Within Reach (35 page)

“Why are they coming to a head now?”

Danica studied the silver spoon by her plate. “Because Michael’s away now. Because I realize that he’s not going to wait forever and that if I don’t do something I might lose him.”

“Then divorce is what you want?”

She looked at her mother. “What I want is to be happy. I’m not happy with Blake. With Michael I feel as though every dream I’ve ever had can come true. He loves me as much as I love him. He encourages me to grow, to do things with my life. He’s always there when I need him.”

“He’s not there now,” Eleanor said softly. “Darling, maybe you haven’t been fair to Blake. Maybe you haven’t given your marriage a chance.”

“It’ll be ten years this June. If that isn’t giving it a chance, I don’t know what is.”

“But Blake has grown, too. Maybe you haven’t made enough of an effort to grow alongside him rather than away from him. He is your husband. You owe him a certain responsibility.”

“What about
his
responsibility? He’s given me very little encouragement.”

“Men are that way sometimes, particularly men like your father and Blake. They get wrapped up in themselves. They need prodding from time to time.”

Danica was shaking her head. “I’ve prodded, but I get nowhere. I tried even harder with Blake after I met Michael, because I was afraid of what I was feeling. I didn’t want to feel it. You have to believe that, Mom. I didn’t want to fall in love with Michael. It just…happened. And regardless of what anyone says, it’s the most wonderful thing that’s
ever
happened to me.” She paused. “I was hoping that you’d feel a little of what I do, but maybe that’s asking too much.”

“I’m trying to understand, darling. It’s just that I see things from a different angle. Do you remember the day we talked about how I view my role in your father’s life?” Danica nodded. “I am happy, but that’s not to say that there haven’t been times when I’ve wished for some things to be different. There was the guilt I felt in leaving you so much. There’s the guilt I feel now in leaving William in Washington and the selfish desire to have him here with me. We all have our crosses to bear in life. It’s simply a question of accepting them.”

“And when the cross gets too heavy? When bearing it exhausts you, when it becomes self-defeating?”

“It’s all a matter of the mind. You can do anything you want in life if you set your mind to it.”

Danica set her mind to finishing James Bryant’s book. By the end of February it was in her publisher’s hands. Then she set her mind to thinking of another project she might tackle. As it happened, James gave her the contact, and the recommendation she needed. At his bidding, she called a man named Arthur Brooke, who proceeded to express great pleasure that she had called and asked if they might meet to discuss a proposal he wanted to make.

Over lunch several days later at the Bay Tower Room, Arthur Brooke offered her the role of hostess for a weekly current affairs talk show that his radio station wanted to produce.

“I realize that you’ve never done anything like this before,” he explained while she sat in a state of shock, “but James has raved about how well versed you are in current affairs, and I can see, myself, after talking with you for an hour, that you’re poised and articulate. We want a fresh voice for our programs. I believe yours is it.”

Pressing a hand to her thudding heart, she forced herself to speak. “I’m so surprised. I never expected anything like this when James suggested I call you.”

“James is a rascal for not prewarning you. He’s probably sitting at home right now chuckling to himself.”

“He’s a wonderful man.”

“I agree. Well, what do you think?”

She sucked in a breath and let it out through her teeth. “I think that your proposal is…very exciting. I’m not as sure as you seem to be, though, that I can do the job.”

“There’s really nothing to it. For an hour every week, you’ll sit in the studio and talk with one or another of the local public figures. At the beginning we’ll set everything up. After a while, if you want, you can make your own decisions as to whom you’d like to interview. You’ll need to prepare beforehand, bone up on a particular issue. We’d like to stick to timely issues, which means that some of the preparation may be last-minute. On occasion, if there’s nothing pressing in the news, we might invite an author to be on the show, in which case you’d have to read his book. But with the awareness you already have of what’s happening in the world, I think you’ll do just fine.”

Danica still had doubts, but she was smiling. “When did you hope to begin?”

“In another month. We have a Wednesday evening slot that will be perfect. Is it a go?”

