“Yes, next time we get cell reception I should.”
“He’ll be crazy to see you.”
“It’s good, though, to have a little separation. This trip has taught me that. I don’t want to smother him and it’s important that he learn independence. He’s fine without me and now he knows he’ll be fine without me. Most of the parenting books advocate adequate separation. That’s my guilty vice. I read a ton of those parenting books.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Mostly. Sometimes they contradict one another, and then what do you do? But they’re helpful. I lean on Ben a lot. He’s been wonderful and he adores Gordon. In the end, though, I’m a single parent. I wish Thomas could sit up and talk to me about discipline and a dozen other topics, but he can’t. So I read books when I have time.”
“Do you and Blake have similar parenting styles?”
“Oh, more or less. She may be a tiny bit more lenient than I am. I’m a tyrant. My grandma always said there is nothing worse than a poorly trained dog or child, and I think she may be right.”
“Let me pull over here and you can see if you have enough bars.”
Where were they? Margaret wondered as she dug in her purse for her cell phone. The fog had removed landmarks and made the entire day’s journey feel dreamy and unreal. Even now she could discern that they were parked near an overlook, but the fog joined with the clouds and held the afternoon light hostage. She pushed the button on her phone and stepped out of the car as she did so. She leaned against the rear fender and waited while the connection rang through to the farm. She watched Charlie move off down a small trail that apparently led to an overlook. He had the binoculars in his free hand.
“Hello,” she said when Gordon picked up. “Who is that on the phone?”
“Mom?” Gordon said.
“Hi, sweetheart. How are you doing? You home from school?”
“Mm-hmm,” he agreed.
“Is Grandpa Ben cooking dinner?”
“Not yet. He said he will later.”
“Good. Did you have a good treat?”
A good treat meant an apple or piece of fruit as opposed to a cookie. She listened while her son tried to think of a way to dodge the question.
“A cookie,” he said.
“Okay, but you’ll lose a star for that. It’s important to eat good food, right?”
She heard the phone move and guessed he had nodded.
“I’m going to be home tomorrow and I can’t wait to see you. I won’t make you a special dinner tomorrow night because I’ll be home too late to shop, but the night after . . . what would you like?”
“Shepherd’s pie,” he said instantly.
“Okay, shepherd’s pie it is. Will you help me mash the potatoes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how much I love you, sweetheart? I love you like corn,” she said, playing an old game with him.
“I love you like salt.”
“Like . . . potato chips with peanut butter.”
Then he was gone. Just like that. Either he had inadvertently hung up or the satellite connection had fuzzed out, but regardless of what happened he was gone. She considered trying to call back, but then figured there wasn’t any point. Ben would know she had called; Blake had doubtless told him the itinerary. Let it go, she told herself. Gordon is fine and the house is fine and you are fine, she reminded herself. She slipped the phone into her purse in the car, then followed Charlie’s track down toward the overlook.
And what happened next? She wondered that a thousand times afterward, but when she saw him standing beside a railing, his face staring down at the banks of fog spooling and purling away from the mountainside, she called him by her husband’s name.
“Tom?” she called and the word was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
A bright red wave of embarrassment torched her face. She saw him turn—and it had happened too quickly for him to conceal anything—and watched the hurt cross his face. It all passed in an instant, less than an instant, and yet it had crossed his features. It was natural, she told herself, to think of her husband after a call home. Her brain wires had merely crossed, and the form of a man standing in the fog, going to him, had somehow touched the wrong memory cord. No one could blame her for that and she felt their eyes meet, his expression going from shock and pain to understanding, and she shook her head, trying to make it all go away. He smiled. His wonderful, warm smile, and she felt tears fill her eyes and she would have done anything, anything at all, to erase the memory of his initial hurt, the flash of pain she had seen there. He said something, It’s okay, then a joke, No, I’m Charlie, and when she reached him he took her in his arms. But huddled next to his chest, the fog like a deep cloud around them, she knew something had slipped away, something had returned to remind them that all the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, could never put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
* * *
Charlie watched the redtail hawks float on the spring thermals above them. He had imagined they would run into redtails—they were predictable travelers, migrating merely by floating on wind that carried them northward—but he was pleased to see them anyway. He had never stood at elevation to watch them pass, however, and now, watching them float and glide by, their wingtips bent back with the uprising thermals, he took pleasure in their travel. He liked redtails; they had always been his father’s favorite bird. His dad had purchased a taxidermy redtail, its chest mottled and slightly jaundiced, its beak fiercely turned in stillness, and it had remained on the kitchen mantel for years. It was probably there still, Charlie thought, though he didn’t have a clear memory of it from his last trip home.
