The House (5 page)

“And send me that bill,” Anna said.

“Like I said ... “ Elise nodded her head, shook her forefinger at Anna, and left.

Anna walked through the open sliding glass door and to In man who was leaning upon his cane as he studied the empty pool. “Seems Elise has better plans for the house,” Inman said.

“She wants to make a sale.”

He brushed his cane beside the pool. “And you don’t?”

“Not right this minute.” Anna walked further onto the patio that was bathed in late afternoon sunlight and lowered herself into one of the chairs. Joining her, Inman laid his cane aside. Anna took in his smooth cinnamon face. His thick eyebrows and long lashes underscored his childlike eagerness to trust and attempt things new. Yet, Inman was no pushover. Nor was he naïve.

“You know how when you’ve always wanted something,” Anna started, “and you were certain that if you got it, it would set you free? Everything would be right in the world, no more mistakes, no more wrong turns. You’d have figured out everything you needed to know, what you missed as a child. Then, you could live your life.”

Inman smiled. His beige sweater swathed his chest and complemented his warm brown eyes. Anna’s heart pounded. His easy manner and methodical caring always calmed Anna and left her feeling safe. She grew warm.

Inman said, “What is it you’ve figured out?”

Anna turned toward the pool. “I’ve never understood why I was so unhappy, what kept me from being like everyone else, forceful, ambitious, out in life accomplishing something instead of standing on the sidelines, deliberating, and fearful of making the wrong move.”

Inman’s smile remained.

“I’m still on the sidelines,” Anna said. “I’ve yet to figure out what will make me happy.”

Inman tugged at his chin, surveyed the grounds and then looked back to Anna. “How did the meeting go today with Edward and Bryce?”

Anna took in a breath and swallowed. “Edward agreed to the divorce. He deeded me the house. I also discovered he has cancer. He has six, maybe only three months to live.”

Inman cast his attention downward.

“I want to bring him home, let him live out his time in the house.”

“Has he agreed?”

“I haven’t told him,” Anna conceded.

“Do you still love him?” Inman turned to her.

“I don’t know. Truly, I don’t.” Anna appreciated Inman and wanted all she could have of him, but she couldn’t lie to him. She envied the calm silence displayed upon his smooth, brown face. His sharp mustache reflected an old world air of distinction. She had imagined them walking the streets of Calais and Paris, and roaming the museums of Rome and Florence. They would disappear into a new life, Anna leaving behind the pain of hers, and letting Inman love her. She had relinquished all hope of ever doing these things with Edward.

“What are you going to do about our plans?” Inman broke the silence.

Anna peered back into the kitchen, redolent with foaming memories that she wished to reach out and touch or transform. “I want to go to France. I want to leave all this behind and forget that it ever happened.”

“But, you need to be clear about your life with Edward, your marriage, and what it never achieved.”

Inman had raised Dancia, his daughter and only child after his wife abandoned them. Two years later, his wife was killed in an auto accident equal to the magnitude of the one he had recently suffered and survived. Inman had experienced the nagging doubt that slithered into one’s life when destiny darted onto uncharted paths.

“I grew angry when I found out that Marian had been killed. I was angrier then than I was when she’d served me with divorce papers stating she didn’t want Dancia. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. It couldn’t. I rationalized,” Inman explained. “I’m a Wharton MBA with a great job and bright future. How could she leave me? She’s not leaving me. She’s a fool who doesn’t know what she’s got.” Inman gave a bittersweet smile. “I used all the excuses I could find and concocted the ones I couldn’t.” He leaned back and glanced down at his cane.

“It wasn’t until I had the car accident last year, two decades after Marian was killed, that I realized what had been there all along.”

Anna bit her lip. Inman lifted his cane, stood, and then leaned over and kissed her. She wanted to pull him back, rip off his clothes and make love to him right there on the patio.

“Call me when you’ve done what you need to,” Inman said. “Let me know when you’ve it figured out.”

He went back inside the house, his limp barely noticeable, and saw himself out the front door.?

Chapter 6

Anna was in Edward’s hospital room. The shades were drawn and the darkness of night had descended.

“Edward,” Anna called his name. “I want us to move back in the house. Let me care for you.”

Edward appeared about to cry. “Thank you.” His lips trembled. Unable to witness his brokenness, Anna stood and said, “I’ll let Dr. Grimes know—unless you want to tell him.”

He shook his head no.

Later with Dr. Grimes, Anna explained. “He’s agreed to let me take care of him. He seems relieved with the decision.”

“I’ll inform the social worker,” Grimes said as he laid his hand upon Anna’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for earlier. Dying takes a lot of energy and focus.”

“I thought it was
life
that was hard.” Anna blinked to fight back tears.

“It’s hard to live knowing that the time is drawing near when you will no longer see your friends and family. Most patients don’t want to know. Neither do their families.”

“Would you want to know?”

“I’m not sure.”

Anna frowned at Grime’s words.

“I guess it depends on where you are in your life and how much you can handle,” he said. “Then there’s the nature of your relation ships, most specifically the one with yourself. As for myself, I try to live each day knowing death is near,
and
that I have time.” A crinkled smile formed upon his lips. “Some days I succeed. Others, well...” Again, he patted Anna’s shoulder. “Edward’s strong. And so are you. Call if you need anything.”

Edward remained in the hospital from Wednesday night through the weekend. Anna split her time between visiting him and preparing the house for his return. Movers from the rental company arrived early Saturday morning and emptied the house of the various pieces of new and shiny furniture. Three hours later, delivery men from the warehouse brought in bureaus, tables, and sofas from a life Anna had presumed gone. Under her careful direction, the warehouse delivery men returned each item to its rightful place, beginning with the upstairs and ending with the first floor rooms. Anna signed the service agreement and led the head warehouse delivery man to the door.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Hope you have better luck selling your house later,” he said.

