineteen seventy-four, and Richard Nixon
became the first U.S. president to resign.

Quinton and I watched as his grim-faced
father reduced a target to tatters.

* * * *

Nineteen seventy-six was the bicentennial of
the United States. Two hundred years of freedom.

Nigel spent that Independence Day with us,
and he marveled at what an accomplished horseman Quinton had
become. “We’ll see him in the Olympics yet, darling!”

* * * *

Nineteen seventy-seven, and two weeks before
Christmas, Nigel was sent on an operation to India. “I should be
home by the New Year, darling,” he said as he slid his arms into
the sleeves of his overcoat and picked up his suitcase.

“You’ll be careful?”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Of course.” This was his career, just as it
had once been mine. I kissed him there, because I wouldn’t kiss him
outside the house—we had our reputations for being cool and
restrained to uphold—and followed him to the cab waiting at the
curb.

Before he got into the cab, he took my arm,
pulled me close to him, and brushed his lips over mine.

“Nigel?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I’ll see you
in a few weeks.”

* * * *

On New Year’s Day, 1978, an Air India Boeing
747 crashed near Bombay, killing all two hundred and thirteen on
board.

Nigel was among them.

* * * *

“Nurse!
NURSE
!”

Nigel? Darling, why do I hurt all over? Did
we have our baby?

“Please, Mr. Mann, you’ll disturb the other
patients!”

“Fu- I don’t care about the other patients!
My mother is crying! She never cries!”

Quinton. What…?
Ah. The accident. Was
I dying?
Shouldn’t there be a white light and Nigel waiting to
greet me?

Warm, dry fingers encircled my wrist. “Her
pulse is a little fast.” Something cool was placed around my upper
arm and pumped up, constricting the muscle. “Her blood pressure is
a little high also, but nothing to be alarmed about, considering
the situation. Please try not to worry, Mr. Mann. She’s progressing
exactly as she should.”

“I don’t want her to be in pain!”

“Of course not, but she still hasn’t fully
emerged from the effects of the anesthesia.”

The squeak of rubber soles signified the
departure of the nurse. Another hand took mine, pressing it to a
stubbled cheek that was damp.

Tears, Quinton? Oh, sweetheart, don’t weep
for me.

I sank back into the comforting cushion of
unconsciousness.

* * * *

Arlington National Cemetery.

It was a gray, dismal day, in spite of the
fact that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Nigel had served in Korea, that other war
that wasn’t classified a war, and was entitled to military
honors.

Quinton stood beside me, in the same black
suit he had worn when we flew to India to claim his father’s body.
And although he didn’t make a sound, I felt the tremors shivering
through his body.

Behind us was family—Mother and Father;
Tony, still alone after all this time; Jefferson and his partner,
Ludovic Rivenhall—the same Ludovic who’d stuttered in my ear during
my season in London; Bryan and his wife, and as usual, her children
were with their grandparents, although they were of an age to pay
their respects on this occasion.

As for Nigel’s family, his father had passed
away in ‘67, and Mrs. Mann had been so unwell in recent years she’d
been confined to a nursing home. Addison was there with his wife,
whose name I could never remember, because he changed wives so
frequently and we so rarely saw them.

Nigel’s colleagues and friends were in the
numerous rows of chairs behind us, and there was even a
representative from the White House. I should have been surprised
to see Sidorov there, but I was too cocooned in grief to pay it
much heed.

The honor guard raised their rifles and
fired a salute, and a bugler played “Taps.” For just that second I
wavered, and Quinton’s hand found mine, gripping it tightly.

We watched dry-eyed.

The flag that draped my husband’s coffin was
removed, folded, folded, and folded again, and presented to me.

After the funeral, Mother embraced me, and
Father’s hand rested on my shoulder. I held myself stiffly. If I
allowed myself anything else, I knew I would break.

“Do you want Quinton to come home with us,
Portia?”

“No!” My son’s voice cracked, and then
firmed. “No.”

“No, Mother, thank you. We’ll be fine
together.” We needed to be together.

“Mrs. Mann, you wish I come with you?”
Alyona Novotny stood beside her brother. Both of them looked as
grief-stricken as I felt. I shook my head. “I will be with Gregor,
then. Call if you have need of either of us.”

“Thank you.” I tried to smile, but I knew it
was a failure.

Quinton and I were silent on the drive home
in the limo supplied by the Company.

At home I heated the crab-tomato bisque soup
that Alyona had prepared the night before, and toasted Russian
black bread, neither of which we ate. We sat in Nigel’s study and
looked through the photo albums, but didn’t really see.