He lowered the binoculars and turned to check the rest stop ladies’ room. Margaret had disappeared a moment earlier, before he had spotted the hawks. As he trained the binoculars on the hawks again, watching them effortlessly hover in the wind, he remembered the look on her face when she called him Tom. How quickly things had changed by that small slip. It was not a big deal, they had both said, but underneath they understood that it was. It was the pebble in the shoe. Thomas was alive and she was a married woman, and the fact that she had called him, Charlie, by her husband’s name merely highlighted those central truths. That could not be erased or pushed to one side, and he could not think of the moment without wondering if Thomas had not been present for a moment in their company. Absurd, of course. Thomas lived in a bed near Bangor, Maine; he was not a phantom or shade who wafted in the foggy hollows of North Carolina like Hamlet’s father patrolling the battlements in Denmark. Yet how heavily his presence had suddenly asserted itself into their exchanges! Margaret had been drawn back to her world by her son’s voice, and in the fog for an instant he had reminded her of her husband. Charlie could not help thinking that all their words, all their passion, had been trumped by this small moment.
He put down his binoculars and called Terry.
“Hello, Charlie,” she said, her voice bright. “I was wondering when I would hear from you. How’s everything going?”
“It’s going great.”
“Are the rhododendrons out?”
“Maybe not in full force, but they’re here.”
“Where’s Margaret? Is she there with you?”
“Yes, but I thought I’d give you a call.”
“You okay? You sound a little punk.”
“No, I’m fine. We’re in North Carolina now. She’s going to fly out of Asheville tomorrow.”
“That makes sense. Then you can pop onto the interstate and make it home in a jiffy.”
“She’s a wonderful woman,” Charlie said.
“I think so, too. From the little time I spent with her, I really do.”
“I’ve fallen for her a little bit, you know? I guess you knew that would ha
ppen.”
Charlie heard Terry become still on the other end. She had been doing something—he heard water running, and something clink—but gradually the background noise ceased.
“Oh, Charlie,” she said. “I was afraid of this.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Charlie. Did something happen?”
“No, not really. I just kind of came up against a reminder that she’s married, that’s all. Nothing she did.”
“That was the risk going in, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I know.”
“What are we going to do with you, Charlie?”
“I’m okay. Just wanted to hear a friendly voice.”
“Will you come by tomorrow for dinner? You’ll be back in time, won’t you? The kids would love to see you and I’ll buy you a drink. How does that sound?”
“That sounds great, actually.”
“Okay, that’s a plan. Now, I hate to shoo you off, but I’m out the door and I’ve got to run. Keep your hands up, Charlie. Don’t lead with your chin.”
“Thanks, Terry.”
“You’re both good people, Charlie. Just keep that in mind.”
She clicked off. Charlie started to raise the binoculars again but paused when he saw Margaret crossing the parking lot toward him. His eyes met hers. Then it was there again, the former warmth, the woman he had taken to the French Embassy. He smiled and kept his eyes on hers. She smiled in return, and it was okay again, at least for this minute, for now, for the moment it took her to cross the last of the parking lot and step into his arms.
Chapter Twenty-two
It was the final perfection. Margaret sat up on her passenger seat and felt she couldn’t breathe for excitement. She turned and started to say something to Charlie, but he shook his head and shrugged and she decided she would not protest. Not now. She had never heard of it before, but the Inn on Biltmore Estate was the most dazzling residence she had ever seen in person. Charlie slowed to let her take it in. A thousand flowers, a million flowers stood scattered around the welcoming meadow. In the late afternoon light, the flowers nearly choked her with beauty. And the meadow, in turn, gave way to a gravel drive, and the drive then spread into the warm canvas-colored walls of the estate.
“Charlie . . . ,” she said, but she couldn’t stop looking.
“The Vanderbilts built it. It’s the biggest residence ever constructed in America, I think. It has wonderful grounds and hiking trails and we’re staying here.”
“In the house?” she asked, not quite believing it.
“No, that’s pretty much a museum, but there’s an associated inn on the grounds. Is it all too stuffy? I worried it might be.”
“Oh, Charlie, it’s amazing!”
“I wasn’t sure you would like a place like this, but the grounds are supposed to be wonderful . . . azaleas and tulips. This time of year, I suppose the flowers are changing. I’ve always wanted to visit it.”
“Charlie, it’s so extravagant! You’ve never been?”
“I drove past it once and promised myself I’d be back. That’s how I knew about it. This seems like the perfect occasion.”
Margaret felt her heart racing. How glorious and how gallant of him to find such a romantic hotel! Was it possible a small wedge of sun had worked itself free to send a single curtain of light across the building’s facade? The setting was beyond anything she could imagine. A building like this, she thought, could become a horrible tourist cliché, but a glance told her that the estate had escaped such a fate. The setting had kept it pure and lovely; the tall spires—it wanted to be a castle, she realized—gave it a grandeur that maintained its dignity. It resembled the castle at the beginning of the Disney program years ago, the one with Tinker Bell darting above, only this was real and present and situated perfectly on the land.
Charlie eased the Jeep forward, following signs for the inn. She unsnapped her seat belt and crawled on top of him.
“Thank you,” she said and kissed him, once, twice, fifty times.
“I wasn’t sure you would like it. It might be fussy.”
“Charlie, most women will like a thing like this no matter what,” she said, scrambling back into her seat.
