The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [18]
—Was there a baby? she asked.
—False alarm.
For a moment, the street spun, and Linda struggled to reclaim her bearings.
—What an irony, she whispered.
—What?
She wouldn’t, couldn’t, tell him of the ordeal at the Catholic hospital. Of the hostility of the nuns. Of the kindness of the Belgian doctor who had declared the abortion a necessity. Nor of the undisguised malice of Sister Marie Francis, who had brought the fetus in a jar for Linda to see. She would not be the one to cause Thomas any more pain.
—You must keep writing, she said breathlessly after a time. However difficult.
For a time, Thomas was silent. It’s a struggle I lose more often than I win.
—Does time help?
—No. He seemed to have the conviction of long experience.
They walked up a hill and left the road and sat upon a boulder. For a long moment, she put her head against her knees. When she looked up, her hands were still trembling. She was better dressed for this occasion than Thomas and was reminded that they’d missed, together, the great dressing-down of America. She’d never seen him in a T-shirt, and, not having seen it, could not imagine it. His dress shirt, she saw, was crisp, of excellent quality. She had a sudden longing, instantly disowned, to put her hand to his back. Desire sometimes came to her in the night, unannounced and unwanted — an intrusive presence in her bed. It made her restless and fretful, causing her to realize with renewed finality what she’d lost.
(Vincent and she, lying face-to-face, the surface of their bodies touching at half a dozen places, like electrodes. Maria and Marcus out with friends on a Saturday afternoon; the luxury of time and sunlight on the bed. Vincent saying, his eyes dark and serious, as though he’d had an intimation of mortality, I hope I die before you do. Her eyes widening: this from Vincent, who was not a romantic. I’d have to destroy the bed, he’d said. I couldn’t bear it.)
And she, who had once been a romantic, now slept alone in that very bed and couldn’t imagine wanting to destroy it.
—Why did you do it? Thomas asked.
He was looking resolutely toward the skyline of the northern city. He would have been wanting to ask this question for years. Twenty-five of them, to be precise.
She could not, at first, answer him. They watched together a movie of pleasure boats and tankers going into port.
—What difference did it make, she asked. In the end?
He looked at her sharply. We might have worked it out.
—How, exactly?
—Maybe with time, we’d have found a way.
—You delude yourself.
—But the way it happened, he said. You left no possibility. Perhaps he felt his daughter’s death entitled him to be accusatory, she thought.
—I was drunk, she said. She who did not normally look for excuses.
—Well, yes, he said. But it was more than that. You meant to hurt.
—Who? she asked sharply. Myself? Regina?
—Regina, certainly.
But she hadn’t meant to hurt; she’d meant only to convey what seemed like some great truth, as cosmic in its way as the laughter that would shake her years later. That she should have been so appallingly cruel had always shocked her.
—It was the most selfish moment of my life, Thomas. I can only think I must have wanted it over. All of it.
—Oh, Linda, he said. Of course, I’m just as guilty as you. More so.
Her face burned with the memory of that terrible evening. It’s hard to believe that anything could have meant so much, she said.
She’d been drinking scotch straight up. Against a wall, Peter had stood, not comprehending at first what the fuss was for, but knowing something irretrievable had been said. He’d seemed a minor player then, only a witness to a larger drama. That, too, had been unforgivable on her part. Not to have seen how shamed he’d been. How good he’d been not to make himself the point. Until later that night, in the privacy of their hotel room, when he’d wept for her betrayal, so absolute, so public.