Facets

by Barbara Delinsky

  A mocking sound came from deep in his throat, just as two teenage girls went by with a flash of metal-mouthed smiles. “She’s adorable,” said one.

  “How old is she?” the other asked Cutter.

  “Four,” he answered, then, because he was a proud father, added, “today.”

  “It’s her birthday?” asked the first, her smile broadening.

  “Wow!” said the second and turned to Ariana. “Happy birthday, little sweetie.”

  Blissfully entranced by her music box, Ariana didn’t look up until the girls had swept by. They waved at her, laughed at each other, and were soon turning onto the footbridge and blending into the crowd.

  Ariana skipped over to the bench. Setting the music box on it, she closed the lid, opened it, closed it for a little longer, opened it again. Reassured that the music would keep coming, she gave Cutter a dimpled smile.

  His heart turned over.

  “Want to come on the swan boats with us?” Pam asked.

  It was a minute before he regained his composure enough to say, “Only if I get to hold the birthday girl. Sound fair?” he asked Ariana.

  She nodded. “Can I hold my gift?”

  “You hold your gift, I’ll hold you.”

  “Who’ll hold Mommy?”

  Sweeping her up in his arms, he stood. “How about we just keep her real close?” He shifted Ariana to one side and, by the time Pam joined them, had an arm free to throw over her shoulder.

  He didn’t care who saw them, didn’t care if tongues wagged, didn’t care even if word got back to Brendan. If people assumed he and Pam were husband and wife out walking with the beautiful child they’d made, it was only a twist of the truth.

  He wanted it to be the whole truth, but that was still a distant dream. He’d been waiting all his life for Pam. Now he was waiting for Ariana, too, only having to wait meant that he was missing some of the special times that once gone were gone for good. The worst of it was that he didn’t know where it would end. As long as Pam was married to Brendan, he’d be the outsider. No matter how much pleasure he found in stolen moments, they were still stolen.

  Pam’s concern deepened in the weeks that followed. Brendan looked pale, he wasn’t eating well, and he grew short-tempered each time she mentioned his seeing a doctor. The matter was taken out of both their hands one Thursday morning when he collapsed at the bank. Pam was at Facets, examining several pieces of tourmaline that had just arrived from Maine, when she got the call. With a sense of dread, she rushed to the hospital.

  Brendan was awake and aware enough to reassure Pam that he was fine, but she didn’t believe him for a minute. She was relieved when his doctor ordered a full battery of tests. After the first batch, there were more. Some were done over.

  The word wasn’t good. Brendan had tumors in his brain and both lungs. Pam was in shock.

  “That can’t be. He hasn’t been sick. Just tired.”

  At the doctor’s request she was meeting with him privately in his office.

  “It’s an insidious disease, Mrs. McGrath.”

  She’d heard stories to that effect, but never thought they would concern people she knew and loved, not her own husband. “But no headaches? No cough? Maybe the tests are wrong.”

  “We’ve run CAT scans and bone scans. We’ve done MRIs—magnetic resonance imaging. The results are consistent.” He looked troubled, almost annoyed. “I wish your husband had come in sooner. I alerted him to the fact that this could happen. For a while there he saw me every six months, but he hasn’t been in for a full physical now in nearly two years. Given his history, that was unwise.”

  “His history?”

  “The melanoma.”

  Her insides knocked. “What melanoma?”

  “The one I removed a while back.” The doctor looked at her strangely. “You knew about that, didn’t you?”

  Her voice was weak. “No.”

  “Surely he told you.”

  “No! When was this?”

  Pushing his glasses higher on his nose, the doctor shifted a few papers in Brendan’s file until he found the right one. “Brendan first came to me in the spring of ’76 with a growth on his shoulder. I removed it. It was malignant.”

  “Malignant,” Pam echoed in a whisper. She couldn’t believe it.

