Four Seasons of Romance (20 page)

Catherine cried all the way back to Philadelphia, her
slender body wracked with sobs. The rain came down hard so she drove at a
snail’s pace, her fingers tight around the steering wheel, face wet with tears.

Never had Catherine Woods been so destroyed by someone’s
words. The tone or the words he used weren’t what hurt her as she had had enough
violent arguments with her father. No, what stung the most was that, in her
heart, she knew Leo was right.

The years passed. Determined to forget Leo, Catherine
continued her life and did not stray from her husband again. There were times
she would find herself sobbing in her room, but those times became rare as she
set her mind on moving on. Her feelings for Leo remained strong, but she
couldn’t make her wrongs right and neither could she help Leo change his
habits. So, she committed herself to her passionless marriage and developed a
rich fantasy life instead, romance novels permeating her thoughts and dreams,
flooding them with the rich and erotic feelings she’d never felt in her
marriage.

One rainy day, she decided to try her hand at writing a
novel of her own. Writing quickly became Catherine’s passion—she went to bed
thinking about her characters and dreamed about them during the night, losing
herself in this new, rich, fulfilling world.

Walter continued to work at Sun Oil well into his seventies,
even though he could have retired at fifty. The boys at the office joked about
the “three D’s of retirement: disease, divorce, and death.” None of those
sounded appetizing to Walter.

He and Catherine remained friends; they still had little
affection, but the sadness Catherine once felt over their relationship had
faded long ago, she finally accepted her marriage as it was.

Catherine managed to find other fulfilling things to do.
When she wasn’t writing, Catherine happily dug in the dirt as her cursory
interest in roses bloomed into a lifelong love of gardening. She checked out
dozens of books from the library and spent long hours browsing the plant
nursery as she became a master gardener. She went for walks in the
neighborhood, sharing long conversations with the local botanist about sandy
loam compared with all-compost soil. A bigger flower garden, then a window box
of herbs, followed the rosebushes. Soon, she was plotting a vegetable garden in
the backyard, feeding Walter fresh ripe tomatoes and sweet peppers through the
summer. In the fall, she made steaming plates of butternut squash and kale.

Though Catherine had earned her accounting degree in the
forties, she never had the full college experience her children enjoyed. Her
newfound love for reading and writing prompted her to go back to school for a
master’s in English literature. The campus was magical—she loved wandering
among the quaint buildings, reading mountains of novels and honing her craft as
a wordsmith.

By her late seventies, she’d written three books of fiction.
The last novel,
The Song of the Lilies
, a fictional account of her
relationship with Leo, was her magnum opus. Unlike her real-life romance,
though, the novel had a happy ending.

Although she hadn’t attracted much interest in her previous
manuscripts, a major publisher snapped up
The Song of the Lilies
. “It’s
exactly what we’ve been looking for,” they told her. “People want epic,
sweeping romance. They’re sick of the trite things on TV. People want a love
story for the ages, and this is it.”

The novel was published in 2004, and it became an immediate
bestseller. At the ripe old age of seventy-nine, Catherine found success as a
novelist, doing several magazine interviews and appearing on television, which
boosted the sales even more.

Her children fared well too. Catherine’s favorite son Leo
became a tenured art history professor at Brandeis University after marrying
the philosophy PhD student he’d fallen in love with at Temple. They had two
children after waiting for a few years.

Both Catherine’s daughters made a name for themselves. Lily
won acclaim for her romantic poetry and classical sonnets and married a fellow
poet a few years later. Sarah became an environmental engineer. Branding
herself as a sustainability expert, she was an important contributor to the
early green movement. Along with her husband, a structural engineer, Sarah
helped Catherine build a sustainable greenhouse in the backyard for her
vegetables and flowers. Catherine was very proud of all her kids.

In the winter of 2005, at eighty-six, Walter began to feel
pain in his upper abdomen, a dull ache that wrapped all the way around to his
lower back. When Catherine noticed his skin looked slightly jaundiced, she
suggested he go see his doctor, and he obliged after putting it off for a few
days.

