Golden Vows

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Dane looked up, his gaze brushing Amanda in unconcern. “She’s a long way from that, Martha. Amanda just needs a jug of your cider and some tender loving care.”

  Meeting his eyes with a lift of her brow, Amanda wondered at the teasing quality of his voice that wasn’t really like teasing at all. “I draw the line at a jug of cider,” she said, trying to imitate his tone. “If I can’t sip it from an eighteenth-century teacup then I’d rather do without.”

  “You can borrow mine anytime, Amanda,” Martha said, “but you’ve got it wrong. You’re supposed to sip cider from a sieve.”

  Amanda released a soft laugh from her tight throat. “That can’t be right, Martha.”

  “You’re both wrong.” Dane straightened in his chair as if he were going to impart a priceless gem of wisdom. “I believe the correct adage is sipping champagne from a slipper which is an old tradition for bridegrooms on their wedding day.”

  “Humph!” Martha indicated her opinion. “I can’t believe that any man would be so besotted he’d drink champagne or anything else from a shoe. You didn’t do anything so silly on your wedding day, did you?”

  His brown eyes met her blue ones in silent reminiscence and Amanda’s lips trembled with the longing to smile.

  “Certainly not,” he said without breaking the moment of shared memory. “I certainly never drank champagne from Amanda’s slipper.”

  Only because he’d spilled it halfway to his lips, Amanda remembered. And, unbidden, she remembered, too, the carefree way she’d giggled ... until he had stilled her laughter with sipping kisses and the softly suggestive observation that no amount of champagne could compete with the intoxication of loving her.

  Slowly, almost painfully, her lips curved upward to match his seemingly effortless smile.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you two smiling for a change. You’ve both been so solemn this afternoon that I was beginning to think I’d have to give you a good talking to.”

  At Martha’s words Amanda jerked free of Dane’s gaze and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the tiny smile from fading too fast. Somewhere in her heart she heard and echoed Dane’s deep sigh.

  He stood and paced to the wall of bookshelves. Although she wasn’t watching, Amanda knew the precise moment he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and turned to face Martha. “It’s too late for lectures. Amanda and I are getting a divorce.”

  It was a cold, hard fact delivered in an impersonal tone that robbed the words of importance and left no room for argument. Exactly the way she had expected him to say it.

  Amanda stared down at her trembling hands. Exactly the way she’d secretly hoped he wouldn’t be able to say it. Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze to Martha.

  The vivacious, laughter-wrinkled face grew old as Martha struggled with Dane’s simple announcement. “Oh, no,” she said in a voice that grated with emotion. “I don’t believe it. That couldn’t happen to you and Amanda.”

  “It has already happened.” Dane walked to the rocker where Martha sat and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. You’ve been telling me for years that she’d get enough of my foolishness and leave me one of these days.”

  With a frown Martha turned to glare up at him, obviously as taken aback by his flippant words as was Amanda. “I never believed she’d do it though,” Martha snapped. “What’s wrong with you, Dane? This is not something you joke about.”

  He withdrew his hand from her shoulder. “It isn’t? All right, I’m open to suggestions. What is the proper way to discuss the subject?”

  Anger seeped through Amanda and she wanted to berate his callous attitude. But she couldn’t be sure her voice wouldn’t convey a world of regrets rather than the composure she wanted. Much better to avoid talking to him at all. “Martha?” she queried softly and waited for the green eyes to focus on her. “I know what a shock this is for you and I’m sorry there wasn’t a way to make it easier.”

  “Sorry!” Martha scoffed. She stood, placing her hands on her hips and turning an admonishing stare to Dane. “And I suppose you’re sorry too! Well, don’t think you have any reason to apologize to me. Either one of you! I never thought you could do something so foolish, Dane.” The stare swung to Amanda. “Or you either, for that matter.”

  Amanda felt suddenly awkward and guilty, as if she’d left twenty of her twenty-eight years on the doorstep. She sought for something to bridge the gap and return her to equal footing with the older woman. “It’s just one of those things.”

