The Vineyard (45 page)

“What do you think?”

“You could be here to nix Natalie's wedding plans.”

“I might try that on the side, but the main course is you.”

She made a face. “That's a disgusting analogy.”

“You were supposed to laugh at it. Before that, you were supposed to throw your arms around my neck and tell me how sweet it was of me to come and how thrilled you are to see me.”

She looked away. “It was sweet of you to come.”

“But you're not thrilled to see me.”

“I am. I'm just … unprepared.”

“I'm your husband. Since when do you have to be prepared?”

She met his gaze. “Since I realized that while I need to be with you, I also need to work. I'm loving what I do here, and I'm feeling satisfied and challenged and tired at night in ways I haven't been since I quit work to marry you. But I realize also that if it's going to be even remotely possible for me to work in the next few years, it'll mean major cooperation and compromise on both of our parts.”

Greg was right back where he'd been before she had gone to see her mother—totally confused. But right now he was too tired to work his way through a verbal maze. “Please repeat that in five words or less.”

“I'm pregnant.” She didn't blink, just stared at him with her brows raised the smallest bit. Her words hit him as though he'd had a whiff of smelling salts.

“Pregnant.” It was the last thing he had expected. Jill had left him. They hadn't seen each other in two months.
“Pregnant?”

“As in having a baby.”

Oh, he knew what pregnant was, but he was still having trouble dealing with the concept. Their having children had always been something for the future, something vague; suddenly, it wasn't. In that instant, he could picture a baby of theirs in living color. It was … startlingly, brilliantly gold.

He wanted to hug Jill. But she didn't look like she wanted it, and he wasn't risking rejection. So he simply said, “When?”

“February. I conceived in May.”

Greg thought back quickly. May had been a nightmare of a travel month for him. There had been only one time—a short weekend—when
they had been together long enough to make love. “At the Delaware shore?”

She nodded. “You were bored to death.”

“Not bored. Antsy. I was stressed about a poll that had come out all wrong.” He pushed a hand through his hair. Pregnant. Whoa. She was having his baby. “How long have you known?”

“Since right before I came here.”

He was a minute taking that in. “Since early
July?
And you're only telling me now?”

“I didn't want to tell you on the phone.”

“You could have flown to Washington.”

“No. I couldn't. I needed time to think.”

He recoiled. “If you're thinking about getting an abortion, forget it. I want that baby.”

She smiled for the first time. “Well, at least
that's
good to know.”

“Not an abortion. A formal separation then? Forget it. If you'd wanted that, you shouldn't have gotten pregnant!”

That quickly, her smile became tears. “You jerk!” she cried, pushing herself out of the chair and past him.
“I shouldn't have gotten pregnant?
Did I do this alone? Do you think this was immaculate conception? Did you use a condom? Did you
ever
use a condom?
No
. You never once offered, even though your sperm were the little things that caused the risk.” Throwing the door open, she stormed out of the room, but she was back seconds later, slamming the door shut again. “And there is no law that says a pregnant woman can't divorce her husband. Get with the program, Greg. I'm not dependent on you.”

“You want a
divorce?”
he cried.

“No! I don't! I don't really know
what
I want. I just want our lives to be different!”

Well, that was something, at least, he thought. Different was better than
done
.

His neck ached, tense to the extreme. He kneaded the muscles there. “Different how?”

“I've told you,” she said. She was leaning against the door, looking at him with those same wide eyes. This time, though, he saw a dare. “I don't want to be ignored. I don't want to play second fiddle to your work all the time. I don't want to feel like an appendage.”

She wanted attention, he thought. Like he had all the time in the world. Like he was sitting around doing nothing. “How am I going to earn a living, if I don't do what I do?”

“There are ways, Greg. There are ways. Look at you. It's the middle of the summer, and you're pale. You have shadows under your eyes and grimace lines around your mouth. You're exhausted. Is that how you want to live?”

“I'm exhausted because my wife isn't around to make life a little easier for me.”

“Oh please. You were exhausted before I left.”

“Well, it's worse now. I need you home, Jill.”

“I'm thinking of staying here.”

“Here? Why?”

“Because they need me. I fill a role. I'm a somebody here. I like being a somebody, Greg.”

He put his head back and closed his eyes. “Oh, God,” he said. “This is going nowhere.” His head came forward. His wife stood there, so close yet so far—a beautiful blonde with class written all over her. That was the very first thing he had loved about her. She had class without arrogance. That hadn't changed.

“You don't look pregnant,” he said quietly.

“Not dressed.”

“Take off your clothes. Let me see.”

Her eyes took on something else, then—a hardness that might have been hatred—and he was suddenly, thoroughly unsettled.

“That was the worst thing you could have possibly said,” she said tightly, her voice low.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean it negatively. I meant … it's something so different … my child …
our
child. Is it wrong for me to want to see the changes it's made?”

“Intimacy is for people who love each other.”

“We love each other.” Hadn't she said it on the phone not so long ago? But there was that look in her eye now, and the set of her jaw. It couldn't be hatred. Surely, it was just anger. “At least, I love you.”

“No, Greg. You love
you.”
She opened the door, with a gesture inviting him to leave. “I have work to do.”

