FIFTEEN
“Well, hello there,” Henry said as Jane, nearly twenty minutes late, came up to him at a display of homebaked apple and pumpkin pies on Saturday morning. It was a cold, windy day, the last weekend this year for the Farmers’ Market. But the sun was bright, and several dozen people were buying root vegetables and eggs and homemade pottery and bread from those stalls that remained open. He touched her cheek lightly, causing a sensation that resembled her sister’s description of a hot flash.
It had been a hard week for Jane. Living at her parents’ house was awkward and constraining. Though her mother loved her, she could not help treating Jane like the child and adolescent she had once been: asking her to set the table, sending her to the P&C when she ran out of milk, reminding her to dress warmly. Carrie had always had definite ideas about what Jane should do, and what she should do now was go back to Alan. He was her husband and he needed her. She should forgive him and let bygones be bygones.
“How can I forgive him if he won’t admit he did anything wrong?” Jane had asked rather desperately.
“He knows he’s done wrong,” Carrie had said, not ceasing to knit the blue sweater with a pattern of red and white ducks that she was making for Jane’s sister’s youngest child. “And he knows you know it. I’m sure he feels sorry and ashamed of himself now.”
“Maybe,” Jane said.
“But a man has his pride,” her mother continued, as if Jane had not spoken. “And it’s not as if he’d actually been unfaithful. From what you told me, it was probably just a little hanky-panky. All you need to do is say that you want to put this behind you, and go on with your life together.”
“Maybe,” Jane repeated. But I don’t want to go on with that life, she thought. I want to be with Henry, only Mom doesn’t know it, because I haven’t told her. I’m just as bad as Alan, a liar and an adulteress.
“I’m sure he’ll be relieved and grateful. And of course you’ll let him know that it mustn’t happen again.”
“But it will happen again, probably. Because of that awful woman.”
“You don’t know that, dear.” Her mother looped a strand of red wool over the white. “You’ve had such a good marriage. And everyone admires you so much for the way you’ve taken care of Alan since he got ill.”
“Mh,” Jane had said. She wished she could talk to someone besides her mother. But since she began to love Henry, she had stopped confiding in her friends. The only person she could talk to now was Henry, who was half the problem.
“I’m sorry I was late,” she said to him now as they moved apart from the crowd around the stalls and stood under the bare yellow branches of a big willow.
“That’s okay.”
“I brought you some black walnuts, from the tree we saw on Warren Road. Here.” She handed over a heavy brown-paper bag. “They’re much better than the walnuts you get in the stores. But you need to let them dry out for a few weeks, and then crack them on stone with a hammer.”
“Thank you. . . . So how’s it going?”
“All right. Well, not all right.”
“Really.” A dark shadow seemed to cross Henry’s face. “Why is that? No, wait. Come and sit down. Let’s talk.” He led the way to one of the picnic tables by the windswept lake and set his basket of apples and sourdough bread and honey on it. “Okay. Tell me.”
“It’s all wrong,” Jane said, catching her breath. “It’s all lies. Everyone thinks I’m a good person, but I’m not. Not anymore. I promised in church to take care of Alan forever, and now our house is falling apart and the fridge is full of mold.” A sob escaped her.
“Maybe that serves him right,” Henry said.
“Well, in a way it does, that’s what my mother says, but not forever. She says it was right that I left, because then he would know I was serious, and he would feel guilty and appreciate me properly. But now she thinks it’s time for me to go back, so we can all be together for Thanksgiving. Anyhow, my sister’s coming from New Hampshire, and she’ll need the spare room.”
“It’s important for your family, Thanksgiving,” he suggested.
“Yes, it is. My sister and her husband and kids always come, and my uncle and two aunts from up the lake, and usually there’s cousins too. Isn’t Thanksgiving important for your family?”
“Yeah, but I don’t always make it to Toronto. I didn’t last year, but I’m going up this weekend.”
“And will Delia be there?”
“Nah. She’s going to New York. She doesn’t get on with Canadians.” He took an apple out of his basket, looked at it, and returned it. “So your mother thinks you should go back to Alan,” he said. “And do you want to go back?”
“No,” Jane admitted.
“That’s good.” Henry smiled for the first time. He put his warm hand on her arm, between the wristband of her blue parka and her driving gloves, and Jane did not have the strength to remove it.
“But it doesn’t matter what I want,” she said weakly, pushing back her wind-tangled brown curls. “What I want is wicked and selfish.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yes—no. I don’t know,” Jane wailed, and buried her damp face in her hands. Another sob escaped her. “I’m an awful person, really.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I’m so angry all the time, and violent.”
“Violent?” Henry laughed.
“Yes. I told you how I nearly threw that big glass vase at Delia.”
“But you didn’t, because you didn’t really want to hurt her.” Henry smiled.
“I did too. When she started laughing, as if it was all some big joke, I wanted to hurt her. I only didn’t throw the vase because it was a valuable heirloom. It belonged to Matthew Unger’s mother, and now it belongs to the Center.”
“Oh, Janey. I love you.” Henry pulled her toward him and kissed her, but Jane only partly responded, looking over his shoulder for spectators and spies.
“I don’t see why,” she said miserably when he let go.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s because you have such sea-blue eyes, and you’re so hopelessly honest.”
“Only with you. I’m lying to everyone else all the time, because I’m not telling them the truth. I used to be a good person, but now I’m not, I’m angry and mean all the time, really, inside. Alan’s in so much pain, and I used to feel so horribly sorry for him, but now I don’t care, almost. I don’t love him anymore. I don’t even like him much.”
“That’s wonderful,” Henry said.
“But it’s all wrong. My place is with my husband, my duty is there, that’s what my mother says. And her new minister, Reverend Bobby, says the same.”
“ ‘Reverend Bobby?’ ” Henry laughed.
“I know.” In spite of herself, Jane smiled. “He’s only about twenty-six years old.”
“Well, I don’t agree. I think your place is with me,” Henry said. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he added. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
“I almost didn’t,” Jane admitted. “But I wanted to see you too much.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Me too.”
“Even though you never came last Sunday when you said you would. I waited here until it was dark.”
“I couldn’t. I explained that. Delia was insisting we go to this drinks party, and if I hadn’t agreed she would have been suspicious.”
“Yes, you told me.” Jane raised her streaked face and looked out across the shimmering, wind-troubled water of the lake. “It’s not the same for us now, is it?” she said, uttering the thought that had sat on her head like a tight dark hat for the whole week. “I’ve left Alan, and you haven’t left Delia. You haven’t even told her you know what happened.”
“No,” Henry admitted.
“Are you going to?”
“I’ve got to wait a bit, Janey,” he said. “Right now she’s tired of me. I figure she’s on her way out. But if she knew I was in love with somebody else, she could get jealous and possessive.”
Jane frowned. It seemed unlikely to her that anyone could be tired of Henry. He’s a coward, she thought miserably. Or he’s stalling. He might love me a little, and want to sleep with me, but he wants to avoid trouble even more. “You want to avoid trouble,” she said, shivering in the cold wind, which seemed now to come directly from the North Pole.
“Yeah. But it’s only for a little while.”
“Oh? How long?” Jane was feeling colder and colder, even though Henry’s arm was around her shoulders.
“I don’t know.”
Jane said nothing, but she took a step back.
“We’ll be together very soon, I hope. When things are easier.”
Jane looked at Henry, his square shoulders, his thick curly hair, and the strong blunt lines of his face. He’s here, but he’s not really here, she thought. I can’t count on him.