Bittersweet (42 page)

“See that you call a little more quickly next time,” he said nastily, and she wanted to tell him something unprintable, but India didn't want to offend the woman from the Red Cross, who could hear them very clearly.

She hung up then and turned to face Paul with a sigh. “He's all right. It's his wrist. It could have been much worse.”

“So I gather.” He looked grim, and she thought he was angry at her for making him drive her so far. She didn't blame him. And, as usual, Doug had been a real bastard about it. Nothing new about that.

“I'm sorry to have made you drive all this way for nothing.” She looked embarrassed, but relieved, as she
looked at him. In spite of everything, she'd been glad he'd been with her.

“He's still an asshole, isn't he?” He could just imagine the other end of the conversation from the things she'd been saying.

“Yes, he is,” she sighed, “and he always will be. That's just the way it is. At least now he's Tanya's problem, and not mine. He never misses a chance to get a hit in.”

“I used to hate him,” Paul admitted. But it didn't bother him as much anymore, or it hadn't until then. He was removed now. He just felt sorry for India and the garbage she took from him. But he'd been impressed by how well she'd handled him. Doug was no longer tormenting her, or making her feel as guilty. He just made himself look stupid with the games he played.

“I used to love him.” India smiled. “Shows what I know.” She went to thank the Red Cross woman then, and pay for the call. She gave her fifty U.S. dollars and was sure it would amply cover it, and even include a small donation.

And then she and Paul got in the jeep and drove home. It took them even longer on the way back, on bad roads in the darkness. It was nine o'clock when they got to camp. They had missed dinner and they were both starving.

“I'd offer to take you to La Grenouille, but it would be a bit of a trek,” he said, smiling at her ruefully when they found the mess tent dark and the food cupboards locked.

“Don't worry about it. Any old frog will do,” she smiled back. She was almost hungry enough to eat one.

“I'll see what I can catch.” He looked exhausted, as they walked slowly out of the tent. It had been a long day for him, flying to pick up supplies, and then driving seven hours to find out that Sam had broken his wrist playing baseball.

“I'm really sorry for the wild-goose chase,” she said again. She had apologized several times on the way back, and couldn't stop from doing it again.

“I was worried about him too,” Paul admitted, as they stood in the clearing in the middle of camp, wondering what to do about their dinner. There was nowhere else to go. They were miles from any kind of civilization, and then India had an idea, and she looked up at him with an air of mischief.

“They must have food in the hospital for the patients,” she said, looking hopeful. “Maybe we can steal some.”

“Come on, let's try it,” he said, grinning, and hurrying toward the hospital with her.

They found several boxes of crackers that had grown soggy from the humidity, a box of Triscuits that had gone stale, hidden in a cupboard, a box full of grapefruits, several cartons of Wheaties that still looked pretty good and didn't have bugs in them, half a dozen huge bottles of milk, and a tray of slightly soft red Jell-O. They had crates of it, sent to them by a church group in Denver.

“Well, Scarlett …that looks to me like dinner,” he said, imitating Rhett Butler, as she poured the Wheaties into a bowl with milk, spooned some of the Jell-O into two bowls, and he cut up two of the grapefruits. It wasn't Daniel, but they were so hungry it
looked good to both of them. They would have eaten the boxes the Wheaties came in if they had to. Neither of them had eaten anything since their picnic on the airstrip.

“Stale Triscuits or soggy Saltines?” she asked, holding both boxes out to him.

“You give me the nicest choices,” he said, pointing to the Triscuits.

They ate enough to curb their appetites, and they both looked more relaxed with each other than they had in a week, as they talked about Sam, and her other kids, and he told her about his conversation with his son Sean two months before, and this time he actually laughed about it.

“He said that at ‘my age,’ I really shouldn't need to date. And he seemed to see no reason why I shouldn't remain celibate to the end of my days, which he seemed to calculate as a hundred and fourteen.” He grinned. “At least I assume that's what he meant when he called me ‘middle-aged.’ Kids sure seem to have some strange ideas about their parents, don't they?” But he had a few strange ones of his own too, she knew, since he intended to remain faithful to the memory of Serena forever. But she didn't remind him of it. He looked too happy eating his Triscuits and his Jell-O for her to want to spoil it for him.

