A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [128]
“I didn’t know enough to know,” she said, “but in retrospect . . . yes, I did.” She paused. “You have been happy in your marriage?”
“‘Happy’ is the wrong word. ‘Content’ maybe. ‘Accepting.’”
“Would we have been happy?”
“Yes,” Innes said. “I’m sure of it.”
“She has borne children,” Hazel said.
“Yes. Well, in one case. With difficulty in the other.”
Innes reflected how strange it was that it had been Louise who had cried out that day in Halifax that she would never have a husband and children, and that Hazel would have everything—when actually the opposite was true. Louise had the husband and the children.
“You have been all right without children?” Innes asked Hazel.
“Yes. Most of the time. I’m sometimes afraid of the future.”
“Louise would not have been all right,” Innes said. “She is barely all right even with all of us around her.”
“That day,” Hazel said. “It doesn’t seem possible.”
“The blast, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“You were engaged.”
“He came home,” Hazel said. “He had to stay in Halifax, but I didn’t.”
“It was that simple?”
“No.”
“All those years . . .” Innes said, and in that moment, he came as close to despair as he ever had.
“We can’t think about it,” Hazel said.
“I have to go back to Toronto,” he said. “The day after tomorrow.”
“It will be all right,” she said, soothing him, drawing her fingers along his back. He wanted to sleep. God, how he wanted to sleep in this bed. With this woman.
He would have to tell Louise that he ran into a friend, lost track of time. If he waited any longer, she would miss her concert. Louise knew that Innes, short of a catastrophe, would not cause her to miss her concert.
This was a catastrophe, he thought.
With a wrenching movement, Innes stood. He found his clothes, the various pieces, putting them on as he discovered them. When he looked again at Hazel, she was sitting at the edge of the bed in a cotton robe. He pulled on his jacket, slipped his feet into his shoes. He sat beside her while he tied them. His coat and hat were on the chair in the front room. He took her hand.
The feeling was visceral, a physical pain. Hadn’t he sacrificed enough? But then, it hadn’t been all sacrifice, had it? If he were to be truthful? He had had his very satisfying practice, his family. He had had a life.
He couldn’t leave Louise. It would be wrong.
He kissed Hazel and stood. He walked to the door and put his hand on the knob.
Agnes rested her head in her hands. She couldn’t decide. Did Innes turn the knob and leave the room? Never to return? Would that be right? Would Innes then be a good man?
Agnes could see Innes hesitating, his hand on the cut glass. Perhaps he noticed the panels in the door, could hear a siren from outside. He didn’t know exactly where he was. He would have to find a taxi and make the torturous ride back to the hotel, which just an hour ago had held for him a luminous candescence.
Hazel waited patiently behind him. This couldn’t be her decision. She couldn’t influence the man at the door or try to persuade him. Agnes could only imagine what she was thinking.
Agnes knew what she was hoping.
So, no, Agnes decided, setting down the pen with a snap. Innes wouldn’t leave Hazel. He might have to leave her for now, Agnes determined with a kind of wild joy in her heart, but he would return. Perhaps even tomorrow he would return for an hour. Yes, that was it. Innes would see to Louise, and he would raise his children, but he would never be without Hazel again. He and she would meet in New York City and in Toronto. At Niagara Falls and in Chicago. They would be lovers until one of them (surely it would have to be Innes; Agnes couldn’t allow the man any more heartbreak) died.
Her heart full, her imagination satisfied, Agnes picked up her notebook and put it in her backpack. She dropped the pen onto the floor and bent to retrieve it. She stood up quickly and saw again the oily cylindrical blips at the periphery of her vision. Maybe they had more to do with blood pressure, she thought now, than with vision.