Within Reach

by Barbara Delinsky

  She was more appalled, though, when out of the blue Blake announced that her mother would be arriving in Maine the next day.

  “Mom’s coming here?”

  “You don’t expect her to be going to a hotel when you could clearly use her help.”

  “Her help.” Danica carefully swallowed the bitter words that threatened to spill, but evidently she was less successful at concealing the cynical look in her eye.

  “Look, Danica, I have to get back to Boston tomorrow. Eleanor felt that you shouldn’t be alone at this time, and I agree. She’s concerned about you. She and your father were both very upset when I called.”

  Strange, Danica hadn’t given a thought to notifying her parents of what had happened. She must have simply blocked out that particularly odious chore from her mind. Of course they would be upset. They had wanted a grandchild, as though it were their God-given right. Well, what about her rights? What about the child she’d wanted? What about the warm, close family life she had dreamed about having for years and years?

  “I wish you’d told her not to come,” Danica murmured.

  “She’s your mother. It’s her place to be here.”

  Danica’s laugh held a touch of hysteria. “Her conscience must be coming to life after all these years. She never worried about ‘her place’ before. At least, she never worried about it with regard to me. She and Dad were always out doing something that was more important.”

  “You’re being ungenerous, Danica. What she and your father did they had to do.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. Mine differs from theirs.”

  Blake’s nostrils flared. His handsome features suddenly took on a harder cast, one she had never seen before. She wondered if she was getting to him… finally.

  “Your mother loves you.” He spaced his words as though he were talking to a child. “She wants to be here. I had no idea you objected to her company.”

  “It’s hard to object to something you’ve had so little exposure to. I wonder what’s come over her all of a sudden. Belated maternal instincts. Maybe she’s going through menopause and—”

  “That’s enough, Danica.” He got to his feet, automatically smoothing the crease in his trousers. “You’re upset. You need some rest. I’ll go get my bag from the car and change. Maybe you’ll be in a better mood when I’m done.”

  He never saw the who-in-the-devil-do-you-think-you-are glance that hit his back as he headed for the door, and it crumbled as soon as he was gone. By the time he returned and changed his clothes, Danica’s anger had given way to fatigue. She was tired. Tired of wanting and not having. Tired of needing and going without. Of course, things seemed worse right now, she told herself. The doctor had warned her that she might be depressed for a time but that it would pass. She could only take one day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time. Four days later she breathed a sigh of relief when Eleanor Marshall kissed her goodbye and started back for Connecticut. Within minutes, she was out the glass slider, across the deck, down the stairs and running along the beach.

  “Michael!” she bellowed from the sand beneath his house. “Michael!”

  Mercifully soon, he was out on the deck, stunned at the sight of Danica standing with her bare feet planted firmly in the sand.

  “I thought she’d never leave, Michael! I nearly went out of my mind!” Her call was fraught with pent-up frustration. The tension in her body was marked.

  “Take it easy.” He trotted down the stone steps. “Take it easy. We’ll talk it out.”

  “Oh, God, Michael. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. For years I wanted her attention; then suddenly I had it and I felt stifled!”

  He was beside her, taking in her look of wide-eyed exasperation. Unable to help himself, he grinned.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. You look beautiful and independent and impulsive. Do you realize that I’ve never seen you quite this way?”

  “Laugh, then, if you want. But I have the worst case of cabin fever and if I don’t do something, I think I’m going to scream.”

  “You already did. Twice. Wanna do it again?”

  About to argue, she looked at him, then squeezed her eyes shut, balled her fists and let out the loudest, most satisfying scream in the world. When the sound rose beyond the rocks and the pines and died, she dropped her chin to her chest, took a deep breath, then let it out very, very slowly. “Ahhh.” She raised her head. “That felt good.”

  Grinning still, Michael wrapped her in his arms and whirled her around. He had missed her. He had stopped by twice, as a neighbor and friend, to say hello and offer his services to her mother, but he hadn’t had a chance to visit with Danica. He hadn’t wanted to push his luck that far.

  “You’re looking better,” he said when he set her back on the sand. “I take it you got lots of rest.”

  “She wouldn’t let me do a thing. Not that she’s great around the house, mind you. I should be grateful we had a cook all those years. Then again, maybe if we hadn’t, she’d have learned to make something other than baked chicken and hamburg.”

  “That’s all you ate?”

  “We alternated. Chicken on Sunday, hamburg on Monday, chicken last night. She left a hamburg patty in the refrigerator for me to broil tonight.”

  “What about lunches?”

  “Tuna salad. Egg salad.”

  Michael winced. “And breakfast?”

  “Oatmeal…every…morning.”

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “It’s not funny, Michael. Between meals she doted like a mother hen. I didn’t know how to act. One thing’s for sure, my mind was so occupied trying to figure her out that I didn’t have time to dwell on the baby.”

  Her expression sobered at the last. Draping an arm around her shoulder, Michael drew her into step beside him as he began to walk slowly along the beach. They talked of her mother and of her father, who had called and spoken to her twice. She told him of the visit she had from a flower-bearing Sara, of a sweet call from Greta McCabe and more dutiful ones from city friends. He told her of the progress he had made in his writing, of the discussion he’d had with his editor and the plans they had for publicizing his book.

