Now and Forever (41 page)

It was a sleek little racing green Morgan with black trim and red leather seats. The top was down. It was a beauty, and in even better condition than her old Morgan had been. Jessica looked stunned for a moment, and then looked at Astrid and started to cry. She knew it was from Ian.

With Astrid badgering her day and night, she decided to keep it. "As a favor to him." She wouldn't admit how much she loved it, and she still wouldn't open his letters.

In June she decided to take a five-day vacation and go down to visit Aunt Beth at the ranch.

"Hell, Astrid, I've earned it. It'll do me good." She was vaguely embarrassed about going but she wasn't sure why.

"Don't make excuses to me. I'm taking three weeks off in July." Astrid was flying to Europe with her beau, but she was loath to discuss it. She kept her affairs very private, even from Jessie. Jessie wondered if maybe she was afraid things would fall through.

Jessica left early on a Wednesday afternoon in the Morgan, in high spirits, her hair flying out behind her. Aunt Beth had been delighted to hear she was coming.

"Well, well, you have a new car, I see. Very pretty." She had heard Jessica drive up on the gravel, and had come out to meet her. The sun was setting over the hills.

"It was a present from Ian. He sold his book."

"Very handsome present. And how are you, dear?" She hugged Jessica fondly, and the younger woman bent to kiss her cheek. Their hands found each other and held tightly. They were equally pleased to see each other.

"I couldn't be better, Aunt Beth. And you look wonderful!"

"Older by the hour. And meaner too, I've been told." They chuckled happily and walked into the house arm in arm.

The house looked the same as it had two months before, and Jessica let a sigh escape her as she looked around.

"I feel like I'm home." She looked at Aunt Beth from across the room, and found her own face being carefully searched by the other woman's piercing blue eyes.

"How have you really been, Jessica? Astrid says very little, and your letters tell me even less. I've wondered how things worked out. Cup of tea?" Jessica nodded and Aunt Beth poured her a cup of Earl Grey.

"I've been fine. I filed for a divorce when I went back, but I told you that in my first letter."

Aunt Beth nodded expressionlessly, waiting for more. "Do you regret it?"

Jessica hesitated for only a split second before answering and then shook her head. "No, I don't. But I regret the past a great deal of the time, more than I like to admit. I seem to find myself hashing it over, reliving it, thinking back to 'if only' this and 'if only' that. It seems so pointless." She looked sad as she set down the cup of tea and looked up at Aunt Beth.

"It is pointless, my dear. And there is nothing more painful than looking back at happy times that no longer are. Or just simply old times. Do you hear from him?"

"Yes, in a way." Jessica tried to look vague.

"What does that mean?"

"It means he writes to me and I tear his letters up and throw them away." Aunt Beth raised an eyebrow.

"Before or after you read them?"

"Before. I don't open them." She felt foolish and averted her eyes from the old woman's.

"Are you afraid of his letters, Jessica?"

To Aunt Beth she could tell the truth. She nodded slowly.

"Yes. I'm afraid of recriminations and pleas and poems and words that are perfectly designed to sound the way he knows I want to hear them. It's too late for that. It's over. Done with. I did the right thing, and I won't hash it over with him. I've seen other people do that, and there's no point. He'd only make me feel guilty."

"You do that to yourself. But you know, you make me wonder. If he weren't in prison, would you still be pressing for this divorce?"

"I don't know. Maybe eventually it would have come to this anyway."

"But aren't you rather taking advantage of his situation, Jessica? If he were free, he could force you to discuss it with him. Now all he can do is write, and you won't give him the courtesy of reading his letters. I'm not sure if that's rude, or cowardly, or simply unkind." They were harsh words, but her eyes said she meant them. "And I also don't understand about the car. You said he gave you the new car. You accepted that ... but not his letters?" Jessica flinched at the inference.

"That's Astrid's fault. She said that I owed it to him to keep it. He wanted to pay me back the money I put out for the trial, and I wouldn't accept the check from our attorney. So Ian had him buy me the car. And I assume he kept the rest of the money."

"And you didn't thank him for the car?" She sounded every bit a mother. What? No thank-you note to your hostess? Jessica almost laughed.

