Water's End

by Jessica Deforest

  Six weeks later, when David felt stronger, they went down to the Palm Desert house, and Anne packed up Mark's things. Mark hadn't kept much there, so only four boxes went to charity.

  The media mentioned the tragedy less and less, and Anne and David were able to recover somewhat.

  Over the next month, David grew stronger and looked fit; a bit thinner, perhaps, but handsome as ever. Dr. Mitchell said David had to stay out of the sun because ultraviolet rays depress immunity, so he was not as tan as usual, but he still looked healthy. His stomach had calmed down, and he was no longer plagued with the night sweats that had first alerted him to his condition.

  "Aren't you worried about catching HIV from me?" he asked her one day as she put their breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. "Most folks would be."

  "Nah. When I did my undergrad work, I needed a science class, so I took microbiology. AIDS was a big topic of discussion then, and I learned a lot about it. I'm aware of how fragile the virus is, so I'm not afraid it'll be lurking on the dishes or anywhere in the house. It dies within a short time of exposure to the air. And I know it's not spread by casual contact, like kissing. So there's nothing to be afraid of."

  "I wish more people knew that."

  "They will. It's a matter of education. The public is not so ignorant now. But we still have a long way to go," she added, remembering Ryan White, the young boy who contracted AIDS from transfusions of a blood factor used in the treatment of hemophilia. In the eighties, the child had been ostracized and couldn't even attend school because people were afraid of getting AIDS from him.

  He took her hand and stroked it across his cheek, palm up. "You've been so good to take care of me through all of this. But I want you to get back to your life. I'm going to be all right." He kissed the tip of her nose. "And so are you."

  Pushing a strand of hair out of her face, she said, "Yes, I believe we both will be okay. Much as I hate to leave, I have to head back home. My sons will be here visiting next week, so I have to get the house in shape. I just wish Scott's wife could be here too, but she doesn't feel she can take time off from work. So it'll be just the two boys. I can't believe I still call them boys. They're men, but I guess they will always be boys to me."

  "I can't wait to spend more time with them."

  "I wish Vicki and her family could be here, too, but with her little one in school, there's no way. I'm going visit her in the spring, when it's a little cooler in Alabama. "

  "You're picking them up at LAX Monday morning?

  She smiled and finished packing her overnight bag. "Yes. I wanted them to land in Santa Barbara, but it's more expensive, and I don't mind driving down to Los Angeles. They land within a half hour of each other."

  "Why don’t you plan on bringing them over to my house for dinner and a swim?"

  "Sounds like a deal to me."

  She could hardly wait to see her sons. Although they talked on the phone frequently, her telephone bill was a nightmare, there was nothing like being with them.

  The following Monday, Anne was at the airport an hour early, pacing the floor and fidgeting until her sons arrived. When they were both on the ground and had picked up their luggage, Anne brought the car around.

  They talked nonstop all the way to David's house, where they spent the afternoon chatting with David, swimming, and lounging around the pool. Anne was touched by the way David welcomed her sons. He quickly developed the same sort of rapport with them that he had with her—instant friendship. They just clicked, and it thrilled her.

  "Hey, Mom," Zach said, "he's one of us."

  Penelope cooked a big Mexican dinner for them that evening, which they ate out on the patio. Anne laughed as she watched her sons wolf down two plates full of food each. "Mexican food was a wise choice, David. It's about the only thing that can fill these guys up."

  David chuckled. "Somewhere back in the mists of time I can remember having an appetite like that. Mom always said we should live in the parking lot of the supermarket and have a conveyor belt bring in a steady stream of food." Everyone laughed.

  "Why didn't I think of that?" Anne said, and they all laughed again.

  David tapped his water glass with his fork. "Attention. Attention, everyone. I have wonderful news," he said. "I'm going to make a film in London for Jean Broussard. I'm a lousy actor, and I don't know why he wants me. But he does, and it's big bucks, so I'm off to the UK the first of October."

