She looked sad as she walked away with her valise. “So will I. But maybe that's the whole point of this. Maybe it's time we both figured out how much this all means to us, how much it's worth, how much we're willing to pay for what we want. I don't know anymore, I thought I did, but suddenly I wonder about it all, and I need to think it out.” He nodded, and watched as she walked out the door, and a moment later he heard the front door close behind her. He had wanted to take her in his arms, to tell her he loved her more than life itself, that he wanted their child, but he had been too proud, he had only stood there. And now she was gone. For a week. For longer? Forever?
“Where's Mom?” Val looked in, in surprise, as she passed their room.
“Out.” He stared at her. “Gone.” He decided to tell her the truth. He would tell them all. They deserved to know. They had played a part in it too. They were all responsible for how she felt. He wouldn't take the blame alone, although he realized now that a good part of it was his. He had been so damn stubborn about the house, about everything. She had made all the changes required for their new life, and he had made none. She was right, it wasn't fair. He looked sadly at Val now, who didn't seem to understand.
“Gone? Gone where?”
“I don't know. She'll be back in a week.” And then Val simply stood and stared at him. She understood. They'd all gone too far. But they had all been so damn mad at her, and she had been too. It didn't seem worth it now.
“Will she be okay?”
“I hope so, Val.” He walked into the hall and put an arm around her as Jess came up the stairs and looked at them.
“Did Mom go out?”
“Yeah.” Val answered for him. “She left for a week.” And as the rest of them came up the stairs, they heard what Val said, and they simply stood where they were and stared at him.
CHAPTER 30
When Mel left the house that night, she simply got in the car and drove, with no set plan of where to go, no one she wanted to see. All she wanted to do was get away, from her house, her job, their kids, and him. And for the first fifty miles, all she thought of was where she was leaving from, not where she was going to.
But after that, she began to relax, and suddenly after almost two hours, she stopped for gas, and grinned to herself. She had never done anything quite as outrageous in her life, as she had done in walking out on him. But she couldn't take anymore. Everyone was pushing her, and it was time she thought of herself instead of all of them. Even as far as this baby was concerned. She didn't have to do a damn thing she didn't want to do. She didn't even have to live in that house if she didn't want to. Hell, she made a million bucks a year, she could buy her own goddamn house, she told herself. She didn't have to live with Anne's ghost, if she didn't want to, and she already knew that she did not. And as she began driving again, with a full tank of gas, she began thinking of all the changes she had made in her life in the last six months, and how few changes had been required of Peter. He still worked in the same place, with the same people who respected his work, slept in the same bed he had slept in for a number of years. His children hadn't been moved out of their home. He even had the same housekeeper. The only thing that had changed for him was the face he kissed before he left the house for work, and maybe he didn't even notice that. And as Mel pulled into Santa Barbara, she began to steam again, and she was glad she'd left. She was only sorry she hadn't done it before, but who had time, between driving Pam to her shrink, trying to pacify the twins, keep a remote eye on Mark, and play Mommy to Matthew, and hold Peter's hand when his transplant patients died, not to mention doing interviews, specials, and the six o'clock news every night, it was a wonder she had time to dress and comb her hair. To hell with all of them. Peter, the kids, and Paul Stevens. Let him anchor alone for a while, they could always say that she was sick. To hell with them. She didn't care.
She pulled into a motel and paid for a room, which looked like it could have been anywhere in the world, from Beirut to New Orleans, when she glanced at the rust-colored shag rug on the floor, the orange vinyl chairs, the spotless white tile bathroom, the rust-colored bedspread. It was definitely not the Bel-Air, or even the Santa Barbara Biltmore, where she had stayed years before, and she didn't give a damn. She took a hot bath, turned on the TV, watched the news when it came on at eleven o'clock, by habit more than desire, and turned out the light without calling home. Screw them all, she thought to herself, and for the first time in months she felt free, to do what she wanted to do, to be herself, to make up her own mind without considering a living, breathing soul.
And then suddenly as she lay in bed, she thought of what was inside of her, and realized that even here she wasn't totally alone. The baby had come with her … the baby … as though it were already a person separate from herself … She lay a hand on her stomach, which had been so flat a month before, and now there was a small but distinct bulge where the hollow between her hip bones had been. And it was odd to think what would happen if she went on with the pregnancy. The baby would become real to her, she would feel it move in about six weeks … for a tiny moment, there was a tender feeling deep inside her, and then she let it go. She didn't want to think of that right now. She didn't want to think of anything. She closed her eyes and went to sleep, without dreaming of Peter, or the children or their unborn child, or anything. She just lay in bed in the motel room and slept, and when she woke up the next day, the sun was streaming into her room, and she couldn't remember where she was at first, and when she looked around and realized where she was, she laughed to herself. She felt good, and strong, and free.
And when Peter woke up that morning in Bel-Air, he reached over to the other side of the bed, instinctively feeling for her, and when his hand and leg met smooth, empty sheets, he opened one eye, and then he remembered with a sinking heart that she was gone. He turned over and lay staring up at the ceiling for a long time, wondering where she was, and remembering why she had gone. It was really all his fault, he told himself, you couldn't blame the kids, or Paul Stevens at her job, or Mrs. Hahn. It was that he had done everything wrong from the first. He had expected too much of her, expected her to change her entire life … for him. And he knew she regretted everything she'd done, as he lay there reproaching himself. He thought of how much she loved her life in New York, and wondered how he had even dared to think she could give that up. A job that any man in the country would have drooled to have, a house she loved, her friends, her life, her town …
And as Melanie began driving slowly north, she thought of Peter's face the first time they had met, those endless first days during the interview, the exhausting hours they shared when the President had been shot … his first trip to New York. She began to think not so much of what she'd had there, but what she'd gotten in exchange … the first time Matt had climbed into her lap … a look in Pam's eyes once or twice … the moments when Mark had clung to her and cried when Val almost died on their skiing trip. Suddenly it was difficult to exorcise them all from her life. Her anger now was directed more at the twins, at Jess for expecting too much of her, for expecting her to be there for everyone and especially for her, at Val for resenting this baby in her mother's life because she hadn't been able to have her own.
She owed them more than that. But how much more did she have to give? No more than she had already given them, that was the tragedy of it, and it wasn't enough, she knew. And now there was one more pair of eyes to look into hers one day and tell her that she didn't have enough to give to him, or her … and there was nothing at all left of herself. It exhausted her to think of it, and she was relieved when she saw Carmel at last. All she wanted to do was check into another motel and go back to sleep again … to get away … to dream … to escape …