"No, I didn't."

"I see. And what now?"

"Nothing. The divorce will be final in three months. And that'll be that."

"And you'll never see him again?" Aunt Beth looked doubtful, but Jessica shook her head firmly. "I think you'll regret it, Jessica. One needs to say good-bye. If you don't, in a satisfactory way, you never quite get all the splinters out of your soul. It might trouble you more like this. You can't really wash seven years out of your life without saying good-bye. Or can you? Well, you seem to have made up your mind, in any event." She sat watching Jessica's bent head as the younger woman played with the calico cat. "You have made up your mind, haven't you?" She was determined to get at the truth, if only for Jessie's sake.

"I ... yes, well ... oh, damn. I don't know, Aunt Beth. Sometimes I just don't know. I've made up my mind, and I'll go through with it, but now and then, ... oh, I suppose it's just regret."

"Maybe not, child. Maybe it's doubt. Maybe you don't really want to divorce him."

"I do ... but ... but I miss him so awfully. I miss the way we know each other. He's the only person in the whole world who really knows me. And I know him just as well. I miss that. And I miss what we used to dream, what I thought we once were, what I wanted him to be. Maybe I didn't even know him, though. Maybe I only think I did. Maybe he cheated on me all the time. Maybe that woman was his girlfriend, and she accused him of rape because she was mad about something else. Maybe he hated me for paying the bills, or maybe that's why he stayed married to me. I just don't know anything anymore. Except that I miss him. But it could just be that what I'm missing never even existed."

"Why don't you ask him? Don't you think he'd tell you the truth now? Or is it that you're afraid he might indeed tell you the truth?"

"Maybe that. Maybe the truth is something I'd never want to hear."

"So you'll keep tearing up letters and make sure you never do. And what'll you do when he gets out? Move to another town and change your name?" Jessica laughed at the preposterous suggestion.

"Maybe by then he won't want to talk to me either." But she didn't sound as though she believed it.

"Don't count on it. But more important, Jessica, do you realize what you're saying? You're saying that the man probably never loved you, that there was nothing about you he loved except your ability to pay his bills. Isn't that it?"

"Maybe." But her eyes grew sullen. She had had enough of the painful probing. "What difference does it make now?"

"All the difference in the world. It means the difference between knowing you were loved, and thinking you were used. And what if he did use you, if he loved you too? Didn't you use him too, Jessica? Most people who love each other do, and not necessarily in a bad way. It's part of the arrangement, to fulfill each other's needs--financial, emotional, whatever."

"I never thought of it that way. And the funny thing is that I always thought I was using him. Ian's not afraid to be alone. I always was. I felt so lost without my family after they all died. I had no one except Ian. I could make all the decisions in the world, do anything I wanted, be proud of myself ... as long as I had Ian. He kept me propped up so I could go on fooling the world, and myself, that I was such tough stuff. I used him for that, but I never thought he knew it." She looked almost ashamed to admit it.

"And what if he did know it? So what? It's no sin to have weaknesses, or to use the strength of the person you love. As long as you don't use it unkindly. And what about now? Are you stronger?"

"Stronger than I thought."

"And happy?" That was the crux of it.

She hesitated and then shook her head. "No. I'm not. My life is so ... so empty, Aunt Beth. So dead. Sometimes I feel as if I have nothing to live for. For what? For myself? To get dressed up every morning and changed at six o'clock at night? To go out with some idiot stranger with bad breath and no soul? To water my plants? What am I living for? A boutique I don't give a damn about anymore? ... What?" Aunt Beth waved a hand and she stopped.

"I can't bear it, Jessica. You sound just the way Astrid used to. And it's all nonsense. You have everything to live for, with or without young men with bad breath. But at your age, above all you have yourself to live for. You have it all ahead of you. You have youth. And look at me, I still find things to live for, many things, and not just begrudgingly. I thoroughly enjoy my life, even at my age."

"Then I envy you. I wake up in the morning and I honestly wonder why sometimes. The rest of the time I just keep moving like a robot. But what in hell do I have?"

"You have what you are."

