Home Fires (22 page)

Thomas Devlin would trade the whole thing to spend the evening alone with Anne. Ever since she'd called him, earlier in the day, his heart had been pounding with the thought of “afterward.” He couldn't wait to see her. But they were breaking Ned into the department, and Thomas wanted to introduce his son to the camaraderie of firefighters.

With Ned helping Marty Cole at the grill, Thomas stood in the sandpit out behind the firehouse, pitching horseshoes with Dick Wade. The sun was down, but there was still enough light to see. Every so often one of them would hit the stake, and the resultant clang would get the other men cheering and hollering.

Dick was tall and portly, getting old fast. The evening was warm and muggy, and Thomas could hear him wheezing. The emphysema that had made him leave the Boston force early had gotten much worse this last year. Thomas loved him like a father. No one told Dick what to do, but Thomas could see the exertion was getting the better of him.

“Come on,” Thomas said. “Let's stand aside and let some of the others take their turn.”

“All right,” Dick said, winded. “You young turks ought to learn some patience,” he said to Mike and Hugh, but Thomas caught the grateful look in his eyes. They headed for a pair of webbed folding chairs.

“That son of yours will make a good fireman,” Dick said.

“He will,” Thomas said. He knew it was brave of Ned to try. At the chimney fire yesterday, Thomas had watched Ned stare wide-eyed, with fear and respect, at the oily black smoke billowing out the front door. Fire was Ned's demon. Thomas had been surprised, and secretly pleased, when Ned had asked if he could volunteer.

“Nothing makes a man out of a boy faster than fire,” Dick said.

“If that's true, it happened to Ned long ago.”

“I'm sorry, Dev. You're thinking of Sarah.”

“She's been on our minds a lot this summer. Ned didn't take too kindly to my seeing Anne Davis.”

“To hell with that, son. Life is too short to let our children rule it. If Richard Junior and Beth had their way, Mamie and I would still be living in Roxbury, and their old rooms would be little shrines, full of all their baby things. Blooey to that, I say.”

“Ned's coming around. I just have to convince the lady she shouldn't be so worried about it.”

“A pretty one, that Mrs. Davis,” Dick said. “She's put a sparkle in your eyes, that's for sure. Mamie and I are going to want to meet her before the wedding.”

Thomas laughed, and clapped Dick's knee. “You're getting ahead of yourself.”

“No, I don't think I am,” Dick said, his squint giving him that sly-fox look. “I've known you a long time now, and you don't go about things in a casual way. If she's the one, you're going to marry her. And she's the one.”

“How can you tell?” Thomas asked, feeling absurdly happy.

“Just look at you!” Dick said, the Irish of his childhood seeping into his thick Boston accent. “Blushing like a boy at the mere mention of a wedding. You'll be needing a best man. And if Neddy's got a problem with it, you know who you can count on.”

“I've always been able to, haven't I?” Thomas asked, smiling with affection for the old man.

W
AITING
for Thomas, Anne sat on her living-room sofa, a blank piece of stationery on her lap. The night was beautifully hot. A gentle breeze came through the open window, raising goose bumps on her arms. It's not the breeze, she told herself: it's anticipation. Soon Thomas would arrive, and they would be together. She would feel his fingers in her hair, his kiss on her lips, and they would make love until he had to leave. But there was something she had to do first.

Anne sighed. She forced herself to concentrate on the letter she had to write. She had avoided this for too long, but if she was going to give herself over to loving Thomas Devlin, she had to take care of unfinished business.

First, she pulled Karen's drawing out of its folder. She stared at it long and sternly, asking herself if she was sure. Mommy, Daddy, Gramercy Park, vacations together on the island: was she ready to give that up?

You didn't choose what happened before, she told herself. But you have to choose now. You have to decide. And so, she began to write.

Dear Matt,

I have dreaded the day that I would write this letter. For several months I have had moments when I thought I was ready to write it, but then doubts would surface, preventing me. I promised myself that as long as I had questions, as long as I felt ambivalent, I would wait. But now I am ready; I no longer have those doubts. I want a divorce.

It's hard to believe that we have been married eleven years this month. So much of that time I was happier than I had ever believed possible. You showed me the world. Every trip we ever took is etched in my memory. My birthday in Venice, when you took me to a Vivaldi concert in that pink jewel-box theater; Ireland, where we found my grandfather's grave in that little churchyard north of Galway; all those enchanted trips to Provence, in search of the most beautiful flowers.

