Elise was shocked at Sloane’s statement. “What about your wife?” she asked.
“I didn’t love her.”
“Why did you marry her then?”
“She was pregnant. She lost the baby right after the wedding.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t. She would have made a lousy mother, and I had no desire to be a father. We were both relieved, as awful as that sounds.”
Elise tried to understand. “But you married her? You must have felt something.”
“Duty. And just barely that. Neither of us had any illusions about the potential our marriage had. It was strictly to give the baby a name. I resented her for being careless about taking her pills; she resented me for being in the right place at the wrong time.”
“You love Clay. You would have loved the baby, too.” For some reason, Elise wanted to believe her assertion was true.
“Lise, haven’t you noticed? This is not top-notch parent material you’re sitting next to. Clay snuck up on me, grabbed me by the gut when I least expected it. But a baby? I don’t think so. As much as I regret the years I lost with Clay, I can’t be sure it wasn’t for the best. If I’d had him with me all that time, maybe I wouldn’t love him now.”
She wanted to believe he was just being hard on himself. She knew he was still adjusting to parenthood, trying to come to grips with the sudden onslaught of emotion he felt for his stranger-son. But there was something that rang true in his words. She couldn’t imagine him tenderly holding an infant, walking the floor at night while the baby teethed or screamed from an earache.
Clay was a real person with ideas. But a baby? What was a baby other than a mass of nerves and sensations it couldn’t interpret? A baby took patience, endless unqualified love and faith that your efforts would be rewarded with a healthy, happy human being farther down the line. Elise wasn’t sure that Sloane had those qualities. But she wasn’t sure he didn’t, either. He was always a puzzle.
“It’s funny we should be having this talk now,” she mused. “Tomorrow is all about birth and hope and love.”
“And miracles.”
“Sometimes the biggest miracle is finding we have more inside us than we thought.”
“Always the optimist.”
“Always the pessimist.” Elise leaned over and kissed him, then she drew back. “You loved me seventeen years ago because I saw more in you than anyone else did. Maybe I still do. And maybe I see more than you do.”
“What do you see?”
What did she see? A man who for all his academic titles and success still didn’t truly believe in his own value as a human being? A man who was afraid to reach out, a man who wanted to share himself with his son but didn’t know how? A man who for seventeen years had not uttered the three most precious words in the English language to anyone?
“I see Sloane Tyson. A man who has so much to give that those of us who love him would never be able to take it all if we had a millennium to try.”
“Lise…”
She put her finger against his lips to stop him. “I love you, Sloane. I’m not ashamed of it, and I’m not trying to bind you to me. I just want you to know I still do. I don’t think I ever stopped, and I don’t think I ever will.” She rested her head on his shoulder.
“And what happens when I leave?”
“I go on loving you.” There was a commendable lack of self-pity in her voice. “And we both go on with our lives, glad for the time we did have together.”
Amy and Clay came out of the kitchen, arm in arm. “All clean.” they said together as if they’d rehearsed it.
“Terrific.” Elise tried to sit up and fell back groaning. “I can’t move.”
Sloane gave her a push and watched as she finally got to her feet. It amazed him that she could act so naturally after what she had just said. She had told him she loved him as if it were the most normal, everyday kind of thing to tell someone. He wondered what it said about the depth of her feelings. He wondered what it said about his own reluctance to say the same words.
“It’s time to open presents,” Elise announced. “Under the Christmas tree.” She turned back to Sloane and extended her hand to help him off the sofa.
“Can you lower me to the rug under the tree or shall I call for a crane?” Sloane let her pull him off the sofa. He filed away her words and his thoughts about them to examine another time. He had always been good at living for the moment.
When everyone was sprawled around the tree, Elise passed out packages. “Amy, you go first.”
Amy opened Elise’s gift, exclaiming over the blue and gray sweater she had once admired when they shopped together. Clay was next, opening one of Sloane’s gifts. He seemed genuinely thrilled with a beautifully bound book from a multivolume encyclopedia that was waiting for him at home. Elise would have throttled Sloane, who had been stubbornly determined to give his son something so impersonal and academic, except that she knew that along with the encyclopedia there was also going to be a new stereo for Clay on Christmas morning.
Elise went next, opening a monogrammed leather wallet from Amy, and Sloane followed with a large volume of E.E. Cummings’s poetry from his son. Then they began again. Amy rattled Clay’s present, frowning. “I can’t tell what it is.”
“You’re not supposed to be able to tell,” Clay said helpfully. “If you could tell, I wouldn’t have had to wrap it at all.”
Amy stuck out her tongue at him and began to rip off the wrapping. Inside the small box was a silver and turquoise pin in the shape of a tiny bird. “It’s beautiful.” She leaned over and kissed Clay on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Clay just smiled. Amy handed him his present next, and he performed the rattling ritual before he opened it. It was a colorful plastic watch, exactly like the ones every other student at Miracle Springs High had. “Because you’re usually late,” Amy informed him.
“Is he?” Elise asked with interest as Clay kissed Amy in thanks. “It’s obviously in the Tyson genes.”