"And what's that? A thirty-one-year-old divorced woman who owns a boutique, half a house, several plants, and a sports car. I have no children, no husband, no family, no one who loves me and no one to love. Jesus, why bother?" There were hot tears filling her eyes as she continued.

"Then find someone to love, Jessica. Haven't you tried? Other than the soulless ones with bad breath." Aunt Beth's eyes twinkled and Jessica laughed tearily and then shrugged.

"You should see what's around. They're awful." The tears started to creep down her cheeks now. "They're really just awful. And ... no one knows me." She closed her eyes tightly on the last words, and bent her head.

"That's what Astrid used to say, Jessica, and now look at her." Aunt Beth walked around the back of Jessica's chair and gently stroked her hair. "She's flapping around like a schoolgirl, pretending to be 'discreet,' and having a marvelous time. She's about as discreet as the sunrise. But I'm glad for her. She's finally happy. She's found someone, and so will you, my dear. It takes time."

"How much time?" Jessie felt twelve years old again, asking the impossible of an all-knowing parent.

"That's up to you."

"But how? How?" Jessie turned in her seat to look up at Aunt Beth. "They're all so awful. Young men who think they're terrific and want to go to bed with you and every other woman on the street, who want to leave their track shoes on the dining-room table, and their drug stash in your house. They make you feel like a parking meter. They put a dime in and come around later ... maybe ... if they remember where they parked you. They make me feel like a nameless nothing. And the older men aren't much better; they're all out proving they're macho and pretending to love women's lib because it's expected ... but Ian never was ... oh, hell. It all bores me to tears. Everything does. The people I know bore me, and the people I don't know bore me. And ..." She knew she was whining, but she didn't sound bored as much as she sounded frantic.

"Jessie, darling, you bore me. With garbage like that. All right, you need a change. Let's agree on that much. Then why not leave San Francisco for a while? Have you thought of that?" Jessie nodded sorrowfully, and Aunt Beth gave her the look she reserved only for very spoiled children. "Are you thinking of going back to New York?"

"No ... I don't know. That would be worse. Maybe the mountains or the beach, or the country. Something like that. Aunt Beth, I'm so tired of people." She sat back with a sigh, dried her face, and stretched her legs. Aunt Beth was looking annoyed.

"Oh, shut up. Do you know what your problem is, Jessica? You're spoiled rotten. You had a husband who adored you and made you feel like a woman, and a very loved woman at that, and you had a boutique you enjoyed, and a home that you both shared and seemed to have enjoyed too. Well, by your own choice, you no longer have the husband, and you've squeezed all you can from that shop, and maybe the house has served its usefulness too. So get rid of it. All of it. And start fresh. I did when I got my divorce, and I was sixty-seven. Jessica, if I can do it, so can you. I came out from the East, bought this ranch, met new people, and I've had a wonderful time since. And if in five years it begins to bore me, then I'll close up shop, sell, and do something else, if I'm still alive. But if I am alive, then I'll be alive. Not living here half dead and no longer interested in what I'm doing. So, what are you going to do now? It's time you did something!" The old woman's eyes blazed.

"I've been thinking of getting rid of the shop, but I can't sell the house. It's half Ian's."

"Then why not rent it?"

It was a thought. The idea had never occurred to her before. And she was a little bit shocked at what she had just said. Sell the shop? When had she thought of that? Or had she been thinking of it all along? The words had just slipped out.

"I'll have to think it all out."

"This is a good place to do it, Jessica. I'm glad you came down."

"So am I. I'd be lost without you." She went to her side and gave her a hug. Aunt Beth was becoming a mainstay to her.

"Are you hungry yet?"

"I'm getting that way."

"Good. We can burn dinner together."

They made hamburgers and artichokes with hollandaise sauce, a favorite of Aunt Beth's, and this time they neither burned nor curdled the sauce. It was a delightful meal and they sat up until almost midnight, speaking of easier subjects than those they had covered before dinner.

Jessica stretched out on the bed in her now familiar pink room and watched the fire glow and flicker as the old calico cat settled down next to her. It was good to be back. It really did feel like home. This was one place she was not tired of.