  Anne's heart thudded dully in her chest.

  Chapter 26

  David called her two weeks after he left. "Darling, I have a week off in November. Join me in London the twenty-third?"

  Anne squealed in delight. "Of course I will. Oh, David, I'm so excited."

  "It's going to be wonderful," he said. "I've missed you."

  "How are you feeling?" she asked, thinking how good it was to hear his voice.

  "Great. You'd never know I'm a goner," he said.

  "Don't say such things. You've got to keep a positive attitude."

  She worried incessantly, but when she stepped off the plane at Gatwick airport, she found David looking as if he'd never been ill for a second. During the long drive to their hotel, they held hands and caught up on what they had been doing.

  "It feels as if you've been gone for a year," Anne said.

  David kissed her cheek. "No, ten years."

  The cab pulled up in front of a row of white three-story buildings, and David paid the driver, who unloaded Anne's bags.

  "Here we are. Kensington Brampton Hotel," David said. "Kensington Park is right across the street, and Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lives, is in the middle of the park."

  The bellhop put her bags on a cart and rolled them up to their rooms. Tipping the fellow, who stood by with an expectant look on his face after placing her two suitcases in the hallway, David said, "I'll take them from here."

  He put the luggage inside and closed the door. "Wow, those bags are heavy. I see you still pack too much stuff. Haven't changed a bit."

  Turning to Anne, he said, "I've missed you so," and swept her into an embrace.

  "Me too." She said, nuzzling against him.

  "How do you like the digs?"

  She turned to look around at their suite, all dark wood and pink floral chintz. "Veddy English," she said. "And quite lovely."

  "Come see your room." He led her across the sitting room to a bedroom with a huge canopy bed. The entire space, walls, easy chairs, curtains, comforter, and even the bed canopy, was done up in pink toile.

  "I love it. It's like being inside a candy box."

  His room was decorated in a mix of pale blue florals and stripes. "I could do without the flowers," David said, "but you can't escape them here. Everything in this country seems to be covered in roses, peonies, violets, or whatever."

  He plugged in an electric kettle, which sat on a tray atop the sideboard, along with a fat teapot, china cups and saucers, and a container full of assorted of teas and instant cocoa. They drank hot chocolate, and within minutes fell asleep on the sofa for a couple of hours.

  Awaking refreshed, Anne was amazed at how her excitement made it easy shake off the fatigue of a seven-hour flight. David was awake too, and made a pot of tea, which they drank as they gazed across the street at the park.

  They were uncertain what to do for the rest of the afternoon. After deciding not to venture too far afield, they left the hotel and crossed the street to Kensington Park, with its spreading chestnut trees. It was chilly, but nice weather for a stroll.

  "Oh, look," David said, admiring a low fountain with a statue of a dog on top, where a Londoner out for a stroll stopped to let his spaniels drink. "A drinking fountain for dogs. You gotta love the Brits."

  They visited Kensington Palace, where they saw Princess Di's wedding dress on display, and then walked down to the Victoria and Albert museum. It was nearing closing time, so they decided to save it for another day and ate an early dinner at a charming Indian restaurant around the corner. T
he evening air had grown quite cold, so they didn't waste any time getting back to the hotel, where they said their goodnights early.

  The next morning they put on tracksuits over turtleneck T-shirts. "Layers," Anne said. "You can always peel something off if you get too warm." There probably wouldn't be much chance of that, as it was still chilly out, although the sun was uncharacteristically bright.

  At Victoria Station they purchased a tour ticket that included a high-speed train to a little town where they boarded a bus to Leeds castle, with its mirrored lake and formal gardens. After a brief but boring tour of the castle's interiors, they strolled the gardens and then went to the restaurant on the castle grounds. Anne was surprised to find hamburgers on the menu, which David ordered for both of them, but what they were served bore no resemblance to anything they had ever eaten.