She smiled and after shaking his hand, she closed the door.

Feeling an internal pull, she detoured from heading to the kitchen and instead entered what used to be Edward’s study. Seated at the desk, she ran her fingers along its edge and observed the mahogany surface now void of papers and folders. She grew sad as she recalled the loneliness that had filled the house and driven her to seek divorce. So many times she had wished to lay Edward upon the desk, climb onto his body, and force him to make love to her. His countless absences had fertilized her empty sense of longing that was rooted in her childhood with Elena. Anna yearned to greet love simmered by a flame of passion as intense as her commitment to giving.

Anna closed her eyes in response to her body growing moist and warm. During the last six months while feeling doomed to fighting Edward for the divorce and trying to sell the house, Anna had been intimate numerous times with Inman. Paradoxically, her body now ached for Edward. As a fifty-three-year-old mother of four and grandmother of two, she felt ashamed of the twists and turns of her desires.

Sixteen months had passed since Anna had last entered the study and observed Edward at his desk. She had brought him a cup of coffee, decaf since it was after dark, and lowered it carefully to the surface. Engrossed with the documents he’d been reading, he never looked up. Neither had he acknowledged the coaster she had moments later slid underneath the cup just inches from his hand. He continued to review the documents, never thanked Anna. She had wanted so much for him to see her and the new negligee revealing her new figure minus the pounds she had worked hard to shed.

He stood up and announced, “I’m going to bed.”

He had nearly reached the stairs when Anna called after him, “So this is just a holding place for you, this house?”

He stopped, and with brows knitted, turned and faced her.

“You know, like the airline clubs for frequent fliers, a place in the airport where you go during a layover. I hear they’re very nice. None of the noise from the regular travelers.
Clean
. Members like you don’t have to worry about running into anyone you don’t want to see. Then, again if anyone you know is also a member—”

His amber eyes had grown cold, piercing like that of a hungry eagle holding a wellspring of anger edging toward the boiling point. Then, as if losing vitality, he resumed his trek to the staircase and started the climb.

“I want a divorce,” Anna called out. “I want to sell the house.”

“Don’t even try.” He whipped around.

“I should think you’d be happy to get rid of me and this prison, this holding cell. Then you can be—”

“I’ve given you everything I own. This house and the life in it.” Edward rushed down the stairs. “This house is mine.” He pointed to the floor and then aimed his finger to the ceiling.

“You’re never around.”

“There’s nothing to be around for.”

“More the reason I want a divorce and to sell the house.”

“You won’t sell a goddamned thing,” he ranted, inches from her face.

“This house is part mine.” It was the only thing Anna wanted money from. With their children now adults and either working or married, she needed no child support. She would work. Anna needed no alimony. She wanted a clean break.

“My blood, sweat, and tears went into this house,” Edward said. “You will not sell it.” He returned to the staircase, and with what seemed the sum of determination encompassing his life, started up.

“It would be nothing if I hadn’t been here to maintain it.”

“And whose money built, paid for, and maintained it?” Again, he whirled around.

“I’m through with this charade of a marriage. I want out and I want my share,” Anna said.

“Then leave.” He continued up. “But, you won’t take the house.” On reaching the landing, he headed down the hall toward their bedroom.

Anna spent the night in what had been Theo’s room. A week later, and with Edward away, she asked Edward’s former attorney and friend, Henderson Felterfield, to represent her in divorcing Edward.

“Say no more,” Henderson had said. “Edward’s my friend. We go back a long way. But he’s done you wrong. I’ve watched you put up with his antics the entire length of this marriage. He’s given more attention to the fine print of foreign land purchases than to your needs.” Henderson’s lips had been terse, the rich curves of his mahogany face appearing to hold a rage behind its placidity that both touched and struck Anna with awe. “He’s disrespectful and unappreciative. At our ages, we have to start doing better.” Henderson immediately served notice to Edward’s office.

Edward arrived home at the end of the week to find a For Sale sign in the front yard and the locks changed. Irate, he made his demands known the next day through his assistant and attorney, Bryce. No divorce.

A month into the proceedings, Henderson informed Anna, “Ed ward’s agreed to the divorce, but he doesn’t want you to sell the house. And with you having refused alimony, a divorce without the sale of the house leaves you penniless.”

Anna had resisted Henderson’s urging that she allow him to pursue half the proceeds from Manning Real Estate to be paid either in one lump sum based on the worth of the business, or in monthly payments.

“I only want the divorce and half the sale of the house.” Anna contended. “It’s all I need to start over.

“But the alimony Edward’s offering is worth much more than half the proceeds from the sale of the house, a hefty sum in and of itself.”

Anna considered all the women with whom Edward had been, the anonymous phone calls, unexplained lingerie purchases, ex pensive meals that had fed more than clients and potential ones. “I want to be free of him and the house—its memories, joys, and hurts,” she said.

The house had been a holding ground, a repository for what was to have been but would never exist. Her hopes had been born and lost in the house over which she and Edward had contended. Dashed by his unfaithfulness and constant absence—even when physically present—she wanted to be rid of the house and released from the prison in which she had been incarcerated during her marriage.

Henderson’s eager willingness to help left Anna feeling his pity. Despite all her discretion and cool exterior, people knew of Edward’s behavior and what she had endured. She had been the laughing stock of their community. Six weeks later and sitting in Henderson’s office, Anna felt that same pity toward Edward when reading his demands as presented by Bryce.