When We Meet Again (36 page)

“No,” Peter murmured. “I wanted to build a family of my own. With the woman I loved more than life itself. But you took that from me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry,” Louise said, bowing her head.

“And you say she’s still alive? Where is she? What happened to her?”

“I don’t know, exactly. She said in her letter that she was in a nursing home in Orlando. She said she forgave me; she didn’t know how much time she had left, and something her granddaughter said made her realize that she didn’t want to leave this earth with a burden of anger on her heart.”

“Her granddaughter?” Peter whispered. “My son’s daughter?”

“I assume so.”

“I have a granddaughter too?” He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Are they okay? What became of my son?”

“I honestly don’t know. Margaret didn’t give me any details. I guess she felt it wasn’t my right to know about her life. And she said she didn’t want me to call her. She just wanted me to know she wasn’t taking her anger to the grave.” Her eyes filled, and she looked away.

“So why are you here, Louise?” Peter demanded, suddenly furious at this woman who was calmly recounting all she’d stolen from him. “To kick me while I’m down? To ruin what’s left of my life?”

She looked horrified. “Of course not.”

“Then why?”

“Because I saw on the news that you were dying. And I don’t know, I thought maybe it wasn’t too late to set things right.”

“To set things
right
?” He could feel his heart pounding too hard. He hadn’t been this furious in years. He tried to breathe. “What could you possibly do to fix things now?”

“I got the name of the nursing home. It’s in Orlando,” she said quietly, handing over a piece of paper with the information jotted down. “Maybe you can call her there. Margaret changed her name too. Just like you. You were both running from the past, but the past was there all along, wasn’t it?”

“You took it from us! You took away the past and any chance of a future! You and your parents and my father. There’s nothing that can make up for that.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“What name did she take?” He wanted to ask if she had taken his name, but to be honest, he had considered that before. Back in the ’50s, when he didn’t want to believe she was dead, he had also had the investigator he hired search for a Margaret Dahler, just in case.

“Emerson,” Louise said. “Margaret Emerson. After some writer she liked.”

Peter’s eyes filled. “Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Louise squinted at him. “Hey. Ralph, like your fake name.”

“Yes, Louise,” Peter murmured. “Ralph, like my fake name.”

Louise stared at him for a moment before understanding crossed her face. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, the boy is named Victor. Victor Jeremiah Emerson.”

Victor.
Exactly what Peter had named the boy in his mind when he thought he was merely a figment of his imagination. “The middle name is for the boy Margaret used to care for?”

Louise frowned. “I suppose so. He was the only one who stood by her when the whole town turned against her. Whole lotta good it did her, having a little black boy stand up for her. He left the same night she did. Boy, that would have started some rumors if we didn’t tell people she died in childbirth.”

“Good for them,” Peter murmured. “And the girl? Our granddaughter? Do you know her name?”

“Margaret said in her letter it was Emily.”

“Emily,” he whispered. “Where are they now? Victor and Emily?”

Louise shook her head. “No idea.”

“But they’re your family, Louise. Don’t you care?”

“It’s too late, Peter. They’d hate me.”

Peter coughed again, but this time, it wasn’t his lungs betraying him. It was the lump in his throat. “Does Margaret know I’m still alive?”

“I got no idea. Probably not. You think she could have forgiven me if she knew that?” She paused and stood. “I wish I’d told her years ago, but it’s too late for that. And like I said, I’m sorry.
You ain’t gonna hold a grudge, are you?”

Peter didn’t know how to answer that. He couldn’t possibly absolve her, but like Margaret had said in her letter, he didn’t want to carry such anger to his grave. So he stared at her for a long time and finally said, “What’s done is done.”

From the way her face cleared, he knew she’d taken it as absolution. That wasn’t what it was, but Peter was too weary to make the point. She stood to go, mumbling that she hoped he would get better. They both knew the words were useless.

“One more thing, Louise,” Peter called as she made her way to the door. She turned and he took a deep breath, which led to another coughing fit. She waited, and finally, he managed to ask, “Did she marry? Did Margaret marry someone else?”

“No. I thought she would have, but she didn’t. Said so in the letter. I figured it would only take her a little while to get over you. After all, you’d both been so young. No offense, but it sounds to me like you both wasted your lives.” And then she was gone.