  “At the time, there was mixed sentiment about treatment of that kind of melanoma. Many of my colleagues felt that surgery alone was sufficient. I took the conservative route and followed the surgery up with chemotherapy.”

  “Chemotherapy,” she echoed again. She couldn’t believe it.

  He put his glasses on the desk and eyed her awkwardly. “Quite frankly, Mrs. McGrath, I was surprised when Brendan told me you’d had a baby. Before I recommended the chemo, I asked whether he thought he’d ever want more children. As a matter of course, chemotherapy usually renders the patient sterile.”

  He went on to talk about the fact that Brendan was one for the books, that being disease free for twelve years was remarkable, that if only Brendan had had regular checkups things would look brighter.

  Stunned, Pam only half-heard him. As soon as she could, she escaped and went to see Brendan. He was sleeping when she stole quietly into the room. She pulled a chair close to the bed and watched him until he woke.

  He gave her a tired smile that came and went with lightning speed. Soberly he asked whether she’d talked with the doctor.

  She nodded.

  For a bit he didn’t say anything, just looked at her. When he reached for her hand, she held it tightly.

  “I should have told you, Pam.” His eyes and voice were tired. “I know that. I should have told you before we married. You were young. You had a right to decide whether you wanted to be saddled with someone who would probably get sick. But I was afraid you’d say no. So I was selfish and kept still. You held such promise for me. I reasoned that if I had to die before my time, I had a right to some good times with you. And they have been good. Pam. You’ve been wonderful—”

  “You talk like it’s over!” She couldn’t accept that. He was too good a man to die young—and, yes, she’d always thought of him as young. He was a young fifty-nine-year-old, or had been until the cancer had stolen his pep.

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “That’s because they haven’t started treatment yet. You responded to it last time. You’ll respond again.”

  He blinked in mild rebuke. “Last time it was a preventive measure. This time it’s for real. There’s a lot to fight.”

  “Then we’ll fight.”

  He gave her hand a weak squeeze. “You have spirit. That’s one of the things I love in you.”

  He was looking at her, knowing all she didn’t. “It’s hard, Pam. It’s unpleasant, the treatment.”

  “You did it before, you’ll do it again.”

  “I’m twelve years older now.”

  “And you have that much more reason to live. Before, you had the boys. They may be grown now, but they still need you. Ariana and I sure do.”

  She had been talking on pure instinct, saying things straight from the heart. At the mention of Ariana, though, her expression must have betrayed some of the guilt she felt, because Brendan gave her a sad smile.

  “It’s Cutter, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t know how much to say, whether to say anything at all, or whether Brendan would fight his illness more if he knew the truth.

  He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed it lightly, anchored it on his chest. “It’s time,” he admonished softly.

  “Don’t Bren. Don’t say it like that. You’re not dying on me today or tomorrow or next week. The doctor said that even without treatment, you could have years.”

  “The doctor doesn’t know. None of them do. There’s no set pattern to the illness. Every case is different. It may be that I have years. The question is what the quality of those years will be. I could go downhill pretty fast.”

  He seemed calm. She felt near p
anic. “How can you accept that?”

  “I’ve had years to accept it.”

  “You should have shared the worry.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “You should have gone to the doctor sooner.”

  “I was tired of tests. I was tired of thinking of tests. At some point—soon after Ariana’s birth—I made a conscious decision that I wanted to enjoy you and her without the specter of illness. I had already accepted that it would probably get me one day.”

  “But when you began to feel tired—”

  “I didn’t want to know. I figured I either had it or I didn’t. I knew that if there was a recurrence, the odds weren’t good. So I decided to ignore it and go on with my life. And I’m not sorry. I’d make the same decision again. You’ve brought me so much happiness.” There was a split second’s hesitation. “Both of you.”

  Pam saw it again in his eyes, the knowledge that Ariana wasn’t his. This time, she couldn’t ignore it. “Do you hate me?” she whispered.

  “Hate you? I love you.”