Quinton fell asleep on the huge recliner
that was his father’s, and I removed his shoes and covered him with
a soft throw.

I was starting to get a headache. I pulled
the pins from my hair, and it spilled around my shoulders.

The doorbell rang. I padded down the long
hallway in my stocking feet and gazed through the etched glass that
framed the door.

I wasn’t surprised to see the violets. I was
surprised to see Folana. I opened the door and let her in, then
locked the door behind her.

“Portia.”

My lip quivered, and I firmed it. I took her
hand and led her to the small parlor at the rear of the house.

“I never…I never told him…”

“He knew, my dear friend. He was a very
smart man.” She saw my confusion. “He chose you, didn’t he?”

She held me while I wept, listened while I
talked, and stayed with me until I slept.

In the morning, she was gone.

* * * *

It was a miserable spring, summer, and
autumn. However, life did what it always did; it went on. And I had
no choice but to go on with it. I had my son depending on me.

I kept my grief to myself, enhancing my
reputation as the ice queen—screaming and railing against the
injustice of it was useless. My sister-in-law assumed that meant I
didn’t care at all, and she rarely spoke to me without making her
disapproval obvious. Of course, she was careful never to do so when
Bryan was present.

Now the holiday season was approaching, but
the joy had gone out of it for me. Quinton was aware, as were
Alyona and Gregor.

“Mrs. Mann, please let me put up a Christmas
tree for you.” Gregor had served in the Navy for six years after
college, and from there had joined the FBI. Now he worked out of
their New York office, but in the months since Nigel’s death, he’d
been driving down at least every other week and dining with us, and
over the summer he’d spent a good deal of time with Quinton.

“Gregor, don’t you think you should call me
Portia?”

He flushed. “P-Portia.”

I was tempted to say, “There, that wasn’t
too difficult, was it?” But I wasn’t sure how he’d react to being
teased, and I wasn’t sure if teasing him would be wise. “I think a
tree would be a very good idea. I’ll call Mother and see if she has
one for us.”

“I remember the size tree she let you and
Ni- you had last year. You’re going to need a larger car. I’ll rent
something suitable. It’s too bad Quinn’s still at school.”

“Yes, it is.”

Shortly after our son was born, Nigel and I
sat down and discussed the path his education would take. Nigel had
gone to a preparatory school in Virginia, and although his father
and stepmother hadn’t lived very far away, they’d boarded him
there.

I wasn’t really surprised when Nigel’s
expression grew cold. “I won’t send my son there.”

“
All right, darling.”

“
I think…If you have no objection, I
think I’d like him to attend Phillips Exeter.”

Which all male Sebrings had attended.

I hugged him and kissed the hinge of his
jaw. “I have no objection.”

And so, when the time came, Quinton and I
packed his bags, and he flew to New Hampshire in the company of all
three of his uncles. It broke my heart to send him away to school,
but I wouldn’t keep him tied to my side.

While Gregor saw about the car, I called
Mother. “I’d like to pick up a Christmas tree,” I told her after
we’d exchanged pleasantries.

“I’m pleased to hear that.”

“Actually, it was Gregor’s idea.”

She was silent for a moment. “I see.”

“It’s for Quinton, Mother.”

“Even better. I’ll select a tree and have it
ready for you. When will you come?”

“I’d thought this afternoon, if you have no
objection?”

“I must say I don’t like the idea of you
making that drive home by yourself. Why don’t you plan on staying
the night? Your brothers will be here. Your father won’t. He’s in
San Francisco.” She didn’t sound happy about that, which wasn’t
usual, and I wondered briefly what had called Father to California.
But she was going to be even more unhappy with what I was about to
inform her.

“Gregor will be driving me.”

“I…see.” And the fact that she repeated
herself showed me how perturbed she was by the situation. “Very
well. I imagine Shadow Brook is large enough to accommodate an FBI
agent.”

“Thank you. You know he’s been very good
with Quinton.”

“Yes, we’re all aware how much he adores the
boy, but Portia, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

As much as I wanted to, I didn’t scream.
“Nigel’s been gone for less than a year. I’m not looking to replace
him.” He was too precious to me to ever be replaced. I decided to
change the subject. “Is Jefferson bringing Ludovic?”

“Of course. Johanna won’t be joining
us.”

“Why aren’t I surprised to hear this?” She
always found some excuse to avoid coming for a visit, or when she
did agree to come, she left her children either with her mother or
their other grandparents.

“Bryan’s not happy.”