Traveling west in daylight hours, Maggie was awake for most of the flight from London to Chicago. She ate lunch, watched a movie, and closed her eyes for a while, but she kept thinking of Paul no matter how hard she tried not to. He was like background music in her head. She remembered each time she had seen him in Monte Carlo, the time they’d spent on the boat, and every moment they’d spent together in London. The vacation in San Francisco, Rome, and Paris had been peaceful and productive. She’d discovered cities she had always wanted to see. It had freed her and made her feel strong and independent. She had found her own footing again. It was the first thing she had done without Brad in almost twenty years, and she had proven to herself that she could. She had managed perfectly on her own, and even enjoyed it. It cleared her head and lifted her spirits.
But London and Monte Carlo were different, because she ran into Paul. It had seemed fun and exciting at first to see him after so long, and revive cherished memories of her past, before Brad was even part of her life. It was like revisiting her youth, and she could no longer tell if what she felt for him was the echo of a distant time rekindled, or if it was what she felt for him now. The memories and the present reality were hard to discern and untangle. Every time she looked at him she saw the boy she had loved at eighteen. He hardly seemed any different now, other than the extravagant trappings that surrounded him, which meant nothing to her. She cared about Paul, both the boy and the man.
There was no option to go back to Brad now. She loved all of him without reserve, and could hold him close in her heart and mind, but she could never touch him again. Being with Paul was an alluring possibility, a choice she could make if she wished to, and a road she knew would be fraught with danger at every turn. Her mind shrieked Run! while her heart longed for his return. The last days of the trip when she was with him were a double-edged sword. The thought of it sliced through her again and again on the flight home.
She had been gone for four weeks in all, and was returning three weeks before Thanksgiving. She couldn’t wait for Aden to come home. She needed to see him. He was the present and the future, where her responsibilities lay, and her strongest link to Brad. She wanted to hang on to the present, and all that was real in her life to keep the past at bay. She’d started having nightmares again in London, which she hadn’t had on the earlier part of the trip. She thought it was guilt tormenting her again, this time for being attracted to another man. She had mixed feelings about that too. She didn’t want to be with anyone after Brad, out of loyalty to him. And even if she would feel different one day, it was still too soon. The first anniversary of his death was looming in six weeks, which she thought might be causing the nightmares too.
In fact, the decision about Paul had been made thirty years before, and she knew she had made the right one. With the life choices he had made, Paul hadn’t changed. If anything, he was more addicted to risk than before.
She hoped that Paul wouldn’t call her or try to get in touch with her in some other way. She was shocked by how easily she had melted into his arms and wanted to be there. It took all her resolve not to send him a message before she left. He hadn’t called her that morning before her flight either. She was ready to put him back into ancient history, but each time she did, he popped into her mind again, like a jack-in-the-box she couldn’t close. He refused to disappear from her thoughts, and she could still feel his lips on hers.
She was exhausted when she got off the plane, claimed her bags, and went through customs in Chicago. She’d booked a car to take her home. She was shocked by how cold it was. Winter had already begun to creep in, which suited her mood as she rode home to her empty house. But this was her turf now, not Paul’s. She had given him all her contact information in Monaco, and hoped now that she wouldn’t hear from him. She didn’t want loneliness or grief, or the upcoming anniversary date, to color her decision or weaken her resolve not to see him again.
The house looked empty and bleak when she got there and let herself in. The woman who came to clean twice a week had left everything in order and put food in the refrigerator for her, but the house felt abandoned. You could tell that no one had been there. Aden’s sports equipment wasn’t lying in the front hall. There were no clothes scattered anywhere. Her mail was stacked neatly in the hall, but being there was like prying her heart open again, remembering that Brad was gone forever and Aden no longer lived there. It put her face-to-face in sharp relief with the reality that she was alone. Even Paul seemed like a dim memory when she walked in.
She dragged her suitcases upstairs to her bedroom and wandered around the house feeling lost. She texted Aden that she was safely home, but she didn’t call anyone. She was no longer in a rush to see Helen. She would want to hear all about Paul, and Maggie didn’t want to talk about him and stir the embers again. They needed to die now. She had been stunned by how easy it was to revive them, as though his memory had remained closer than she thought. Thirty years had vanished like mist as soon as she saw him.
