“I assume for a twelve-year-old that time?” Gray snapped, feeling angry on her behalf. It sounded like a rotten deal to him, knowing what he knew of her now, that she had gone to New York after that, penniless with two kids, and no help from him.
“No, the last one was twenty-two. Old for him. I was also nineteen when we got married, and an art student in Paris. The last two were models.”
“Does he see your kids?”
She hesitated in answer to the question, and then shook her head. The answer seemed painful for her. “No, he saw them twice in nine years, which was hard for them. And he died last year. It leaves a lot of things unresolved for my kids, about what they meant to him, if anything. And it was sad for me. I loved him, but with narcissists, that's just the way it is. In the end, the only ones they love are themselves. They just don't have it in them to love anyone else.” It was a simple statement of fact. Her tone was regretful but not bitter.
“I think I've known women like that.” He didn't even try to explain to her the level of insanity he had tolerated in his love life. It would have been impossible to try and she probably would have laughed at him, just as everyone else did. Insanity in his home life was all too familiar to him. “And you never wanted to try again, with someone else?” He knew he was being nosy, but had the feeling she didn't mind. She was remarkably honest and open about herself, and he admired that. One had the feeling there were no dark secrets, no hidden agendas, no confusion in her head about what she felt or wanted or believed. Although inevitably, there were probably scars. Everyone had them at their age, no one was exempt.
“No. I've never wanted to marry again. At my age, I don't see the point. I don't want more children, not my own at least. I wouldn't mind someone else's kids. Marriage is a venerable institution, and I believe in it, for those purposes anyway. I just don't know if I believe in it anymore for myself. Probably not. I don't think I'd have the guts to do it again. I lived with a man for six years, after my divorce. He was an extraordinary person, and an amazing artist, a sculptor. He suffered from severe depression and refused to take medication. He was basically an alcoholic, and his life was a mess. I loved him anyway, but it was impossible. More impossible than I can tell you.” She fell silent after she said it, and he watched her face. There was something agonizing lurking there, and he wanted to know what it was. He sensed that in order to know her, he needed to know the rest.
“You left him?” He was cautious with the words, as they approached the church.
“No, I didn't. I probably should have. Maybe he would have stopped drinking then, or taken his medication, or maybe not. It's hard to say.” She sounded peaceful and sad, as though she had accepted a terrible tragedy and inevitable loss.
“He left you?” Gray couldn't imagine anyone doing that to her, and surely not twice. But there were strange people in the world, who lost opportunities, sabotaged themselves, and destroyed lives. There was nothing you could do about it. He had learned that himself over the years.
“No, he committed suicide,” Sylvia said quietly, “three years ago. It took me a long time to get over it, and accept what happened, and it was hard when Jean-Marie, the children's father, died last year. The loss brought some of it back, grief does that, I think. But it happened, I couldn't change it, no matter how much I loved him. He just couldn't do it anymore, and I couldn't do it for him. That's a hard thing to make your peace with.” But he could hear in her voice that she had. She had been through a lot, and come out the other end. He knew just looking at her that she was a woman determined to survive. He wanted to put his arms around her and give her a hug, but he didn't know her well enough. And he didn't want to intrude on her grief. He had no right to do that.
“I'm sorry,” he said softly, with all the emotion he felt. With all the insane women he'd been involved with who turned every moment into a drama, here was a sane one who had lived through real tragedy and had refused to let it destroy her. If anything, she had learned from it and grown.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him, as they walked into the church. They sat quietly for a long time, and then walked around the church, inside and out. It was a beautiful structure from the twelfth century, and she pointed things out to him that he had never seen before, although he'd been there many times. It was another two hours before they walked slowly down to the port.
“What are your children like?” he asked with curiosity. It was interesting to think of her as a mother, she seemed so independent and so whole. He suspected she was a good mother, although he didn't like thinking of her that way. He preferred to think of her as he knew her, just as his friend.