Sloane grunted in protest as he handed Elise her present. She unwrapped it slowly, sadly aware that it was the last Christmas they would spend together. She wanted to draw out each moment. She opened up the box from an expensive boutique in nearby Ocala and shook out the burgundy silk that lay inside. It was a blouse, richly detailed with cutwork and lace and Victorian in style. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
Sloane stole his own thank-you kiss and then reached for his present. He opened it with no ceremony, just ripped open the wrappings and stared at the contents of the box. “Where did you get this?” he asked finally.
“Don’t you remember?”
Sloane shook his head.
Elise covered his hand with hers. “You gave it to me seventeen years ago. Right before you left town. I’ve kept it all these years. I’m glad I did.”
“What is it, Sloane?” Clay asked curiously.
Sloane held up his old journal. The cover was smudged with ink and the corners were torn away. Even with the smell of Christmas dinner hanging heavily in the air, the journal gave off the pleasant, musty scent of the past. “I kept this from the time I was your age until I turned eighteen,” he told Clay. “I guess it has every feeling I felt in it, every single thing I did.”
“And you gave it to Elise?” Clay asked. It was obvious he wanted to know why.
“Did you ever read it?” Sloane asked, turning to her.
“No. I couldn’t.”
Elise was sure Sloane understood. He had thrown it at her in anger the day he had come to say goodbye to her. “Read this if you ever get lonely,” he’d said. “It’s all you’re ever going to have of me if I leave tomorrow and you don’t.”
And she had been lonely for him. So lonely sometimes that she’d picked up the journal just to feel his presence. But she’d never read it. She’d never wanted to suffer that much. And the day she’d decided not to fly to Vermont to see him once more, she had packed the journal in the attic and never looked at
it again.
Not until yesterday when she had unpacked it and wrapped it in Christmas paper.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to read it either,” he admitted, staring blankly at the cover.
“It’s the past. And now is now. That’s why I’m giving it back to you.”
“Thank you.” His eyes caught hers and held her gaze.
Amy and Clay got to their feet. “I’m going to walk Amy home,” Clay informed them.
“She lives a long way from here. I’ll drive you,” Sloane said, still looking at Elise.
“We’re walking.” Clay took Amy’s hand. “I’ll be home late.”
Elise smiled at Clay’s show of spirit. She could see that his father appreciated it, too. “Fine,” he said, giving in gracefully. “I’ll see you later.”
There was a flurry of goodbyes and thank-yous, then the two teenagers departed. She went to the living-room window and watched them disappear down the street. Sloane came to stand behind her, and his arms encircled her waist.
“Two gifts, Lise. You gave me two gifts.”
She knew immediately what he meant. “My love and our past,” she said.
Sloane was silent, but he pulled her closer.
“Both were freely given,” she said. “No strings.”
He spoke after a long silence. “You’re coming over tomorrow?”
“I still have to give Clay the book I bought for him.”
“Come early. I’ll make brunch.” Sloane’s hands worked their way up her sides to her shoulders. Slowly, he turned her around. “Are you in a hurry to get rid of me now?”
Elise shook her head.
“How do soft carols, another glass of eggnog and me under the Christmas tree sound?”
“Like the best Christmas present of all.” She lifted her hands to the top button of his shirt. “But let’s save the carols and eggnog for later.”
“Much later,” he agreed, bending his head until his lips were a fraction of an inch from hers. He began to tug her blouse out of her skirt until his fingers grazed the soft skin of her stomach.
“Much later,” they said together. And then they didn’t say anything for a long, long time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On the front porch of Sloane’s house Elise tucked a plaid napkin tighter over the basket of food she was carrying and swung it to the crook of her left arm. Then she opened his door with a bang and poked her head inside. “Sloane? Are you up? If you aren’t I’m coming to get you!”
He stepped out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “If I’d known that, I’d have stayed in bed. Want me to go upstairs and pretend?”
“Is Clay here?”
He pointed to the ceiling. “Getting dressed.”
“Then no, we’d better stay down here,” she answered regretfully. She stepped over the threshold and into his arms. They had made leisurely love the night before, but they kissed as if they were starving for each other and had been for years. Finally she pulled away. “Are you sure Clay’s here?”
He smiled. “He’s been moping around the house all morning because he can’t see Amy until lunchtime. Her father’s making her clean house.”
“Bob’s been in a foul mood ever since Carol started dating the man who owns the male Pekingese she bred hers to. He’s not speaking to anybody.”
“Obviously he’s speaking to Amy.” Sloane guided her into the kitchen and settled her at his table. “Coffee?”
She nodded and he fixed it just the way she liked it. There was something wonderfully intimate about watching him add cream and sugar to the cup without having to give it a second thought. For a moment, she let herself pretend that this kind of familiar sharing wasn’t going to end soon.
“I can’t believe you’re going to the celebration with me today,” Elise said after half a cup was finished in comfortable silence.
“I can’t believe it either. I have written proof upstairs that I once vowed I would never do this.”
“You said you’d never come back here, period,” she reminded him. Without thinking she reached out and stroked his smoothly shaven jaw. “You’ve been reading your journal, haven’t you?”