  "Are you sure you actually ordered hamburgers?" Anne said.

  "They're round and flat, so the cooks must believe that's what these are, but I think they cooked the packaging, not the meat." David laughed as he tried to chew his burger.

  "We should've gone for the kidney pie, I suppose."

  He wrinkled his nose. "Nah. This will do. And the fries are sorta good."

  Luckily, the unseasonably warm weather held as Anne and David did the typical tourist sites, including Hampton Court, the beautiful palace where Henry VIII had lived with Anne Boleyn.

  Anne joked about the trees, which were trimmed to look like phallic symbols. "The guide said the king desperately wanted a son, and the trees represent fertility, but I think it just proved old Henry VIII was a randy devil."

  She loved the swans floating on the Thames in front of the palace. In fact, there seemed to be swans everywhere there was water in England.

  Trying to pack as much as they could into the little time they had, the next day they took a train out to Windsor Castle, where Anne oohed and ahhed over the magnificent interior and marveled at Queen Mary's dollhouse. From the castle, they went down to Eton College, where they found a basement pub, cozy and warm, and had onion soup in thick earthenware bowls served with chunks of dark bread.

  On yet another day trip, they trekked to the Tower of London, amazed at the huge ravens, so shiny they almost looked wet, making such a racket they could hardly hear the guide.

  "Why, they sound like pigs," David said.

  With each gronk-gronk croaaaak from the birds, he laughed. Before long, he was holding his sides and gasping for air.

  "I've heard about the ravens of the tower," David said, "but I wasn't expecting them to be big as chickens and fat as hogs."

  "You know the legend, sir," their guide said. "As long as there are ravens at the Tower, there will always be an England. So we're making sure of it."

  "One thing is certain," David said, "you don't have to worry about them flying away. They're too fat to get off the ground."

  Their guide tapped his derby and laughed. "Now you know our secret."

  Anne felt a stab of pity when she saw the spot where Anne Boleyn lost her head to the executioner. And again later at Westminster Cathedral, at the short tomb in which the second wife of Henry VIII supposedly lay buried in an arrow case with her head tucked underneath her arm. They weren't expecting the large crowds in the great church. Their guide said about 20,000 people passed through the cathedral daily.

  "If you ask me, this is too much like a day at Disney World," Anne whispered.

  "Yeah," David said, "but would you want to miss it?"

  She shook her head. "I hear Europe is like this all the time."

  "You heard right. Worse in the summer. About the only time it slows down is August, particularly around the Mediterranean, because it's so hot then. Everybody closes shop and goes to the beach."

  In spite of their lighthearted mood, they were always aware of the IRA's threats. Only the day before, the wax museum had been bombed, although it reopened for business the next day. Signs in Victoria Station warned that luggage left unattended for more than thirty minutes would be destroyed. It was an effort to prevent terrorists from planting a bomb in the huge train station, which thousands of people passed through each day.

  Thankful there was a station just around the corner from their hotel, they took the subway, or tube, as the locals called it, all over London, mindful that the subterranean tunnels had served as air-raid shelters during WWII.

  Remembering how her creative-writing professor raved about pub grub and ethnic restaurants in London, they ate around the corner at an old-fashioned pub, where they found wonderful, home-style food. Another day they ate again at the Indian restaurant near the museum. And as often as they could, they had dinner at their hotel's marvelous continental restaurant, which specialized in gourmet lamb dishes.

  "I thought English food was supposed to be awful," Anne said.

  "That's a myth the IRA concocted to keep tourists away," David said, laughing. "Actually, the Brits decided to make a national effort to upgrade their cuisine about ten years ago in response to tourism. Except for hamburgers," he said. "They haven't quite mastered those yet."

  They never had rain, not even a drizzle, while they were there, and their tour guides agreed that it was most unusual weather. It was the perfect time of year to visit England. Days were sunny, crisp, and cool, evenings were chilly, and there still were flowers everywhere. Anne loved the window boxes dripping ivy, sweet alyssum, and geraniums that decorated all the hotels along the street.

