Private affairs : a novel (40 page)

"A busy summer," said Matt. "And I can't imagine a more wonderful one." The silence returned. "Peter," he said, "we'll talk in Galveston."

"Sure," Peter said.

For the rest of the drive, Matt and Holly talked, until they drove across the long bridge to the island and Matt gave them a sightseeing tour along streets lined with oleander, past houses built in the 1840s, and enormous Victorian mansions being restored and opened to the public. They drove to the beach and Matt parked on the sand. The tide was coming in, splashing in long gray waves that broke slowly and slowly receded, leaving a thin outline of foam that faded and disappeared. Egrets and spoonbills rose on huge wings, settling back on the sand a few feet from where they began. Gulls cried to each other; slanting rays of sunlight glinted off shells at the water line.

Holly pulled off her loafers and socks. "You too, Peter," she said, her voice gentle but insistent. "Because I thought we'd have a race, but if you're groaning about sand in your shoes, and stopping to shake them out, you'll lose. Of course you'll lose anyway, because I'm faster than you and my Body Movement Class has taught me the proper way to run, but if you're barefoot you might have a chance —"

"Ha!" snorted Peter. He knew she was trying to distract him and cheer him up, and he appreciated it, but since when did she think she could beat him? And what was this shit about the "proper way to run"? Without another word, he pulled off his shoes and socks and ran past her to the beach.

He heard Holly's outraged cry and lengthened his stride, but he didn't really care who won; he took deep breaths of the fresh smell of the ocean and heard the calls of a dozen different birds, and as his muscles stretched and his bare soles slapped against the ridges in the hard, wet sand, all of a sudden he felt so free and joyous he wanted to shout. Even when Holly's shadow appeared beside him, and he knew she really had learned to run, he felt wonderful, and he turned and grinned at her to show her that everything was fine.

Matt watched them: his two long-limbed, beautiful youngsters, laugh-

ing together as they raced, kicking up small spurts of sand and sprays of water as they dodged the incoming tide. Loving them, he ached for them. / wish they could keep this all their lives: laughter and freedom and the whole world stretching in front of them. . . .

But later, after the three of them had walked together and found a place to sit on the dry sand farthest from the water, he said, "The trouble is, we can't hold onto the freedom we have when we're young. The minute we decide where we're going, what we want to do with our lives, what we want to be, our choices get narrower: the steps we have to take, the rules we have to follow, the connections we have to make with other people, whether we want to or not. ..."

"You mean you're living in Houston and hating every minute of it," Peter said.

"I mean I'm living in Houston because that's the only choice I had, to be what I want to be."

Peter tried to recapture his anger, but he couldn't do it. The sun beat down, mixed with a cool ocean breeze and saltwater smell, and he sifted warm sand through his fingers. Slowly, he said to Matt, "Maybe you shouldn't be . . . whatever you want to be. Not if you've got a family to think about."

"Well, let's talk about that." Matt leaned back, his hands in the warm sand, and gazed at a quartet of white pelicans standing in the foam of breaking waves, looking like a group of politicians debating which direction to go. "I have two children, but they're grown up now. My son is leaving for college in a couple of months; my daughter leaves next year. And for a long time they've been building their own lives, pulling away from their parents, not needing them in the ways they used to. Even if I still lived with you, you'd be the ones to go away—"

"Mother isn't going anywhere!"

"She could have; I asked her to. She made a different choice."

"Why?" Holly asked.

"That's something she should tell you herself. I'm surprised you haven't asked her."

"We have," Holly said. "She said you have different goals."

"She's right. And the goals I've set for myself—"

"Goals!" growled Peter. "You two sound like a college catalogue."

Matt chuckled. "Maybe we do." He became serious. "I know, what you want to hear about are feelings. Well, I feel your mother wants to hold me back from the goals—sorry—from going as far as I can in running a newspaper chain that can give me the kind of power and influence I've always dreamed of. And your mother doesn't like it when I say I

intend to concentrate on that and put off other things until I'm established; at least until I know how far I can go. She doesn't like what I'm doing; she doesn't like the people I'm doing it with; she doesn't like the decisions I'm making; she doesn't like the way I think about the future; she doesn't like the way I remember the past."