And, of course, our daughter. The day she was born I loved you more than ever before. I truly believe I couldn't have gone through those twenty hours of labor without your strength and love and sense of humor (although I distinctly remember wanting to kill you at the time—how many times did you have to tell that piece-of-string joke?).

Anne put down her pen, smiling at the memory. She didn't want to write the next part. There were things she needed to say about Karen, to make this difficult letter complete, and she couldn't quite bring herself to write them. Thomas would be arriving soon. She had hoped to have this done by then.

Just finish the letter, she commanded herself. Reading over the words she had already written, she searched her mind for what would come next. Downstairs, the front door closed, and she heard footsteps on the stairs. So be it, she thought, laying the letter facedown on the coffee table. She went to the door to answer his knock.

But the man standing in her hallway was not Thomas.

“Hello, Anne,” said Matt.

His eyes looked bloodshot, as if he had not slept in some time. But they were bright, and they couldn't hide the pleasure he felt in seeing her. He looked as handsome as ever. Tall and lean, with boyishly tousled brown hair, a straight nose, and a charmingly crooked smile. His rumpled dark suit hung elegantly on his athletic body, and although he affected his usual air of “who cares?” confidence, Anne could see his hands shaking.

“Will you invite me in?” he asked, the tone in his voice a possible indication that he feared perhaps she would not.

Wordlessly Anne stood aside, and her husband walked past her, into her apartment.

Chapter 19

M
att made a quick study of Anne's apartment. Tall white walls with hardly any pictures on them, a few pieces of shabby furniture, the windows overlooking the harbor the room's best feature. Aside from her typically messy worktable, there wasn't a trace of Anne's personality present. She didn't plan to stay here forever. He turned to her, grinning.

“How have you been?” he asked. “God, it's good to see you!”

“Why are you here?” she asked, sounding shell-shocked. She looked lovely: her jet hair longer than he had seen it in years, not a trace of makeup on her porcelain skin, black palazzo pants and a black mesh tunic clinging to her beautiful curves. She looked sexy as hell, and all Matt wanted to do was kiss her.

“It's been more than six months since I've seen you,” he said, just drinking her in. “Do you know, for the last eleven years, until now, I don't think we've gone more than a few days without each other. Eleven years this month.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that,” she said, turning away from him. Her voice was flat, unwelcoming, as if she were afraid of feeling something for him.

“May I sit down?” he asked.

“You should have called,” she said, whirling around, fire in her gray eyes. “You know my number.”

“This morning I was in Nice,” Matt said. “Yesterday at this time I was returning to my hotel from a meeting with a perfectly vile countess who wants her name on a perfume guaranteed to ‘stimulate the male sex glands.' Her words. She doesn't give a hoot whether it smells like orchids or roses or musk or horse manure as long as it makes men horny.”

Anne passed a hand across her eyes, standing stiffly across the room from him. Frowning. Shit, Matt thought. Usually his tales of fame-crazed would-be perfume hawkers cracked her up. But he had miscalculated. The jet lag had totally thrown his timing off.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I thought you'd think it was funny.”

As if he had sprung a slow leak, he felt the adrenaline start to whistle out of him. For days, he had thought of nothing but seeing Anne. In his fantasy, his old ways had worked: he had half expected to settle into the sweet banter he had prized with Anne, that had totally eluded him and Tisa. He felt dizzy.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again.

“I came to see you,” he said, subdued now. “To try to work things out.”

“Matt—”

“Please, listen. Just for a minute.” He took a deep breath and swallowed. He felt his resolve coming back. “I made a mistake. I really messed up. Losing you is the worst thing that could happen, and I did it myself. I miss you so much, Anne.”

“Matt—”

“On my way to the plane I started thinking about summer, how this would be my first summer without coming to the island with you. Then I happened to be glancing through the travel section, and I saw an ad for the big house. Gabrielle's turned it into a hotel?”

Anne nodded, her expression still hard.

“So, I made a reservation.”

“At the big house?” Anne asked with disbelief.

“‘Fitzgibbons',' as I believe it's called in the ad.”

“Gabrielle knows about this?”

