Whitney found Peter in the guesthouse, unpacking his clothes with the distracted air of someone at loose ends. He looked up from his suitcase, his appraisal of Whitney cautious, then sat on the bed with his hands folded, looking, for once, less like an athlete than someone who felt awkward in his own body—or, she amended sadly, in his life.
“What’s happening, Whit?”
She sat across from him, underscoring the distance she felt. “I know about the apartment,” she told him, “and what you’ve let my father use it for. How could you do that to us, Peter?”
Peter’s gaze was shamed but steady. “Because he asked me.” He paused, touching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t like knowing, and it didn’t feel good to see him differently. But it was something he trusted me with.”
Whitney felt comprehension overtaking her. “Like a father trusts a son.”
Briefly, his gaze flickered. “I wouldn’t have wanted to know that about my own dad. But, yeah, maybe a little.” He paused, looking at her directly. “I still believe he loves your mom. I just had to accept that he isn’t perfect, and that there were things I couldn’t understand.”
“But what about me, Peter? And us?”
“I did think about you,” he said with a trace of anger. “A lot. But what was I supposed to tell you, Whitney? Do you feel better knowing that your dad has been cheating on your mom?”
Heartsick, Whitney considered his question. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “But I wish you’d told him ‘no.’ For my sake, and yours.”
Peter’s throat worked, “I couldn’t, Whit. I wanted to, and I couldn’t.”
The weight of this sounded crushing. It was beyond Whitney to be angry when she felt so sad for them both. “I don’t even know who she was,” he said. “Do you?”
“Yes.” Feeling her own solitude, Whitney wished she could reach out to him. “My father and I will never be the same, Peter. None of us will.”
For a moment, he looked like he wanted to stand, closing the distance between them. Watching her face, he stayed where he was, gazing at her pleadingly. “What about us, Whitney? I still love you, and I don’t want to live my life without you. I’ll find a teaching job, if that’s what you want. Anything.”
Whitney felt her throat constrict. “But what do you want, Peter?”
“You, Whitney.” He got up, kneeling by her chair to take her hand in his. “A life with you. Nothing means more to me.”
Whitney gazed into his face, guileless and sincere, and felt love commingled with sadness. “But what kind of life? We’re still the miniature bride and groom on the wedding cake my parents bought, with no idea of what to do except follow an example we know to be a lie. All I’m sure of now is that I don’t want to be my mother.”
A hint of desperation stole into his eyes. “You wouldn’t be.”
Whitney struggled to believe this. But she could not even envision herself the day after tomorrow. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said softly, a mist in her eyes. “For the longest time, I thought I wasn’t worthy of you. Now I think we’re not worthy of getting married. How can we be, when all we know is to imitate our parents?” She paused, then said in a clearer voice, “I can’t marry you, Peter. At least not in three weeks, marching toward the altar like windup dolls, oblivious to everything but what other people expect from us.”
He slumped, hurt graven on his face. “Because I didn’t tell your dad to stuff it?”
Still dazed at what she had said, Whitney slowly shook her head. “It’s because we’re all tangled up with him, and I’ve got no idea of who we are anymore. Or who I am . . .”
“Is this about that guy?” he said accusingly.
She owed him the truth, Whitney thought miserably—whatever that was. But knowing the truth was beyond her. “It’s so much more,” she answered. “It’s true that I started feeling something for him—a kind of fascination, I guess. I didn’t know what it meant, and never would have let myself find out . . .”
His face hardened. “And now you will.”
“This really isn’t about that. But I’ve watched Ben tell my father to ‘stuff it,’ as you put it. After yesterday, I have to admire him for it.”
Pride made Peter remove his hand. “You’ll never see me the same, will you?”
Amidst her own sadness, Whitney searched for an honest answer. “You’re a wonderful person, Peter—in so many ways. But however desperately I want to erase everything’s that’s happened, I can’t.”
Peter stood at once. “I think I’d better leave,” he said stiffly. “I need to clear out the apartment, find a place of my own.”
At once, Whitney felt a terrible loss—once they had been innocent, two young people in love, with a life ahead untainted by her family. Now all that was gone. “I guess that’s best,” she told him softly. “There’s a lot for me to face here.”
“Then don’t bother to drive me,” he snapped. “I’ll take a cab.”