  Their last night in London, Anne and David sat before the fireplace in their suite, as they had every evening. "You build a great fire," Anne said.

  "You honor me," he said. He threw a pillow at her, which led to a thirty-minute free-for-all that left puffs of down floating about.

  "All right, enough horseplay," she said. "I've got to catch my flight at seven in the morning, so it's off to bed with me."

  Growing somber, she said, "Thank you so much. This has been such a thrilling time. Imagine, taking my first trip abroad with my favorite person. It's been too wonderful. I need a hug."

  David grimaced but opened his arms wide and stood before the fire, holding her close longer than he usually did. Giving her a final squeeze, he pecked her on the cheek. "It was perfect having you here," he said. "Now scat."

  On the flight home the next day, Anne relived all the wonderful things they had done together. It was another three months before she saw him again, and though he called frequently, she had never felt so lonely in her life. During her marriage, she found she would rather be alone than be with Tully, and she relished her solitude. But now she was used to having David in her life. Before he had started work on this movie, she knew she could count on his call every Sunday night and that she would see him once a week.

  Now his shooting schedule kept him so busy that she was lucky to hear from him at all. She missed the dinners they shared at romantic restaurants, dancing at little clubs, and sitting before the fire together. The loneliness nearly overpowered her, paralyzing her with despair.

  Years ago a therapist had told Anne that when she felt most like isolating, she should do just the opposite and reach out. She knew it was time to take herself in hand. After all, she had always joked that the most valuable thing she had learned in college didn't come from a professor. Instead, it was a classmate, who said, during a discussion about loneliness, "We are responsible for our own happiness." When Anne first heard the phrase, it struck a chord in her.

  It was time for Anne to get off her backside. She started by playing bridge with some of the women from work every Friday night, rotating houses. Although she much preferred conversation to card playing, she was not about to sit at home and feel sorry for herself. Even though she ached for David every second, she went out to dinner and the theater with friends, keeping busy and reaching out to others.

  There was no need to bother with Christmas decorations this year; she was meeting her children in Miami for a holiday cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. Without David along to share in the fun, Ann
e felt as if a part of herself were missing, but she made the best of it. Seeing the kids buoyed her up considerably, and they all loved how easy Christmas was that year.

  In spite of her best efforts, each day crawled by more slowly than the last as she awaited David's return. Because he never mentioned his health in their few telephone conversations, Anne didn't worry about him. Consequently, she was deeply shocked when he returned. She hardly recognized him.

  Now there could be no doubt that he was very ill; it was written in every deep line of fatigue in his now-thin face. The navy blazer hung on his once muscular body, his jeans sagged, and nothing could hide the gray undertone that was most prominent in the hollows of his cheeks.

  Anne didn't know what to say, but she was determined not to let him see how shocked she was. Dashing across the terminal, she threw her arms around him. "Forced hug, darling," she said. "Gotcha."

  She could feel every bone in his back, and although he returned her hug, she could tell it was an effort for him. This limp clasp was far from his usual powerful embrace.

  "You know, I'm actually starting to enjoy having you maul and squeeze me like a big lemon," he said.

  "I knew if I kept it up long enough, I'd get you conditioned. Come on, let's go get your bags."

  "Okay. But let me sit down for a minute and catch my breath." He walked over to a row of seats, where he sat down for a moment and leaned back.

  "These international flights seem to get longer every time I ride one. Wow, my fanny aches," he said as he got up and rubbed his backside. "I look and feel awful. The UK is wonderful, and I love it, but it's just too cold and damp in the winter."

  He coughed. "I've lost so much weight over the last month, it's a good thing the camera work was finished. We did looping and voiceovers for six weeks, and then waited around for another week until they wrapped the picture, in case they needed any do-overs. What an ordeal."