Come Pour the Wine

by Cynthia Freeman

  “Let’s not plan.”

  “You’re right. We’ll just do, as they say, what comes naturally….”

  On Saturday morning Janet said, “I’d like to go home … with you. Your ship doesn’t sail until midnight on Sunday. Would you like that?”

  “Need you ask?”

  “I’m anxious for you to meet my closest friends and, of course, my daughter. Unfortunately Jason’s away on a job in Arizona. I wanted so much for the two of you to meet. Well, one can’t have everything, can one?”

  “Not everything, but more than enough, Janet, if one really wants it. Dreams can’t come true, sayeth the sage, unless you decide to make them reality. Well, this lucky one has so decided …

  Allan drove Janet’s car into the driveway and turned off the motor. Coming around to her side, he helped her out. She stood there for a moment, lost in the past, then she looked closely at Allan. Her Westchester home seemed more beautiful today than even the first time she and Bill saw it together. She’d been so frightened he wouldn’t buy it, and secretly she knew he hadn’t wanted to … Do you like it, Bill? … It’s really for you, Janet … a house is a woman’s domain …

  Quickly she took Allan by the hand, walked up to the front door and unlocked it….

  Allan clearly adored the house. It was everything he expected, as were Kit and Nat, who couldn’t have been more gracious from the moment they walked in to meet him.

  Nicole, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more reserved, though Mark’s warmth made up for her aloofness—which sat poorly with Nicole. The idea of Allan Blum staying overnight in her mother’s house didn’t seem to faze Mark in the least … well, it did her.

  She was even more upset when Mark drew her aside and said, “You seem to have forgotten how it was your mother who came to our defense when we went off to Europe that summer—”

  “True, but I’d say this is slightly different.”

  “How so?”

  “Mark! This happens to be my mother. Don’t you see the difference?”

  “No, except that you’re acting more like a fluttery mother than a daughter. Put it another way … you’re more than a little like your protective father. Why isn’t your mother entitled to do what you and I did? Or he did … ?”

  “Because she’s an older woman and she’s my mother, damn it, and I don’t like it and I don’t want to talk about it—”

  “Well, I think maybe you should. You can’t use one set of standards for yourself and another for your mother. It doesn’t exactly make sense. Last I heard, she was over twenty-one and—”

  “Mark … I don’t want to talk about it—”

  “Why? You still want your mother to be some tower of virtue, your eternal virginal mother? Well, darling, you just don’t have the right to lay that kind of thing on her. She deserves a little—”

  “I told you I don’t want to talk about it …”

  Mark suspected, though, that what Nicole really was upset about was that now her mother and father wouldn’t get back together. Allan Blum was a threat to getting her parents back, and for her mother to have anything to do with him was to make her darn near some sort of scarlet woman … a betrayer of her father. Daughters and fathers … well, he certainly would stay off that subject with her …

  After everyone had left, Janet took Allan by the hand and led him down the hall to her bedroom.

  He looked about the room, then at the bed.

  “When Bill and I divorced I sold all the old furniture. It seemed too painful a reminder of … anyway, Allan, you, sir, are the first man to sleep in this bed.”

  He smiled … she’d read his mind. He sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to make love in a bed that held any memory of her former husband….

  Next morning Janet took special pleasure in watching Allan through the kitchen window as he dove into the pool. His body was firm and slim. Not an ounce of flab. He looked as good as he had felt to her the night before …

  She basted the chicken with the marsala wine, added fresh mushrooms, then went to the bedroom and changed into her bikini.

  They splashed about the pool and raced each other the length of it and back like a couple of kids.

  He got out first, then helped her up over the side.

  “Did you ever try scuba diving?” he asked.

  “No, never. Is it exciting?”

  “Unbelievably. That’s just one of the things I intend to do on this trip.”

  For a while they lay on the pool chaises, letting the sun warm their bodies. They held hands, content just to be near each other, but Allan couldn’t help his thoughts from returning again and again to what her answer would be. So far she had said nothing about going with him. The decision, of course, had to be hers alone or it couldn’t possibly work out. No prodding, no pleading. It had to be that way.

  “It’s noon. How’s the old appetite?” she asked.

  “Like a lumberjack’s.”

  “Okay, let’s go get changed and have at it.”

  Janet wheeled out the chicken and salad on a tea cart as Allan opened a bottle of extra dry white wine. They sat quietly, lunching and enjoying the peace of the summer afternoon.

  “I love this house. I guess maybe it was always more mine than Bill’s. He hated it … and now it’s as though he never lived here. I mean, he’s just no longer a part of this house, if that makes any sense.”

  “It makes a lot of sense. Especially to me.”

  Taking a sip of wine, Janet asked, “How long did you say you’d be away?”

  “I don’t know, darling. For as long as it takes. This is the kind of thing you have to play by ear. That’s sort of the whole point of it.”

  “Allan … I’ve thought about us.”

  “I hoped you had.”

  “Well, I’ve done more than think. I’ve watched you, watched us … I’ve decided … I want to live with you … I mean really live with you … permanently.”