“I doubt it. Some girl, not Maggie, answered. And I made the reservation under a different name.” Matt hesitated. He wanted to tell Anne that he'd booked himself in under Dr. Ventura's name, but he restrained himself. He sensed that he would not win favor, groveling for brownie points. Better that she find out on her own.

“That's sneaky.”

“I know. But maybe it gives you some idea of how desperate I am to get you back. And I will, Anne. You can't talk me out of it.”

His heart overflowing, Matt moved closer to his wife. Her hair smelled freshly washed; he detected no traces of the perfume she had always worn, the one he had had created especially for her on her thirtieth birthday. He had given it no name, for no one would ever find it at any store. It was Anne's alone.

He gazed down at her, willing her to look up. If she did, if her expression had softened even slightly, he would caress her cheek, tenderly kiss her lips. He would make her his own again. He wondered whether she could hear his heart, pounding like crazy in his chest.

Not even thinking, he sank to his knees, took her hand. So tiny, filled with such delicate bones. The feel of her hand brought back such memories, tears came to his eyes. She didn't pull away, but she wouldn't smile at him.

“Please, Anne,” he said. “I love you. Please forgive me.”

He felt her stiffness. Pain flashed across her eyes as she looked away, then back. She stared down at him, as if memorizing his face. Perhaps she was remembering his proposal: on his knees, at twilight, at a beach not five miles away from this very spot. If it weren't so late, he would invite her to dinner at Atwood's, the restaurant where they had dined later that night, the first place she had appeared in public wearing his ring.

She wasn't wearing it now. For the first time since entering the room, he noticed. No diamond, no wedding band. But he held his tongue. His life was on the line, the decision hers. She stood tall, her gaze flickering from his eyes to his mouth to the air above his head.

“There's something I have to show you,” she said, gently withdrawing her hand. She walked to the sofa, leaving him alone on his knees, as if he was saying some frantic prayer. Which he was.

“Please,” she said. “Come sit down.”

Slowly, he raised himself off the floor and walked to the sofa. She seemed to want him to sit beside her, and for some reason he felt afraid. Objects swam in his vision. He couldn't focus, and his throat felt dry. On the table in front of him were two sheets of paper. One appeared to be a child's drawing, and the other was blank. She handed him the blank paper. When he turned it over, he saw her handwriting.

How many times had he seen that handwriting? No one in the world could know it better than he. All the notes she had left on the refrigerator, the shopping lists, the checks she had signed, the notes she had tucked into his luggage. He had never, not once in all the ten years they had lived together, gone away from home without finding one of Anne's notes nestled in his underwear. Notes so full of her wit and love. So full of Anne herself.

His throat choked up, he forced himself to read.

When he came to the word “divorce,” he heard himself say “oh!” He looked at Anne, but she was facing away from him. When he had finished reading, he lowered the paper to his lap.

“I should have had the courage to say it out loud,” she said in a measured tone.

Matt's head was buzzing. He heard her speak, but he couldn't make sense of her words. Mechanically, as if he was in a trance, he reached for the other paper on the table before him.

“What's this?” he asked dumbly, staring at the picture. The images blurred, but he tried to focus.

“Karen drew that,” Anne said.

Of course. He had never seen it before, but he should have known. How many pictures had she drawn him of herself, Matt, and Anne? She had been so proud when she would visit his office with Anne and see her own drawings taped to his walls.

He stared at each element of the picture. The family, the park, the beach, the birds she had loved so much, two strange concrete blocks.

“It's a picture of her life,” Matt said.

“All the things she loved,” Anne said, her voice breaking. “She called it
Paradise
.”

“Poor little girl,” Matt said. “Poor little girl.”

“She did it that day,” Anne said, sitting closer to Matt, taking one side of Karen's picture in her hand. She stared with frowning intensity, her chin trembling. A tear from Matt's eye plopped onto the manila paper, and Anne immediately dabbed it dry with her finger. As if afraid he might do serious damage to the picture, Anne eased it away from him.

“Please,” he said. “Let me look. Why didn't you show it to me before?”

“I don't know,” Anne said. “You were both gone. The picture was all I had.”

Matt slid his arm around Anne's shoulders, and she cried into his chest, her tears soaking through his shirt to his skin. He closed his eyes, smelling her hair. He wanted to freeze the moment forever. He wanted never to leave this spot. He wanted to grow old and die with Anne in his arms, Karen's drawing resting between them on their knees.