  And they talked about the baby, Danica’s feelings, her discouragement but resignation.

  In the end, though, the one thought that played most heavily in Danica’s mind was the realization that in another two weeks she would be returning to Boston.

  eight

  tHE NEXT FEW MONTHS WERE DIFFICULT ONES for Danica. By the time she returned to Boston she for Danica. By the time she returned to Boston she was still trying to acclimate herself to the fact that there would be no baby come spring. She rationalized that her miscarriage was perhaps a blessing, that as the doctor had suggested, the baby hadn’t been healthy from the start. She reminded herself that having a child was the worst thing she could have done if, by doing so, she hoped to save a floundering marriage. But she hadn’t been hoping that. Not really.

  The fact was that though her marriage was far from ideal, there were bonds holding it together, albeit ones that had less to do with any true love between Blake and her than with external factors such as social convenience and appearance and, of course, expectation.

  True, a baby might have added a more personal link to the marriage, but the major reason she had wanted one had been to give meaning to her own life. She wanted to be a mother. She wanted to be able to create a little world with her child, a world that would welcome the love she had to give.

  Many, many times she imagined that her miscarriage had been a form of divine punishment. She was married to Blake, but she loved Michael, and that was wrong, so the theory went. But it wasn’t, she inevitably argued. Could something that was so beautiful, something that felt so right, be wrong? Could something that made her feel whole, that made her feel treasured, be wrong? Could something that drew from her warmth and caring and concern for another human being be wrong?

&nb
sp; There were no answers to her questions. And as if accepting the loss of her baby wasn’t enough, the return to Boston, itself, was something akin to drug withdrawal. She missed Michael terribly. The contrast between her life in the city—meetings, luncheons, cocktail receptions, charity benefits—and that she led all summer—biking the streets, walking the beach, reading, thinking, spending time with new-found friends—was harsh.

  Blake was Blake, and more distant than ever. She told herself that he was simply up to his ears in commitments. But the fact remained that they made no use of what little time they did have together to discuss anything, much less their relationship. Blake never spoke of her miscarriage. He never spoke of Maine. She wondered for a time if he resented her love of the place, but as the weeks passed and she dutifully remained on Beacon Hill, she felt his resentment was unwarranted.

  He arrived home at night talked out and tired. When he traveled, he rarely called. In desperation, Danica once again began to think of working. She took to reading the help-wanted ads in the paper each morning, but somehow seeing job demands in print made her acutely aware of both the scope of such a commitment and of her own very vague qualifications. She began to discreetly send out feelers among the people with whom she came into contact—the development director at the hospital, the curator of the museum, the university president with whom she often talked at dinner parties.

  September became October. The leaves turned, then fell. She was thoroughly discouraged and on the verge of escaping to Maine, which she knew would be wrong because she couldn’t expect that Michael would have solutions that she couldn’t find herself. Moreover, she told herself, she couldn’t always run to him when things were rough. It wasn’t fair to either of them. He would allow her to use him, she feared, but she had to learn to be independent. If she was dissatisfied with her life, she had to take it in her own two hands and remold it.

  The opening came when she least expected it, while she was attending a benefit lecture given at the Women’s City Club by a renowned economist. Blake was out of town, so Danica had gone alone, not because she was a fan of the speaker or because she was deeply involved in economics, but because she had helped plan the affair, the proceeds of which were being put toward a scholarship fund at one of the smaller local colleges.

  She knew many of the people there and spent much of her time at the subsequent reception talking with them. When the conversation waned or, rather, when her interest in the conversation waned, as it always did, she excused herself and graciously approached a group that included the young woman who had taken charge of publicity for the event.

  “You did a wonderful job, Sharon. The crowd is more than we’d dared hope for.”

  Sharon Tyler smiled and sent her eyes in an encompassing sweep of the room. “It’s more than I’d hoped for, either, and I couldn’t be happier. Sometimes you can plug and plug an event and then have it fall through. It’s gratifying when the reverse happens.”

  They talked for a bit about Sharon’s other work; then Sharon introduced Danica to the three people with her. The Hancocks were a couple Danica had met in passing once before. The third member of the group was an older gentleman, a man in his late seventies, whom she had never met but whose name rang an instant bell. James Hardmore Bryant. Former Governor of the Commonwealth.

  “Governor Bryant, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She had had a moment’s pause when an instinctive wariness reared its head, but the man before her was so gentle-looking that she was easily able to smile as she offered her hand. When he proceeded to speak, his voice echoed that gentleness.

  “It’s my pleasure, Mrs. Lindsay. I understand that you played a large role in organizing this affair, and I’d like to thank you. The cause is a good one.” His smile was sweet in its wrinkled way, and it was genuine, as was the concern he went on to express. “It’s hard for young people nowadays. At one time college was thought to be a luxury of the privileged. If you had the money, you went, and you went wherever you wanted to go. Today, the competition for college admittance is frightening, and the financial commitment is even worse. Yet a college education is a necessity if one hopes to rise in the world. There, too, things were different in my day. Whether or not you had a degree tucked under your belt, you could go out there, and if you had a few brains and a little ambition, you could make something of yourself.