It was nice feeling at ease with him again. The crisis over Sam seemed to have broken the ice between them. And she didn't expect any more from him now, but at least they actually felt like friends. Knowing that was something she still cherished. It was where it all began for them, and they had shared so many confidences that
it had brought them closer than some people ever were. It had been hard for both of them to lose that.

“What about you?” he asked, slicing another grapefruit for himself. She had had enough, but he was obviously still hungry. “Have you gone out with anyone?” It was a question he had been dying to ask her, and she looked startled by it.

“No. I've been too busy licking my wounds and growing up. Finding myself, I think they call it. I've been too involved with finding me to find anyone else. Besides, I really don't want to.”

“That's stupid,” he said bluntly.

“Oh, really? Who are you to talk? I don't see you out there on the singles scene, having dates with New “fork socialites and models. You're sitting at the top of a tree in Rwanda, slicing grapefruits and eating Jell-O.” It was a funny image and he laughed at it.

“You make me sound like half-man, half-monkey.”

“Yeah, maybe.” And then she wondered. “Or are you dating anyone?” She suddenly realized she really had no idea what he'd been doing. For all she knew, he was having affairs with half the nurses, but no one had said so. In fact, several people had made a point of telling her he was a nice guy, but a real loner.

“No, I haven't dated anyone,” he said, spooning the juice out of his second grapefruit. He looked boyish and comfortable, and as he had before, he liked being with her. She was smart and funny and easy to be with. The problem was, he knew he wasn't. Easy, at least. He had all the rest of the virtues in the universe sewed up, but certainly not that one. And then he said almost proudly,
“I'm still faithful to Serena.” It was sad for him, but she understood it.

“How are the nightmares these days?” she asked cautiously. It had been a long time since she could ask him that kind of question.

“Better. I think I'm just too tired here to have them. I seem to run into trouble when I go back to civilization.”

“Yeah. I remember.” He had lasted exactly nine days the last time. And she had wound up with a broken heart, a broken arm, and a concussion.

“Why haven't you gone out with anyone?” he pressed her, and she sighed.

“I think the answer to that is obvious, Mr. Ward. Or at least it should be. I needed time to recover from you …and Doug. That was kind of a double punch for me, one disaster right after the other.” But in fact, it hadn't felt like a double loss as much as one very big one. She had actually lost Doug a long time before. But losing Paul had been the loss of everything she believed in and hoped for, the loss of the last of her illusions. “Maybe it was good for me. I guess it made me stronger in some ways, and clearer about what I want and need, if I ever have the courage to try again, which right now I doubt I will have. But you never know. Maybe one of these days, things will look different.”

“You're too young to give up all that.” He frowned as he listened to her. She sounded more hopeless now than he did. But she sounded stronger as well. She had grown subtly since he had last seen her. He had heard it when he listened to her talking to Doug from the Red
Cross. She wasn't letting him walk all over her anymore. And in a way, she wasn't letting Paul do it either. She had finally begun to set limits. She didn't seem as afraid of losing the people she had once loved, but that was because she had already lost them. Other than her children, whom she would always love, she had nothing to lose now, and in some ways it made her braver.

“I haven't seen anyone out there I want,” India said honestly. Now that they were just friends, she could say things like that to him.

“And what do you want?” He was curious about her answer, and she thought about it for a long time.

“Either peace, and a quiet life by myself,” she said cautiously, “or if I stick my heart out there again, I want it to be for the right guy.”

“How would you describe him?” he asked with seemingly objective interest. As he had long before, he was playing the role of Father Confessor. He liked to do that with her.

“How would I describe him?” she repeated. “I'm not sure I care how he looks, although handsome is nice, but I'd much rather have nice, good, smart, kind, compassionate …but you know what?” She looked him squarely in the eye and decided to be honest with him. “I want him to be crazy about me. I want him to think I'm the best thing in his life, that he is so goddamn lucky to have me, he can hardly see straight. I've always been the one who's done the loving and the giving, and made all the concessions. Maybe it's time to turn the tables, and get some of what I've been giving.”

