by Sandra Brown
That had been late last fall, and now it was spring. Each day, unlike the emergence of life around him, spelled further deterioration for Erik.
The standards of perfection he had always demanded from his work were less stringent. He was sloppy in the things he produced. He drank too much, usually until he was in a somnolent stupor. No surcease from his depression was found with women. None appealed to him. Plenty were available, just as they had always been, but he spurned them. Try as they might, none could arouse him to that pitch of passion that Kathleen—
“Another one, please,” Erik said abruptly to the bartender, and watched as the scotch was splashed into the glass. Months ago, he had given up water or ice or soda, anything that diluted the drugging quality of the liquor that made the pain bearable.
However, he welcomed the pain now. That slow, smoldering heartache was almost a comfortable companion, and virtually the only friend he had left. They knew each other well. For a while, he had wiped the image of her face from his mind each time he had unwillingly conjured it up. Now, he let it alone. He savored the sight of her even if it was a figment.
Last summer. Had it been that long ago? Those days, so few when compared to his lifetime, had brought him immeasurable pleasure and unspeakable sorrow. One thing good had come out of them. Bob and Sally had adopted little Jaimie.
Erik smiled in spite of his dejection. For years, his brother and Sally had tried to conceive, almost desperately, using clinical techniques he couldn’t even fathom. Once he was able to talk about Mountain View, he told them about Jaimie. They became interested in the child and asked Erik to show them tapes of Jaimie. Excited, but trying not to build their hopes too high, they contacted the orphanage in Joplin, Missouri, where Jaimie lived. Before two months had gone by, he was theirs. Then, at Christmas, Sally had proudly announced that she was pregnant. Jaimie was as thrilled by the news as the rest of the family.
One good thing had come out of last summer.
How long was he going to go on like this? He wasn’t the first guy to be thrown over. This was just the first and only time it had ever happened to him. Dying a slow, useless death wasn’t exactly his idea of valor. He had alienated his friends and driven his brother to distraction with worry over him. His associates despised him, but no more than Erik despised himself. He didn’t want to regress to the cynic he had been before Ethiopia and other such experiences had opened his eyes to the pain others in the world suffered.
This was April. April in Paris would be nice. Slowly, almost regretfully, Erik pushed away the full glass of whiskey and stood up. He looked at the sallow, unkempt, disreputable-looking man that stared back at him from the mirror over the bar.
Walking toward the door, he knew what he had to do.
* * *
“A baby! A boy!” Edna exclaimed as she held the announcement in her hand. “She didn’t even mention that she was pregnant when she sent us that long letter at Christmas.”
“Read it to me again,” B. J. said.
“Theron Dean Kirchoff, eight pounds five ounces, twenty-one inches long, born April twelfth.”
“April twelfth,” B. J. mused aloud.
The birth announcement was slowly lowered as Edna’s eyes lifted to confront those of her husband.
“It couldn’t be,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Have you ever heard of an eight-pound-plus premature baby? She didn’t marry that guy until October. She hadn’t even met him until the end of August, first of September.”
“What are you doing?” Edna asked as she followed close behind B. J. into the living room to the telephone.
“I’m calling Erik Gudjonsen. Not telling him about Kathleen’s whereabouts for his own good was one thing. Having a son is another.”
B. J. was on the telephone for fifteen minutes, but the results of the long-distance call were less than satisfactory. Yes, this is the television station where Mr. Gudjonsen was employed, the girl at the switchboard told B. J., but he no longer worked there. He had quit without notice just a few days ago. No, no one knew where he was working now, but it was thought that he had gone abroad.
Chapter Twelve
“Theron, please!” Kathleen shouted, and dodged the thrashing legs that threatened to shower her again with the clear water of the swimming pool. Theron shrieked with delight and renewed his efforts to drench his mother.