While one small part of her wanted to beg time to think, the other, larger part was driven by sheer impulse. She nodded quickly. “It’s a go.”

She felt better that night than she had in weeks, and spent hours wandering around the town house with a smile on her face. She called her mother to tell her the news. She sat down and wrote a long letter to Reggie. But when she thought of calling Blake, her smile faded. It wasn’t Blake she wanted to call. It was Michael. Only she didn’t know where he was or when he’d be back.

That weekend as prearranged she flew down to Washington. Blake was pleased for her in that same detached way he had reacted to her work with James Bryant. She waited for her father’s call, but it didn’t come. Only the part of her that had hoped he might be proud was let down. The other part, the larger part, was relieved that he hadn’t put a damper on what was to her a challenging prospect.

After her return to Boston she set about poring through the local papers with a thoroughness that managed to fill her time somewhat. Still, she couldn’t help but think of Michael, wondering where he was and what he was doing, whether he was well, whether he was missing her as much as she missed him. She wanted desperately to tell him about the radio show, to share the excitement, to express her uncertainties and savor his encouragement.

The following weekend, feeling that she would burst if she didn’t find an emotional outlet, she drove to Maine. But it wasn’t the seaside house in Kennebunkport at which she stopped. She drove on to Camden.

Gena, who was thrilled to see her, proceeded to chastise her for not having come sooner.

“But you’re so busy. I wasn’t even sure if I should come today.”

“Busy? Nonsense. I always have time for those I love.”

At the words, which were so freely and sincerely offered, something inside Danica broke. She bit her lip, but her eyes filled with tears, and before she knew it, she was being held by a cooing Gena.

“Hush, Dani. Hush. It’ll be all right,” Gena whispered, stroking her hair.

“I miss him…so much,” Danica breathed brokenly. “I thought it…would get better in time, but it hasn’t. And now, with…this new thing, I miss him all the more.”

“Whoa.” Gena eased her back and gently brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “What new thing?”

Slowly, regaining her composure as she went, Danica explained about the radio show. Gena’s excitement was every bit as genuine as her expression of love had been, but it was the last which stuck in Danica’s mind most.

“Gena?”

“What is it, pet?”

Danica struggled for the words, but she didn’t know which ones were right, so she simply started to talk. “We’ve only met once before and neither Michael nor I said anything, but you seemed to know.”

Gena smiled. “I know my son. I could see very quickly that he loved you. He’s never come right out and said anything, maybe because he was afraid of my reaction. He told you about my own marriage, didn’t he?” Danica nodded. “Well, what he may not know is that his father is happy with his second wife. More aptly, Michael may not want to see it. He feels a loyalty to me, which is fine, except that he doesn’t realize that I’ve come to terms with what happened.” She reached for Danica’s hand. “The only thing that saddens me is that the two of you have such hurdles to cross. I know you love him. I felt that affinity with you from the first.” She smiled. “The sight of the two of you talking together, your heads so close, your hair so similar in color, your eyes smiling into one another’s…it was beautiful. I couldn’t have wished for a better woman for my son than you. You’ll make his life very full and rich.”

“You sound so optimistic, as though we really will be together some day.”

“I know it, Danica. I said that there were hurdles to cross, but I didn’t say there were uncrossable. If you set your mind to it, you’ll see yourself clear and happy.”

Danica remembered what her mother had said about matters of the mind, and she thought of the irony that these two women should express such similar thoughts with such different meanings. Eleanor implied that Danica should set her mind to making her marriage work, Gena that she should focus on extricating herself from a marriage that was obviously a source of pain.

“Have you heard from him?” Danica asked hesitantly.

Gena grinned. “I certainly have.” She patted Danica’s knee. “Wait here.” Within minutes she was handing over a series of letters.

“But these are for you,” Danica argued. “I shouldn’t be seeing them.”

“Nonsense. You love him as much as I do. I think he intended them for you as much as for me.”

