The Widow's Season (21 page)

When she returned to the window, the sun was setting to her right. Her robe was untied, and as she pushed the curtain aside the sunset fell upon her throat with an orange light that shed no warmth. The room was cold without a fire nearby, and she felt melancholy staring at the river, alone in her nightgown. David was so quiet that she hesitated to move, thinking that if she looked back, he would fade into the walls.

After ten minutes of raising her arm, shaking it out, and raising it again, he told her that she could leave it down. David pulled a shoelace from one of his sneakers, tied the curtain to the side, then watched her for fifteen minutes more, until the sky had faded to a purple bruise.

“That’s enough for now,” he said. “Thanks.”

She walked over to his shoulder and saw three sketches of her hand—fingers curled, fingers spread, one with her index finger extended lackadaisically like Michelangelo’s Adam, so bored with God’s gift of life. David had attended to the curve of her fingernails, the angle of her knuckles, and the glint of sapphires on her right-hand ring, a gift from their tenth anniversary. He had also focused on fabrics—ivory silk gathered in folds a few inches past her elbow, and the intricate lace curtains, a tapestry of spiderwebs. This painting would take weeks, but she would not stay for more than a day or two.

The next morning they hiked upstream, where the ice had formed a white froth at the river’s edge, and by midafternoon Sarah had returned to her nightgown, staring out the window at the tulipwood tree, no more than a few groping sticks. She remembered her yard in South Carolina, its towering willow a perennial green, except for one cold winter, when the leaves faded to a spotted yellow. She thought also of Vermont, with its reds and golds and coppery browns, and the blue of Nate’s bright eyes.

On the third day Sarah woke early and packed her bag. She placed a kiss on David’s forehead, then left while the sun was still making its way up the pines. Two nights at the cabin were enough; she recognized the danger of being lulled into this dreamy world, becoming nothing more than a painted silhouette. Driving home, she felt that she was emerging from a deep lake, gradually coming up for air.

She was home for less than an hour when a knock came at the door. Margaret stood on the porch, looking quizzical.

“I saw your car in the driveway and I thought I’d stop by. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

Margaret glanced behind Sarah, into the house, as if she were expecting someone. “Anne called on Thursday to wish you a nice Thanksgiving. She somehow had the impression that you were eating with us. I didn’t know what to say.”

Of course, thought Sarah. How stupid of her. Caught like a pathetic rat in a trap. She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”

“I told her that you couldn’t come to the phone.” Margaret spoke as she walked into the living room. “I said you’d call her back.”

“Have a seat.” Sarah pointed toward the sofa and had a brief flashback of Nate, pulling the white turtleneck over his head. She wondered if Margaret would smell his aftershave in the cushions, or notice the gray water rings paired on the table.

“I came over the next day to see if you were home,” Margaret said. “But your car hasn’t been here, so I was starting to get worried.”

Sarah took a seat across the room and stared into her hands, noticing how the lifelines branched into multiple children before curving down her wrists. Promises, promises.

“I spent Thanksgiving at the cabin,” she said. “I wanted to get away someplace quiet for the holiday.” With an effort, she raised her eyes to Margaret’s. “I told you I was going to Anne’s because I didn’t want you to worry. I thought you might think it was a bad idea.”

From the furrow in Margaret’s brow Sarah knew she had been right; Margaret’s disapproval formed a little cloud above her eyes. There was something unhealthy about a widow alone in the woods, sleeping in the last bed her husband had occupied. Perhaps in the summer, with the green grass and warm air, but not among the late fall’s barren trees and early darkness.

“What did you do out there?” Margaret asked.

“I walked. I read. Mostly I daydreamed.”

“Did you eat anything?”

“Yes,” Sarah answered. “I’m well fed.”

“And have you been able to sleep?”

Sarah smiled, sensing that the cloud was lifting. “I still ramble sometimes at night. I wake up disoriented, and it takes a while to bring things into focus. But it’s getting better.

“I’m sorry I lied,” she added. “I didn’t want to bother you with explanations.”