She didn’t bother to eat dinner, and it was a long sleepless night. She told herself it was jet lag, but she knew it was more than that. It was Paul, and her guilt about Brad had gotten stronger again the moment she walked through her front door, as though he were waiting there to reproach her. She still loved him, and knew she always would, but for a few days in London, Paul had filled her thoughts and her time, not her husband. She had finally fallen asleep when the sun came up. Helen called her three times after she got up, and she finally answered the last call. Maggie couldn’t avoid her any longer. She had to say something.
“Are you okay? I’ve been calling you all day.”
“I’m fine,” she said, but she didn’t sound it. “I was jet-lagged last night and couldn’t sleep.” The six-hour time difference with London was a plausible excuse, and Helen believed her.
“How does it feel to be home?” Helen sounded happy to hear her. She had missed her while she was gone.
“Strange. Hard. The house seems so empty without Aden.” She hadn’t really had time to realize to what degree. She had left so soon after he took off for Boston. It hadn’t hit her yet, the way it did now.
“I was afraid of your walking into an empty house, although I could use a little of that here. You missed Halloween. We had kids in costumes in and out of here for days, Joey was in two parades at school, and wanted two different costumes,” her youngest. Maggie missed those days and was happy she’d been in London. “So how’s your old love? Do you think you’ll hear from him again now that you’re home?” She sounded hopeful, which set Maggie’s nerves on edge immediately.
“I hope not. Sometimes the past is best left in the past. This is one of those times. Our lives are too different. And all the same things that would have made it wrong thirty years ago are still there and worse. I don’t need to be widowed twice. Once is enough for me. A race car driver is not an option. I don’t care how successful or famous he is.”
“He managed to stay alive this long. He might make it to retirement in one piece,” Helen said, sounding disappointed.
“He’ll find something else dangerous to do if he ever does retire. He can’t help himself. It’s stronger than he is. It always will be. Skydiving, helicopter skiing, mountain climbing, the possibilities are endless and he loves them all. If anything, he’s worse than he was as a kid. Maybe now he feels he has to prove something. He’s one of the older drivers around now. And he has greater access to dangerous activities than he did when he was young and poor. He can do anything he wants now.”
“It’s such a shame. He sounds perfect,” Helen said wistfully.
“Not for me. And apparently not for his ex-wives either. They both left him. One of them in less than a year.” He had told her that in London. She was a model, eighteen years younger than he was. He said it had put him off younger women, but she wasn’t sure she believed that either, if the temptation was strong enough. And Maggie had seen how women looked at him. He was a star everywhere he went. To his credit, she hadn’t seen him look at any other women when he was with her. He hadn’t been a cheater, even as a kid. And success hadn’t gone to his head in that sense. But his career and love of danger weighed heavily enough on the wrong side of the scale.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Helen said sincerely.
“I’m not. I averted disaster again this time.”
“How did you leave it with him?” She was curious, and didn’t want to let it go. He seemed like such an exciting option, and a way to fill Maggie’s empty life now. She still had hard times ahead. And she was going to be so alone, with even Aden gone. In Helen’s mind, a romance would have been a blessing. However loyal Maggie was to him, Brad wasn’t coming back.
“We agreed on the last night that it was over.” She didn’t say “after we kissed for half an hour.” Helen didn’t need to know that. Maggie wanted to forget it herself. She had to, for her own peace of mind. “I think he was sad about it. He’ll forget soon enough,” she said, sounding hard for a minute. “Women must crawl all over him. People recognized him wherever we went. Guys think he’s a hero. Women think he’s hot. He’s still good-looking.”
“I looked him up on the internet. He is hot! He’s great looking, and in the real world, he’s still pretty young.” At forty-nine, he was younger than Brad, and better looking, which wasn’t what mattered to Maggie, any more than Paul’s boat or his plane. They were just nice add-ons, but they weren’t the main event for her. “I’m sorry I won’t get to meet him. We could use a little window dressing around here.” Her own husband was very good-looking, tall, athletic, with a great body. He kept in shape, worked out every day before work, and got up at four a.m. to do it. Helen worried about the women he met at work, who were twenty years younger than she was. She was two years younger than Maggie and the interns they hired at the agency were fresh out of college. Fortunately, most of them drove Jeff crazy. He said it was like hiring teenagers, and they weren’t far from it. The agency had a game room for them now, and a candy bar, to keep them happy on their breaks. All the ad agencies and start-ups had them. Helen’s boys loved going to visit him at the office so they could play. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do now?” Helen changed the subject, but Maggie still didn’t know. She had thought about all kinds of options, from volunteer work to going back to school for a master’s in art, but nothing felt right so far.