“Last night. What a passionate creature I was.”
“Passionate. Sensitive. Intelligent.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Obnoxious.”
He grinned. “You won’t get an argument from me. I was worse than obnoxious. I was prejudiced, small-minded, totally set in my ways. All the things I accused this town of being. How did you stand me?”
“Well, I never saw you that way. I guess I saw a boy whose feelings ran deeper than anyone I’d ever known. That was the part of you I fell in love with.”
It was the first time in months that they had mentioned their past. With Christmas Day as a new beginning they had lived only in the present. They had spent every spare minute together, laughing, loving, building onto a friendship that had begun so many years before. Their time together had to be carefully orchestrated. Sloane had Clay to worry about, and Elise had her reputation in the community. But they had seen those obstacles as challenges, and they had found ways around them.
January had included a weekend in Miami where Sloane was supposed to be researching his next book but instead, had thoroughly researched Elise. February, a month too short on days, had been long on leisurely evenings by Sloane’s fireplace while Clay studied or slept upstairs. In March, over Easter break, they had explored nearby Disney World. Sloane had immediately scrapped the nebulous ideas for his next book and begun an impassioned sociological study of what Mickey Mouse had and hadn’t done for Central Florida. And in April, more than once, they had visited the riverbank to wade in the icy Wehachee and watch it awaken to the glories of spring.
Now it was May. In a month, Sloane would be gone.
“I got a letter from the couple subletting my apartment in Cambridge today,” he said, as if he were reading her thoughts. “They’re moving out two weeks earlier than they’d intended. It means I can leave a little sooner than I’d planned.”
“When will you be going?” She forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Right after school ends. There’s a summer program for gifted high school students at Boston University. I talked to a friend who teaches there, and he wants Clay to attend. He’ll meet some kids in the city, and it’ll help him get ready for school next year.”
She kept her tone neutral. “That sounds like a good idea. I’ll send a recommendation if you need one. I know he’s still struggling with math, but he’s absolutely brilliant in English.”
“Science is a puzzle. He told me yesterday that his biology teacher says he knows more biology than any student he’s ever had. Then he told me that until he was twelve, he didn’t know that man had ever been in space. He can identify all the stars in the heavens, put a car engine together with his eyes closed and explain Darwin’s theories better than Darwin could. But he’s never heard of an ion, a proton, or a neutron.”
Elise wondered why they were talking about the peculiarities of Clay’s education when what they really needed to talk about was the fact that Sloane was leaving in less than a month. But the reason for the evasion wasn’t too mystifying. She suspected that he, too, didn’t want to face their parting.
She chose to continue talking about Clay. “Clay’s going to miss the friends he’s made here. I hope you’ll let him come visit Lillian from time to time.”
“Actually, he wants to stay and finish school here.”
She imagined the hurt behind his carefully guarded expression. She wanted to comfort him, but she knew there was little she could say. Even though Sloane and Clay had lived together for almost a year, they were still strangers in the most important ways. Sloane rarely discussed it, but Elise knew how much he yearned for his son’s love.
“Have you considered letting him stay?” she asked, reaching out to cover his hand with hers. “He could live with me if Lillian isn’t up to it.”
“I want him wi
th me.”
She nodded, relieved at his answer. Sloane wanted to continue trying to be a good father. He had no intention of giving up. “Good.”
“Maybe I’m wrong.”
“Maybe you’re not.” She laced her fingers with his and brought them to her cheek. “He needs you more than he needs to stay here.”
“I’m not sure Clay needs anybody. Except Amy, maybe.”
“Didn’t you need a father when you were Clay’s age?” she asked gently.
“I always needed a father.”
“Clay’s no different. He just doesn’t know how to let you know.”
“Sometimes I think I’d know what to do better if my own father had lived and I’d grown up with him.” It was a rare moment of vulnerability for Sloane, and Elise squeezed his hand in tribute.
“Hi, Elise.” Clay’s entrance was heralded by the clatter of his topsiders on the stairs. He headed straight for his father. “Can we pick Amy up on our way to the Inn? Mr. Cargil said she could leave at noon if she was finished, and she is.”
“I don’t know how she finished, considering the two of you spent most of the morning on the telephone. But I think we’re about ready to go.”
“I packed a picnic lunch.” Elise patted the basket, which she’d set on the table. “We can avoid the food at the Inn.”
Clay peeked under the napkin. “You made your own bread!”
“Just for you. I used your recipe.”
“And it made enough for an army,” Sloane guessed out loud. “It took Clay three months before he figured out how to cut down his granola recipe for the two of us. We were eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I gained three pounds.”
“If I flunk out of that fancy New England prep school you’re planning to send me to, I can always get a job as a cook in a health food restaurant,” Clay said.
“What’s this about a prep school?” Elise asked Clay.
“Sloane’s got his eye on the Ivy League.”
“Sloane?”
“You know,” Sloane teased, “one of those places where Clay’ll have to wear a coat and tie all day except when he’s out on the field in his rugby uniform.”
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