“My parents died fairly young too, in a road accident together. I think if she had lived, and my father hadn’t, she’d have gone back to Ireland then. It was all she waited for during all the years of their married life in New York. I suppose she loved my father, in her own way, but she wanted to go home. So I did it for her.” He smiled sadly. “I hope you come and visit me there, Hope. It’s the most beautiful place on earth. You can walk in the hills for hours, amid the wildflowers, without ever seeing a soul. The Irish are an odd combination of soulful, solitary, and then wildly gregarious in the pubs. I think that’s how I am, sometimes I just need to be alone, and at other times I love being around people, and having fun. At home, I’m either locked up, writing, or having a good laugh in the local pub.”

“It sounds like a good life,” Hope said, nestled in beside him on the couch, as the fire died slowly. It had been a lovely evening, and she felt wonderfully comfortable with him, as though they had known each other for years. She liked hearing the stories of his childhood, and his parents, although it sounded lonely in some ways. His mother didn’t sound like a happy person, and his father had been busy all the time with his patients, and neither of them seemed to have had much time for him. He said it was why he had started writing, and was a voracious reader as a child and young man. Reading, and eventually writing, was his escape from an essentially lonely childhood, despite their very comfortable Park Avenue life. Her far simpler life had been much happier with her own parents in New Hampshire and Cape Cod.

Finn and Hope had both married young, so they had that in common. They were both artistic in different fields. They were both only children, and their own children were only two years apart, so they had become parents at roughly the same time. And for very different reasons, their marriages had failed. Hers for complicated reasons, and his officially when his wife died, but he readily admitted that his marriage to Michael’s mother had never really worked, and probably would have ended in divorce if she hadn’t died, which was traumatic for him and their child. Finn said she was totally narcissistic, beautiful, and spoiled, and essentially badly behaved. She had cheated on him several times. He had been enamored with her beauty as a young man, and then overwhelmed by what it entailed. There was a lot of common ground between Finn and Hope, in many ways, although their marriages had been different, and his son was still alive. But there were many common points, and they were nearly the same age, only two years apart.

When the fire finally went out, she turned off the lights, and they walked upstairs. He had already found his bedroom when he brought the bags up and had seen hers. She had a small double bed in the cozy room that had been her parents’, and the bed always felt too big for her now without Paul. The one in the room Finn was staying in was so small that Hope looked embarrassed and said that maybe they should trade, although hers didn’t look big enough for him either.

“I’ll be fine,” he reassured her, and tenderly kissed her goodnight. And then they each disappeared into their rooms. She was in bed five minutes later in a heavy cashmere nightgown with socks, and she laughed when Finn called out a last goodnight in the small house.

“Sweet dreams,” she shouted back, and turned over in the dark, thinking of him. They had known each other for so little time, but she had never felt so close to anyone in her life. For a minute, she wondered if his fusion theory was correct, but she didn’t want it to be. She wanted to believe that they could love each other, but keep their distinct lives, personalities, and talents intact. That still felt right to her. Thinking about him, she was awake for a long time. She was remembering the things he had said about his childhood and how lonely it sounded to her. She wondered if that was why he was so anxious to be part of someone else. His mother didn’t sound like much of one to her. And it was interesting to think that while he said that his mother was beautiful and dissatisfied, he had married a woman who was also beautiful and selfish and hadn’t been a good mother to their son. It was odd how, in some cases, history repeated itself, and people re-created the same miseries that had tormented them as children. She wondered if perhaps he had tried to get a different ending to the same story, and hadn’t succeeded in the end.

As she thought about it, she heard a thump that sounded like Finn had fallen out of bed, punctuated by a loud “Fuck,” which made her laugh, and she went to check on him, padding down the hall in her nightgown and cashmere socks.

“Are you okay?” she whispered in the dark, and heard him laugh.

“The chest of drawers attacked me when I went to the loo.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” She sounded worried about him, and felt guilty about the small room he was in.

“I’m bleeding profusely,” he said in a tone of anguish. “I need a nurse.”