“I thought about volunteering at the convalescent home here, but it sounds so depressing, talking to old people with dementia. It reminds me of my mother at the end. There has to be something more fun that I can do. Maybe something at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Even a class. There were so many great small art galleries in Paris. I thought about opening one here. But I’m not sure people buy art in Lake Forest. They go to the city for that, to give some weight to it.” Helen didn’t disagree with her.
“What about Brad’s old firm?” Helen knew she had sold it.
“They don’t need me. And I think it would remind me too much of Brad. Every time I’ve gone there, I expect him to walk out of his office, and say he was just kidding, and has been hiding for a year.”
“I know. I felt that way about my sister. Every time I went home, I expected her to be there, for years.”
“I’ve given myself till January to come up with an idea for work of some kind. It’ll be here any minute, and I’m no closer to figuring it out than I was eleven months ago. It’s hard to invent a career out of whole cloth. I didn’t exactly have a booming career before I married Brad. I worked for him, as a receptionist at his accounting firm.”
“You married the boss’s son. As my mother-in-law says, it’s nice work if you can find it.” They both laughed and bantered back and forth for a while, and then Helen had to drop off a forgotten lunch at school for one of her boys. She seemed to be doing fine without her oldest son, since he was at Yale, but she still had the two younger ones at home, which helped. Maggie didn’t have that consolation with an only child. And with a late baby, Helen wouldn’t be facing an empty nest for another twelve years. Maggie envied her that. They agreed to have lunch the next day before they hung up, and Maggie was glad they’d talked. That way, she wouldn’t have to rehash everything about Paul the next day.
It didn’t help when three dozen red roses arrived from a local florist that afternoon. The card read “Thank you. I’m sorry. Love, Paul.” They were beautiful but she was sorry he had sent them. It just prolonged things for another day, but it was thoughtful of him. She sent him a text to thank him, and was relieved when he didn’t respond.
It took two weeks to stop thinking about him constantly, like giving up an addiction. The early days were the hardest. But by the time she’d been home for two weeks, Thanksgiving was only a week away, and she was busy getting ready for it, and Aden’s return. It was going to be their first Thanksgiving without Brad. It would just be the two of them. She had taken out their Thanksgiving decorations, and she wanted to set a pretty table for them. She knew Aden wanted to see all his friends while he was home. The house would be bustling again, with kids arriving at all hours, Aden ordering pizzas for them, and all the boys watching football over the holiday weekend. Christmas was just around the corner, with Brad’s anniversary date first, the anniversary of the crash. She hoped the media wouldn’t hound her, looking for a follow-up to the story. There wasn’t any at her end. She had read that some of the families hadn’t settled with the airline, and were suing, and the airline was trying to keep it quiet.
She was finally feeling better by the time Aden got home. The nightmares had subsided again, and she’d only had one bad headache. The doctors had told her it would be that way, that the PTSD would flare up at times, particularly if something upset her, and then would calm down again. They had warned her that the flashbacks she had in her nightmares might continue for several years. But it was already significantly better after one. She was still aware of it at times, but not to the same degree, and she had stopped seeing the psychiatrist. There was nothing more she could do, and she thought Maggie had adjusted well. The trip to Europe was a good sign. And Maggie hadn’t been back to see her since her return.
The house came to life instantly when Aden came home. His friends arrived within the hour he did. The kitchen was crammed full of young male bodies, voices calling to each other, laughter, doorbells ringing, you could hear them all over the house. Maggie loved it.
She was thrilled to see her son, and he was happy to be home, although he loved college and living in Boston.
The chaos only calmed down significantly on Thanksgiving Day, when his friends had to be at home with their families. But by nightfall they were back, louder than ever. It made Maggie smile listening to them. They all seemed to have grown up in the last three months.
The day after Thanksgiving, Aden was out with his friends all day. They were meeting up with some girls, dropping in at each other’s houses, driving around to visit. Everything seemed lively, and Aden had brought home a mountain of laundry. She was even happy to do it. It made her feel useful.