Peter stared after her for a moment before whispering, “No. None of it was a waste. Without us, Victor and Emily wouldn’t be here.”

But there was no one left to hear him.

“Alice?” he called out. “Alice?” A moment later, his housekeeper appeared in the doorway of his bedroom.

“I let the woman out, Mr. Gaertner,” she said.

“Thank you. But Alice, I need you to do something for me, quickly. Can you bring me my laptop?”

“Of course, Mr. Gaertner.” A moment later, she reappeared holding his MacBook. “Will there be anything else, sir?” she asked as she handed it to him.

“No, Alice, thank you.” Hands trembling, he opened the computer and entered the name of Margaret’s nursing home in Orlando. A search brought up a phone number with a 407 area code. He grabbed the phone from his bedside table and dialed quickly.

“Hello, Sunnyside,” said the cheerful voice on the other end.

“I’m looking for . . .” Peter trailed off as his voice gave out. He took a deep shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. Hello. I’m looking for Margaret Emerson, please.”

“One moment, and I’ll connect you.”

“Wait!” Peter sat up a little straighter. “She’s still alive? She’s okay?”

“Yes, sir.” The woman on the other end sounded a little wary. “Of course, sir.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Peter closed his eyes and waited while the woman transferred his call and the line began to ring.

But no one picked up. Peter let the line ring twelve times before hanging up and calling back.

“Hello, Sunnyside.” It was the same woman.

“Hello. I just called looking for Margaret Emerson. But there was no answer.”

“Hmm,” the woman said. Peter could hear papers shuffling in the background. “You know what? She may have had a visit with her doctor today. Maybe try again in another hour or so?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But you’re sure she’s okay?”

“Yes, sir. She’s fine. Have a nice day.”

Peter put the phone down, breathless. Suddenly, he was exhausted. “Margaret,” he whispered, sinking against the pillows. The cancer was stealing so many of his moments. “Victor, Emily.” He said the names again and again until he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When Peter awoke, he was sure at first that he had imagined Louise’s visit, but just beside his bedside, Margaret’s name was there, along with an address, written in Louise’s unfamiliar hand. It had been real.
Margaret was alive.

It was past ten in the evening, and Ingrid hadn’t come to bed yet. He knew she was angry at him, angry that Margaret couldn’t simply be erased. But of course she couldn’t. She was forever stamped on his heart. He knew it was late, but he had to try reaching her again. He had the sudden sense that time was running out. He redialed the number of her nursing home, and when a man answered, he asked quickly for Margaret.

“Sir, it’s past ten. She’s likely asleep.”

“Please, it’s an emergency,” Peter said. “I wouldn’t ask you otherwise.”

The man paused, and then Peter could hear ringing on the other end.

“Hello?” The female voice on the line was drowsy, but Peter would have recognized it anywhere.

“Margaret,” he said simply, his heart thudding. He couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

There was silence on the other end of the line for what felt like an eternity. “Peter?” she finally asked.

He closed his eyes. She had recognized his voice all these years later. That had to mean something. He was still in her heart too; he was almost certain of it. “Yes. Yes, Margaret, it’s me.”

“But you left me.”

Her words were so raw and full of pain that they brought tears to Peter’s eyes. “No, Margaret. No. I came back for you. Your sister told me you were dead.”

“But you never wrote.”

“I wrote all the time, my dear. I wrote love letters that told you how much I longed for you, how I was counting the days until I could return for you. She took them all. She explained it all today.”

“You saw Louise?” Margaret’s tone was confused, cloudy. He could also hear a wariness there, and he didn’t blame her.

“She heard I was sick, and she came to see me today for the first time in almost seventy years. She admitted everything—and told me where I could find you.”

“It’s impossible,” Margaret whispered. “What about the letter? The one that said you were marrying your old girlfriend?”

“It was fabricated. Probably by my father. Or maybe by my brother. He was the one who was better with English. The truth is, I never loved anyone but you.” He felt a surge of guilt about Ingrid, but the words were true. What he felt for Ingrid didn’t hold a candle to the feelings he’d always had for Margaret.