The test results came back three days later, and the doctor
called and suggested that both Mr. and Mrs. Murray come down to his office.
They sat in silence, waiting for the doctor to appear, and when he did, his
expression was grave. “I’m afraid it’s not good news,” he began.

Walter was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. The
MRI and laparoscopy showed that the disease had spread to his liver, stomach,
and spleen.

“What about surgery?” Catherine asked.

The doctor shook his head. “I’m afraid Stage IV in your case
is inoperable. I’ll be honest with you; there’s not much hope at this stage.”

Shocked, neither Catherine nor Walter said a word.

“There usually aren’t any symptoms in the early stages,” the
doctor continued. “To make matters worse, the pancreas is hidden behind other
organs, making it hard to detect.”

Stunned, Catherine and Walter walked out of the office,
blinking in the cold noonday sun. A few days earlier, Walter had been feeling
some stomach pain; now, he’d been given a death sentence. “Could be weeks,” the
doctor had said.
“Could be months.
The important thing
is to realize the time is limited.”

Walter, who was usually imperturbable, responded
emotionally; his diagnosis settled over him like a dark cloud. Two of the
“three D’s of retirement” were right after all—they’d just gotten the order
wrong.
First disease, then death.

Walter stopped golfing and wouldn’t accept visits from his
friends. Catherine fluttered about, trying to make him comfortable, but his
health deteriorated so quickly there wasn’t much she could do.

By spring of 2006, Walter was bedridden and wouldn’t eat
more than a few bites of the food Catherine brought him. They had a hospital
bed delivered to the house to make it easier for the hospice nurse to bathe
him. His skin hung off his bones, and eyes took on a haunted look while
Catherine did her best to take care of him.

One night, as Catherine worked on the latest draft of an
article she was writing for a women’s magazine, she heard him call for her.
Catherine dropped what she was doing and hurried to his side. These days, she
didn’t move as fast as she used to, but for an eighty-year-old woman, she was
still spry.

“Are you all right?” she asked. He saw her framed in the
doorway, the light from the hallway pouring in behind her.

“Please,” he
said,
his voice faint.
“Pull up a chair.”

He reached out for her hand. She couldn’t remember the last
time their hands had touched, his skin like old paper, parched and dry.

“Catherine, I’m grateful for how you’ve helped me through
this, and I need to… I don’t have much time,” he said.

“
Shhhh
,” she whispered. “Don’t
think like that.”

“We both know it’s true.” His cough sounded like the death
rattle the hospice nurse had warned Catherine about and she squeezed his hand
tighter.

“I’m here,” she assured him. “I won’t leave you.”

“I have something I need to tell you.” 

This had all the markings of a deathbed confession. Yet,
Walter had never seemed a deep man, so the notion surprised her. Had he
committed some financial indiscretion he wanted to get off his chest?
Something to do with the grandchildren’s trust, perhaps?

“It’s not about money,” he said. 

“What is it then?”

He sighed. “I’ve always loved you, Catherine. You were the
woman for me. I knew that from the first moment I met you. It was only later
that I realized… well… that you weren’t really my type.”

Catherine couldn’t help being insulted by this strange
confession. What did he mean she wasn’t his type?

He petted her arm with his withered hand. “I know you don’t
understand. When we met working Wallace’s campaign, I thought you were the most
intelligent, beautiful woman I’d ever met. But it wasn’t until we were married
that I understood. It didn’t matter how intelligent and beautiful you were, it
was just not right. And that’s why I spent all this time away playing golf.”

She had trouble following his logic. What was that supposed
to mean? Was it the morphine they’d put him on? Yet, her gut told her Walter
was lucid. Then, it hit her.
Shock.
How could she have
been so blind?

“I’m not sure I understand,” she stammered. Surely, this
couldn’t be true. “Are you telling me you’re…?”

“Gay,” Walter said. “Yes, I am.”