Greg wasn't used to being dismissed. His first instinct was to challenge her on it. Hell, she was the only reason he'd come here, and the trip was a pain in the butt on such short notice—driving to
Baltimore for the only flight he could book to Providence, then renting a car. As it was, he couldn't stay more than a couple of days. He had clients waiting. He didn't have time to play these games.

But something told him that wasn't the right approach. Her anger needed diffusing. He could give her a day or two for that. One question remained, though. “What am I supposed to do while you work?”

It was like she'd been waiting for him to ask her that, her answer came so fast and direct. “Go see your mother. Talk with her. Ask
her
what love means. Better still, read her book. It'll tell you about the sacrifices people are capable of making when they care about others enough.”

Greg rubbed the back of his neck. He felt cold and alone, separate from Jill, when what he wanted was to take her in his arms, hold her close, and tell her things would work out. But for the first time, he wondered if they would.

She hung her head, denying him even that visual contact.

Not knowing what else to do, he left.

Twenty-six
 

S
IMON JOINED THE FAMILY
for dinner that night. He wanted his presence felt. With the arrival of Mark and Greg, the deck was stacked heavily against Carl. He wanted to be there if his father needed help. Same with Olivia. If the rising family numbers made her feel like an outsider, he wanted her to have an ally.

There were nine of them at the table, though Susanne was up more than she was seated. Simon had known she was a great cook, but this night she outdid herself. She started the meal with a light corn chowder with clams, then served a tenderloin stuffed with herbs and beautifully rare, baked stuffed sweet potatoes, and a warm spinach salad with bits of pear and blue cheese. Dessert was a crème brûlée.

They talked about the food and how good it was. They talked about the body and bouquet of the two-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon that Carl uncorked. They talked about the Napa Valley Cabernet that this wine was most often compared with. They talked about the storm named Chloe, now crossing the North Atlantic and gaining strength.

Greg didn't talk directly to Jill. Mark didn't talk directly to Susanne. Neither Greg nor Susanne talked directly to Carl.

But Simon needn't have worried about Olivia. Since she was viewed as the most neutral person at the table, everyone talked with her, and she held her own without fault. He actually got a kick out of watching her handle the Seebrings in her own inimitable way. Pride didn't hang her up. She was happy to claim ignorance and ask questions, and Tess was the same. They were two of the most curious people he'd ever met, that was for sure.

It worked beautifully with this group, but then, they were on all on good behavior. No one picked a fight. No one was snide. No one said anything that could be remotely construed as criticism. Everything was civil and polite.

The tension was so thick, however, that Simon was delighted when the meal ended and he could excuse himself and go out to the porch.

Carl joined him there wearing a look of the same relief, but rather than talk about it, he broached the issue of Chloe. “She's a bad one, then?”

“Could be,” Simon said. “She's feeding on the low pressure left by Beau. He petered out. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like she will. She isn't a threat to Florida or the Carolinas unless she takes a turn, but the air currents don't predict that. They say she'll move north just west of Bermuda and gain strength until she makes landfall.”

“Where?”

“Here.” That was what the latest bulletin from the National Hurricane Center had said. “But who knows. Hurricanes can be fickle. Air currents change. She could get hung up around Bermuda and die.” He skimmed the rows of vines that spilled down either side of the road in the waning light of day. They were healthy now, but silent and still. Not even the distant trees moved. Even the birds were quiet.

It sure sounded to him like the calm before the storm, although he knew it was too early for that. At this stage, there was little to do but pray and wait.

His thoughts strayed. With a hand on the porch beam, he glanced at his father. “Do you still miss Mom?”

Carl kept his eyes on the fields. “She wasn't only my wife. She was my friend.”

“Do you feel guilty remarrying?”

“Guilty?” He gave a small headshake. “No. I tried to be a good
husband to Ana. I think she was happy. But she's been dead four years.”

Simon knew those four years well. He had ticked them off day by day, month by month. “Maybe the thing to do is not
care
so much. Then you don't lose so much if things go wrong.”

Carl lowered a hip to the wide wood rail. Quietly, he said, “You can stop caring? I never could. As for loss, it's part of life. I learned that early on.”

“When Natalie married Al?”

Carl looked out through the gathering dark. “I shut down emotionally during the war years. I got medals for bravery that wasn't bravery at all. It was recklessness. I just didn't care what happened to me, because she wasn't waiting here anymore.”

“What changed your mind?”

He inhaled slowly. “All that death. All those bodies. I wasn't there when they liberated the camps, but I saw pictures. I heard stories. Look in the eyes of any one of those who witnessed it firsthand, and you know the horror.”

It struck Simon that his father had rarely talked about the war and that when he did, it was of lighter things, like the bars in Marseilles. His voice was calm then. He was stating fact. Interpreting it now, he sounded tortured.

“I always wondered what was worse—having an entire family wiped out, or having every member wiped out except one.” He was lost in the tragedy of it for a minute, before looking at Simon. “Suddenly my losing Natalie wasn't the end of the world. Same with losing your mother. It hurts. You never get used to the pain. But at some point, you put it in perspective with the rest of your life.”

“At what point?”

Carl shrugged. “It's different with different people. Like a cold. Some people shake it in two days. Some sniffle for a week. All you know is at some point you start to feel better. You breathe freer. You sleep the night. You start wanting to do things.”

“Yeah, but you sure as hell steer clear of the neighbor who's just been diagnosed with strep throat. You're not looking for trouble.”