“Interesting. Smart,” she said honestly, and sounded proud, which made him smile. “My daughter is a painter, studying in Florence. My son is a scholar of the history of ancient Greece. In some ways he's like his father, but he has a kinder heart, thank God. My daughter inherited his talent, but nothing else from that side of the gene pool. She's a lot like me. She could run the world, and maybe will. I hope she'll take the gallery over one day, but I'm not sure she ever will. She has her own life to lead. But genetics are an amazing thing. I see both of us in them, mixed in with who they are themselves. But the history and the ancestry are always there, even in the flavors of ice cream they like, or the colors they prefer. I have a great respect for genetics, after bringing up two kids. I'm not sure that anything we do as parents actually makes a difference, or even influences them.”
They stopped at a small café then, and he invited her to have coffee with him. They sat down, and she turned the tables on him again. “What about you? Why no wife and kids?”
“You just said it. Genetics. I'm adopted, I have no idea who my parents were, or what I'd be passing on. I find that terrifying. What if there's an ax murderer somewhere in my ancestry? Do I really want to burden someone else with that? Besides, my life was insane when I was a child. I grew up thinking childhood was a singular kind of curse. I couldn't do that to someone else.” He told her a little about his childhood then. India, Nepal, the Caribbean, Brazil, the Amazon. It read like an atlas of the world, while being parented by two people who had no idea what they were doing, were burnt out on drugs, and finally found God. It was a lot to explain over two cups of espresso, but he did his best, and she was intrigued.
“Well, somewhere in your history, there must have been a very talented artist. That wouldn't be such a bad thing to pass on.”
“God knows what else there is though. I've known too many crazy people all my life, my parents and most of the women I've been involved with. I wouldn't have wanted a child with any of them.” He was being totally honest with her, just as she had been with him.
“That bad, huh?” She smiled at him. He hadn't told her anything that had frightened her. All she felt was deep compassion for him. He had had a tough life as a kid, and had complicated things for himself, by choice, ever since. But the beginning hadn't been his choice. It had been destiny's gift to him.
“Worse.” He grinned at her. “I've been doing heavy rescue work all my life. God knows why. I thought it was my mission in life, to atone for all my sins.”
“I used to think so too. My sculptor friend was a bit of that. I wanted to make everything right for him, and fix everything, and in the end, I couldn't. You never can, for someone else.” Like him, she had learned that the hard way. “It's interesting how, when people treat us badly, we then feel responsible, and take on their guilt. I've never really understood it, but it seems to work that way,” she said wisely. It was obvious that she had given the subject considerable thought.
“I've been beginning to get that myself,” he said ruefully. It was embarrassing to admit how dysfunctional the women in his life had been, and that after all he'd done for them, almost without exception they had left him for other people. In a slightly less extreme way, Sylvia's experience wasn't so different from his. But she sounded healthier than he felt.
“Are you in therapy?” she asked openly, as she
would have asked him if he'd been to Italy before. He shook his head.
“No. I read a lot of self-help books, and I'm very spiritual. I've paid for about a million hours of therapy for the women I've been involved with. It never occurred to me to go myself. I thought I was fine, and they were nuts. Maybe it was the other way around. You have to ask yourself at some point why you get involved with people like that. You can't get anything decent out of it. They're just too fucked up.” He smiled and she laughed. She had come to the same conclusion herself, which was why she hadn't had a serious relationship since the sculptor committed suicide.