  “Take the case of Frankie Cohn. He had nothing. Dirt poor, his family was, but he needed a job, so they borrowed the money to buy him a paper route.” He lowered his voice. “In those days you didn’t just volunteer for the job. You had to put down hard cash for the rights to the list of customers.” He paused only for a breath. Danica sensed that he loved to talk, but she was enjoying listening, as were the others, so she smiled her encouragement when he went on.

  “He took on that first route when he was twelve, and it was hard work. He was a skinny kid and he used to keep the papers together with a strap and hoist the whole load—sometimes it was nearly as big as he was—onto his shoulder. There weren’t bicycles as you and I know them in those days, and a little red wagon wouldn’t have gotten him far. In order to get the papers in the first place, he had to take the street-car—he wore a badge on his left arm that allowed him to ride for free—and he pick the papers up at one station, ride back to the station nearest his route, then start to deliver. The route, by the way, was four miles from his own house. On Sundays he would be up at four in the morning to take the streetcar to pick up the papers, come back to the basement of a nearby hotel, where he had to put them together, then deliver the lot. He would walk the four miles home for breakfast, then the four miles back to collect money from each of his customers. In wet weather he would wear big hip boots. On cold, snowy days his mother sometimes cried when he left. But he did it.”

  Danica was shaking her head. “That’s amazing.”

  The Governor raised both brows. “You haven’t heard the best. He kept that morning route for two years, then took on the afternoon and evening routes and hired seven kids to do it for him. He used to handle all the money, keeping track of everything in his little book. By the time he was seventeen he was in charge of delivering papers in all parts of the city.” He made a gesture with his hand. “Of course, the city was different in those days. Safer.” He chuckled. “Once he was accosted by a drunken prostitute. He pushed her away and ran like hell.” The smile faded. “But he could’ve found that anywhere. Frankie Cohn loved Boston, and he got to know it by heart. Also made a neat profit for himself. Five thousand in one year, and five thousand was a lot of money then. He’s a millionaire today.”

  “Cityside Distributors,” Alan Hancock injected, supplying the key that had instant meaning for Danica, who had seen the name dozens of times on bills that had come in the mail for Blake. Alan smiled. “James is wonderful when it comes to stories like this. He’s been on the scene for so many years that he’s a treasure trove of information.” He turned to the older man. “James, you have to write them down. You’re missing your calling, keeping everything to yourself.”

  The Governor’s ruddy complexion grew all the more so. “Ach, I haven’t got the patience for that. Never did. Never will. No one wants to read about an old man’s ramblings. I think I’ll just save them up for times like these.” He glanced at his watch. “But it’s past my bedtime, ladies and gentleman. I’d better be running. It’s a long way home.”

  Sharon chuckled. “Governor Bryant lives just a little ways down on Beacon Street.”

  “At my age, young lady,” James admonished with a grin, “that’s a long way.” Nodding once, he made a graceful exit.

  The talk within the group lingered for a bit on James Bryant’s days in the State House, then turned to the college he supported, the same one that would offer the scholarship being established by the evening’s proceeds, then to the Hancocks’ daughter, who was a sophomore at a college out of state.

  Danica’s thoughts moved less quickly. An earlier part of the conversation stuck in
her mind. It was there when she arrived home that night. It was still there two days later when, in a moment of impulsive bravery, she picked up the phone and called James Hardmore Bryant.

  “Governor Bryant?” she began, sounding far more confident than she felt, “this is Danica Lindsay. Perhaps you remember. We met at the Women’s City Club the other night?”

  “Of course, I remember you, Mrs. Lindsay,” came the gentle voice. “I’m not so old that I can’t appreciate a pretty face when I see one. Did I tell you that you look very much like my late wife, DeeDee, God rest her soul? A wonderful woman she was. Oh, we fought like cats and dogs and she never did like me running around like I owned the city, but we did have forty-two good years together…But there I go again. You didn’t call to hear me reminisce about my marriage, now, did you?”

  Danica smiled. “No, though it sounds like a lovely story. I’d like to hear it another time, which is in a way the reason I’m calling.” She took a steadying breath. “I wonder if I could come see you. There’s something I’d like to discuss.”

  “Something you’d like to discuss. Sounds serious.”

  “It could be. Well, that is…it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t live far from you. I could come over at your convenience.”

  The Governor cleared his throat. “Now, let me see. I’ve got my appointment book right in front of me. Ahhhh. Today’s free. And tomorrow. And the next day.” He chuckled. “I’m not in demand the way I used to be. You name a time. What’s best for you?”

  She was already feeling better. The research she had done in the library the day before had told her that James Bryant had been a powerful chief executive. The image of the spirited Irishman had clashed with the more mellow impression she received the other night. Other things she’d read had, in part, explained the mellowing, and she assumed much of it had simply come with age. Still, she hadn’t been sure how he would react to her request.