Sleeping Beauty (22 page)

Growth is like a genie in a bottle; the only way to keep it under control is to keep the bottle tightly capped. Once the genie is free, it devours a room, a house, a neighborhood, a town. Ethan learned all about the genie. He was the one who let it out.

Within five years, the old Tamarack had vanished. It had been inundated by success. Because a strange and entirely unexpected thing had happened. As Ethan swung full speed into developing Tamarack, the small town in the narrow valley, not too easy to get to, not on a major highway or airline route, was discovered by the international set: the wealthy, restless, often bored modern nomads who spend their time and money in an endless search for something new.

And so the wealthy came, and royalty and ex-royalty, and with them, international film and television stars, and with them the tourists. And every part of Tamarack changed. And grew.

Ethan remembered those forty years as he walked down the middle of Tamarack's empty streets in the early morning. He was the one who had started it. And now he mourned the loss of that dusty little town where nothing much happened and no one came, and ranchers and herds of elk shared the unscarred land.

But look around, Ethan thought, quarreling with himself. The mountains haven't lost their beauty or their magic, and the town is more beautiful than ever. Everyone's prospering. Everyone's happy. I should be, too. I should be very
satisfied. I'm ninety years old and most people would say I have everything. I should be a very happy man.

He turned to walk back. On Main Street, the bakery had opened and a group of bicyclists had stopped for breakfast. He sat near them on the terrace, listening to their plans for the day, envying the youth and assuredness in their voices, the strength in their jaws as they chewed, the casual way they took for granted their health, their muscles, the smooth road beneath their wheels. Ethan remembered when he had been like that, married to Alice, raising five children, building industrial plants for the government during the Second World War, then, in peacetime, turning to shopping malls and whole towns, making his company one of the largest and wealthiest in the country.

Everything he had done in those days had fed his ambition, his sexual energy, his appetite for work. The years had sped by in an exhilarating blur of success and prosperity, and he never could remember, later, the exact date an office building or factory or housing development had been built, or how old his children were when they did something that seemed noteworthy, or even the day when Alice first stumbled and fell, for what they thought was no reason at all.

He had become many times a millionaire in those glorious years, and he'd had a magnificent time doing it. He'd been like a god, straddling the world, carving forms from the wilderness, shaping people's lives by creating the homes where they lived, the buildings where they worked, the parks and playing fields where they relaxed.

But for all his power, he had not been able to stop the tumor from growing in his wife's brain and killing her; he had not been able to make his son Charles more aggressive and less afraid of the world; he could not transform Vince, his most beautiful and brilliant child, into a good man. And he had not kept his beloved granddaughter Anne from running away, nor could he bring her back now, more than twenty years later.

He gazed at the croissant and coffee the waitress had put before him. He wasn't hungry. Once, no matter what the time of day, he would have downed them voraciously, the
buttery croissant, the strong black coffee, and demanded more. Now he looked at them without interest and wondered what had happened to all the appetites he had boasted of for such a long time.

“It won't bite back,” said Leo Calder with a smile, pulling out the chair opposite Ethan. “I never saw anyone look at a croissant with more suspicion.”

“I was waiting for it to look tempting,” Ethan said. He sat back, glad to have company, glad it was Leo. “I thought I should eat—it's that time of day—but I don't feel like it.”

“Then don't. Aren't you old enough to do what you want no matter what time of day it is?”

“Ninety,” Ethan said thoughtfully. “I always wondered what it would feel like to be this old. I still don't know; I can't pin down how I feel. But my body's sure as hell slowed down a lot.” He pushed his plate across the table. “You eat it. And talk to me. What's happening that I should know about?”

“It's quiet; I haven't got a single problem to report.”

“Then you're not doing enough. You're coasting. Getting lazy and complacent and headed for disaster.”

Leo laughed. “You've been telling me I was headed for disaster ever since I married Gail. Nine years of black predictions of what would happen if I didn't get off my ass and get busy. I've been busy. Have I ever let you down? Have you ever once been sorry you hired me to run The Tamarack Company?”

“No. But that's because I kept you on your toes.”

They laughed together, and for a moment sat quietly in the sunlight. The bicyclists had left and other customers had taken their place; waitresses rushed back and forth across the crowded terrace. Beyond a low stone wall, vacationers strolled on the sidewalk: young couples pushing strollers, families studying maps of the town, men and women in khaki shorts and T-shirts, wearing backpacks, water bottles fastened to their belts. On both sides of the valley the mountains rose up, and the warm sun glided down their steep slopes and settled in the town like a benediction.

Ethan sighed with the beauty and serenity of the place. For all that it had changed, he still could sit outside a café on a sun-filled morning in late June, insulated from the turmoil of the rest of the world, and luxuriate in being alive in such a place, on such a day, with such a friend as Leo Calder.

He watched Leo ordering coffee and another croissant, liking him, liking his presence. He was short and compact, with straight dark hair, heavy dark brows, a determined chin, and a strength that belied his size. He had been a champion wrestler in college and now played tennis with a fearsome forehand, and skied with power if not with grace. His dark eyes compelled people to look straight at him, and it was almost impossible for anyone to sustain a lie when pinned down by that firm gaze. Leo was known as a man who could be trusted, and Ethan always felt better when he was around. He knew that The Tamarack Company, with its vast holdings in the town and the valley, had never been run as well as it had been from the day he named Leo its president. And it was all the sweeter to him that Leo was Gail's husband, and they were his family, here in Tamarack.

Charles had told Ethan that Vince had been furious that he made Leo president. It was amazing, Ethan thought, that after all these years Vince still would get angry because he had brought in an outsider—

“We heard from Vince last night,” Leo said.