“You’re a pest. Do you know that?” she teased, and grabbed his chubby body around the waist, lowering her head and nuzzling his neck while he strove to escape this show of affection. At seventeen months old, he was already developing an aversion to maternal protection and asserting his newfound independence. Only when he ran into trouble of some sort did he come to Kathleen seeking solace.
He was active, curious and headstrong, determined to have his way against all odds. On the days Kathleen was home, she spent nearly every minute in his company, basking in a glow of pride and love.
When Theron was born, Seth wanted her to quit working. He saw how time- and energy-consuming being a mother was. But Kathleen had been adamant.
“Before I was your wife, I was your employee. You hired me to do a very difficult job. Until I feel like I’ve accomplished what you outlined for me to do, I’ll continue working at least three days a week. With the new store in Stonetown and the boutique in Ghirardelli’s now open, you need me more than ever.”
He acquiesced, but only if she would accept her current salary. Each week, she endorsed a paycheck and deposited it into a savings account. Seth wouldn’t let her spend any of that money, but gave her a sizable “household account.”
She had hired an assistant to help her, but was never far from the telephone when not actually in the stores or at her office.
Her assistant was a young man named Eliot Pate. He knew the retail clothing business inside out, had a flair for style and an uncanny instinct about what merchandise would sell quickly. They had recognized each other’s talent, and an immediate friendship had sprung up between them.
She accepted his alternate lifestyle. He overlooked her flagrant femininity, and she overlooked his occasional bitchiness. When she was off, spending her days with Theron, she knew that Eliot had things well under control.
Today was one such day. She and Theron were languishing away the late afternoon hours in the Kirchoffs’ pool. Kathleen never thought of this estate in Woodlawn as her house. It was too large, too ostentatious, and Hazel never passed up an opportunity to let Kathleen know who was mistress of it.
When Seth had first brought her here as his bride, Kathleen was intimidated by the apparent show of wealth, but gradually she had become accustomed to it, which was strange considering where and how she had grown up.
The traditional house was fashioned after those found in the English countryside. The lawn surrounded it in a broad expanse of green, perfectly clipped and trimmed. The interior was decorated with the most meticulous attention to detail. But to Kathleen, the rooms looked like settings in a magazine instead of where people actually lived. Hazel’s personality was reflected in everything, and for that reason alone, Kathleen had never felt that she belonged here.
Her favorite rooms were those occupied by herself and Theron. Seth had generously offered to let her redecorate them to her own taste. She rid the rooms of the somber, cold, formal decor that Hazel had installed, and put in its place her choice of furnishings, which were lighter, brighter and much more conducive to everyday living.
Downstairs, what had once been a library had been converted into a den for Seth, which connected to a solarium that had become his specialized bedroom. Seth’s den was cheerful and pleasant, and they often sat in it in the evenings, talking over the stores’ progress and Theron’s precociousness.
Now, as she bounced her child in the water, she marveled again at how well things had turned out. When she had married Seth almost two years ago, she’d had no reason to expect that she could be this… content. The word happy had almost formed in her mind, but tha
t really couldn’t describe her. Yet she felt a deep sense of satisfaction with what she had made of her life, when at one point it had seemed so hopeless.
Her relationship with the Harrisons had been restored. She had heard from them soon after letting them know of her marriage. Their congratulations were reserved.
But when she notified them of Theron’s birth, she was deluged with presents and advice on parenting. Since then, they corresponded often and telephoned periodically, on birthdays and such. If that closeness they had once shared had cooled since that pivotal summer, Kathleen was at least glad that the lines of communication remained open.
She shared their happiness over Jaimie’s adoption. When they told her about it, she felt only a momentary pang of jealousy for the family who had taken the boy into their lives. She often thought about the child who had touched her heart that summer.
With Seth’s full endorsement, she continued as an absentee board member for Mountain View, making anonymous and sizable contributions to it. The checks were always drawn on an account Seth had in a New York bank and signed by his attorney. One, Kathleen specified, was to be used to build some tennis courts. For years, the Harrisons had wanted to add that sport to the summer curriculum. Kathleen tried to convince herself that her donations weren’t made as recompense for the dreadful way she had treated the couple who had loved her so much.