Despite everything, his sudden withdrawal deepened her misery. With a fixed expression, Peter took his grandmother’s ring off her finger and put it in his pocket. To Whitney, the act had a strange formality, a ritual of relinquishment and loss.
Seeing the tears in her eyes, his face softened. “I’m sorry, Whit.”
“Me, too,” she answered in a husky voice. “For both of us.”
She did not trust herself to say anything else. Standing, she kissed him on the cheek, then walked quickly to the door before yielding to her impulse to look back at him. He held his head higher, trying to smile as she left, like a proud athlete facing defeat.
When Whitney returned to the house, Janine was closeted with their parents.
For a long time she lay in the window seat, her thoughts jumbled. She heard, rather than saw, the taxi stopping in the driveway. As the car door opened and shut, tears stung her eyes again, she could not bear to look out the window.
At last her mother came downstairs, ashen beneath the perfect hair and makeup, her last defense against events she could not control.
“How’s Janine doing?” Whitney asked.
“Not well. Your father insists on taking her to a clinic near Boston that supposedly exists to help people involved with drugs and alcohol.”
Whitney felt relief overwhelm her sense of tact. “Good. She needs that.”
“She’s my daughter,” Anne said tightly. “Or was. It seems that you and your father have taken over.”
It was sadly predictable, Whitney supposed, that Anne perceived a conspiracy to wrest away her striking and confident daughter, the one people always remembered. She could not help but hear a subtext—I hope you’re happy now. “I’m sorry, Mom. But if you’d seen her yesterday, you’d know how much she needs this.”
For a time her mother said nothing. Seemingly bewildered, she looked around her, as though in search of reassurance. “Where’s Peter?”
“Gone. I’ve broken our engagement.”
Anne’s face froze, accenting the hurt in her eyes. “Now? With all that’s happening, how can you do this?”
“To Peter? Or to you?”
“To yourself, Whitney. To all of us.”
“All of you aren’t involved in this.”
“Are we not?” her mother cried out. “The wedding is less than three weeks away. What will your father and I say about this?”
A strange calm came over Whitney. “Anything you like. I really don’t care, as long as it’s not embarrassing to Peter.”
“How can it not be,” her mother said grimly. “I suppose this is about that boy.”
“Ben, you mean? Funny that you can’t speak his name aloud.” Whitney’s voice softened. “I wish it were that simple, Mom. Then I’d know what I’m doing tomorrow, and the day after that.”
A sense of Whitney’s disorientation seemed to penetrate her mother’s outrage. Shaking her head, Anne said in a broken voice, “I’m sorry, Whitney. It just feels like everything is falling apart.”
“I know, Mom. For me, too.”
Anne sat down beside her, gazing out at nothing. “I’ve tried so hard. All I ever wanted for my daughters is that you have the life that I’ve had.”
Whitney felt a kind of chill. “I guess we’ll have to find our own way,” she replied. “But there’s something else I need you to accept. About Clarice.”
“Clarice?”
“We’ve had a falling out, Mom. She won’t be coming here anymore.”
“But she’s like a member of our family,” Anne protested. “Why are you turning all of our lives upside down?”
“This is about my life,” Whitney insisted. “What happened with Clarice is personal. So please try to focus on Janine. She is a member of our family, and she needs for all of us to help her.”
Mute, Anne shook her head. Instinctively, Whitney took her in her arms, conscious of how fragile her mother felt.
“We’ll be all right,” the new keeper of her father’s secrets murmured, doubting this would ever be so.
That afternoon, Whitney fell into a deep sleep, her roiled mind shutting down from sheer exhaustion. When she awoke, it was morning again, and her parents were preparing to drive with Janine to the ferry, he first leg of their journey to McLean.
No one asked her to come, and she did not want to. In the driveway, Janine stiffly kissed Whitney goodbye, her face still pale, her manner remote and a little resentful. Then she got in the backseat with her mother.
Alone with Charles, Whitney said, “I may not be here when you get back.”
Her father’s lips compressed. “For God’s sake, why? Your mother is going to need you more than ever.”
“I’ve done what I can for her, Dad. Now it’s your turn.” She paused, then told him firmly, “It’s time for me to deal with my own life. I’m going to see Ben, to tell him the truth. I owe him that, don’t you think?”
“No,” her father snapped, “I don’t.” But for once there was nothing he could do.