“You were the love of my life,” Margaret said after a long pause. “I didn’t want to believe you had changed your mind about me. But you never came back. It was like you had vanished. I tried to convince myself I had imagined the love between us. It was the only way to move on. I had to tell myself over and over that it wasn’t real, that it had never been real.”

“But it
was
real, Margaret. All of it.” He paused and blinked back tears. “I was stuck in a prison camp in England for two years after the war, and then it took me until 1950 to return to the States. I came right to Belle Creek. I couldn’t wait to see you and our baby. I showed up at your doorstep, and your sister told me you’d both died in childbirth. I stayed in Florida for years, trying to find you.”

“I didn’t want to be found,” she whispered. “Once I came to believe that you didn’t want me anymore, I only wanted to start over, to become someone new. Being Margaret Evans meant I was always going to have a broken heart. I thought I could change that by reinventing myself. But my heart never healed, Peter. Never.”

“I’m so sorry. Mine never healed either, Margaret. I never stopped loving you.”

“And I never stopped loving you.” Margaret drew a shaky breath.

Peter knew she was close to her nineties now, but he could imagine her on the other end of the phone just as she’d been the last time he’d seen her: eighteen years old with rosy cheeks, shiny dark hair, and eyes full of hope. He wondered if she’d lost that hope the same way he had. “Margaret,” he began.

“You have a son and a granddaughter,” Margaret blurted out. “Victor. And Emily. They’re good people, Peter. I wasn’t perfect, and I brought so much of the pain from losing you into the way I raised our child. I tried to be a good mother, but I know I failed Victor sometimes. I wish I’d been stronger. You’d be so proud. Of both of them. Victor runs his own business. And Emily is a wonderful writer. She writes about family, Peter. She understands love, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.”

“I can’t wait to meet them.” The words made Peter sad, because he didn’t know if he’d have the time. His body had given out, and he was confined to bed now, but he’d find a way. He’d find some way to see his son and his granddaughter. He had to.

“Peter, you said you are sick?”

He took a deep breath. “Cancer. I’m afraid I’m dying. I should be grateful that I’ve had ninety-four years, I suppose, but all I can think, Margaret, is that I haven’t had enough time. In that lifetime, I only spent a year of it with you.”

“I’m dying too,” she said softly. “I’m hooked up to machines, and my body is failing me. Do you think we will ever see each other again, Peter?”

He thought about the question for a moment. He knew she was more than three hundred miles away, and neither of them was in any condition to travel. Was it possible they’d come all this way, traveled through all of their lives without meeting again, only to miss each other at the very end? “Do you remember the way the sky looked the morning we first saw each other?” Peter asked after a while.

“It was violet,” she said immediately. “It was the most beautiful dawn I’d ever seen.”

Peter closed his eyes and imagined that day, the way Margaret had looked silhouetted against the sky, the way he’d known before he even talked to her that she would change his life forever. “I’ve always believed that the sky is just the edge of heaven,” he said finally. “And that the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets are just a glimpse of a better world beyond this one. I know I’ll see you again beyond that violet sky.”

He could hear her crying on the other end of the line. “Is that all we get at the end of our long lives? A promise to see each other after we die? It hardly seems fair.”

“None of it’s fair,” Peter replied, choking up. “But maybe the world that lies beyond the sky is everything. Maybe life is just a beautiful prelude.”

She cried quietly for a moment, and then she drew a ragged breath. “So what happened to you, Peter? Where are you now? How did you live your life?”

“I go by Ralph now. For Ralph Waldo Emerson.” He said it with a smile, and he could hear her gasp. “I live in Atlanta, and as a matter of fact, I’m a painter. I’ve made a whole career of painting my memories of you.”

For the next four hours, they told each other everything. Peter told her about reconnecting with Maus, finding his talent, coming to America, searching for her, and settling into a life where his paintbrush was like a window to the past. She told him about how Jeremiah helped her with Victor during his early years, what Victor was like as a boy, how he’d grown into a man, and how he’d had a wonderful child of his own. They talked about the places they’d been, the things they’d done, and the dreams they’d had of each other. Margaret even gave Peter numbers to reach Victor and Emily. And finally, at two in the morning, they agreed to hang up, for their throats were dry and they could barely keep their eyes open.