For a moment, confusion swept through Ethan. He felt dizzy. His thoughts and Leo's voice clanged in his head and he could not tell them apart. He clung to his chair to keep from toppling over.

“Ethan!” Leo was at his side. “What's wrong?”

“I don't know.” Ethan squinted. The dizziness was almost gone. “A little shaky for a minute. Maybe the sun. It's very bright, isn't it?”

“I'll take you home.”

“No, no, I like this. It's very nice, sitting with you, Leo; I like to do this. You don't have to get to the office yet?”

“Not for a little while.”

“You were telling me something.”

“About Vince. He called last night. He does that now and then, and then doesn't have much to say. He always wants to know about the company, but once I've told him everything's fine, we run out of things to talk about. Oh, he did ask if any of the family would be here for the Fourth of July. I told him they almost never come to Tamarack and this year didn't look to be any different. I asked him if he'd be up here.”

Ethan scowled. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I thought you might want your family together again.”

“You mean because I'm about to die.”

“I didn't say that. Sometimes it's a good thing to make peace with the people who are part of you.”

“Vince isn't part of me, Leo; he hasn't been for twenty years or more. Oh, I've thought about it; don't think I haven't. But what Vince did was cut out the heart of our family. He violated everything a family stands for. We're supposed to take care of children, give them sanctuary while they learn how to fight the battles of the world; that's the main thing we're here for. The rest of it—somebody to sleep with, somebody to eat with, somebody to talk to at the end of the day—that's all extraneous. The main thing is, we build a fortress to keep our kids from harm's way and give them a chance to grow confident and proud. That's sacred. And Vince destroyed it. He mocked it. I can't forget that. I can't forgive him. I don't know how much he cares now that he's such a busy, important senator, but it's not my concern whether he cares or not. He always did what he wanted in the past, you know, except when I told him to get out. That was a terrible time. I don't think any of us ever really got over—”

Ethan stopped. He rambled too much lately. He knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. The words just poured out, as if he had to keep talking, because as long as he talked, he was alive, and it didn't seem possible to him that anyone could die in midsentence.

“I didn't really think he'd come,” Leo said, “and he
won't. He said he had to be in Denver that weekend, keeping his voters happy, and then he's going to Maine. He said Charles would be there with him.” Leo paused. “He said that Charles always went to him when he was in trouble and needed help.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He didn't say.”

Ethan shrugged. “Well, I don't want to know. If it's bad enough, I'll hear about it.”

“Wasn't Charles supposed to be here for the Fourth?”

“He said something about it. I'd like it if the rest of them came; we could have a real family picnic. We used to have them on the beach, and then watch the fireworks over the lake. Not as spectacular as the show they put on here, on Tamarack Mountain, but it wasn't bad, all the flares reflected in the water, and boats all the way out, as far as you could see, with people sitting on them, looking up . . .”

“We'll have our picnic,” Leo said. “There'll be the four of us, and you, and Keith. And Dora's in town.”

“With her . . . whatever you call him.”

“The man she lives with.”

Ethan made a face. “I don't like it, you know. All these sample marriages, like those little bits of food that women in aprons hand out in grocery stores; you're supposed to nibble and then decide whether to buy. If people love each other, why can't they trust themselves enough to get married? I like
him,
though, Dora's . . . friend; I like him more every time I see him. But there has to be something wrong with him. If he were decent, he'd marry her. They've been together a long time. A year? Two years? More than two. They've been together two years at least. I'd like him more if he married her.”

“Maybe she doesn't want to.”

“I don't believe that for a minute. Women always want to; it's their nature. There's something wrong with him, that's all.”

“But you don't mind if he comes to the picnic.”

“No, no, of course he should come, as long as he and Dora
are . . . together. I told you: I like him. He's good to talk to. Like you. And Gail. Not Keith so much; he reminds me too much of his father. I don't mind it that Fred isn't coming; we won't miss him. I would like Marian, though, and Nina. Well, we'll still have our picnic; we'll be a family.” He sat back with a long sigh. A family, a picnic, fireworks. He felt content. He had forgotten his dismay at not wanting breakfast, and his worry over the loss of all his appetites. He would probably recall them sometime later, but for now they were gone. So many things disappeared lately in just that way: one minute they filled his thoughts, and the next they had slipped away and all that was left was a vague tremor in his mind that told him something had been troubling him. Every time that happened, he was astonished, because the more distant past was so clear, so bright, his memories finely etched in such perfect detail: people's names, the plots of books, the scents of women, the touch of death when he kissed Alice good-bye.

But he wasn't going to weep over it; he had never been a whiner even when sorrow clung to him for years on end. He had his health; he had Leo and Gail and their two children, closer to him than anyone else in his family; he had Tamarack. He wasn't completely content, because he always wondered about Anne, and he worried about Charles, struggling to run Chatham Development, but as he sat in the sunlight, he thought he had come through pretty well. He had been like a god; he had left his mark on the world. Now he was grateful for every day he had left, and for his memories, unexpurgated by time. Only one of those memories caused him real pain, his memory of Anne, because he had been the one she'd turned to and counted on, and he had let her down.

And he still did not know why. He had never understood why he did what he did that night, at her birthday dinner. And it gnawed at him. After all these years, he could not think of Anne without guilt and pain.

“Dear Anne,” he murmured, and because his eyes were closed, he did not see Leo turn in surprise. “. . . sorry, so
sorry. I loved you and I failed you. I wish I could ask your forgiveness and hold you close and protect you. Of course you're a woman now, and you probably don't need my protection, but still, I wish I could make a place for you where you'd be safe and loved. I wish you'd come here, Anne, so I could tell you I love you and I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you that before I die.”

The sunlight traced red veins through his closed eyelids; the heat made him feel he was melting into the earth. “Anne,” he sighed. And then he was asleep.