  “Fools!” Martha interrupted gruffly. “Damn fools! Both of you.”

  “Martha, leave her alone.” Dane’s command altered the tension immediately and bridged the gap for Amanda. “The decision is made. Amanda could use your support, not this pointless castigation. As I said, she needs your tender loving care now.”

  “And what about your promise to give her tender loving care? A promise that was supposed to last a lifetime. What about that?”

  “Nothing lasts forever,” he answered with a shrug. “Circumstances change. People change. Some promises aren’t made to be kept.”

  Amanda tried not to show any surprise at his casual answer, but she couldn’t curb the hurt that wove through her. She felt Martha’s sharp look and forced herself to meet it. Searchingly, with slicing perception, the gaze examined her before sliding back to Dane with angry challenge.

  “That’s a namby-pamby excuse,” Martha said tightly. “You’ve hardly been married long enough to know the meaning of a lasting promise ... and to quit! Give up without a fight! I expected better from you both. How can you even consider such a thing?”

  “We’re not considering a divorce, Martha,” Dane interrupted her tirade with firm insistence. “The decision is made. Nothing you say can change that. Please accept our decision and give Amanda the support she needs.”

  Amanda’s feeling of hurt gave way to irritation that he again referred to her need for support and pointedly ignored his own. If he felt the need for support at all.

  “He’s right, Martha.” Amanda added impact to his statements with a smooth voice and a deliberate tilt of her chin. “The decision is made—irrevocably.”

  “And the sooner we all accept it, the better.” Martha sank back onto the Boston rocker, her words, her eyes, even her posture admitting constrained resignation. “Is that the proper attitude?” Her gaze sought Dane in one last appeal for denial.

  Amanda wanted to look away from this obvious hurt, so unintentionally inflicted. She wanted to look away and yet she found her own gaze seeking Dane, seeking acceptance or denial or perhaps merely a hint of regret.

  The muscle in his jaw clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed, the only sign of his tension. “Yes, that’s the way I feel about it,” he said finally. Blandly, indifferently. “The sooner the better.”

  Of its own accord, Amanda’s gaze fell. Impatience. She recognized the sound of it. Dane wanted this uncomfortable discussion at an end. He wanted his marriage over. And he wanted her out of his life. The sooner the better.

  And that was what she wanted too. With a resolute sigh she leaned against the tapestried sofa cushions and waited for Martha to assimilate the inevitable and break the cloistered silence.

  Silence. Dane hated it. Almost as much as he hated the stricken look in Martha’s eyes. Almost as much as he hated the schooled composure of Amanda’s expression. He forced himself to stand, relaxed and waiting, although he was tense with the need to pace the room. His eyes traced the familiar, book-lined wall, the uneven combination of antique and merely dated furnishings, the woven rug covering the floor. Anywhere except at the slender figure of his wife.

  Yet he knew, without seeing, the quiet clasp of hands in her lap, the concern mirrored in the twilight softness of her eyes as she watched Martha, the regrets, the memories, that calm, impenetrable façade.

  Would he ever be free of knowing her? Even now her very stillness spoke to him in the silence. But he couldn’t trust himself to in
terpret the meaning anymore. She had changed and he couldn’t begin to guess at her thoughts. He might misunderstand, say the wrong thing and send her further away from him.

  He carefully shielded the gaze that, despite his control, slid to her. There wasn’t anything he could say that would send Amanda further away. She was as distant to him as the sun’s fire and yet still as near as its warming rays. Pressing his lips tight in determination, Dane turned away. If only he could make it through this confrontation with Martha. Avoid her prying, too perceptive eyes and not lose his hard-won control, maybe, just maybe....

  “All right,” Martha shattered the quiet. “Tell me why. I want to know what happened.”

  Sensing Amanda’s immediate tension, Dane tried to lighten the heavy mood. “She never puts the cap back on the toothpaste. I leave wet towels in the shower.”