“Well, you should call Anne and say hello. You can stick with the story that you were at my house.”

“Thanks.”

“And I was thinking . . .” Margaret paused, looking around the room at all of its dusty furniture. “Ever since David died, it’s seemed kind of silly for both of us to live alone in such big houses . . . You mentioned that you’ve been thinking about getting a smaller place, and I thought that maybe you should consider moving in with me for a little while?” She settled her eyes on Sarah’s face. “My girls only come to visit a couple of weekends each year. Most of the time the house is empty. You could have the guest suite with the sitting room and the private bath.”

“The one with the bay window and the doors out onto the porch?”

“Exactly. We could try it for a few months—bring some of your furniture and put the rest into storage. Put up wallpaper and curtains—whatever you like. And you could think of it as temporary lodging between selling your house and finding a new one.”

How sweet, thought Sarah. This was Margaret’s antidote to her isolation. The safe house for the woman on the edge.

“I would want to help pay the mortgage.”

“Sure,” said Margaret, “and I would clear out some kitchen cupboards and refrigerator shelves.”

“We’d get a second telephone line?”

“And another cable for your computer.”

“You wouldn’t mind Grace?”

“I wouldn’t mind any creature that came with you.”

Sarah smiled. Margaret had no idea of the creatures that came with her.

She walked around the table and sat beside Margaret on the couch. Placing her hand around her friend’s shoulder, she inhaled the soothing scent of chamomile shampoo. “You are a sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

 

 

 

Two days later when the telephone rang, Sarah was greeted by Nate’s calm tenor: “I’d like to talk to you.” For eight days she had been screening all calls, avoiding the siren song of his voice.

“Can I come to your house?” he asked.

No. She couldn’t sit with him on the sofa newly exorcised by Margaret. Nor could he sit at the kitchen table where David’s ghost had lingered. Her bedroom was the only space where Nate seemed to fit, and that was a temptation she wanted to resist.

“There’s a nice coffee shop on Main Street, across from the post office,” she said.

“Perfect. I could be there tomorrow at nine, and be back in Charlottesville in time for lunch.”

“Fine.”

The next morning she arrived at the coffee shop fifteen minutes early. She didn’t want to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nate at the counter, and make small talk with acquaintances who would expect to be introduced. The extra minutes allowed her time to claim an inconspicuous table in the back and nurse her cappuccino slowly, scooping whipped cream with the tip of her plastic spoon. Every so often she lifted her eyes to the upper walls of exposed brick, where burlap sacks were branded with the names of foreign countries—Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico. So many places she would rather be.

She waved when Nate entered, a brief flick of her fingers, trying not to look like a woman who had been waiting for fifteen minutes. It seemed that the counter girl smiled a little too brightly at Nate, and he smiled back, the constant Casanova. He ordered a cup of the house blend—black, with no cream, no sugar, no froth. Nate was not the type for froth.

“How was your Thanksgiving?” he asked when he came to Sarah’s table.

“Nice. How was yours?”

“Uneventful.” He put down his coffee and folded his coat over the back of a chair. “I went out to dinner with a fellow bachelor and we ordered lobster.”

It occurred to Sarah that she was Nate’s only immediate family, his only link to turkey dinners and a Christmas stocking. Last year he had spent Thanksgiving with Jenny’s family in North Carolina, but usually he came to her house, with Anne’s daughters providing the family atmosphere.

Nate blew into his coffee while he glanced around the room. When he spoke, his voice was low, barely above a whisper. “I know you’ve been avoiding me.” He gave a small laugh. “It’s the first time in my life that a woman hasn’t answered my calls . . . I suppose you think we’ve made some terrible mistake.”

“Don’t you?” Sarah asked.

“Of course not. I regret nothing.”

“No”—she shook her head—“you wouldn’t.” There was something Nietzschean about Nate, a trace of the
Übermensch
who could survey the entire breadth of his life and declare “Thus I willed it.”

She had willed nothing. All her life she had floated with the current, a lingering Ophelia.

“David would want us to be happy.” Nate had fallen into plati tudes.