“Should I call 911?” She laughed back.

“No, some hairy paramedic will give me mouth to mouth, and I’ll have to knee him in the groin. How about a kiss?” She moved into the room and sat down on the narrow bed that had once been hers, and he took her in his arms and kissed her. “I miss you,” he whispered.

“I miss you too,” she whispered back. And then hesitantly, “Do you want me to sleep in here?”

He laughed out loud. “In this bed? Now, that would be a contortionist’s act I’d like to see you do. That isn’t what I had in mind.” There was a long silence, and he didn’t push. He had promised that they would sleep in separate rooms and not have sex, and he was determined to keep his word, although he would have preferred otherwise, and she felt foolish now for suggesting it.

“I guess this is kind of stupid, huh? We’re in love with each other, and I guess no one’s keeping track.”

“Something like that,” he said gently, “but it’s up to you, my love. I’m happy to sleep here, if that’s what you want. As long as you take me to a chiropractor tomorrow, so he can fix my back.” She laughed again, and pulled the covers off him unceremoniously, as he sat up.

“Come on. Let’s be grown up.” She held out a hand to him and led him to her room, and he didn’t object. But he had left the choice up to her. Without commenting on it further, they both climbed into her bed, and as they lay side by side in the small double bed, he took her in his arms.

“I love you, Hope,” he whispered.

“I love you too, Finn,” she whispered back. And then without another word of discussion or explanation, or mention of fusion, he made love to her as no one ever had in her life.

Chapter 8

Finn and Hope’s days at Cape Cod were magical. They woke up late in the morning, made love before they got up. He cooked breakfast for her, and they bundled up and went for long walks on the beach. When they got back, Finn lit a fire in the living room. They spent hours reading, and she took photographs of him. They made love again in the afternoon, cooked together, slept together, talked for hours about everything that mattered to them. She had never spent as much time with anyone in her life.

She found boxes of old photographs of Mimi and her parents, and went through all of them with him. They went to local restaurants and ate lobster, with butter dripping down their chins, laughing at each other in ridiculous gigantic paper bibs, and she took pictures of him that way too. She asked a waiter to take a photograph of them together, and Finn got briefly annoyed and jokingly accused her of flirting with the waiter, which she wasn’t.

It was almost like a honeymoon. They stayed for a week, and finally, regretfully, they closed the house. Finn latched the shutters, and they drove back to New York. This time, he didn’t stay at the Mercer, he moved into the loft with her. It felt perfectly natural to her now. She was totally at ease with him.

They went to his publishing event the night they got back, and this time he was the center of attention, and she quietly took photographs of him from a distance, smiling softly, and every now and then their eyes would meet across the room. She was proud of him as she watched him, and he was equally proud to have her with him. The only heartache they were facing was that he was going back to Dublin soon.

They talked about it when they got home that night, and Finn looked unhappy, although they’d had a lovely evening.

“When can you come over to see me?” he said, looking like a child about to be abandoned by his mother, or sent away to camp.

“I don’t know. I have an assignment, shooting an actor in L.A. the first week in February. After that, I’m fairly free.”

“That’s less than two weeks away,” he said miserably, and then frowned as he asked her the next question. “What actor?”

“Rod Beames,” she said casually. She had shot him once before. He was up for an Academy Award for best actor.

“Shit,” Finn said, giving her an angry look. “Have you ever gone out with him?”

“Of course not.” She was startled by his reaction and the question. “He’s a subject, not a boyfriend. I never go out with the people I shoot.” And then she laughed as she said it, given what had happened with him. “You’re the first,” she reassured him. “And the last,” she promised, as she leaned over to kiss him.

“How do I know that’s true?” He looked upset and worried, and it touched her. Paul had never been jealous, but Finn clearly was. He had made a comment about one of the waiters at a restaurant at the Cape, and accused her half-jokingly of flirting with him, which of course she wasn’t. She laughed at Finn, and he apologized. It made her feel very young and desirable that he would even worry about it, but she only had eyes for Finn.