  “But I . . .?she . . .”

  “From the start I guessed there was someone else. You didn’t love me back then.”

  “I love you now.”

  “I know that. You’ve been a very good wife to me.”

  Pam wanted to cry. “But I betrayed you.”

  “You’ve given me eight wonderful years and a beautiful daughter. I never had a daughter.”

  “But she isn’t—”

  “Mine? Biologically true, but that’s all. I love her like my own. She loves me like my own. Is that any different from what people feel who adopt babies?”

  Pam started to cry. She wished he’d get angry, yell, call her names. She deserved all of that for having deceived him so. “How can you be so forgiving?”

  “How can you?” he returned, for the first time growing upset. “I couldn’t have children. I knew that before I married you. You were young. You wanted children. You never used birth control. You kept thinking you might conceive, and all the time I knew there wasn’t a chance of it happening. Still I didn’t tell you the truth. Even after I felt you loved me, I didn’t tell you.” He glowered at the sheets. “Sure, I can say that I was afraid you’d leave me, but that wasn’t my main worry. My main worry was that you’d think me less of a man if you knew.” He couldn’t quite look at her. “Vanity. Pride. Male egotism. Whatever, I didn’t tell you the truth.”

  He did look at her then. “I was thrilled when you got pregnant. Really thrilled. Oh, I knew that I hadn’t fathered the baby, but no one else knew it. Chemotherapy may cause sterility, but there are rare exceptions.”

  For a split second, Pam’s eyes widened.

  But he rushed on. “I wasn’t one. I had myself tested when I thought of asking you to marry me. It was conclusive.”

  He took a breath that seemed to echo in his lungs, reminding Pam how ill he was. “You shouldn’t be talking so much. You should rest.”

  But once started, he wouldn’t. “See? You’re concerned about me. And that’s what I’m trying to say. How can I be angry at you when you care so much? When you give so much?”

  “I was wrong.”

  “So was I, so we’ve canceled each other out. And there is something to that, Pam. When we learned you were pregnant, I was actually relieved. Right from the first, you were excited, and it was clear that you had no intention of leaving me to be with the baby’s father. So I was excited that you were excited, and I was excited for myself, because I love you and I love children. I figured that if you were giving me this chance to be a father again, I wasn’t going to throw it back in your face. How could I do that, when I’d been dishonest about something so important? I didn’t tell you that I might not live to see you hit middle age. I knew I’d be leaving you well-to-do if I died, and that was something.”

  Seeming to run out of strength, he grew quiet. After a minute, he lifted her hand and lightly rapped it against his chest. After several more minutes, he murmured, “Are we even?”

  Pam couldn’t begin to answer that. She couldn’t begin to tally the sides. She was overwhelmed by all she’d learned that day.

  “We’ll fight this, Brendan. We’ll do what the doctor suggests. He’s bringing in a whole team. They’ll decide on a protocol, and we’ll follow it.”

  He remained silent, eyes closed. Then his voice came reed-thin. “Once I’m gone, you can be with him.”

  “Don’t say that! Don’t even think it! I want to be with you!” And at that moment she did. The thought of wishing Brendan dead so that she could be with Cutter was abhorrent to her.

  Brendan rested for a while before opening his eyes again. “Is it Cutter?”

  She carried his hand to her lips, kissed it, gave a short nod.

  Seeming content with that, he closed his eyes again. After a time, he sighed. “Ahhhh, Pam. There’s a hard road ahead. I hate to drag you down it.”

  “I wouldn’t be anywhere else, Bren.”

  She was as good as her word. Just as years before she had vowed to be a good wife to Brendan, so now she decided to make his remaining time—however long—as happy as possible. That meant special times spent with him alone doing his favorite things, and with Ariana, just the three of them as a family. It meant planning weekends away with his sons and their families, and arranging dinners with the best of Brendan’s friends. She worked around his treatment schedule and around the few hours each day that he tried to spend at the bank. Her own work was limited to the times when he rested, which came more often and lasted longer as the treatment zapped his strength.

