"You remember," David said urgently. "I'm coming to live here, with you and your mom. Dad said he told you. You didn't forget. Did you.^ Or . , . don't you want me to.''"
"No, it's all right," Emma said. "I do remember. You're a nice fourteen."
"What does that mean.'"' David asked.
"It means we're going to get along fine," Claire said.
"And I won't be far away," Hannah said. "You can come for visits all the time. Things will be different, but not as different as they would be if I went really far away, to Singapore or some place like that. I did go away once, almost as far as Singapore, in fact, and my daughter was staying with my mother, and she said just
what you said—'I don't want you to go; it's nice, the three of us; I want you to stay'—but I had to go, and then when I was gone, she missed me so much she carried on every night on the telephone. So what I did was, I sent her special packages of food and presents, lovely little dolls, lace-trimmed blouses, exotic earrings, wonderful presents, and I wrote a poem or a story to go in each package, so it was as if I were there every day, talking to her, and she wasn't so unhappy that I had to be somewhere else. You see, Emma, we can always find ways to be with people we love."
"That's nice," Emma said dreamily. "You could write stories for me, too."
"Well, I will. But you're coming to visit, too. As often as you want."
As Hannah talked on about visits to New York, Claire watched her with narrowed eyes. She glanced at Alex and saw her doubts mirrored on his face. "When did that happen.''" he murmured, leaning close to her.
"I don't know," Claire replied; it was what she had been asking herself. When, in the long series of adventures Hannah had told them about—a love affair on a cruise, and another, long one with a real estate magnate, and being a caterer and a bouncer, and losing her daughter, and traveling in Africa and teaching in St. Louis—did she go somewhere almost as far as Singapore, long enough to send her daughter special packages of food and presents, stories and poems.''
"I don't think it happened," Claire murmured to Alex. "I think she made it up to make Emma feel better about her leaving us. She always tries to make us happy if we're unhappy."
"Then what about the other stories.''" Alex asked.
"I don't know. She told them with such vivid detail and such passion . . . and the death of her daughter! No one could make that up, not the way she did."
A small smile was on Alex's lips. "But all of them had a reason."
Slowly, Claire nodded. "She gave them to us, like special gifts, and we used them in our own ways, to help ourselves." She was still watching Hannah, whose lively, crinkled face was looking at Emma with love and laughter as she spun tales of the adventures thcv would have in New ^'ork.
After a moment, Claire looked at Alex and smiled. "It doesn't matter whether they're true or not. I'd never ask her. Fairy godmothers do what they have to do, any way they can, and we shouldn't question them. And when their job is done, they leave, to go someplace else where they're needed. Just like Hannah."
Alex chuckled. "I remember when you told me she was your fairy godmother. I thought it was a charming fantasy. But if anyone fits the fantasy, she does. Did you ever tell Hannah that's what you think she is.^"
"Yes. I think it amused her. You know, when she first came to us, she said she was my cousin, and we—" Claire stopped, a small frown between her eyes.
"Do you think she really is.^"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter. But if it ever became an issue, I'd adopt her."
Alex laughed. Hannah looked their way. Her bright eyes met theirs in a long look. "I love you all," she said. "There's no one in the world I love as much as I love this family. And when you come down to it, that's the only thing that counts, isn't it.^"
"Love and health," Gina said.
"And money," Roz added dryly. "If love and health are first, money has to be second."
"I don't know," Claire said. "There's such a thing as too much money, I think."
"Only when people become careless," Alex said. "The trouble with having a lot of money is that it becomes too easy to forget how tough life can be."
"You mean that there are hungry people in the world.'"' Hannah asked. "But we never forgot that; we give money to all kinds of groups and organizations and people. Like the Mortons; I'm sure Claire told you about them. We've kept in touch with them, and their little boy's leukemia is in remission, he's getting better, and they've even paid back some of the money."
"I think Alex meant that it's easy to forget how people can hurt each other," said Claire.
Her hand was in his, and Alex tightened his clasp. "They forget how hard we have to work at relationships, protecting the ones that are good for us and recognizing the ones that aren't. Given enough money, too many people begin to operate on the
principle that money, by its weight and abundance and importance, can cure everything. If they're in a bad relationship, they can buy their way out of it. If they're in a good one, they don't have to work at it because money keeps it going."
"But a lot of the time that's true," Roz said.
"It didn't keep your marriage going," said Hannah.
"Well, it doesn't always work, but you can't just say that money isn't important, because it is."
"But important for what.^" Alex asked. "What money does best is pile up possessions. It's a little like bribing the gods; give them enough and they'll make your life rosy again."
