Olivia (32 page)

"Oh no," he cried covering his face with his hands. "This can't be true." His shoulders shuddered. "What was I thinking? How could I be so weak."
I couldn't permit myself to feel sorry for him, but a small warm feeling managed to penetrate my fortress of anger. I had hoped to sit and enjoy his turmoil and squeeze his remorse dry, but the affection for him I carried in the secret places in my heart sounded a note of mercy.
"There's no point in dwelling on what happened. It's happened and it's done," I said softly.
"What are you going to do about it?" he asked, dropping his hands from his face, still handsome but dark and grave. "If she's having an abortion, I'll pay for it, of course, and do anything . . ."
"She's not having an abortion," I said. "It's too late."
"It can't be that late, Olivia."
"I don't mean physically or medically too late, Nelson."
"What do you mean then?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
"Belinda has made this sort of mistake before," I began. "We've always cleaned up her messes and limited her suffering to a minor inconvenience."
"Yes, but using this as a means of teaching her a lesson . . . I mean . . ."
"I'm not just teaching her a lesson, Nelson," I said sharply. My eyes held his for a long moment.
"What do you want to do?" he asked, practically pleading.
"She's having the baby and the baby will live here, with me," I said. "No one will know the identity of its father."
He sighed with some relief. Then his thoughts turned charitably to Belinda.
"You know of course that this will destroy her in this community, Olivia."
"I really haven't held up any hope for her in this community or any community for that matter for some time now, Nelson. Belinda is never going to amount to anything," I pronounced with the certainty of a Biblical prophet.
"Do you really think you should decide all that for her, Olivia?"
"The decisions were made long ago, Nelson," I replied. "I'm just carrying them out, trying to cope."
He shook his head.
"Well, if you're determined to do this, I suppose there's nothing I can do to stop it."
I laughed.
"No, hardly," I said. He looked at me sharply. "What do you want from me? Money?"
"I'll call on you from time to time to help in little ways, always discreetly of course," I said nodding. "As long as I can depend on your cooperation, that is."
"That sounds almost threatening, Olivia."
"It's not meant to sound that way," I granted. "However, you should never underestimate my determination."
"No," he said with that soft, charming smile returning, "I can see that." He sat back. The fog thickened. Drops of mist made our clothing damp. "Does Samuel know?"
"No, not yet. I'll deal with him later," I said.
"So he doesn't know what you intend to do about the child? Don't you think he should have a voice in this? I mean, you're going to ask him to be a father."
I felt myself coil tightly like a spring.
"You'll always be the child's father, Nelson. You and I will always know that to be so," I reminded him curtly.
"Why are you doing this, Olivia? There's more to it. I know there is. Why do you want to bring up my child in your home?"
"It's my sister's child, too."
"Yes, but . . . there's more to it, Olivia."
"It should have been my child," I said, disbelieving my own voice, my own utterance. How did such a truthful feeling escape the prison in my heart? Nelson nodded. He seemed to understand.
"Don't do this, Olivia. It won't be what you expect it to be," he said, now sounding prophetic too.
"I'm doing it," I said. "We're doing it," I corrected. He blew air between his closed lips and looked away. The first drops of rain began to fall.
"We're going to get caught in something here," he said.
"Let's go inside the yacht," I said and rose. He followed, but with reluctance. I snapped on a small lantern in the lounge and sat on the sofa. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall. The rain began to grow harder.
"There's a small storm sweeping through. It won't last," he said.
His damp hair fell over his forehead. How young and handsome he looked and how much he reminded me of that night when he and I and Belinda had gone walking on the beach, the night he went swimming with her, the night it all began.
He stared at me.
"Olivia, you don't know what you're doing here. You can't play with people like you play with pieces on a chess board. Chess pieces aren't made of flesh and blood and haven't feelings and emotions."
"You should be more grateful that I can play with people, Nelson. I'm solving your problem and saving your reputation, your career, your life."
He smiled.
"How do you want me to show my gratitude, Olivia?" "You found it so easy to show Belinda how grateful you could be," I said. His smile faded.
"You really don't want me to . . . want us to . ." The rain that tapped on the roof of the yacht seemed to tap on my very soul as well.
"Am I so distasteful to you?"
