by Sandra Field
She began with Leonora, whose eyes so strikingly resembled Travis’s, and slowly unfolded that long-ago story of abandonment and deceit. Travis had been sitting on one arm of a leather-covered chair; when she got to the fake funeral in Philadelphia, he stood up. Taking her by the arm, he said harshly, “You’re not making this up?”
“You know I wouldn’t do that.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “So this is true, what you’re telling me.”
“Yes.”
His ears were ringing, while his head felt as though it were floating somewhere above his body. His mother was alive. That was what Julie was telling him. She was now describing Leonora’s long career in Europe, and her recent return to the States, each word inscribing itself indelibly on his brain. Was he going to wake up, and find out he’d been dreaming?
“Because I’d told her I’d met you, Leonora asked me to come and see you,” Julie finished. “To break the news to you. She’s an exceptional woman, Travis, I’ve liked her from the first moment we met. So I agreed.”
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Travis looked stunned, as though she’d hit him on the head with a two-by-four. And why wouldn’t he? His father had told him his mother had died; and that lie had stood unchallenged since Travis had been a little boy. She waited to see what he would do, her one longing to put her arms around him and offer him comfort.
She couldn’t do that. Because she’d end up in his bed. Quickly she pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and passed it to him. “This is Leonora’s phone number and address. She’s hoping you’ll get in touch with her. I said I’d ask your permission to give her your phone number.”
Travis looked at her as if she were a creature from an alien planet. “I’m supposed to get in touch with her?”
“Or else she’ll phone you,” Julie said patiently.
“She’s expecting me to pick up where we left off twenty-eight years ago?”
“Of course not. But she very much wants to see you.”
He said in a hard voice, “I’ll think about it.”
“I can see it’s been a terrible shock—”
“She didn’t die. She walked out on me and the twins. You think that makes me want to see her?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Travis,” Julie said softly.
He let out his breath in a long sigh. “Yeah… if I go and see her, you’re coming with me.”
“Me? This has nothing to do with me!”
“You know her. She thought enough of you to make you the go-between.”
Julie swallowed. She was being drawn in deeper and deeper. Yet wouldn’t Leonora also welcome her presence?
Leonora, she knew, was terrified of seeing Travis again. And maybe she herself could help in some way to smooth the path of a meeting fraught with pitfalls. She took a deep breath. “All right,” she said steadily, “I’ll go. When?”
“I didn’t think you’d agree quite so easily,” he said, an ugly edge to his voice. “This Leonora must be quite the woman.”
“Worthy to be your mother,” Julie said evenly.
“Friday evening. Seven-thirty. I’ll pick you up at your apartment.”
“Travis, I’m sure she regrets—”
“Will you go to bed with me?”
Julie flinched. “No.”
“Then finish your wine and get out of here. I’m not in the mood for chitchat.”
It would be all too easy to make a scathing retort. Julie put her glass down. “This must have been a terrible shock.”
“Keep your sympathy—I don’t need it.”
She raised her chin. “I’ll see you on Friday.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” he said with heavy sarcasm. Julie stalked to the door of the condo and let herself out. It shut behind her with a decisive snap.
She went home, phoned Leonora to let her know about Friday, evaded any discussion of Travis’s reaction, then went for a run at the park. It was only when a mallard waddled in front of her, followed by two fluffy brown and yellow ducklings, that she remembered something.
Travis had thought she was pregnant.
She wasn’t. Of course. Although he was right: When the two of them had fallen into her bed, they’d used no protection.
In the heat of the moment, it had never occurred to her; which showed how out of practice she was, she thought ruefully. And she was willing to bet it wasn’t Travis’s usual style. Her brow furrowed. Her period was notoriously irregular; for years she’d blamed this on a combination of tropical heat and antimalarial pills. But as she counted backward in her mind, her steps slowed. She’d never been this late before.
Coincidence, she thought brusquely. And hadn’t she read somewhere that stress could foul up your cycle? She’d had enough emotional ups and downs since she’d met Travis to skew any woman’s cycle. She wasn’t pregnant. Just the same, she wasn’t going to tempt fate by going to bed with Travis again.
Then another, equally unpleasant thought occurred to her. Leonora had fallen head over heels in love with Charles; but seven years later had run away from him, from their children and their marriage. One more example of a love that had died, and one more reason she was right to keep her distance from a man with eyes so blue that they saw right through her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Friday evening found Julie sorting through her wardrobe. Jeans wouldn’t cut it for this crucial meeting of mother and son. Nor was she going to wear either of the dresses Travis had given her. Frowning, she chose a softly swirling skirt and sleeveless top in malachite-green, with matching sandals she’d bought from a vendor in Athens. She was waiting downstairs in the lobby when Travis drew up in his black car. She ran outdoors and climbed in the passenger seat. Busying herself with the seat belt, she said, “How was your day?”
He said tightly, “Every time I see you, it’s as though I’ve never seen you before… there’s this jolt in my chest just like I’d stuck my finger in an electric socket.”
“The whole reason I didn’t look at you when I got in was to avoid just that reaction,” she said irritably. “So what, Travis? We aren’t going to act on it, that’s the point.”