Roz shook her head. "Money buys freedom. You're not free if you have to spend all your time making enough money to get from one day to the next."
"It's just a lot more fun having it than not having it," Gina said. "And I don't believe Claire ever forgot about people or relationships or anything else. I don't think she ever thought she could bribe the gods with her lottery money, either."
"I thought our worries were over," Claire said. "I thought we weren't vulnerable. I thought we couldn't be touched."
"Well, we know that's wrong," Hannah said. "But you wouldn't want to give all the money back, would you.'' And go back to work.''"
"Well, you couldn't, not for the same guy," David said. "I heard about him on the news, on TV, it was in the paper, too, that guy you used to work for. Eiger.'' There was this story that he said his son—his name is Brix; it's really a creepy name, isn't it.^—he covered up some tests they did, some cream that people use on their eyes, or anyway, women do, and they were getting sick and somebody went blind, well, anyway, in one eye, I guess, and his son covered it up, and he doesn't work there anymore." He looked up from his position at Emma's feet and noted the intense interest on the faces of everyone and went on, enjoying the attention. "And then they said his son blamed him, you know, his father, for the whole thing; he said his father was the one who covered it up, or anv'way, told him to do it for him. And his father isn't head of the company anymore, and it looks like there's no more company, either. And everybody's fighting with everybody else on TV, and I guess in the newspaper, too, which is really weird."
"What did Brix do?" Emma asked.
"Well, like I said, he—" David looked up and realized she was not speaking to him. She was looking at her mother. The vague, wandering look in her eyes was gone; she was focusing on Claire, waiting for what she would say.
"He tried to make you sick," Claire said immediately. She had thought about this moment and had decided what she would say. "So you'd be frightened and not tell anyone about the memos you'd seen."
"But what did he doP"
"He put a quantity of Halcion in something you drank at dinner. Enough to make you sick."
"But you thought I was going to die."
"I didn't know, Emma—"
"He didn't want me to be sick. He wanted me to die."
David looked at Alex. "You told me not to talk about it. When I showed you that story in the paper—"
"It was in the newspaper.'"' Emma asked. "What did it say.'"'
"That it was attempted murder a
nd he was trying to get out on bail."
"That's enough, David," Alex said.
Claire sat on the arm of Emma's chair. She put her arm around her and held her close. "He said it was to help you sleep."
"But you don't believe that. You think he tried to kill me. You never liked him."
"That doesn't mean I'm sure he tried to kill you. I think he may have tried to frighten you."
"You never liked him. You knew him, better than I did. He wanted me to die. He told me he hated me. And I said . . . something ... I told him . . . oh, why can't I remember.'' Something about ruin." She was looking into the distance. "That he'd ruined everything. And the waiter was there; I told him I was finished. And I ran away. I fell, outside, and somebodv helped me up."
"You told us you hadn't taken any pills that night," Claire said. "We asked you, in the hospital, and you always gave the same answer. That you hadn't taken any pills."
"I didn't. Why would I.'' They were only to help me sleep and we were going to dinner. And I was happy. Brix loved me . . ." Tears ran down her cheeks. David yanked out a handkerchief and
put it in her hand, closing her fingers around it. She held it, but she did not try to wipe the tears away. She snuggled against her mother, nestling into the curve of her body. She looked up and met Claire's eyes. "He wanted me to die. Why does that hap-pen.'^
Claire shook her head. "I don't know. Some people are capable of evil acts. Others aren't. It has nothing to do with how much you love a person, or how much you try to please him; there are things inside him that you can't touch. And if someone is capable of evil and can't control his furies, he's beyond the reach of people who care for him, even when he's behaving in a quiet way; maybe even a loving way."
"I didn't know he was like that," Emma whispered.
"Maybe he didn't know it himself."
"Where is he.'"'
"He was arrested; he admitted putting the Halcion in your drink, so he was refused bail. I don't know what will happen next."
"He's in jail.^"
"Yes."
"He'd hate that."
"I'm sure he does."
Emma's tears had stopped. "Maybe he couldn't love anybody. I mean, it's like he couldn't walk by himself if he was missing a leg, or pick up things if he didn't have his fingers, so maybe he's missing something inside him, so he can't love people. He just can't. He's sort of a cripple."
"I think that could be right," Claire said, her heart aching for Emma's pain, that she had not been able to bring out in Brix the loving person she offered to him, the person she imagined him to be.
Emma nodded. "He was so nice . . . sometimes."
And that, Alex thought, was Emma's epitaph for Brix Eiger.
The room was quiet for a long time. Then Hannah stood and began to clear the dishes. "I'm going to make more coffee. And we have champagne. Do you know what time it is.^"
"Time for Emma to be in bed," Gina said.
