Sam went to get more pie, and Mel ran upstairs to get the script for the play to show her. Agnes had gone to bed, as she was wont to do, right after cleaning up the kitchen, and Daphne was alone in the living room when the phone rang, and rang and rang, and nervously she looked around, and finally decided to answer, fearing that it might be Ollie, and he would worry if he got no answer. Maybe he had forgotten something. In any case, she picked it up, and there was a sudden silence on the other end, and then a female voice that asked for Ollie.

“I'm sorry, he's out. May I take a message?” She sounded businesslike, and all her instincts told her it was Sarah. And she was right.

“Are the children there?” She sounded annoyed.

“Certainly. Would you like me to get them?”

“I … yes …” And then, “Excuse me, but who are you?”

Daphne didn't miss a beat as Mel walked into the room and Daphne spoke into the phone. “The babysitter. I'll let you speak to Melissa now' She handed the phone to Mel with a gentle smile, and then walked into the kitchen to see how Sam was doing. He was butchering the pie and dropping big gobs of apple into his mouth, while attempting to cut another piece for Daphne. “Your mom's on the phone, I think. She's talking to Mel.”

“She is?” He looked startled and dropped what he was doing to run into the other room as Daphne watched him. And it was a full ten minutes before they returned, looking subdued, and Daphne ached for them. She could see in their eyes how desperately they missed her and Sam was wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He had obviously been crying. And Melissa looked sobered by the conversation too.

“More pie for anyone?” Daphne wanted to distract them, but wasn't sure how, as Mel looked at her with questioning eyes.

“Why did you tell her you were the sitter?”

Daphne looked her square in the eye, honest with her, as she had been with Ollie. “Because I didn't want to upset her. Your dad and I are just friends, Mel. There's someone in my life I love very much, and your dad and I will never be more than friends. There was no point upsetting your mother, or causing a misunderstanding between them. Things are hard enough for all of you right now as they are, without my adding to the trouble.”

Mel nodded at her, silently grateful. “She said she's not coming home next weekend 'cause she has a paper to write.” And as she said the words, Sam started to cry softly. And without thinking, Daphne pulled him close to her and held him. She had defused any fears they might have had by telling them about the man she loved, and she was glad she had, and gladder still she had told Ollie before. These were not people to hurt, but to love and nurture. And it made her angry knowing that their own mother had left them.

“Maybe it's too painful for her to come back just yet' She was trying to be fair, but Mel looked angry.

“Then why can't we go and see her?” Sam asked reasonably.

“I don't know, Sam.” Daphne wiped his tears, and the three of them sat down at the kitchen table, their appetite gone, the apple pie forgotten.

“She says her apartment is not ready yet and there's no place for us to sleep, but that's stupid.” He stopped crying, and the three of them talked, and nine-fifteen passed without their notice.

“Oh dear.” When she glanced at her watch again, it was nine-thirty. “Is there another train?” She could always take a cab into New York if she had to.

But Melissa nodded. “At eleven.”

“I guess I'll catch that then.”

“Good.” Sam clung to her hand, but the two children looked suddenly exhausted. She put Sam to bed shortly after that, and chatted with Mel until shortly after ten, and then suggested she go to bed, she could take care of herself for another half hour before she called a cab. And Mel finally went upstairs, with her own thoughts. And Ollie came home at ten-thirty, and was surprised to see Daphne still there, quietly reading.

“How's your father?”

“All right, I guess.” Ollie looked tired. He had put his own father to bed, like a child, and promised to come back the next day to help him decide what to do about his mother. “It's an awful situation. My mother has Alzheimer's, and it's killing my father.”

“Oh God, how terrible.” She was grateful that her own parents were still youthful and healthy. They were seventy and seventy-five, but they both still looked like fifty. And then she remembered the call from Sarah. “Your wife called, by the way.”

“Oh Christ …” He ran a hand through his hair, wondering if the kids had told her Daphne was there, but she read the look in his eyes and was quick to reassure him. “What did they tell her?”

