60
With no plans for the remainder of the afternoon, Vivian ambled through the city. She had left her meeting at the park in what felt a lone procession of mourning. Not until her feet throbbed from the endless clacking of her shoes, however, did she realize which grief surprised her most. For it was Agent Gerard’s parting words that seized her still, the wish for her to be happy.
At one time in her life, she’d had a clear picture of what happiness entailed. But no longer. It had become a term in a language she barely recalled. A dream she mistook for truth until waking, and like water through her fingers, it had slipped away.
She was reflecting upon this when her mind registered she had landed at the apartment. She fished the key from her purse, only to find she had left their home unlocked. Inside, she closed the door behind her. She had just set down her handbag when the clock chimed four.
Had she been gone that long? She had intended to swing by the butcher shop. She would have to rush there and back to have any chance of preparing a decent, timely meal.
Again she retrieved her keys. Clutching her purse, she opened the door.
“Going already?”
She spun around, heart racing, before she placed the voice. She calmed herself with pats to the chest and shut the door. Pulling on her six o’clock smile, she proceeded past the kitchen and found Gene tucked away in the living room. He sat on the sofa chair, slouched and cross-legged, a small glass in his hand.
“I didn’t know you’d be home so early,” she said.
“You don’t say.” He gulped down the drink, which she presumed to be water until he snatched the bottle from the end table, and he poured a hefty amount. Vivian had no need to read the label to recognize it as gin. It was not a liquor Gene typically owned, but she knew the scent from her mother.
He put the bottle aside uncapped, almost catching a corner of the table. “Well, don’t let me keep you, if you got somewhere else you wanna be.”
Due to his father’s past, Gene never indulged in more than a few beers at a time. A little wine or schnapps when hosting guests.
“I was just going to the store,” she said. “Gene, is everything all right?”
“Which store?” he said.
“The butcher’s. I’d planned to buy meat on the way home, but I forgot.”
“Must’ve had a lot on your mind. All that running around keeping you busy.” He swirled his gin with a loose wrist. His words slightly dragged as if formed by a swollen tongue. “What is it you were out doing anyway? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She kept her answer simple, her uneasiness growing. “I just went to the park.”
“Ah, yeah. The park,” he said. “And ... ?”
“And then ... I walked around the city.”
“That’s it, huh? Nothing more to it?” He threw back half a glassful.
“Gene–”
“Who’d you meet at Prospect Park, Vivian?”
The question jarred her, as pointed as his gaze.
“As chance would have it,” he said, “I’d accidentally left a file for work here. When I came to grab it at lunchtime, I ran into Mrs. O’Donnell. Told me I’d just missed you. That she tried to say hello, but you were in such a rush you didn’t notice. Seems wherever you were going was pretty important.”
On the table, beside the bottle, lay a crumpled piece of paper. It bore words Vivian recognized and a jagged edge. He had ripped it from the scheduling book she had stored in her vanity.
Prospect Pk.–2pm, was all she had written.
Her first instinct was to protest over the invasion of her privacy, and, more than that, his presumption of her guilt. Yet she reconsidered. She had entered an interrogation room, not her home. And this man wasn’t her husband, but an Intelligence officer on a mission.
“So?” he pressed.
“I assure you, it was nothing inappropriate. You’ve got the wrong–”
He slammed his glass down. “Tell me who you saw!”
Liquor splashed and Vivian flinched. She thought of Agent Gerard and envisioned Binnen Bridge, the setting of a past reunion she and Gene would never discuss, from a portion of history they pretended did not exist. These were the reasons she had skipped any mention of today’s outing.
Of course, if he wanted to know, she would supply every detail from the FBI-regardless of confidential status. But not now. Not in light of his current state.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she said evenly, “when you’re thinking clearly.” She turned for the bedroom to prevent their argument from exploding. Yet she went no farther than the gaping door, stopped by the sight.
Her garments had been scattered over the bed and floor. Drawers of her nightstand and vanity had been upended in a search. For what? Evidence of an affair?
Her jewelry box since childhood lay on its side. Trinkets and brooches had cascaded into a mound. Vivian’s head pounded as she knelt on the carpet and scooped them up. The necklace chains were kinked and snarled, a precise reflection of everything in their lives.
“Viel Feind, viel Ehr,” Gene said, now filling the doorway. He was reading the engraved necklace that dangled from his fist. “Let me guess. It means he’ll love you for eternity-am I right? That somehow you lovebirds will always be together.”
Tears stung her eyes. Stiffly she shook her head. “No.”
“What, then?”