“He hasn’t written to me.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t for not wanting to. Go ahead. Read the letters. You’ll see.” When Danica still hesitated, Gena coaxed her with a short nod. “Read them.”

Carefully, Danica unfolded the first letter and read about Michael’s adventures in Portugal, then Spain. Though his script was uneven, she presumed because of his injured hand, his style was familiar and flowing, and she took pleasure in his description of the people, the cities, the countryside he had seen. What caught her breath, though, were occasional breaks in the compelling narrative. “I wish Dani could see this with me,” he wrote of Barcelona. “The port is so different from the ones we’ve seen together.” Then, again, in a second letter, when he had crossed up into the Loire Valley in France: “I’ve been biking from place to place. Dani would absolutely love it here. There are long stretches of level road with views to the far horizon. On the other hand, she’d probably think I’m crazy. It’s cold as hell some days.”

All told, there were five letters. After leaving France, he had traveled through Belgium and Holland, in both of which places he had friends, before moving on to Denmark. She lingered over the last letter, rereading its final lines many times. “I miss you, Mom. I was never one to be homesick, but it’s different this time. Either I’m getting old or simply sentimental, but I keep comparing things I see to what I have at home. I wonder how Dani’s doing. Have you heard from her?…See? My mind must really be going. You have no way of answering my question since you don’t know where I’ll be next. I’m reminded about something I read once, actually, on one of Danica’s tea bags. ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there,’ it said. When I started out on this trip, I think I
wasn’t
sure where I was going. But I sure as hell am now. I’ll be home by the middle of April. Can’t wait to see you. All my love, Michael.”

Lowering the letter at last, Danica blotted her eyes. “He’s a wise and wonderful man,” she whispered.

“I think so. Has he been any help?”

Danica knew Gena was referring to the messages that had been meant for her in the letters. She nodded. “He’s always a help. Even when he’s gone. I can see that now. He was right to go. I needed time to analyze my priorities.”

“And have you?” Gena asked gently.

With growing confidence, Danica smiled. “Yes, I believe I have.”

Two days later she flew to Washington and flat out asked Blake for a divorce.

fourteen

“h
E WON’T DO IT, MICHAEL. I ASKED HIM point-blank, and he said no.”

They were in Kennebunkport, at Michael’s house, where Danica had flown the instant he had called her to say he was back. It had been a happy reunion on both sides, with Danica’s tears flowing freely and Michael’s contained only with great effort. They had talked about his trip with the excitement of two children, though both of them knew the excitement was primarily in being together again. He told her that his book on sports would be hitting the shelves any day, and she informed him that it already had, that she had read it and loved it. When she told him about her radio show, the first installment of which had come off with high praise the week before, he was beside himself with pride, hugging her, telling her that he had known all along she could handle anything she wanted, demanding to hear the tape she had brought with her. But Danica was anxious to tell him that she had definitely decided to divorce Blake.

“He refused, even when you bluntly said you didn’t love him?” Above and beyond his own slightly biased feelings on the matter, Michael couldn’t comprehend a man clinging to a dead cause.

“He refused. Absolutely refused. It was a repeat of last winter, when I mentioned divorce as a possible mutual option.”

“Did he say why he was so against it?”

“At first he just stomped out of the room like he did last time. When I followed him and pressed, he informed me that he needed a wife and that I had signed papers nearly ten years ago and that that was the end of it. I kept arguing, but he didn’t want to listen. It was really heated, I mean, not like me at all. I’m usually more docile. I think he was shocked. He kept asking what was wrong with me. When I told him about you, he didn’t bat an eyelash.”

“You told him about me?”

“I had nothing to lose. I said that I loved you. Strange, he wasn’t even surprised. Or maybe he just covered it up. Do you want to know what he said?”

“You bet I do.”

“He said that he didn’t mind if I had a dozen lovers, as long as I was discreet about it and kept up the front of our marriage.”

“He said
that
?”

“More. He said that he was glad I’d found someone and that if it made things easier for me, he was happy. What
kind
of a husband would say something like that?” There was no hurt in her voice, only confusion.