On Friday night, a bunch of them piled into her basement playroom to watch a movie. They were still there, laughing and talking, when she went to bed. She liked it when Aden had friends over and she saw familiar faces from his school days.
She was surprised to see a lot of them back on Saturday morning, when she came out of the laundry room with an armload of clean clothes for him to take back to Boston. She noticed that they were watching a car race. It was in the heat of the race, and the commentator was excited. He was speaking over an announcer in another language, which sounded like Spanish. Instinctively, she stopped for a minute to watch it. Just as she did, she saw two cars crash into each other in a dramatic collision and then hit a third car. Within seconds, two of the cars burst into flames. As people screamed and others ran toward it, firemen leapt to the scene, and Aden and his friends were shouting and pointing at what was happening on the screen. It was a grisly scene as the drivers were pulled from the cars. One looked lifeless, and firefighters were fighting the flames as the crowd was roaring. Aden and his friends were agitated, and she hated watching but couldn’t stop. One of the announcers said that a driver called Garcia-Marques appeared to be dead, another was carried away by paramedics, while the third one had escaped the blaze with parts of his driving suit on fire as he leapt from the car, and then had been surrounded by firemen and medical personnel putting the flames out. It was an impressive sight. Maggie was watching the screen as the boys stared in horror at what was happening and talked animatedly.
“Where is that?” she asked, setting the laundry down for a minute.
“Spain,” one of the boys answered, still watching the TV, and then she heard his name, as the announcer explained that the man whose suit was in flames was the legendary Formula One driver Paul Gilmore. She felt frozen to the spot when she heard it, and her eyes were riveted to the screen with even greater interest. Paul was being led off the track, but still walking under his own steam and limping. He had taken his helmet off, his face was blackened. She knew that their driving suits were fire retardant, but the arms of his had caught fire anyway. The fire on him was out by then, and parts of his suit were charred. She sat down heavily in a chair as the boys continued to chatter, and the scene at the racetrack was utter chaos. One of the drivers had been officially declared dead by then, and the second one was said to be in critical condition from multiple injuries. Maggie’s heart was racing.
“Gilmore is amazing,” Aden commented to one of his friends. “He’s the best driver I’ve ever seen, and I swear, he’s walked away from some of the worst accidents in racing.” Maggie had noted instantly his tone of admiration for Paul Gilmore. Most of the time she saw him watching hockey, football, or baseball. But he liked all sports to some degree. The other boys were talking about Paul then, and Maggie startled them when she spoke up.
“I went to high school with him. He’s from around here, or he was then. I just ran into him in Europe. I hadn’t seen him in thirty years.” Aden looked stunned and impressed.
“You know him? You never told me that.”
“I hadn’t seen him since we graduated from high school. I was your age.” She didn’t say that he’d been her first love. It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d tell a son, but more likely a daughter.
“Where did you see him in Europe?”
“I ran into him in Monte Carlo, and saw him again in London. He said something about a race in Barcelona.”
“This is it,” Aden said, his eyes bright from the excitement, and intrigued that she knew him and had seen him recently. “I’d love to meet him. Is he a cool guy?”
She smiled at the suggestion.
“By your standards, yes. He’s as crazy as all those guys.”
“He’s the best driver ever. He wins almost every race. I’ve seen him cross the finish line with his car on fire. Nothing stops him.”
“Yeah, I know that about him,” she said, as she stood up to go upstairs with the laundry. She’d seen enough. Paul had survived another near-death experience. She’d seen it firsthand this time, and she hoped he was all right. The boys continued talking about him when she left them. After she put Aden’s laundry on his bed, she went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and found that her hands were shaking. She felt sorry for Paul. He had no one, no wife, no family. In his solitary life, who cared for him when he was injured or hurting? After the adrenaline rush, she suspected that he would be in pain from the accident. The announcer said they had taken him to a nearby hospital to check him, but he had made a miraculous escape. She wondered which life he’d used up this time. What number of his nine lives was he on?
She waited another hour, and then looked up the number he had given her on her phone. It was a British number, he had said it was the cell he used most often. She also had his email and a Swiss number for him. She called the cell, not sure if she would reach him, but at least she could leave him a message, that she had seen the accident on TV and hoped he was all right. She hadn’t intended to call him again, but this was different, and she told herself that it wouldn’t hurt anything to tell him that she felt bad for him.