After a few minutes her sobs subsided. She wiped her cheeks and drew away from him. She looked at him with clear gray eyes. He knew immediately what she was going to say.

“I do,” she said. “I want a divorce.”

“We have so much,” he said.

“We did,” she said. “But it's gone now.”

“It would hurt Karen,” he said.

“Matt—” Anne raised her hands to her ears, then dropped them.

“No one else can understand what we've gone through,” Matt said. “We lost our only child, Anne. That binds us together forever. Whether we like it or not, that's our fate.”

“Yes,” Anne said. “It is. And if we had come together last August, right after she died, if we had stared at her picture like we've done tonight, and tried to survive together,
maybe . . .”

“There's still a chance. There is. In this entire world you couldn't find someone who loves you like I do. Someone who knows what you've been through.”

“There is,” Anne said softly. “And I have found him.”

Matt's blood went cold. The man Gabrielle had told him about.

“Have you slept with him?” Matt asked, feeling fearful. But the words came out sounding harsh, like an attack.

“Don't be a fool,” Anne said, tearing herself off the couch. She tucked Karen's picture away in a folder and carried it to a table across the room.

“Have you?”

“Try to keep your dignity,” Anne said. “This, coming from you? Have you forgotten what started this whole thing?”

How could he forget? Matt reddened, picturing himself and Tisa in bed together, Anne standing in the door.

“That's over,” Matt said, knowing it was. He hadn't exactly broken up with Tisa yet, but he hadn't cared for her in a long time.

“I don't care,” Anne said. “I hope you're happy. I truly do. Writing the word ‘divorce,' I felt like my heart would break. But it's the right thing. I know that. I love someone, Matt.”

“That will pass,” Matt said impatiently. “Trust me.”

“No,” Anne said, shaking her head. “It won't. And I'd like you to leave now.”

Matt stood his ground, trying to stare her down. But it was he who looked away first. He wished he had brought in his suitcase and briefcase instead of leaving them in the hall. If he had to walk out, he wanted to do it with a flourish.

“I'll be at the big house,” he said. “Until Sunday night. I want to see you again.”

Anne shook her head. “No,” she said.

She unlatched the door and held it open, not looking at him. Footsteps sounded in the stairwell, and they both glanced over the handrail. Here came one of the biggest men Matt had ever seen. A good ten years older than Matt, with a massive frame and gnarled hands.

“Leave,” Anne said under her breath.

Matt ignored her. He stood beside her, watching the man mount the stairs. When he reached Anne's landing, an expression of puzzlement clouded his grotesque eyes.

“You must be Thomas Devlin,” Matt said in his best boardroom voice. He reached out a hand. “Matthew Davis,” he said.

The giant looked at Anne, as if to ask her permission. Then he shook Matt's hand. Not a bad handshake, Matt had to admit.

“Mr. Davis,” the man said steadily.

“Matt, leave,” Anne said.

“She's a married woman,” Matt said pleasantly, grabbing his suitcase and briefcase. “Keep that in mind.”

Bounding down the stairs, as if he weren't jet-lagged beyond exhaustion and cracking in half with grief, Matt expected to hear Anne or the man call after him. When they didn't, he glanced up, over his shoulder. And saw the door close softly behind them.

I
F
Anne Davis were his wife, if another man showed up and tried to take her away, Thomas Devlin would throw him against a wall. He would take his punch. He would hunt him down and make him hurt. He would not shake his hand and offer a sarcastic warning in a friendly tone of voice.

Holding Anne tight, he felt her entire body quivering.

“Shh,” he whispered into her ear. “Shhh. It's okay. You'll be fine.”

“I asked him for a divorce,” Anne said.

“That must have been hard,” Thomas Devlin said, his heart soaring.

“Very,” she said, in a high, thin voice.

“I love you,” he said.

“And I love you,” she said, “but I can't tonight. I couldn't wait to see you, but I can't be with you now.”

“I understand,” Thomas said. He felt disappointed, and a little hurt, but not rejected.

She pushed herself away, her eyes blank.

“Tomorrow?” she asked, worry lines in her forehead. “I need to be alone right now. I didn't expect to see him, and I'm upset.”

“You must be confused,” he said.

At that she smiled, and she gazed up at him with enormous eyes. She caressed his cheek with her hand, and he held it there.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I'm not confused. I'm not confused at all.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Thomas said.