  Devoting herself to Brendan was satisfying in its way. She did love him. She worried about him. She was happiest when she could do small things to please him, to make him smile.

  She also found satisfaction in Ariana and in her work. Although she dramatically decreased her hours, her name continued to grow. When Facets London opened, she was there for the festivities. Her reception was better than she had dared hope, her following even larger than she’d been led to believe by the British clients she already serviced.

  That made John nervous, which pleased Pam no end. He wasn’t used to being upstaged, and although the British upper crust was far too well mannered to make it obvious, he was sensitive enough to the subtleties of power to catch on. As the party progressed, he moved close to Pam’s side, but if he thought he might fool her into thinking that he was the one attracting the crowd, he was wrong. She was in her element, feeling self-confident and sharp. She knew who was drawing the attention, and for the space of those few hours she basked in it.

  Buoyed, she returned to Boston, where she concentrated on keeping her wits and some small measure of good humor while Brendan’s condition wavered.

  Chapter 26

  New York, July 1990

  WANT TO STOP BY HERE when you get a minute?” Arlan asked without preamble. His terseness made Hillary wary.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Just need to talk.”

  She was trying to imagine what was wrong when a suspicious sound made her frown. “Arlan? Are you smoking?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Arlan?”

  “Just one.”

  “One, my foot. Oh, Arlan, you were doing so well.”

  “It’s been a rough day.”

  “But this is your life.”

  “Look. I don’t tell you how to live. Don’t tell me how to live. When can you stop by?”

  He sounded truly annoyed, which was a first for him with her. “Uh, if it’s urgent, in an hour.”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  An hour later she walked into his office. He had a cigarette in his hand and was regarding her in defiance, daring her to comment on it. She didn’t. Instead, she slid into a chair, propped an elbow on its arm, and put her fingers under her nose. In response, he took a long drag of the cigarette and exhaled an even longer stream of smoke.

  “See?” she said, unable to resist. “By no
t smoking, you’ve improved your lungs’ capacity so that you can now smoke even more deeply than before.”

  “I’m quitting.”

  “You did that before.”

  “No. Not smoking. I’m quitting this job.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Quitting this job. Your contract has been nixed.”

  There was no blink this time. Everything inside her went still. “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “But I signed it.”

  “It hasn’t been countersigned. Now I’m told it won’t be.”

  “What do you mean, it won’t be?” She didn’t understand. A contract was a contract. “We had an agreement. The house can’t pull out now.”

  “The house,” he said with distaste, “can pull out at any point before signing.”

  “No. A verbal agreement implies intent.” But that wasn’t even the primary issue. “My book is good. You love it. Your editor-in-chief loved it. Your publisher loved it.”

  “My chairman of the board thought it was too risky.”

  “Too risky? What are you talking about?”

  Arlan kept her waiting while he took another drag on his cigarette, but this time he didn’t do it out of defiance so much as raw need. With the last of the smoke curling from his lips, he said, “John St. George got to Templar.”

  “What?”

  “John threatened a libel suit if the house goes ahead with the contract.”

  Hillary came out of her chair. “But he has no grounds for libel. There’s nothing I planned to say in my book that isn’t true. I can prove it all. He doesn’t have a case.”

  “Templar thinks he might, and that’s all that counts.”

  For a minute, she could only stare at him. She didn’t know which one to be most furious with, John or Simon Templar. But neither of them was there just then, so Arlan took the brunt of her rage. Planting her fists on his desk, she cried, “Dammit, Arlan, you can’t let them do this to me!”

  “I spent the whole morning arguing, but it didn’t do much good.”

  “Then you weren’t arguing the right things. Talk to Templar again. Tell him that he can’t pull out now. Tell him I’ll take him to court myself. Make him change his mind.”