Liane and Nick shared a shift that night from nine o'clock until one, and then they went back to the room she was using. The girls were in Nick's hammock again, having begged him to let them sleep there, and now he and Liane fell into her bed, and made love as never before. They slept peacefully in each other's arms and then woke again, and made love, and then snuck into a shower together before the others got up, and went outside on deck to watch the dawn.
“This will sound crazy to you”—she looked at Nick with a smile—”but I've never been this happy before. It's almost sinful to say that with all the suffering on this ship … but that's how I feel.”
He put an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “That's how I feel too.” It was as though this was the life for which they had been born. And she no longer asked what would come next. She no longer wanted to know.
For the next six days they shared the same shifts, working with the ailing men, took their meals with the girls, and at night made love in her borrowed room. Their life fell into a comfortable routine and it came as a shock to both of them when the captain made a quiet announcement the next day that they would reach New York in two days. The journey so far had taken thirteen days. Now they looked at each other and said not a word. They moved as skillfully as they had before as they made their rounds, but when they went back to their room that night, Liane looked at him with big sad eyes. They both knew that the end was near, and it was important that the wounded men get home soon, and yet she wished that the crossing could go on, and she saw the same wish in his eyes as she looked at him. She sighed as she sat down in the familiar darkness of the room. It had become their home in the past week. And she didn't want to ask him now what they would do, but he heard her words without her saying them.
“I've thought about it a lot, Liane.”
“So have I. And the answers don't come. Not the ones I want.” She wanted to have met him before ever meeting Armand, but fate hadn't arranged things like that, and she had her life with Armand to think of now. She could not simply brush him away. Yet how could she forget Nick? She felt as though she was committed to him now. And what was more, she needed him. He had woven himself into the very fiber of her being. And now what to tell Armand? Or should she say anything at all? All their life together, she had been totally honest with him. She knew what she owed Armand, yet she couldn't bring herself to give up Nick. It was an impossible decision. Yet Nick seemed to have already made up his mind.
He looked soberly at Liane now and spoke in a calm voice. “I'm going to divorce Hillary. I should have done it years ago.”
“And John? Will you be able to live with yourself if you leave him?”
“I don't think I have a choice.”
“That's not what you thought when this ship set sail. You were determined to go home and get him back from his grandmother. Could you be really happy, Nick, only seeing him a few times a month, and knowing that he's being neglected by Hillary?” There was sorrow in her eyes as she asked, and she saw the same pain in his but he struggled to answer her.
“It's his life or mine. Ours.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad.
“Is that a choice you can make?”
“What are you telling me?”
“What I know you feel deep inside. If you divorce your wife to be with me, a part of you will never forgive yourself. Every time you look at Elisabeth and Marie-Ange, you're going to think of John and what you gave up to be with me. I can't ask you to do that. And to tell you the truth, I'm not ready to make a decision myself. I don't know what to do. I've tried not to think about that for the last week. I've always been honest with Armand. And now suddenly I can't. When I think of telling him … or writing to him … or waiting until after the war to tell him … something inside me shouts, I cringe at what it would do to him, and the girls.” She looked sadly at the man she had come to love on the ship. “He believes in me, Nick. I have never betrayed him before and I cannot do so now.” Tears filled her eyes and she grew hoarse. “But I cannot leave you.”
“I love you, Liane. With all my heart.” Nick's voice was distraught.
“I love you too, if that's what you want to know.” Her eyes never left his. “But I love Armand too. I believe in the vows we made eleven years ago. I never thought that I would be unfaithful to him. And the funny thing is that I don't feel I have been. I opened a door and there you were, and now you're someone I love. I want to be with you … but I don't know what to do about him. If I told him now, it might kill him, Nick. It might make him careless about himself in France. We are going back to peace. He stayed to fight a war. What right do I have to walk away? Is that what I promised to do eleven years ago? To get out when I'd had enough? It isn't fair.”
“Life never is. And one of the things I've always loved about you is that you are. But there's no way to be fair about this. Whatever we do, someone gets hurt, we give something up, there's someone who'll lose … Johnny, or Armand, or you and I.”
“That's an impossible choice to make.” Her voice sounded strained. “It's like standing with a gun and deciding who to kill.” He nodded and took her hand and they both sat lost in their own thoughts for a long time, and then, putting the others out of their heads, they made love again. They reached no resolution that night, or the next day, as they took their shifts and made their rounds, and when they went to bed they held each other tighter than before. It was their last night on the ship, and they both knew that nothing would ever be quite the same again. If they chose to make a life of it together, they would have to climb over the obstacles that lay ahead, causing themselves and other people pain, and if they chose to let each other go, there would be a sense of irreparable loss. Only tonight, for this one last night, could they love each other as before.
It was almost morning when they spoke of it again, and it was Liane who brought it up this time. She sat up in bed and touched his face, kissed his lips, and looked down at him as she would a child. She had been putting the moment off for hours, but it couldn't wait much longer now. They would leave the ship in a few hours, and some decision had to be made. But she had made hers, and by doing so, she had also made the decision for Nick.
“You know what we have to do, don't you?”
He looked up at her and for a long time neither spoke.
“You have to go back to your son. You would never be happy with us, without him.”
“And if I fight for custody?”
“Would you win?”
He was as honest with her as she was with him. “Probably not. But I could try.”
“And tear the child in half. You couldn't live with yourself, and you know it as well as I do. No more than I could live with myself if I left Armand. We're decent people, you and I. We have consciences and responsibilities, and other people we love. It's different for people who aren't like us, Nick. They can walk off and wave good-bye. We can't. I know you can't, and neither can I. If you didn't care about Johnny so much, you'd have left your wife years ago. But you didn't. And I can't let you do that now, for us.” He nodded. And she sighed softly. “Besides, it's not that simple for me.” Her voice dropped down to a whisper. “I still love Armand.” Tears filled her eyes, and she looked away as Nick watched her.