“I don't know. I wasn't in the room when they talked to her. But no one was around when the phone rang, I answered it, and told her I was the sitter.” She smiled and he grinned at her.

“Thanks for that.” And then, with worried eyes again, “How were the kids afterward?”

“Upset. I gather she told them she couldn't come home next weekend, and she can't have them up there. Sam was crying. But he was all right when I put him to bed.”

“You are truly an amazing woman.” He glanced at his watch then with regret. “I hate to do this, but I'd better get you to the station for the train. We'll just make it.”

“I had a terrific day, Oliver.” She thanked him on the way to the station.

“So did I. I'm sorry I had to run out at the end.”

“Don't worry about it. You have your hands full. But things will look up one of these days.”

“If I live that long.” He smiled tiredly.

He waited for the train with her, and gave her a brotherly hug before she left, and told her he'd see her the following day at the office. She waved as the train pulled away, and he drove slowly home, sorry that things weren't different. Maybe if she'd been free, he told himself, but he knew it was a lie. No matter how free Daphne might have been, how attractive, how intelligent, all he wanted was Sarah. He dialed her number when he got home, but when the phone rang at her end, there was no answer.





Chapter 8


George Watson put his wife in a convalescent home the week after that. It was one that specialized in patients with Alzheimer's and various forms of dementia. Outwardly, it was cheerful and pleasant, but a glimpse of the patients living there depressed Oliver beyond words, when he went to see his mother. She didn't recognize him this time, and thought George was her son, and not her husband.

The old man dried his eyes as they left, and Oliver took his arm in the bitter wind, and drove him home, and he felt as though he was deserting him as he left him that night and went back to his children.

It seemed odd, when he thought about it, that he and his father were both losing their wives at the same time, although in different ways. It was heartbreaking for both of them. But at least Oliver had the children to keep him occupied, and his work to distract him. His father had nothing, except loneliness and memories, and the painful visits he made to the home every afternoon to see Phyllis.

And then the big day came. Sarah called on Valentine's Day, and announced that she wanted to see the children the following weekend. In Boston.

“Why don't you come here?” She had been gone for seven weeks, and, like the children, Oliver was aching to see her and have her at home with them.

“I want them to see where I live.” He wanted to object, but he didn't. Instead, he agreed and called her back when he had figured out their approximate time of arrival in Boston.

“We should get to your place around eleven o'clock Saturday morning, if we take a nine A.M. shuttle.” He would have liked to make it on Friday night, but it was too complicated with schools and work, and she had suggested Saturday morning. “Do you have room for all of us?” He smiled for the first time in weeks, and at her end, there was an odd silence.

“I wasn't … I thought Mel and Benjamin could sleep on two old couches in my living room. And … I was going to have Sam sleep with me …” Her voice trailed off as Oliver listened, his hand frozen to the phone as the words reverberated in his head, Sam … sleep with me she had said, not with us.

“Where does that leave us, or should I say me?” He decided to be blunt with her. He wanted to know where he stood, once and for all. He couldn't stand the torture of not knowing any longer.

“I thought maybe …” her voice was barely more than a whisper, “… you'd want to stay at a hotel. It … it might be easier that way, Ollie.” There were tears in her eyes when she said it, but there was a weight on his heart as he heard her.

“Easier for who? It seems to me you were the one promising that nothing would change, not so long ago, you were saying you weren't leaving for good. Or had you forgotten?”

“I didn't forget. Things just change when you get away and get some perspective.” Then why didn't things change for him? Why did he still want her so badly? He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled in her head, and then he wanted to kiss her until she begged him to take her. But she wasn't going to do that again. Not ever.

“So you're telling me it's over. Is that it, Sarah?” His voice was too loud, and his heart was pounding.

“I'm just asking you to stay in a hotel, Ollie … this time …”

“Stop that! Stop playing with me, dammit!” It was a cruel side to her he had never even known was there.

“I'm sorry … I'm as confused as you are.” And at that precise moment, she meant it.

“The hell you are, Sarah. You know exactly what you're doing. You knew it the day you left here.”

“I just want to be alone with the children this weekend.”