  “Dane!” Amanda straightened as his name rolled from her lips on a breath of annoyance. How could he speak so ... so superficially of their marriage? “Don’t say such nonsense.” Her voice broke and she felt the threat of tears at the base of her throat. With a jerky motion she turned toward Martha. “He doesn’t mean to sound that way.”

  “How do you know how I meant to sound, Amanda? Or what I really meant to say?”

  “I know you don’t see the break-up of our marriage as a result of wet towels and toothpaste. I know you don’t and so does Martha, so stop trying to make this a humorous discussion.”

  He swept her a mocking bow. “I would never do anything so crass, but I have no intention of discussing the gory details with Martha.”

  Amanda stared at him as his eyes darkened with a hint of frost. For probably the hundredth time in the past few days she wished she knew how to talk to him again.

  “Perhaps you need to discuss the details with Amanda.” Martha crossed her arms over her ample bosom and settled back in the rocking chair. “Maybe you both need to talk this thing out.”

  The militant gleam in Martha’s eyes was unmistakable, and Amanda knew she and Dane were being maneuvered into a revealing discussion. It was time to put an end to the well-meaning but misguided interference. “The time for talking is past,” she said quietly. “Sometimes it’s important to know when to quit trying, Martha. I hope you’ll understand but, either way, it doesn’t change anything. As soon as I find a place to live, my marriage to Dane is over.”

  The awesome finality of what she was doing washed over her and Amanda wondered that she could remain so detached. Almost as if she were an observer and not a participant in the conversation. From force of habit her gaze swiveled in Dane’s direction to share this odd sensation. But she discovered only the broad expanse of his back and the strong fingers that wearily massaged his nape. She would have to remind him to get a haircut, she thought, and then closed her eyes at the inanity of it.

  “You could stay here with me.” Martha’s voice came, strained but accepting. “There’s plenty of room.”

  “Thank you.” Amanda shook her head and offered a thread of a smile. “But I think I should be on my own. I—I need to be alone.”

  “You could use the cottage,” Martha urged. “It’s been vacant for a couple of months and I’ve been meaning to call the agent about listing it as a rental again. It needs some attention, but I would love to have you close by, Amanda.” Martha pursed her lips in a self-contained appeal. “I won’t interfere. And if I forget, you can tell me to mind my own damn business.”

  Amanda refrained from mentioning that telling Martha to mind her own business and having her do so were not one and the same. Still, thoughts of the cottage were tempting. It was on the far corner of Martha’s land, nestled inconspicuously along an inlet of Chesapeake Bay. A place of quietly lapping water and tall evergreens. A good place for thinking ... for healing.

  “I’d like to rent the cottage, Martha, but only on condition that I pay the same rent as anyone else. No favors, all right?”

  “Humph! Favors?” Martha said with a quicksilver flash of humor. “I don’t believe in that sort of thing. You’ll pay the same—no, I take that back. You’ll pay more. That seems only fair. Don’t you think so, Dane?”

  He stood staring out the window, as if he hadn’t heard ... or didn’t care.

  “Dane?” Martha repeated her attempt to gain his attention.

  Slowly he turned, his expression a study of indifference. “I’m sure you’ll be fair with Amanda. And I’m equally sure she’ll be happy, wonderfully happy, living in the cottage. Alone.”

  Drawn by the intensity in his voice, Amanda searched his face for a clue to his feelings. He was behaving so strangely today. With a sigh, she lowered her gaze. What did she expect? Of course he wasn’t himself. This was as awkward and uncomfortable for him as for her. The tension in the room was so heavy, it could have been bottled and sold by weight.

  Happy. Alone. His words lay somberly in her mind. It had been some time since she’d experienced either state. But she needed to be alone and she would learn to be happy again. Maybe not right away, not tomorrow. But soon. Soon.

  * * * *

  At the end of the month Amanda moved into her new home. Martha’s cottage was a two-story frame house with a back deck that faced the bay. Dane pronounced the exterior structurally sound and left the condition of the interior to Amanda. Surprisingly she didn’t find the torn wallpaper and pallid walls dismaying but saw, instead, a challenge. Her training in interior design and her innate love of color kept creating visions of redecorated rooms complete with new draperies and furnishings.