"But she likes you," Holly said in a small voice.

At that, a sense of loss swept over Matt, and his fingers clenched in the loose sand. But he kept his voice even. "We like each other. But it isn't enough, Holly. Look: what would you have done if we'd told you to give up the opera this summer and move to Houston?"

"I wouldn't do it."

"Of course you wouldn't. It would have been the wrong thing for you to do. And we would have been terribly wrong if we told you to. No one should tell another person to give up a great chance. They come too rarely."

"Then what do you do when you disagree?"

"You compromise."

"Which means doing it your way," said Peter.

"Maybe. At least trying it for a while."

"Mother needs to be taken care of!" Peter said flatly. "You left her to handle the house and a job—two jobs—"

"Two?"

"Her column and what's-his-name's show."

"Why do you always pretend to forget it?" Holly exclaimed. "Tony Rourke. And his show is 'Anthony,' and Mother does one interview a week on it." She looked at Matt. "I thought you knew."

"She said something about it, in May." His eyes were on the horizon. "I guess I wasn't paying much attention."

"Well, anyway," Peter went on insistently, "she's got the house and two jobs and our problems to listen to, and she still works with Saul sometimes at the Chieftain, and I don't know what else, but she's all alone—!"

"She has you and Holly. She has her parents, her friends—"

"She doesn't have a husband living with her! When I leave, who's going to take care of her?"

Matt's eyebrows went up. "You don't have much confidence in your mother, do you?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You don't think your mother can take care of herself. I do. I trust her to know what she's doing, and make her own decisions."

"Shit!" Peter flung himself away and strode to the water's edge.

"Daddy, that wasn't nice," Holly said hesitantly.

Matt watched his son's lanky figure bending and straightening as he picked up stones and skipped them across the surface of the water. "He has to understand that we're old enough to manage our own lives."

"But he thinks you're managing Mother's."

"Then he's wrong."

Holly looked the other way, gazing pensively at the pelicans, still grouped in serious discussion. "Do you think you'll be home by Christmas?"

"Home? You mean living in Santa Fe?"

She nodded.

"Holly, I can't . . . why do you ask?"

"Mother thinks you will."

Matt sat up, his arms around his knees. "I don't know whether she really believes that or not. But she knows how much is at stake here—so do you and Peter, because I've told you often enough—and she knows I can't just walk away from it. Not now; not at Christmas. Sweetheart"— he put his arm around Holly and she rested her head on his shoulder—"I love you and Peter and I love to be with you. I'm proud to be your father; I'm proud to be your friend. And I expect us to visit and write letters and talk on the telephone. But I'm not moving back to Santa Fe. A long time ago I changed direction for my father, and then I stayed where I was because you and Peter were young and needed security—and we did, too, I guess. But you're not young anymore, and your mother and I don't need the kind of security we clung to for so many years ... we have more money than ever before, for one thing. So I can't go backward. There's room for your mother in that enormous apartment I have, if she decides to share my life again. You can tell her that; it's hardly a secret."

Holly sat straight. "You want her to come to Houston? You miss her? You need her?"

There was a barely perceptible pause. "Of course."

"And you want me to tell her that, toe?" Holly asked shrewdly.

Matt sighed. "Holly, give us time. Are you and Peter so sure your mother is really unhappy about this? She's never had a life of her own; she's never even had any time to herself. Neither have I. Maybe we both need it, to explore on our own. Then we'll see. Give us time; don't push us."

Holly's eyes met his. "That sounds like the kind of thing you'd say to make yourself feel better about what you've done."

Matt felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. "I'll have to think

about that," he began, then saw with relief that Peter was coming toward them, scuffing sand with his toes.

He stopped in front of Matt. "I guess you're right. I was thinking about Maya—she's already worrying about when I go to Stanford—and I just thought Mother must feel the same way because she's a woman and she's staying home ... I just want her to be happy."