Seth knew of the Harrisons, but not the extent of Kathleen’s former relationship with them. She had never told him that she had been at Mountain View only weeks before coming to San Francisco. That subject was better avoided.
The stability and peace of mind she was feeling this afternoon had been hard to come by.
“Do you want to go under?” she asked Theron. “Huh? Hold your breath.” She sucked in her breath with an exaggerated motion, and then quickly pulled the small, sturdy body under the surface, only to bring it up again. Theron blinked his blue eyes and gasped for air, then crowed with laughter. He began bucking, indicating that he wanted to do it again.
Laughing, Kathleen said, “Hold your breath. Ready? Here we go.” She dunked him again, and this time there was no delayed reaction. When he came up, he was already slapping his hands on the surface of the water.
His laughter and her own hoots of praise for his brave accomplishment prevented her from hearing Seth’s van as it pulled into the driveway. Nor did she hear the sound of the hydraulic system lowering his chair to the ground, or the muffled voices as they came around the flagstone path toward the swimming pool.
“Kathleen! What’s going on? We could hear you all the way on the front drive.” Seth’s voice, as usual, was warm with happiness. Keeping her full attention on her wet, wiggling son, she called over her shoulder, “Come see what Theron can do. He’s very proud of himself.”
“You be careful with that boy, Kathleen,” George said from behind her. “He’s getting almost too big for you to handle.”
“He is at that,” she agreed. Theron was now even more excited with his ardent audience, and waved his chubby arms at them before Kathleen told him again to hold his breath and dunked him under.
Everyone applauded when he broke the surface and smiled, revealing almost a full set of shiny white baby teeth. “That’s enough for now,” Kathleen said, laughing. “I’m pooped!” She lifted Theron out of the pool onto the redwood deck and he toddled toward Seth. George leaned down and picked up the little boy, swatted him affectionately on the rump and sat him in Seth’s lap, disregarding the fact that his diaper was dripping wet.
Only when Kathleen turned around and walked up the mosaic tile steps out of the pool did she notice the other man standing quietly behind Seth’s chair. There was something vaguely—
My God!
“Kathleen, I’ve committed the cardinal sin usually attributed to inconsiderate husbands and brought someone home for dinner without giving you notice.”
Kathleen’s heart was pounding so loudly that she could barely hear Seth’s words as Erik stepped from behind the wheelchair. “This is Erik Gudjonsen. Erik, my wife, Kathleen.”
Her heart seemed to swell and then burst, showering the universe with infinitesimal fragments of herself. And as it did, her world disappeared and was replaced by a smaller one comprised only of her and the man in front of her. Standing so close. Close enough to see, to hear, to smell, to… touch.
No, she mustn’t touch him. If she did, she would die of the pleasure and the pain. But the decision was taken from her as Erik extended his hand. She watched that hand as it closed the distance between them. And then, almost in wonder at this miracle, she reached out and grasped it with her own, closing her fingers around it as though to verify that this was no dream, but actuality.
The gentle squeeze she received in return made it abundantly clear that he was real. Her eyes lifted from the studied attention she gave their clasping hands to his chest, over the firm, strong chin, past the sensuous mouth under that mustache which, even now, she fantasized about, along the slender, aristocratic nose, to his eyes, which bored into her.
There the exultant celebration in her breast was squelched. His eyes resembled pieces of blue ice, hard and unyielding beneath the shaggy, sun-bleached brows. Lying deep in their depths was a terrifying hostility.
“Mrs. Kirchoff,” he finally said in acknowledgment of Seth’s introduction. The world came back, righted itself and demanded that she behave according to custom.
“Mr. Gudjonsen.” Her voice sounded foreign to her ears, and she only hoped that no one else noticed. His voice was poignantly familiar—deep, husky, befitting his size.