It rang twice, and she was waiting for his voicemail when he picked up and answered in Spanish. He spoke it fluently from his motorcycle racing days in Mexico, which came in handy when he raced in Spain.
“Maggie?” He sounded stunned when he heard her voice.
“Yes. Are you okay? We were watching the race on TV. My son was with his friends. We saw it happen. Are you badly burned?”
“My hands are pretty toasted. The rest of me is okay. I broke six ribs, though. Occupational hazard.” She was sure it wasn’t the first time. “I have time off now anyway for the next few months, so they’ll heal before I race again.” He didn’t sound worried about it, but she could tell he was in pain and having trouble talking. “I guess this doesn’t help my case,” he said, sounding glum.
“I’ll give you a pass this time,” she said gently. She felt sorry about the pain of breaking his ribs and having no one to take care of him. She didn’t want to drive home the point on top of it. They both knew that his chosen career was dangerous, and he risked life and limb every time he went out there. “Are you going to be okay? Are they keeping you in the hospital?”
“They want to. I’m flying back to London in a few hours. I’ll be fine. I’ll take it easy for a few days.”
“And then what?” She was concerned. He was real to her again since she had seen him recently. He wasn’t just a memory or a disembodied voice from the past.
“I’m sending the Lady Luck down to Antigua. She’s already on her way. I’ll go down and spend some time on her when she gets there. They can take care of me. I can’t move around much with six broken ribs.” He sounded like he was having trouble breathing.
“I’m really sorry,” she sympathized again, but at least he had somewhere to go to be nursed a little, and he could get there on his own plane.
“You’re sweet to call. I thought I’d never hear from you again,” he said sadly. He’d been elated to get her call.
“I wasn’t going to,” she admitted, “but I’m a sucker for guys with broken ribs and their clothes in flames.”
He laughed and then cried out from the pain of it.
“Don’t make me laugh.” But she wasn’t amused by what had happened. Watching the accident had been terrifying. Aden and his friends were used to seeing accidents like that during races they watched on TV, she wasn’t, and the moment she heard that Paul was in it, she nearly fainted.
“Take care of yourself, Paul,” she admonished him in a motherly tone.
“I will. You too.” He remembered that she had a painful date coming up in a couple of weeks, and he knew that would be hard for her and her son.
“My son is vastly impressed that I know you, by the way. I told him I just ran into you in Monaco and London.”
“Did you tell him that I’m the greatest guy you’ve ever known, other than his father, and that I’ve been in love with you for thirty years?”
“Actually, I left that part out. He doesn’t need to know that.”
“Let me know if you ever want to bring him to a race. I’ll tell you if I’m going to do any in the States. You could bring him.”
“I don’t like the idea of his seeing people dying,” which was what had happened in the race today. As usual, Paul had been the lucky one. The other two drivers weren’t.
“That was really bad luck. I got off easily compared to the other guys.”
“You’re alive and survived another race. I’m grateful for that. I’ll spare you my lecture. You know how I feel about it.”
“What else would you have me do to make a living? Watercolors?”
“Maybe, if it kept you alive a few years longer. That seems worth it to me.”
“I’d rather go up in flames than sit in a chair doing something boring for the rest of my life.”
“I’m glad you didn’t get your wish today.”
“The only wish I have is to see you again, Maggie, and be with you. Do you want to come down to the boat? You could bring your son.”
“We’re going to be home for Christmas.” It was going to be their second Christmas without Brad, and they knew it wouldn’t be easy. Aden had promised to help her set up the outdoor lights the way Brad had always done, and to put up the Christmas tree with her.
“Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I will. Thank you,” she said politely, but she knew she wouldn’t. Their traditions were more important than ever to them now. Paul didn’t have any, since he had no family, so he didn’t understand.
“Can I call you sometime?” he asked hesitantly.
“You don’t need to,” she said, which was her ultra-polite way of saying no. “I’ll call to check on you if you like.”
“Whenever you want. I won’t bother you. Tell your son I say hello, if you tell him you called me.” She doubted that she would. “And thanks for calling me, Maggie. It means a lot to me.” She knew there was no one else to do it.
They hung up a minute later and she thought about him, and the crash she’d seen, all day. It was so exactly what she was afraid of. He had gotten lucky again. She was sure he must have had fifty lives, or a hundred. Nine seemed like far too few for the way he lived. He needed a thousand.