The room swayed, and Walter tightened his grip on her hand.
Even though he was lying in the hospital bed, Catherine felt as if she were the
one who needed steadying.

“I’ve been living a homosexual life for most of our
marriage,” he said.

“I still wasn’t sure when we married. I thought it was a
passing sickness, something that would go away. Then, once we were married, I
realized I couldn’t hide from myself any longer. But I didn’t act on it until
much later. I tried to be faithful to you; I really did.”

Catherine was too stunned to speak or cry, listening through
a fog as he continued. She’d been right about his affair in 1968, but it wasn’t
with a woman. 

“I considered telling you when we went to counseling,” he
explained. “But I didn’t want to break your heart or shock our children. So, I
decided to keep this part of my life a secret, no matter the cost.”

Catherine sat there silently, the truth slowly sinking in,
and then told him she needed to take a short walk before they talked more. He
did not object.

So many things made sense to her now. For years, she had
chalked up their lack of intimacy to some fundamental incompatibility,
believing that silly therapist who told her it was common for couples to have
nothing in common as they grow older. Yet never, not once in her entire
forty-two years of marriage, had she suspected this.

The farther she walked, the angrier she became. If only she
had known the truth, perhaps she would have had the courage to follow her
heart. But she was too old to allow anger into her life. But as Catherine
turned back toward the mansion that had been her home for so many years, she
slowed her pace and her breathing. Her husband was dying; there was no time for
a grudge.

That night, she crept into Walter’s bedroom and held his
hand again.

“I’m sorry to tell you this now,” he said, “I didn’t think I
ever would. But after everything you’ve done for me, and my end so near, I
didn’t want to leave holding on to a lie. I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I
was a terrible husband, but I tried. I swear I tried.” In years with him,
Catherine had never seen Walter emotional; not once had she ever seen him shed
a tear. But at that moment, as she saw tears fall from his dying eyes, she also
wept, cradling him in her arms.

“No,” she said, “You couldn’t help it. And you still were a
good husband and a loving father. I understand.”

She knew her words were not entirely true, yet she hadn’t
the heart to chastise the dying man who, after all, had done so much for her.
But she didn’t know why she cried more—because she was losing him or because
she realized her entire married life was based on a lie. Two lies, to be exact.

 Catherine could imagine what Walter felt like hiding
for so many years. But she could relate, much of her life stayed secret as
well—from Walter and the kids, and she prayed that he could die in peace now
after this great weight had been lifted.

Two weeks after his confession, Walter died in his sleep,
leaving his wife with the security of a home, money, and a large loving family,
just as she had always wanted. Her children wept at his funeral, but Catherine,
this time, did not shed a tear.

She would never tell anyone the truth about Walter’s past as
she had sworn to him, but knowing so much of their life was based on lies was something
she couldn’t accept, a fact that became more glaring by Walter’s confession.

*

The moment Catherine walked out of his apartment in 1978,
Leo felt as if his entire future had evaporated. He picked up every bottle he
could find and threw them at the door with a vengeance, smashing his fists into
the bathroom mirror moments later, the broken glass shattering like the pieces
of his heart.

“Don’t come back!” he yelled as Catherine’s car engine
spurted to life outside. “I don’t ever want to see you again!” Then, he
collapsed into a pile of jagged glass, his skin cut and bleeding.

When Leo realized this was the end—that she wouldn’t be
coming back—he continued down his path of self-destruction. Without Catherine
as his tether, there was nothing to keep him from spiraling into the darkness,
and fast.

In the summer of 1984, at the age of fifty nine, Leo
overdosed on heroin. Miraculously, he survived.

Isaac, his friend and employer at the head shop urged him to
get help. “I can’t do anything for you, man. I don’t want you to die on my
watch. I love you like a brother, but you’re destroying your life.”

For once, Leo listened, his brush with death being the final
straw. He knew it was time he dug himself out of the pit he’d created, the one
he’d wallowed in for so many years, but he also realized he couldn’t do it
alone.