"Of course not, but this is different. It's . . ."
"What?"
"Samuel is a good friend of mine and . . ."
"Oh please," I said. "Don't start quoting that fiction about males who've bonded and don't betray each other. You're all cut from the same cloth when it comes to this."
He shook his head.
"I'm sorry you're so bitter."
"Are you?" Tears came to my eyes. "What do you know about being bitter? You've always gotten what you wanted, haven't you? You don't know what frustration is, what longing can be, how lonely it's possible to be."
He fixed his gaze on me as if he were looking at me for the first time. I had to turn away and while I did, he drew closer. I felt his hand on my hair and then on my shoulder, but I didn't turn to him. He sat beside me and then I felt his lips on my neck. I closed my eyes. How I had dreamed of this, I thought. His lips moved to my cheek and his hand turned my face to him so he could kiss my lips. Then he brought his hand to my breast and he pressed his lips harder against mine.
The scent of his damp hair, the taste of his mouth on mine, the feel of his hand on my waist, moving under my jacket and my blouse to find my breast all drummed a rhythm through me that turned the heat up in my body and made my breath hot. I moaned and moved so he could lift my legs and run his other hand under my skirt. When he touched me, my breath caught and for a moment, I thought I might faint with excitement.
"Is this really what you want, Olivia?" he whispered.
"Yes," I said, my eyes full of determination. "Yes. It's what should have been."
He said nothing. Instead, he began to undress me and then to undress himself. Above and around us, the storm ensued, the sheets of rain now slapping against the yacht, the ocean rising and falling to create a frenzied rhythm that I wanted to capture and hold between Nelson and myself.
He made love to me with his eyes closed. Despite the fact that he was really there, really holding me and making me part of him in the most intimate way a man and a woman could become one, I didn't feel as satisfied as I had anticipated. Wild, refusing to be disappointed, I rushed into an orgasm and felt him shudder inside me, both of us gasping like two sprinters on the beach who had fallen into each other's arms.
The rain continued to fall. Neither of us spoke.
"You hated every minute of that, didn't you?" I accused.
"I didn't hate it, Olivia, but what you expect is not something you can command to happen. You're so used to giving orders and having your way, you think you can just apply the same techniques to everything. You can't."
I turned away from him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "These circumstances . . it's just not conducive to . . . it's just not . . ." "Romantic?"
"No, it isn't," he said.
"And meeting Belinda at some hotel is?" I asked with a sharp, cold laugh.
"It was a fling, something to distract me, just as I told you," he said. "I'm not in love with Belinda. I'm in love with my wife," he concluded. It put a lump of lead into my throat.
I sat up and began to dress and so did he. Suddenly, I was feeling very cheap and foolish. I hated it more than I hated not having him love me the way I had dreamed he would. It was better to live in my fantasy than to have this as reality, I thought.
The rain hadn't let up.
"We'll have to run for it," he said contemplating leaving the yacht. I found an umbrella and handed it to him. "What about you?"
"I don't have as far to go," I said.
"Olivia . . . this is . . ."
"I don't want to discuss it any more tonight," I said. "I'll keep you informed and you'll do what you have to do when that time comes."
He stared at me, not with anger, but with genuine curiosity as if I were some sort of alien creature.
"Very well. If this is what you really want," he finally said. "I'm sorry."
"Those two words ought to be eliminated from our language. They are sorely abused," I remarked. He nearly smiled, nodded, opened the door and the umbrella, and then, with one look back, charged into the night and the rain. I watched him disappear into the darkness like some apparition, a ghost I had conceived out of my illusions and dreams.
For a few moments I stood there crying. I couldn't remember when in my life I had cried like this before. I hadn't even cried as much or as hard when Mother died. The tears felt like drops of steam on my cheeks. I finally caught my breath, wiped them away, sucked back my final sobs, buried my self-pity forever, and walked out into the cold rain, not feeling any of it and not even knowing I was soaked to the skin until I had opened the door to Belinda's room and she gasped when she set eyes on me.
"Where have you been? What happened to you?" she asked. "You're drenched."
"It's all over," I said in a voice resembling the voice of someone who was devoid of all feeling. "He knows what's happened and he knows what we're going to do. He also realizes his obligations after you give birth."