“Cornelia Vanderbilt was born here, I think.”
“You’re extraordinary, Charlie, do you know that?”
Then they arrived, the Jeep’s tires crunching gravel. Margaret stared up at the enormous building. It required no imagination at all to picture horses arriving, old cars, carriages. The women would have worn long skirts, clothes from the early 1900s if she had it right, and the men in solid breeches and tweed jackets. And dogs. Dogs would have been everywhere, and workmen, too, everything bustling and gracious. She watched as the sun glinted off one of the glass panes; it blinked like a star. She suddenly felt absurdly, ridiculously underdressed, but there was no help for it.
“We have a reservation here, Charlie?” she asked when he pulled the Jeep into a slot. “Are you serious? Or is this some kind of a joke?”
“Looks like we do have a reservation. If we missed it somehow, I guess we’ll sleep in the car.”
“You’re crazy, Charlie. I can’t help you—”
He leaned over and kissed her to cut her off. She wanted to say something about the cost, about the ongoing expense, but what was there to say? In reality, she didn’t have the funds to cover their travel. She tried when she could to pass along a little money, but it was not an even contest. She closed her eyes and reminded herself to accept things, to not resist, to permit the world to bring things to her. That was what Blake would have advised.
A doorman came and handed her out. He was a young blond man, thin and slightly overwhelmed by his uniform, but he smiled broadly and tipped his hat. Again, she began to feel embarrassed about her clothing, and then she let that go, too. Who cared? She squared her shoulders and tried not to gawk like a complete tourist. But the residence was undeniably grand. Everywhere her eye fell, she discovered new details: a row of summer chairs under a long portico, a stone column made of granite, acres of rich, worn mulch lining the flower beds. It was all delicious. She wanted to see everything, to tour it all, but for now she stepped away from the car and let Charlie handle things.
And she liked—she freely admitted it to herself—to see Charlie’s command of the situation. Where Thomas might have been shy and deferential and ill at ease, where she would have felt she was imposing, Charlie moved with quiet assurance. The doorman who had handed her out inquired if they had more bags, and Charlie pointed to the back, allowing the doorman to empty the Jeep into a luggage cart. How simple it was, really, she decided, when you let people do what they were paid to do. Charlie was perfectly friendly and kind, but he did not try to help or to second-guess the doorman’s effort. He took her arm and led her inside, and Margaret snapped mental pictures of every detail.
“I love this kind of thing, Charlie,” she said. “I feel like I’ve stepped into a PBS movie . . . with Dame Judy Dench and a bunch of other vaguely identifiable stars. You should be wearing a top hat and I should have an Empire gown.”
“You’ll like this, then. But I suppose it’s Edwardian, isn’t it?”
“I guess. I want to know everything about this place.”
“Let’s check in, then we can poke around.”
They walked into a luscious lobby and Charlie moved confidently to check them in while the doorman tagged behind with their luggage cart. Margaret walked a slow tour of the lobby, letting her eye run over everything. The lobby had tall ceilings and bright windows everywhere, the expanse broken only by small seating islands for the guests. How wonderful, she thought, to spend their last night together here. It didn’t truly matter, because she had loved their night in a motel, too, but this was something special.
It struck her as she moved slowly around the lobby—a wood fire burning in the oversized chimney, its andirons fashioned like Hessian soldiers—that life with Charlie would be like this, filled with surprises and small moments of delight. He was not a show-off, and she didn’t believe he was rich, but he knew how to spend money in ways that brought pleasure. That was a talent, an enviable one, and she made a mental note to become more adept at it in her own life. Use money; don’t allow it to use you, she told herself. That was Charlie’s simple message.
“Ready?” he said when he finished with the desk clerk. “We have a nice room overlooking the back grounds. It has a small terrace. It’s called the King’s . . .”
Charlie glanced at the doorman.
“King’s Terrace Room,” the doorman supplied. He was just a young boy, Margaret saw now, underneath his formal uniform.
“Makes sense to me,” Charlie said.
They followed the young doorman through the inn. Margaret could not help thinking of Blake, how she would love seeing a place like this. At the same time, she cautioned herself against saying too much to Blake. Things were not going well with Donny, and to take too much pleasure in the details of the trip wouldn’t be fair. But she did wish Blake could see the lobby and the long hallway they followed to the King’s Terrace Room. It would have been a little orgy of details, each of them greedily marking things for further discussion. The upholstery, the glassware, the ashtray stand, the tiebacks holding the thick folds of gray-green material in tiny fists. How lovely it all was; how much care had been lavished on the smallest elements of the inn. She tried to observe everything.
As soon as the doorman pushed back the door to their room, she spotted the tiny terrace, the sweet fountain table set up overlooking the gray grounds. She couldn’t help passing by the doorman and Charlie and opening the French doors that communicated to the terrace. How sweet! She turned and smiled at Charlie as he passed a bill to the young doorman—how did he know what to give as a tip, she wondered, how did he know how to do these things so effortlessly?—and she walked into his arms.
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