“The gospel according to St. Julie.”
“That’s unworthy of you!”
“I’m not in the mood to fight fair.”
“At least give Leonora a fair hearing,” she flashed.
He pulled away from the curb without answering. She sneaked a glance at his profile, which was unyielding, hard-jawed and tight-lipped. He was impeccably dressed in tailored trousers, blue shirt and a silk tie. Just like we were going on a date, she thought painfully.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ten minutes later Travis was following Julie up the steps of an attractive apartment complex only five minutes from the clinic. Give Leonora a fair hearing, Julie had said to him. As though that was a simple choice. They rode up in the elevator, then he was striding down a gold-carpeted hallway behind her. Julie tapped on one of the varnished doors, walked in and gestured for him to enter. Feeling like a robot whose circuits had shorted, Travis stepped inside.
The woman who had been waiting for them said with poignant restraint, “Hello, Travis.”
She was tall, elegant and instantly remembered. Older, obviously, but in an essential way unchanged. He felt as though he were a little boy again; he also felt an upsurge of purely adult rage that he did his best to tamp down. Shaking hands with her would be absurd; yet he wasn’t ready to hug her. He said stiffly, “I asked Julie to be here, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Leonora produced the semblance of a smile. “Julie’s been a good friend to me… can I get you a drink?”
A few minutes later Travis found himself seated by a bay window across from his mother. His mother. He said ironically, raising his glass, “Cheers… Julie told me you had a very successful career in Europe. It’s funny I never read about you.”
“One of your father’s co
nditions was that I change my name… Connolly was my grandmother’s maiden name. Added to that, such success as I had was in a fairly narrow field. Avant garde dance isn’t to everyone’s taste.”
The evening light struck her high cheekbones, so like his own. Although she looked poised, her speech had been stilted, and a little muscle was jumping in her jaw. “You’ve taken a long time to get in touch,” he said.
“Your father made me promise never to get in touch with you… I’ve kept that promise for nearly thirty years. But there’s nothing he can do to harm me now. So I came back.” She suddenly leaned forward. “You have every right to be angry with me, Travis, don’t think I don’t understand that.”
“The twins never even knew you.”
“Nor I them.”
“That was your choice.”
“I was never a maternal woman. The mistake I made was in marrying Charles.”
“So you admit you made mistakes.”
“Have you never done something you’ve bitterly regretted?”
He leaned forward, feeling his shirt pull tight against his shoulder blades. “I’ve never married or had children—that way I can’t abandon my wife or my child. That’s one mistake I won’t make.”
“I had no idea Charles would react so cruelly! I was young, on my own in Paris, threatened with ruin if I as much as wrote you a letter. Charles wielded a lot of influence—even from Boston he could have made my life untenable.”
“Just the same. I’m sure you understand my difficulty,” Travis said. “You couldn’t be faulted for dying. Very few of us want to do that. But for abandoning me to my father’s less than tender mercies—yes, I fault you for that. If you were young, I was much younger. Just a boy. And very much alone.”
Tears were glittering in Leonora’s blue eyes. Julie saw them and forced herself to keep quiet. This scene was between mother and son; now that she’d brought the players together, she had no lines to speak. She only wished she could rid herself of that recurrent image of a motherless, dark-haired boy exiled from his beloved island, set down among strangers in a distant school. No wonder he’d never trusted enough to marry or have children.
“When I left for Paris, I had every intention of returning to Boston five or six times a year,” Leonora said. “What happened to you was terrible, far beyond anything I could have contemplated. But now I’m asking you as an adult to try to forgive me for my part in that. What your father did is between you and him.”
“Unfortunately Charles was no more a paternal figure than you were maternal. Jenessa never goes near him. Nor, since I was sixteen, have I. Brent is the heir apparent.”
“I plan to get in touch with both of them,” Leonora said flatly. “But it was essential that I approach you first.”
“If you’re expecting gratitude, you’re out of luck.”
“Just give me a chance, Travis, that’s all I ask.”
Travis tossed back his drink. “If you want to tell me about your career, I’ll listen.”
As a concession, it was a small one, Julie thought, trying to see it as better than nothing. The conversation limped along. Julie sipped her white wine and when Travis stood up twenty minutes later, was heartily glad to get to her feet.
Goodbyes were said. Briefly, a further meeting was discussed, without any decision being reached as to time or place. Travis made no move to touch his mother, nor did Leonora reach out for him. Then Julie and Travis were retracing their steps to his vehicle. Her jaws aching with tension, Julie sat in silence as he drove back to Old Port. He pulled up outside her apartment. “Thank you for coming with me,” he said.
He sounded cold and distant rather than grateful. She said evenly, “I can’t very well start a fight with you when we’re parked on the sidewalk outside my apartment. Too bad.”
“You want a fight, Julie?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
“I’d be delighted to oblige.”
“Then let’s go in.”
She wasn’t inviting him in for any reason other than to blow off steam, thought Julie. Sex was the last thing on her mind. They climbed the steps in a taut silence. As soon as she’d closed the door of her apartment, she went on the offensive. “You’ve had since Wednesday to absorb the facts, Travis—your mother’s alive and well and living in Portland. What are you going to do about her?”