She had been madly in love with him, and had wanted to give him everything she had, including her
kids, and he had been madly in love with Serena. In the final analysis, it hurt to know that. She had lost him to a woman who was gone and would never come back. He had preferred to remain with her memory, than to reach out and love India, and embrace her. “This may sound a little crazy to you,” she said, but not even apologizing for it this time, because she no longer owed him any explanations, nor did she have any expectations of him. “I want a man who would cross heaven and earth because he cared for me …come through a hurricane for me, if he had to. I guess what I'm saying,” she smiled at him then, and looked surprisingly young, and incredibly pretty, “the right guy for me is a man who really loves me. Not halfway. Not maybe. Not second best to someone else, not because he'd made a ‘deal’ with me, like Doug. I just want a man I love with all my heart …and who loves me that much back. And until I find that, I'd just as soon be here, taking pictures in Rwanda, and at home with my kids, by myself. I'm not settling for second best again, I'm not apologizing for anything anymore, I'm not begging,” she said, and Paul knew she didn't just mean Doug, she meant him, because he had told her he didn't really love her. He was pleased to see she still had dreams, although he wondered if she'd ever find them. But at least she knew what they were, and what she wanted. In that sense, she was a lot better off than he was.

And then she decided to turn the focus on him, and she asked him the same question. “What is it you want, Mr. Ward, since you asked me that? Now I'm asking you. Who is the perfect woman you're looking for?”

But he didn't hesitate as she had. He wanted to tell
her it was her, and he was tempted to, because there were so many things he liked about her. But instead, he said a single word. “Serena.” And India was silent for a minute. The word still hit her like a fist, but she half expected it. She just didn't expect him to say it quite so clearly. “Looking back, I realize she was just about perfect, for me, at least. That doesn't leave much room for improvement.”

“No, but it could leave room for something, or someone, different.” And then she decided to be honest with him again. Maybe he needed to hear it, for the next one.

“I always felt I could never measure up to her, that I would always have been second best, if that …except for that one week. That was the only time I was really sure you loved me.” And he had, she knew. No matter what he had said afterward. It had been his fear that had been speaking when he told her he didn't love her.

“I did love you, India,” he said clearly, “at least I thought I did … for a week …and then I got scared, by what Sean said, by you, by your kids, by the commute … by my nightmares and my memories of Serena. I just felt too guilty for what I was feeling.”

“You would have gotten over the nightmares. People do,” she said quietly, but he shook his head as he looked at her, remembering all too easily why he had loved her. She was so gentle and so loving, and so goddamn pretty.

“I would never have gotten over Serena. I never will. I know that.”

“You don't want to.” They were tough words, but she said them very gently.

“That's probably true.” India also suspected that Serena
had seemed far less perfect to him when she was alive, but she was afraid to say that to him. His memories of Serena had been tinged with angel dust and fairy wings and the magic of time and loss and distance. But the reality of Serena had been a lot harder for him to handle, and India suspected that somewhere in his heart of hearts, he knew that.

“Just for the record, too, as long as we're talking about it, don't let Sean mess up your life, Paul. He has no right to do that to you. He has his own life and family, and he's not going to take care of you, or hold your hand or make you laugh, or worry about it if you have nightmares. I think he's jealous of you, and he wants to keep you locked in a closet, by yourself, and make sure that you're not too happy. For your own sake, don't let him do that to you.”

“I've been thinking about that a lot actually since I've been here. About how selfish children are, at any age, at least in what concerns their parents. They expect you to give and give and give, and always be there for them, when they want you, whether it's convenient for you or not. But when you want a little understanding from them, they kick you in the ass and tell you that you don't have a right to the same things as they do. If my daughter-in-law died, God forbid, and I told Sean he should stay alone for the rest of
his
life, he'd have me locked up and say I was crazy.” There was a lot of truth to what he was saying, and they both knew it. Children at any age could be very selfish, and not particularly kind to their parents. It was just the way things were sometimes, not always, but certainly in Paul's case.