She had taken about two years to sort it out, working on it intensely in therapy. She had even gone on a few dates in the past six months, once with a younger artist who was a giant spoiled brat, and twice with men who were twenty years older than she was. But after the dates she realized she was past that now, and a twenty-year age difference was just too much. Men her age wanted women younger than she was. Then she had had a number of very unfortunate blind dates. For the moment, she had decided that she was better off by herself. She didn't like it, and she missed sleeping with someone, and having someone to curl up to at night. With her children gone, the weekends were agonizingly lonely, and she felt too young to just give up. But she and her therapist were exploring the possibility that maybe no one else would come along, and she wanted to be all right with it. She didn't want someone turning her life upside down again. Relationships seemed too complicated, and solitude too hard. She was at a crossroads in her life, neither young nor old, too old to settle for the wrong man, or one who was too difficult, and too young to accept being alone for the rest of her life, but she realized now that that could happen. It frightened her somewhat, but so did another tragedy or disaster. She was trying to live one day at a time, which was why there was no man in her life, and she was traveling with friends. She said it all as simply as possible to Gray, and managed not to sound pathetic, desperate, needy, or confused. She was just a woman trying to figure out her life, and perfectly capable of taking care of herself while she did. He sat staring at her for a long time as he listened, and shook his head.
“Does that sound too awful, or slightly insane?” she asked him. “Sometimes I wonder about myself.” She was so agonizingly honest with him, both strong and vulnerable at the same time, which knocked him off his feet. He had never known anyone like her, neither man nor woman, and all he wanted was to know more.
“No, it doesn't sound awful. It sounds hard, but real. Life is hard and real. You sound incredibly sane to me. Saner than I am, surely. And don't even ask about the women I've gone out with, they're all in institutions somewhere by now, where they belonged when I met them. I don't know what made me think I could play God, and change everything that had happened to them, most of which they did to themselves. I don't know why I thought I deserved that torture, but it stopped being fun a long time ago. I just can't do it anymore, I'd rather be alone.” He meant it, particularly after what he had just heard from her. Solitude was a lot better than being with the lunatics he'd been with. It was lonely, but at least it was sane. He admired her for what she was doing, and learning, and wanted to follow her example. She was a role model of health and normalcy to him. As he listened, he didn't know if he wanted her as his woman, or just his friend. Either one sounded good to him. She was beautiful, as he sat and looked at her, but above all, he valued her friendship. “Maybe we could go to a movie sometime when we get back to New York,” he suggested cautiously.
“I'd like that,” she said comfortably. “I warn you, though, I have lousy taste in movies. My kids won't even go with me. I hate foreign films and art films, sex, violence, sad endings, or gratuitous bullshit. I like movies I understand, with happy endings, that make me laugh and cry and stay awake. If you have to ask what it meant when you walk out, take someone else, not me.”
“Perfect. We'll watch old I Love Lucy reruns, and rent Disney movies. You bring the popcorn, I'll rent the films.”
“You've got a deal.” She grinned at him. He walked her back to the hotel then, and when he left her, he hugged her and thanked her for a wonderful morning in her company.
“Are you really leaving tomorrow?” he asked, looking worried. He wanted to see her again, before they both left Portofino. Otherwise, in New York. He could hardly wait to call her when he got back. He had never met a woman like her, not one he had been willing to talk to. He'd been too busy rescuing women to ever bother looking for one who could be his friend. And Sylvia Reynolds was that person. At fifty, in Portofino, it seemed crazy even to him, but he felt as though he had found the woman of his dreams. He had no idea what she'd say if he shared that piece of information with her. Probably run like hell, and call the police. He wondered if he had caught a good case of insanity from the women he'd gone out with, or had always been as crazy as they. Sylvia wasn't crazy. She was beautiful and smart, vulnerable, honest, and real.
“We are leaving tomorrow,” she said quietly, sad to leave him too, which made her somewhat nervous. Although she'd told her therapist she was ready to meet someone, now that she had, all she wanted to do was run away before she got hurt again. But she also wanted to see him one more time before she did. There was a strange push-me-pull-you going on in her head as she smiled at him. “We're going to Sardinia for the weekend, and then I have to go to Paris to see some artists. After that, I'm spending a week in Sicily with my kids. I'll be back in New York in two weeks.”
“I'll be back in about three,” he said, beaming as he looked at her. “I think we'll be in Sardinia this weekend too. That's where we're going after this.” As soon as she left Portofino, he wanted to leave too, if Charles and Adam were willing.