  He closed his eyes … Thank God, it had been uphill, but he’d made it. They’d made it …

  He got up and kissed her. “Janet, I promise you this … I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make sure you’re never sorry.”

  “And I’ll try to do the same for you …” She looked away for a moment, then … “Allan, what in the world do I tell the children?”

  “The truth … it’s not exactly a sin to be in love. Even if we are over forty.”

  Janet called Nicole and asked her to come over, said there was something important they needed to talk about….

  When Nicole arrived she was more than relieved that Allan Blum wasn’t there. Sitting on the sofa, she watched her mother, who seemed enormously happy. Still, there was a peculiar knock in her pregnant tummy … she just couldn’t accept that Allan Blum had slept with … “You said there was something important to talk about …”

  Janet smiled uneasily. “Darling, I never thought that this would ever possibly happen to me again, but a kind of miracle has happened to your mother … It seems I’ve been given that much talked about second chance at life. Now don’t laugh, but it’s true … I’m in love, Nicole, and I’m going to take it as a rare gift … I’m going away with Allan Blum tonight. We’re taking a—”

  “You mean you’re just going off with a stranger? Just like that … ?”

  “He’s not a stranger. Not anymore.”

  “He is to me, and he always will be.”

  “If you’ll forgive me, dear, I think your attitude is a little unfair. I know this seems sudden, and it may be confusing to you, but—”

  “No, I think you’re the one who’s a little confused, mother. I feel this is … do you want the truth?”

  “I’m sure I can depend on you to give it to me, dear.”

  “Well, I don’t think what you’re saying is love is love at all. It’s just more of the same sort of thing that happened to daddy, only delayed a little … Now it’s you trying to recapture your youth. If this Allan Blum is so important to you, why d
on’t you get married, for God’s sake?”

  Janet had always known that Nicole hoped she and Bill would remarry. Now she was just showing her disappointment, and in the process making Allan the scapegoat … But she couldn’t help but be struck by the irony of the situation, her daughter the righteous one, the pillar of convention … she, the mother, the naughty rebel, for God’s sake. Talk about your signs of the times, or was it really a new kind of prejudice … youth against the notion that older people—especially parents—could actually talk about love, especially the act of love … as though it were the exclusive domain of the young and innocent. Well, my darling daughter, much as I love you, I’m just going to have to take my chances of incurring your stern disapproval. I’m going to go on living, my way, on my terms … It was a speech she would have liked to have given out loud, but she thought now was a bit premature. Nicole was upset, so what she said in an even tone was, “Darling, I don’t want to get married just now for some of the same reasons you didn’t want to marry Mark in the beginning. And I really do have as much right to my choice as you did, dear. And Nicole, I would like to suggest that love isn’t shameful or sinful, not at any age.”

  Unable to cope with her mother’s remarks, Nicole came back with, “You can rationalize anything, mother. But I still say a woman your age living with a man is … You know, I have to say this in dad’s behalf … at least he keeps his little romances discreetly hidden behind his closed door … My God, mother, what will people think?”

  Janet couldn’t resist the answer. “I know it’s a bit corny, Nicole … but frankly, my dear, I really don’t give a damn.”

  The humor of it sailed high over Nicole’s outraged, dismayed sensibilities … Only just last week her father had asked her, “Do you think there’s maybe at least a chance your mother might consider coming back to me?” And she’d said … “If you really went after her, I’m almost positive.” And when he’d asked, “You really think she still might care for me?” she’d told him, “Oh, daddy, of course she does …”

  Her poor father. It was so unfair, he’d hoped and tried but now she knew there was simply nothing else she could do to try and persuade her mother that this thing with Allan Blum would have to lead to disaster …

  “I never thought I’d say this to you, mother, but I don’t see what else I can do … What’s going to happen when you come home? And you’ll have to, you know, sooner or later. In more ways than one. Suppose it lasts … is he going to move in and the two of you live here … ?” Her anger building, she repeated, or rather amended, “If it lasts … how will you feel having to explain living openly with a man to your grandchildren, knowing they have a real grandfather … can you answer me that?”

  Good Lord, Nicole, you sound like a prig … Once again, reversing roles, mother sounding like daughter … “I’ll handle it, Nicole, when the time comes. Honey, be happy for me, please. I really do love this man.”

  “I also remember you really did love dad a whole lot—”

  Janet’s patience was getting a bit thin. “Nicole, be sensible. I think you’re getting slightly confused. Of course I loved your father, but he left me. It wasn’t, you know, the other way around. And thank God, Nicole, that human beings seem to have the capacity to love more than once. What a world it would be if we couldn’t. I want your blessing, darling … Believe me, I know this is right. I’d like you to respect my feelings, the way I’ve tried to respect yours.”

  Nicole fought back the tears, then slowly put her arms around her mother. “I hope you’re right, I only hope you really do know what you’re doing. I just don’t want you to be hurt anymore … I love you, mother.”

  “I love you too, darling … and thank you. Thank you …”

  When Nicole went home after her emotional bout with her mother, she sat in her living room, watching her father play with his grandson, tossing the little boy into midair, delighting in his squeals of laughter. “Again, grandpa.”