“It’s just an old German saying. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“So, why’d you keep it? If it doesn’t mean anything.” His neck muscles flexed as he answered his own question: “Because you still love that Kraut traitor. That’s why!” He pitched the necklace across the room.
Vivian recoiled into herself, her arms and legs quivering. Every second slogged by as if dragged through mud. She doubted she would ever move from this spot.
After a time, she registered only quiet in the room, aside from her choppy breaths.
She edged her head upward and found Gene still there, yet with an altered demeanor. Hands fisted at his temples, he stood with his back against the doorjamb. Though his eyelids were shut, she knew what lay behind them. It was not fury, but pain and fear. He wasn’t battling Vivian, or even his suspicions, as much as himself.
She unfolded her body and rose to her feet. Tears rolled hot down her face. “Gene, please ... listen to me.”
He showed no sign of agreeing, but she walked toward him regardless in slow but determined steps. “I know I hurt you. With all of my heart, I am so sorry for that. If you need to hear it a thousand times, I will gladly say it. Or if you need something else, please tell me. Otherwise, you have to stop punishing me for a past I can’t change.”
She was a few feet from him when his arms lowered to his sides. His eyes eased open, but his gaze remained on the floor.
“If we’re going to be a family,” she told him, “if we’re going to have any chance at happiness together, you have to find a way to forgive me, for both of our sakes. And the child’s.” She moved an inch closer, wanting to reach for him, but afraid to scare him away. “I know you still love me. And I love you too, despite what you might think.”
She waited for a reaction, anything at all.
Finally, gradually, he raised his eyes but stopped before her face. “I have to go,” he said, and turned to leave the room.
“Gene, no. We have to talk.” She followed him toward the door. They needed to finish this, to see this through. “Don’t run away.” She grabbed his arm to keep him there, but he jerked himself free, throwing Vivian off-balance. She stumbled backward into the wall and slid down onto her tailbone.
Gene stared, frozen, but just for an instant. In a panic he collapsed onto his knees. “Oh, Jesus.” He reached for her belly but drew back, as if his fingertips were fashioned with blades. As if somehow, the hands of his father had replaced his own.
She saw this in Gene’s face as he said, “My God, what have I done?”
“It’s all right. . . .” Vivian felt only a throbbing on her backside, the coming of a bruise. She knew with certainty no harm had befallen the baby, and very little to herself. “It was just an accident. The baby’s fine.”
Gene nodded, though absent of conviction. “I’m getting a doctor.” He went to rise, and Vivian grasped his sleeve.
“Everything’s okay. Gene, please, sit with me.”
In his eyes a flood of emotions mounted. His lips tightened, upholding a crumbling dam.
This time he would not fight her. With great care, he took a seat at her side.
Together they sat in silence. No words would serve as a treaty. No utterance would magically rebuild the bridge. But Vivian had faith that if both were willing, they could repair the connection one plank at a time.
The thought brought to mind Mrs. Langtree’s house, a project not entirely different. In fact, it was during the eve of that day, riding in the truck Gene had borrowed, that he and Vivian had shared their first deliberate and meaningful touch.
Praying it could work again, she placed her hand over his. Just as before, he said nothing; just as before, he did not pull away.
Vivian tipped her head to rest on his shoulder. He smelled of soap and pine and home.
Seconds later, he did withdraw his hand and leaned forward as if readying to leave. Yet to her relief, he was only shifting his body to lay his arm over her shoulder. When his chin settled on her crown, she could have sworn a few tears dampened the top of her hair. She closed her eyes, treasuring his hold, and felt the numbness of her soul start to lift.
Years later, Vivian would look back at that day. She would realize it was in that very hallway, the two of them stripped to little more than bones, that not just healing began, but love. Real love, in the truest and deepest sense. A far contrast to the dizzying, volatile whirlwind she had once taken to define the word.
The most wonderful type of love, she had learned, was the kind built with care and over time, through forgiveness and understanding, compromise and compassion, trust and acceptance. It was hidden in the minutiae of everyday life; it was in the traded smiles during a radio show or the peaceful lulls on an evening stroll.
Pain and fear would not be erased like the marks on a blackboard. Nothing real ever disappears that simply. But over days, weeks, months, the good outweighed all, until the initial impetus of their wedding dissolved into the background.
Never did that hold truer than on the morning when the nurse summoned Gene. “Would you like to meet your daughter?” she asked.
The moisture welling in his eyes supplied the answer. As if handling fine crystal, he cradled the small bundle in his arms, and Vivian knew right then, with certainty beyond measure, that Gene-her beloved husband-would never treat their darling Judith as less than his own, that together they were a family sealed by a bond. A bond that nothing, and no one, could break.