“My mother died a long time ago.”
“You’ve been given what a lot of people would give a fortune for—a second chance.”
“Then I’m not most people.”
“You can’t just ignore her!”
“Try me.”
“That’s horribly cruel.”
“I grieved her loss for years and now all of sudden she reappears and asks for my forgiveness,” he said with brutal clarity. “Yet you think I should instantly forget the past and start acting like a son again? Give me a break. Life doesn’t work like that.”
“There’s something else—why did you never mention to me that you had a sister? That Brent had a twin? Are there any other little surprises you’ve been keeping from me? Stray wives I’m likely to meet on the street? Children scattered around the globe?”
“No—I don’t operate that way! Jenessa never comes within ten miles of Dad, and there was enough going on that weekend on Manatuck that I just plain didn’t get around to mentioning her.”
Rather grudgingly, Julie found she could accept this. But she wasn’t finished. “You know how I see it? You’re so lucky to have a mother like Leonora. She’s artistic and talented and passionate. She takes risks. She’s out of the ordinary.”
“That’s the problem—don’t you see?” he retorted. “A six-year-old wants an ordinary mother. One who’s there at bedtime and in the morning when he gets up. One he can take his problems to as well as his accomplishments. Sure, Leonora’s had an amazing career. But from my perspective, the cost was too high.”
Her eyes blazing, Julie demanded, “Would you have preferred a mother like mine, who was always there and never stopped trying to control me? Who was so scared of her emotions she buried them all, and denied me my own along with it? My mother’s no more maternal than Leonora—Leonora’s just more honest about it. And I’m like you, I’ve never married, either. Too scared to. Too afraid that I might turn out like my mother.”
To her horror Julie suddenly collapsed on the chesterfield, buried her face in her hands and started to cry. Travis sat down beside her, clumsily putting his arms around her. She struck him away. “Go home! Leave me alone. Neither one of us has got the guts of a—a flea.”
“Let’s prove you wrong,” Travis said urgently. “Let’s take a risk. Both of us.”
“We’re not going n-near my bedroom.”
“I’m not suggesting we do. I’ve got to get out of town, Julie. Breathe some clean salt air, try to get my sense of proportion back. My friend Bryce offered me his cottage for the weekend. Come with me, you can have your own room if that’s what it takes. I just want to be with you by the ocean. That’s all.”
“That’s a lot,” said Julie.
“If I spend one more day cooped up in that bloody condo, I’ll go out of my mind.”
“I understand the feeling,” she said with a small smile.
“I dare you to come with me.”
If she didn’t want to end up like her mother, she didn’t want to be alone like Leonora, either. Wasn’t sitting in her apartment all weekend on a par with Pearl’s behavior? Besides, she was still feeling deathly tired, a symptom she was doing her best to ignore. A weekend by the sea was just what she needed; it would also take her mind off the fact that her period was now two days later than it had been on Wednesday.
She wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be. She didn’t even want to consider the possibility with Travis sitting so treacherously close to her. “I never could refuse a dare,” she said.
“Go pack,” Travis ordered.
His smile made him look ten years younger, Julie thought humb
ly. She got up, washed her face in the bathroom, threw some clothes in a case and came back into the living room. “We’d better go. Before I change my mind.”
Twenty minutes later, after Travis had also packed a bag for the weekend, they were on the road, driving north. Julie sat back, closing her eyes, and fell asleep with the suddenness of a child.
Travis drove on, stealing sideways looks at his companion. She’d lost weight, he thought. And the shadows under her eyes were new. He was almost sure he was the reason.
He had a weekend to persuade her that separate rooms was a very bad idea; and that after the weekend, he wanted to keep on seeing her. If he suggested they share a room, would that be another dare she couldn’t refuse? The way her dark lashes lay on her cheeks and the soft curve of her mouth in sleep filled him with an emotion he could only call tenderness.
A brand-new emotion.
He couldn’t be in love. He’d never fallen in love, not once. After his broken engagement, he’d had women through the years, of course he had. But he’d always been careful to caution them that romance, commitment and marriage weren’t part of his vocabulary.
There’d been those who’d tried to change his mind. But they hadn’t succeeded.
So what was different about Julie?
She hadn’t liked the way he’d spoken to Leonora. To his mother, Travis corrected himself inwardly. The two words felt strange, almost as though they had no connection to him. Why was he so angry with his mother, when his father had behaved even more reprehensively? Leonora hadn’t left home meaning never to return. It was Charles who’d ensured her absence would be permanent. Logically, it was Charles he should be angry with. However, logic didn’t seem to have much to do with that constrained meeting in Leonora’s apartment. He’d felt like a chunk of granite on the beach. And as cold as the waves of the sea.
He owed Leonora an apology, he supposed. He might even be able to have a civilized conversation with her at some point in the future. But how could he ever revive the instinctual love a child has for his mother? Hadn’t that died, all those years ago? He and his mother were strangers to each other.