Then Seth was speaking excitedly. “Kathleen, Erik and I have been corresponding for the last several months. We’re working on a project for the stores. I’ve wanted to keep it as a surprise for you. Now that Erik’s here, we’ll go over all the details after dinner.”
Her smile was stiff, contrived, and she felt dizzy and nauseated, fearful that she might disgrace herself by throwing up at any moment. After the initial astonishment of seeing Erik here in her own backyard, feminine vanity had set in. She was all too aware of the wet hair that clung to her shoulders. She hadn’t put on any makeup all day and was dripping wet, her apple-green maillot suit clinging to her shivering body.
“I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been planning, Seth. If you’ll excuse me now, I’m going to take Theron inside and clean him up before Alice gives him his dinner. I’ll meet you on the patio in an hour for cocktails.”
“Okay, but bring Theron back. I want Erik to see him when he’s more presentable.”
“He seems like quite a live wire,” Erik commented as he looked down at Theron for the first time.
“Yes, he is,” Seth said proudly. “You ought to see him try to negotiate the stairs. He’s fearless.”
With growing horror, Kathleen saw Erik peer down into Theron’s face. The boy looked up at him with reciprocal interest.
“I have to get him inside,” Kathleen said, and barged between Erik and Seth to pick up Theron. “Excuse me,” she said as she held the child and hurried toward the house.
She practically ran through the kitchen door and, when she was safe inside, leaned against the wall weakly.
“Goodness, Kathleen, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What in the world is the matter with you, girl?” Alice asked with concern.
Alice, George’s wife, acted as housekeeper/cook and ran the house with the competence of a ship’s captain. She was as soft and plump as George was hard and lean, but they complemented each other perfectly. Kathleen knew that the couple had lost a teenage son to muscular dystrophy. While Seth was still in the hospital after his debilitating accident, George had come to see him on behalf of a paraplegic association. He had offered his full-time services to Seth. The couple had been with him ever since.
Now, Alice crossed the tiled kitchen floor, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Oh.” Kathleen laughed nervously. “I think I got too much sun. When I left the pool, I fel
t a little dizzy.” She took a deep breath. “What’s on the menu tonight? Seth brought Er—a guest home for dinner. I hope that won’t inconvenience you,” Kathleen said, despising her breathlessness.
“No. I’d planned on roast beef, so it’s already in the oven,” Alice replied absently. She was more worried about Kathleen’s pale color than how many people there would be for dinner. “I’ll fix a fresh fruit compote for an appetizer, then serve salad and vegetables with the main course. Instead of a heavy dessert, what do you think of a crème de menthe parfait?”
“Sounds wonderful,” Kathleen lied. The thought of eating was repugnant. “Well, Theron needs a bath.”
“I’m sure he could use one,” Alice said, laughing at the toddler, who was emptying a drawer of plastic measuring cups.
“Come on, Theron,” Kathleen said, taking his hand and leading him out of the room. “If you need any help, Alice, call me.” She always offered, but Alice never took her up on it.
“Don’t worry about dinner. You just dress up pretty for the company.”
Kathleen was glad that Alice didn’t see her footsteps falter as she walked across the wide entrance hall from which the broad staircase rose majestically.
As she bathed Theron, her mind was spinning with a million questions she hadn’t allowed to surface before. They did now. What was Erik doing here? What kind of business venture could he possibly have with Seth? Where had he been these past two years? What had he been doing? Was his wife with him?
He looked the same. No, he looked different. What was it? He was older. Time had etched tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. The creases on either side of his mouth were harder, less inclined to tilt mirthfully. His eyes—she shivered—his eyes didn’t dance any more with devilish humor. They were cold, cynical, callous.
She placed Theron in his playpen and indulged herself with a bubble bath. What was he doing here? Why had he come back into her life when things were going so well? Why hadn’t he come sooner?