"You mean he didn't try to get us to . . . not have the baby?"
"It's not for him to decide, to even suggest," I said.
"He has no rights except the right to be guilty."
"But Olivia . . I'm really frightened," she moaned.
"That's nonsense. I won't permit it," I told her.
"I can't help it!" she cried, grimacing.
I walked into the room and seized her by the shoulders.
"You will help it. You will do exactly what I want you to do. For once, you will bear some responsibility for your actions, Belinda. Do you hear me?" I shook her hard and she just started to cry. "Do you!"
"Yes," she said, nodding.
"Good," I muttered. I released her. "Good. Get some sleep. You're going to live an exemplary life for the next few months and you're going to give birth to a healthy child."
I paused in the doorway. She looked at me with terror in her eyes.
"This you will do," I said slowly. "This you will definitely do."
Early one evening three weeks later, the doorbell rang.
We had just finished dinner. Belinda was upstairs and Samuel was down at the dock working on the yacht. I had gone to the den and had begun to look at some papers I had brought home when Effie came to my door. "There's someone here to see you, Mrs. Logan."
"Who?"
"Mrs. Childs," she said.
It was as if my heart fell to my stomach. I hadn't seen Louise for some time and we had never really been close. She had certainly never visited me by herself.
Louise Childs was one of those women who just seem to grow more beautiful, more elegant and statuesque with time. Having children hadn't taken away from her svelte figure. She still looked like she had just come to life off a magazine cover.
"Hello, Olivia," she said. "I hope I'm not intruding by making this unannounced visit."
"No, not at all," I said. "Please come in, Louise."
She entered the den, gazed around and then sat on the leather settee. I had taken many of Daddy's things from his den right after the house sale and moved them into my own home office.
"Is Samuel fond of guns?" she asked looking at the collection displayed in the case.
"No, those were my father's antiques," I said.
"Oh."
I sat in the leather chair across from her.
"Can I get you something to drink, Louise?"
"No, I'm fine," she said. She fumbled with the snap on her purse for a few moments. "I suppose you know why I've come to see' you, Olivia."
"No," I said. "I'm afraid this is a total surprise."
"It's about . . . Nelson and what he has done," she said, holding her gaze on me. I stared at her without changing expression. "He told me
everything," she continued.
"I see," I said, feeling as if my body had deflated like a balloon and no longer had enough air in my lungs to utter any sound, much less sentences. I seized control of myself as quickly as I could and sat with my back steel firm. "What exactly did he tell you?"
Surely, he hadn't confessed to our sexual episode on the yacht as well, I thought.
"He told me about . . . the baby," she said, "and about Belinda and what you want to do about it," she replied, her eyes steady, her voice strong. I waited. That was apparently all he had confessed. Even so, I was amazed she had come. I had certainly
underestimated her backbone, I thought.
"He did, did he?"
"Yes. I'm not here to make any excuses for him," she added quickly.
"Then why are you here, Louise?" I demanded. I couldn't help feeling another sort of betrayal. It had never occurred to me that Nelson would be so close to Louise that he would share even his sins, and it certainly never occurred to me that if he had, she would tolerate or forgive him.
"I'm here because I think you're making a mistake. I think you should consider finding another home for the child. Nelson and I have discussed it and we are willing to bear all the costs. There are many couples who would love . ."
"You discussed it? You? It's my sister he has impregnated, Louise."
"I realize that," she said quickly. "I don't come here to assign any blame on anyone, especially Belinda.
I laughed.
"It might interest you to know that I don't excuse her. She's certainly at fault, too, but as far as giving the child away, pretending it never happened, burying the facts . . . no," I said shaking my head. "I won't let that happen."
"But Belinda's future . . ."
"Is my worry, not yours," I said. I sat back, pressing my fingers together and smiling as a realization gave birth in my mind. "I understand now. You're worried that it will come out someday and you will be devastatingly embarrassed."
"No, not at all. It's . . ."
"Please," I said holding up my hand. "Let's not add deceit upon deceit. I have assured Nelson that his fatherhood or should I say sirehood, will not be revealed. You can rest as easy, as easily as you are able to rest knowing what you do know," I said pointedly.