“Well, that's a stroke of good fortune,” she said, smiling at him, feeling young again. “Why don't the three of you join us for dinner in the port tonight? Good pasta and bad wine, not the kind of stuff you and the others are used to.”
“Don't be too impressed. If you come to dinner at my place, I'll serve you the rotgut I usually drink myself.”
“I'll bring the wine.” She grinned at him. “You cook. I'm a rotten cook.”
“Good. It's nice to know there's something you can't do. I'm told I'm a halfway decent cook. Pasta, tacos, burritos, goulash, meat loaf, salad, peanut butter and jelly, pancakes, scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese. That's it.”
“Pancakes. I love pancakes. I always burn them. No one will ever eat them.” She laughed, and he smiled at the prospect of cooking for her.
“Perfect. I Love Lucy, and pancakes. What kind of ice cream for dessert? Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Mint chocolate chip, mountain blackberry, or banana walnut,” she said confidently. She was beginning to like the way it felt being with him. It was scary, but nice, all at the same time. The roller coaster of life. She hadn't been on it in a long time, and realized now how much she had missed it. She hadn't seen a man who had appealed to her in years. This one did.
“Oh, Jesus. Designer ice cream. What's wrong with Rocky Road?”
“I'll bring the ice cream and the wine, if you're going to be that way about it.”
“And don't forget the popcorn!” he reminded her. It wasn't going to be fancy, but he knew it was going to be good. Anything he did with her would be, like going to San Giorgio that day. It had been very good. “What time's dinner tonight?” he asked as he hugged her again. It was just a friendly hug, nothing that would scare her or commit them to more than an easy dinner at his place. The rest was to be discovered and decided at some later date, if it felt right to both of them. He hoped it would.
“Nine-thirty, at Da Puny. See you then.” She smiled easily and waved, and then disappeared into the hotel. He walked down to the port with a spring in his step, where the tender and a crew member were waiting for him. He smiled all the way back to the boat, and was still smiling when Charlie saw him as he came on board. It was one o'clock by then, and they were waiting for lunch with him.
&nbs
p; “That was a long time to spend in church with a woman you barely know,” Charlie commented mischievously, as he looked at his old friend. “Did you propose?”
“I probably should have, but I blew it. Besides, she has two kids, and you know how I hate kids.” Charlie laughed at his response, and didn't take him seriously.
“They're not kids, they're grown-ups. Besides, she lives in New York, and they live in Italy and England. I think you're safe.”
“Yeah, maybe. But kids are kids, whatever age.” Family scenes were not his thing, as Charlie knew. Gray told him then about the dinner invitation for that night, and it appealed to all of them, as Adam eyed him more carefully than Charlie had.
“Is something going on with you two?” Adam looked suspicious, and Gray pretended to be amused. He wasn't ready to share it with them. Nothing had happened. He just liked her, and he hoped that she liked him. There was nothing to say.
“I wish. She's got great legs, but one fatal flaw, from what I can see.”
“What's that?” Charlie asked with interest. Flaws in women always fascinated him. He was obsessed with them himself.
“She's sane. Not my type, I fear.”
“Yeah. I knew that,” Adam agreed.
Gray told them then that the group was leaving for Sardinia the following day, which also appealed to all of them. Portofino was delightful, but they all agreed it would be less amusing once the others left. Charlie suggested they move on that night after dinner, and travel through the night. If they left by midnight, they could be in Sardinia the following night in time for dinner. It would be fun to see the same group again in Porto Cervo, and would make for a great weekend. And in case he changed his mind, it gave Adam another shot at Sylvia's niece. But even without that, they enjoyed all the others in the group. It was a great mix.
Charlie told the captain their plan, and he agreed to organize the crew. Night crossings were easier for the passengers, but harder on the crew. But they did it frequently. The captain said he'd sleep while Charlie and his guests were out for dinner, and leave as soon as they came on board again. And they'd be in Sardinia well in time for dinner the next day.
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