“Happy in our separate lives.”

Sarah knew what few people recognized—that David, the calm doctor, was capable of rage. Not often, and not for long. His anger came in thunderstorms trailing with rainbows. But oh, how the sky would split if he knew she had slept with Nate.

“You know, I was always a little jealous of David.” Nate smiled into her eyes. “Which doesn’t mean that I’m in love with you, or that I want you to love me. I’m just saying that so long as we enjoy each other’s company, we might as well make the most of it.”

“What does that mean?” Sarah asked.

“Just this.” He paused. “Judith called me about the exhibit in Washington. The show opens this Friday, and she wants us both to come for the whole weekend and put it on her tab at the Mayflower—two separate rooms. I know it’s short notice, but I think we should do it.”

Sarah looked up at the burlap bags with their promises of new landscapes, new streets, new faces.

“And here’s the great thing,” Nate went on. “I called the Kennedy Center, and this Saturday night the National Symphony and the Robert Shaw Chorale are combining to do the
Carmina Burana
. The concert is sold out, but I have a friend who can still get tickets if I call right away.”

God, he knew her well. The
Carmina Burana
was one of Sarah’s favorite pieces of music. She liked to play it on her stereo at a pounding fortissimo whenever she folded loads of laundry.

Of course he was manipulating her. But why use such an ugly word? Why not call it “wooing,” or “courtship,” or “temptation”?

Nate covered her hand with his warm fingers and she felt the smooth metal of his father’s wedding band. “We can ride up together on Friday afternoon, check into the hotel, and eat a late dinner at some really nice restaurant before going to the exhibit. On Saturday we can sightsee and shop all day before the concert . . . Come on, Sarah. Live a little.”

Sarah let her hand lie curled beneath his own. He was right; she needed to live, more than a little. And perhaps Nate could help her. Perhaps, as Margaret had said, they could do each other some good.

“Yes,” she said to Nate. “I’d like that.”

On Friday afternoon shortly before four, Sarah arrived at Nate’s Charlottesville condominium. The outside resembled a Santa Fe villa framed with Southern shrubbery, but the interior was all New York. So many angles and polished surfaces, so much black and tan and brown. What was the word—chic? sleek? Art deco, or art nouveau? Her own house reeked of Laura Ashley, with floral curtains, pastel walls, and piles of pillows. But this space was a monument to domestic technology—the security system, the remote-controlled lighting, the stereo speakers and televisions in the living room, kitchen, and bedroom. She ran her finger across the stainless steel of his Jenn Air stove, then pondered her reflection in the sheen of his black refrigerator.

“Your place is immaculate,” she said when Nate entered with a garment bag.

“I have a maid who comes once a week.”

Of course. A life full of women waiting on him.

“Have you ever thought of getting a pet?” The perfection of it all was a little unnerving. She would have appreciated a chew toy on the carpet.

“I wouldn’t mind a dog. But I travel so much, it wouldn’t make sense.”

“What about a cat?”

Nate shuddered. “I hate cats. They give me the creeps.”

Sarah felt a little sad for Grace, as if the poor creature had been given a kick.

“Would you like a drink for the road?” Nate opened his spotless refrigerator. “I’ve got bottled water, and soda, and tomato juice.”

“Some water, thanks.”

While he programmed his security system, she examined the photographs on his hall table—his parents in Vermont, David at Christmas, Jenny in a bikini on a tropical beach, with turquoise water and dazzling sand. It seemed strange for an ex-girlfriend to maintain such a prominent place among the family photos. Sarah took it as a sign that Nate still cared for Jenny, which was just as well; it made the coming weekend all the more innocuous, to think that Nate’s heart might be elsewhere.

Nate held the front door. “Your car or mine?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Don’t toy with me.”

Inside his Mercedes she leaned back and absorbed the scent of new leather. Luxury was a wonderful thing when someone else was paying. Nate started the ignition and a screen above the CD player mapped the route from his garage to the Mayflower hotel. She needed one of those for her life, something to show her how to get from point A to point B.