  “That’s enough, Gerald,” she said.

  “One more time, mommy.”

  “All right, but just once. You’re wearing your grandfather out.”

  “Who says? Hey, buddy, your mother seems to think we’re a couple of old men. Come on, fellow, up you go.”

  After Gerald had been put down for his nap, Nicole came back and found her father sitting in his favorite chair. He seemed to be born to his new role. “You know, Nicole, I’m sure glad you’re raising your children in the country. It’s the only way. Gerald’s healthy, brown as a berry, and swims like a fish. Damn, he sure is a handsome little guy … in fact, I’d say he looks just like your mother, wouldn’t you?”

  If Nicole hadn’t been so rattled at this moment, she might well have at least been tempted to remind her father that one of his biggest complaints had been Westchester … he seemed to have forgotten all that, when it came to his grandson … But the mention of her mother made the thought unimportant, frivolous. Her very pregnant stomach did somersaults as she wondered how to tell him … God, where did she find the right words?

  Her silence was so abrupt Bill wondered if she were having premature labor pains. “You feel okay, Nicole?”

  She wanted to cry. “I’m really fine … physically, that is.”

  “Which I take it means you have something momentous on your mind? You can tell me anything, you know that.”

  Anything but this … “I know, daddy … but some things are more difficult than others—”

  “Well, come on, we’ve shared a lot together. If you’re having a little problem with Mark, remember I’ve been there, that even the best marriage has its ups and—”

  “It’s not Mark or … I just don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “Look, princess, whatever’s on your mind, it’s got to help to talk about it.”

  She braced herself, and said, “Daddy … mother’s … involved … she says she’s in love and …”

  His shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes and ran his hand across his forehead. “I think I’ll have a drink. Can I get you anything?”

  She shook her head.

  He sat down in his not-so-favorite chair at the moment and took a long swallow. “Well … I guess that was inevitable. Your mother’s a beautiful woman … still young and, God knows, desirable … It’s that Allan Blum, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Did she say when they were getting married?”

  “They’re not,” Nicole said, wincing.

  “They’re not? But you said they were in love—”

  “True, but she says she doesn’t ever want to marry again …” And now Nicole had begun to cry and ramble, as though she were speaking to herself. “I literally prayed that the two of you would remarry … I know you still mean a lot to her … I just can’t see her … well, you know what I mean …”

  He damn well did know what Nicole meant. It was far more difficult for him to visualize her with this Blum or any other man the way she and he had once been together … “Except you’ve got to remember, Nicole, that apparently your mother’s in love with this man … remember how it was with you and Mark.” He was really talking to himself as much as to his daughter.

  “I know, daddy, but that just seems so different from this. Besides, I was so sure of your relationship … the two of you are so close that I have to remind myself you’re not married … Daddy, how much do you love mother, really?”

  “All I can say is, I always have … I always will.” (Even though it might have been hard to tell from his actions.)

  “Then why don’t you try to stop her … fight for her?”

  Kit had asked that question a long time ago in a hospital room … I love her, Kit … Then fight for her, Bill. But this was different. This was someone else’s ballgame. If Janet was ready to give herself to this man … “I can’t fight for her, Nicole … I don’t have that right any longer.”

  Showing more anger than she intended, Nicole said, “Right? All’s fair in love and war and if you real
ly cared about your grandchildren you’d try to keep another man from coming into their lives, our lives … My God, don’t you see what this will do to our family? Can you imagine spending the holidays with this … this man sitting at our table?”

  “I imagine your mother must have thought about that.”

  “You’re being damned placid about this, taking it remarkably calm for someone who just last week was wondering if she still cared for him …”

  “Nicole, please … don’t carry on like this in your condition … it’s not good for you—”

  “Carry on! You want me to stay calm, knowing my mother’s going to live openly with a man? You know something? I think you’re glad … it’s like letting you off the hook.”

  Bill bit his lower lip, got up and poured himself another drink. Sitting opposite his daughter, he said, “You’re wrong, Nicole. For quite a long while now I’ve even been trying to get up the nerve to ask your mother to remarry me, and it just might have worked, because for the first time in my whole damn life I’m ready to make a total commitment to someone, to belong to someone … I can admit that I need that. But like most of my life, I’m in the right place at the wrong time … When I said I didn’t have the right to interfere in your mother’s life, it was because I’ve lost that right. Knowing her the way I do I also know she wouldn’t take this step … unless she loved the man. And I’m not going to be the one—not again—to louse up her life. I’ll just have to live with the fact that I left the best woman I’ll ever know … If I’d had the brains I have now things would have been different, but it took a few million hours of psychiatry to make me understand myself, and my damn fears … too bad it happened too late. Anyway, Nicole, be happy for your mother. She deserves it. As for me, it may be tough but I’m going to try to accept this man … not for him, but because it’s the least I can do to make up for all the years she lived alone on account of me.”

  Nicole was shaking her head. “You know, I guess I have the most incredible parents in the world.”

  “Your mother is, anyway … And now, baby, if you’ll excuse me, it seems I’m a little beat, after all….”