"I know," Matt said gently.

"It's not that I don't want you to be happy, too, but. . . ."

"I know," Matt said again. "And I'm proud of you, because you care so much about your family, even when you're about to go off to make your own life. And Holly, too: both of you ought to be all wrapped up in yourselves and the exciting things happening to you, but you still worry about us. That means a great deal to me." There was a pause. He slid a few inches to the right. "Need some room?"

Looking to left and right along the thirty-six miles of beach, Peter broke into a grin. "I was thinking it was a little crowded. ..."

They laughed, and as Peter sat down, Matt said, "Why is Maya worried about your leaving? I thought she was planning to go to Stanford with you."

"It's too late," Peter replied. "She kept arguing with her mother about Argentina, but now that she's won and her mother says she doesn't have to go, it's past the deadline for fall. I'm not sure she could even make it for winter. She needs a scholarship, too."

"Maybe I could help. Sometimes a phone call to the right person. . . ."He paused. "Or would you rather I stayed out of it?"

"No, it's just that . . . Shit, it's a lousy thing to say, but—"

"But you think you'd like to be free for this new adventure."

Peter grunted. "I don't like to say it. Or even think it. Like I'm betraying her. I guess you know what that feels like."

"I guess in a way I do."

Holly listened to the two voices weaving together like the notes of a song. After a while she joined them, her musical voice a counterpoint to their deep ones. And it was like that all weekend. They had dinner at the Wentletrap, changing in the restrooms from jeans and T-shirts to a white summer dress for Holly and slacks, jackets and ties for Peter and Matt, and Holly thought what a handsome family they made, sitting in the dining room of the restored building that looked more European than American, eating fish caught that day right off the island and drinking white wine.

Matt had made so many plans for Sunday they had to choose among them. Peter chose a tour of outdoor sculptures and they spent the morn-

ing driving through empty streets connecting the cluster of dramatic skyscrapers that were Houston's downtown, to see works of Miro, Dubuffet, Nevelson, even Claus Oldenburg's "Geometric Mouse X" that he'd heard about but had seen only in books. Holly chose brunch amid the marble and silks and tapestries of the Remington Hotel, and they lingered over quail and snapper and hot almond cake with amaretto in the greenhouse off the dining room. Their table was near a harpist and flutist whose music floated about them like bright crystals in the sun and they talked as if they had all the time in the world and had never been apart.

That evening, after an afternoon of museums and Hermann Park's planetarium and zoological gardens, and what Matt called a down-home dinner at the Confederate House, Peter said, "It was a better weekend than I expected."

"For me, too," Matt said, echoing his son's honesty. They were driving again—it seemed to Peter and Holly that most of what they'd done all weekend was drive; everything was so far from everything else—and he said, "We'll stop at home to pick up your luggage and then go straight to the airport."

"Home," Peter said pointedly.

"My home," said Matt. He drove through the wrought-iron gate. "I live here." In the apartment, Matt went to the study where Peter had slept and turned on his telephone answering machine. "As soon as you're finished packing, we'll go."

Stuffing their bags with clothes and new books and shells from the beach at Galveston, Holly and Peter half-listened to the recorded voices greeting Matt: a man with a problem about circulation in Denver; another with a question about an editorial on a new ski resort at Pagosa Springs; and then a woman's warm, husky voice. "Matt, I've reserved Tony's wine cellar for next Thursday night, to say goodbye to my friends before I leave for cooler climates. Please come; it won't be a proper going-away party unless everyone I'll miss most is part of it. Call me soon."

Peter's face was like stone when Matt looked up and met his eyes. " Tony's wine cellar'?" Holly asked from the doorway. "Does Tony Rourke have a house here?"

"Tony's is a restaurant," Matt said. "No relation to Tony Rourke. The wine cellar is a good place for lunch, and it's reserved for private parties at night. Peter, when your mother is invited to parties—"

"She hasn't been."

"She will be. Will you tell her to stay home?"

Peter looked at his feet. My mother doesn 't know anybody with a voice like that. "I guess not."