"Oh, no, it's New Year's," Emma said. "I want to stay. I'm getting better, Gina. I'm almost well. And I'm happy."
There was a sigh in the room, like a soft breeze, of relief and
gladness. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Claire said silently, sending up her own inchoate prayer for all that was good, for the people in that room, and for all that they had together.
"Claire, would you give the money back.''" Roz asked.
"No," Claire said. "There are so many things I want to do, people I want to help, Emma's college, my own company ... I don't want to give that all up. I like having money; I'll just have more respect for it from now on. I always knew it couldn't do everything; now I'll believe it."
"Well, thafs a good way to begin the new year," Hannah said. She stood beside the fireplace, holding the silver coffeepot. "Quentin never learned that, did he, and I'd say that's his real tragedy. Not that he can't sell a bunch of cosmetics; not that he's lost his company. What's really tragic is that he doesn't love his son, and he doesn't think that matters. He has no family, no nothing. Dear me. He reminds me of a man I once worked with who didn't care about anything but his own importance. He—"
"Claire and I will clean up," Alex said, standing up, and while Hannah talked, he and Claire put cups and saucers and dessert plates on trays and carried them into the kitchen. The room was warm and quiet, the only light a small lamp in the breakfast room. They set the trays down and came together in the shadowy darkness, holding each other. "This has been an amazingly chaste courtship," Claire murmured.
Alex chuckled. "Between my son and your daughter, we never got near a bed. I think we should get out of here and see what we can do on our own."
Claire laughed. "I'd like that."
"What about Emma.^ You don't want to leave her alone."
"She'll stay with Roz and Gina. She loves them and there's no better place for her right now than the farm."
"And Hannah will go off to her Forrest. And you and I will go . . . where would you like to go.'"'
"Your apartment in New York."
"Really.'' I was thinking of Hawaii. Kauai in January can be glorious. Or Puerto Vallarta. Also warm and beautiful. Choose one.
"Either one. I just want to be with you."
They kissed, a long kiss that contained within it the friendship of those weeks when they had worked together in Claire's studio,
and the closeness of the past terrible and joyful days when they had clung to each other and to the awareness of each other, always close by: a new wonder for Claire and a discovery, for Alex, that the love he had known and lost could be created anew, in a new way, and once again give him a home.
Claire pulled back just enough to look at him, to feel the wonder of his closeness, and of tomorrow and the next day and the next, a future shared after so many years alone. The birthday of my life is come, my love is come to me. A long time ago a woman named Christina Rossetti had written that line in a poem, and Claire had cut it out and tucked it into her wallet. "The birthday of my life," she murmured to Alex. "I never thought it would come to me. I never thought j'o^z would come to me."
"I love you," he said. "My heart's ease; my soul's delight. We are going to have such a wonderful time."
Claire thought of Emma and David, and the house that sheltered all of them. Her body was alive with the warmth of Alex's arms around her and his strong shoulders within her embrace, and she knew a sense of richness she had never known before. She thought of Forrest Exeter, standing by the fireplace in her study, his resonant voice filling the room. We are surrounded by wonders and possibilities . . . my God, what a blessing to be alive, to embrace the infinite wonders of this magnificent world.
"A world of infinite wonders," she said to Alex. "Waiting for us. All the discoveries we haven't yet made ..." She kissed him and spoke with her lips brushing his. "Happy New Year, my love."
Judith Michael is the pen name of a husband-and-wife writing team living in Chicago, Illinois, and Aspen, Colorado, who have authored six bestsellers— Deceptions, Possessions, Private Affairs, Inheritance, A Ruling Passion, and Sleeping Beauty.
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work, her sense of home. But Quentin will not let Claire go easily: he and Brix have their own plans for the Goddard women. And when another man, more open and idealistic, more real than Quentin, enters Claire's life, she discovers what she always possessed but never fully recognized—an ability to love deeply and to protect those she loves-strengths and inner resources more valuable than any pot of gold.
Judith Michael creates a world as fabulous as a glossy dream, as exciting as a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, but as real as everyday life. This is the most compelling, most complex, most exciting Judith Michael novel yet.
Judith Michael is the pen name of a hus-band-and-wife writing team living in Chicago, Illinois, and Aspen, Colorado. They are the authors of six previous bestsellers: Deceptions, Possessions, Private Affairs, A Ruling Passion, Inheritance, and Sleeping Beauty.
Jacket design by Paul Baco
n
Jacket photographs: boat, courtesy of Stone Images;
rainbow, courtesy of P PG/Eugene Gebhardt Author photograph courtesy of John Heilly photography Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright © 1993 Simon & Schuster Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Pot of gold : a novel Page 52