  With each box she carried into the house, Amanda found herself stopping to weigh the merits of one color against another or the effect a particular fabric might produce. More than once Dane had to prod her from the imaginary redecorating to the more pressing activity of moving in.

  He had been insistent upon helping her “get settled” and Amanda hadn’t been able to fault his cautious friendliness, although she’d tried. He was making the move easy, taking care of details that might trouble her. And, perversely, she wanted him to be less helpful, less concerned. His careful attitude told her that he still felt a certain amount of responsibility for her well-being. At times Amanda wished he would dispense with the pretense, and at other times she wished his outward concern was real.

  But she knew that all pretense between them would soon be at an end. She had already made the appointment to see an attorney next week. When she’d told Dane, he’d simply nodded, seemingly anxious to get her settled and begin anew—without her. It was understandable, of course. She felt the same way, didn’t she?

  And she thought it was perfectly natural to feel a sadness, a sense of disappointment and loss at a time like this.

  Tactfully, Dane had left her to pack whatever she wanted to take from their home. He offered no suggestions and no protests when he saw the two small boxes that hid her most treasured mementos. She was glad he couldn’t see inside the boxes to the sentiment they sheltered.

  Somehow she didn’t want him to know what she had chosen to keep. The scrapbook of pictures, the rose now dried and faded but still scented with remembrance, a charm bracelet, a book of poetry, a conch shell endlessly whispering of happier days, the pudgy stuffed bear Dane had given her when she was so discouraged about ever conceiving a child, the tiny shoes meant for her son, but never worn. So many little things that reminded her, would always remind her. She wanted nothing else.

  Still there were things that couldn’t be left behind and, reluctantly, Amanda packed these too. She took only what she would need for the cottage and left decisions about the rest to Dane’s discretion.

  Moving day brought a sense of purpose and a lightening of her mood. Dane seemed decidedly cheerful as he carried clothing and boxes from the house to the car and then later, from the car into the cottage. He talked casually about the weather, the nice view from the deck, how he planned to get in some sailing soon. Everyday type of conversation, easy and amicable, as if there were nothing unusual about the day.
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br />   “Beautiful day for this,” he said as he walked through the front doorway and stepped around Amanda and over the clutter in the hall to reach the stairs. The box he held firmly against his chest muffled the rest of his words, but Amanda caught the gist of them before he disappeared into the upstairs bedroom. “Beautiful day for transporting boxes,” he mumbled. “Or swimming. Or playing tennis. Or sailing. Beautiful day for sailing.”

  Amanda recognized his good-natured grumbling and ignored it as she always did, or always used to do. The qualification made a small rent in the day’s equanimity, but she forced herself to ignore that as well. Digging deeper into the disorganized box before her, she released a satisfied sigh as her fingers closed around the sack of nails she sought. With a flashlight nestled in the crook of her arm, she grasped the hammer in one hand, the nails in the other, and levered to her feet.

  Approaching the closet beneath the stairs, she carefully propped the door open and squinted into the dusty interior. A row of wooden shelves slanted along the wall in a useless forty-five-degree angle. But not for long, Amanda thought as she pushed the stepladder inside. She took a few nails from the sack and transferred them to her mouth before mounting the three-tiered ladder with hammer, flashlight, and determination.

  Juggling the shelves into place proved somewhat more difficult than she had envisioned and securing them to the wall proved impossible. When she heard Dane’s footsteps on the stairs, she opened her mouth to call him, dropped the nails, followed swiftly by the flashlight and a muttered “Damn!”

  The closet became even darker as Dane leaned against the doorframe and blocked the outside light. “Ah, just as I suspected,” he observed dryly. “A goblin under the stairs.”

  Amanda frowned down at him. “Funny. Would you mind holding the shelves at the bottom so I can nail them in place?”

  “And have you drop the hammer on my foot?” Dane shook his head and stepped inside the closet. “No, thanks. I can be of more assistance up there with you, not to mention being safe from falling objects.”