Chapter 8
George Watson put his wife in a convalescent home the week after that. It was one that specialized in patients with Alzheimer's and various forms of dementia. Outwardly, it was cheerful and pleasant, but a glimpse of the patients living there depressed Oliver beyond words, when he went to see his mother. She didn't recognize him this time, and thought George was her son, and not her husband.
The old man dried his eyes as they left, and Oliver took his arm in the bitter wind, and drove him home, and he felt as though he was deserting him as he left him that night and went back to his children.
It seemed odd, when he thought about it, that he and his father were both losing their wives at the same time, although in different ways. It was heartbreaking for both of them. But at least Oliver had the children to keep him occupied, and his work to distract him. His father had nothing, except loneliness and memories, and the painful visits he made to the home every afternoon to see Phyllis.
And then the big day came. Sarah called on Valentine's Day, and announced that she wanted to see the children the following weekend. In Boston.
“Why don't you come here?” She had been gone for seven weeks, and, like the children, Oliver was aching to see her and have her at home with them.
“I want them to see where I live.” He wanted to object, but he didn't. Instead, he agreed and called her back when he had figured out their approximate time of arrival in Boston.
“We should get to your place around eleven o'clock Saturday morning, if we take a nine A.M. shuttle.” He would have liked to make it on Friday night, but it was too complicated with schools and work, and she had suggested Saturday morning. “Do you have room for all of us?” He smiled for the first time in weeks, and at her end, there was an odd silence.
“I wasn't … I thought Mel and Benjamin could sleep on two old couches in my living room. And … I was going to have Sam sleep with me …” Her voice trailed off as Oliver listened, his hand frozen to the phone as the words reverberated in his head, Sam … sleep with me she had said, not with us.
“Where does that leave us, or should I say me?” He decided to be blunt with her. He wanted to know where he stood, once and for all. He couldn't stand the torture of not knowing any longer.
“I thought maybe …” her voice was barely more than a whisper, “… you'd want to stay at a hotel. It … it might be easier that way, Ollie.” There were tears in her eyes when she said it, but there was a weight on his heart as he heard her.
“Easier for who? It seems to me you were the one promising that nothing would change, not so long ago, you were saying you weren't leaving for good. Or had you forgotten?”
“I didn't forget. Things just change when you get away and get some perspective.” Then why didn't things change for him? Why did he still want her so badly? He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled in her head, and then he wanted to kiss her until she begged him to take her. But she wasn't going to do that again. Not ever.
“So you're telling me it's over. Is that it, Sarah?” His voice was too loud, and his heart was pounding.
“I'm just asking you to stay in a hotel, Ollie … this time …”
“Stop that! Stop playing with me, dammit!” It was a cruel side to her he had never even known was there.
“I'm sorry … I'm as confused as you are.” And at that precise moment, she meant it.
“The hell you are, Sarah. You know exactly what you're doing. You knew it the day you left here.”
“I just want to be alone with the children this weekend.”
“Fine.” His voice turned to ice. “I'll drop them off at your place at eleven.” And with that, he hung up the phone before she could torture him any further. It was going to be a lonely weekend for him, while she and the children had their happy reunion.
He could have let them go alone, but he didn't want to. He wanted to be with them, particularly afterward, for the trip home. He also knew in his heart of hearts that he wanted to be near her. He was also particularly worried about Sam, and moderately so about the others. Benjamin was unenthusiastic about going, he was going to miss a game, but Oliver told him he thought he should go. Mel was excited to go, and Sam was ecstatic. But he wondered how they would all feel after they saw her.
The flight to Boston had a festive air, as Oliver sat quietly across the aisle from them, and when they drove to her address on Brattle Street, he was incredibly nervous. He had told her he would drop them off, and when she opened the door, he thought his heart would stop when he saw her. She looked as lovely as she had before, only more so. Her hair was loose and longer, and her jeans clung to her in a way that made Ollie ache, but he tried to maintain his composure in front of the children. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, hugged the children, and took them inside to the lunch she had waiting for them as Oliver drove off in the cab, aching for her with every ounce of his body.
She lived in a small apartment, with a comfortable living room and a tiny bedroom, and behind it a shaggy garden, and as the children slurped soup, gobbled their food, and stared happily at her, everyone talked at once with the relief of releasing long-pent-up fears and emotions. Sam stayed glued to her, and even Benjamin looked more relaxed than he had in a long time. Everyone looked happy, except Oliver, alone in his hotel room.
It had finally happened, she had turned him away. She didn't love him anymore. And the reality of it almost killed him. He cried as he remembered the past and walked for hours on the Harvard campus. He went to all the places they had gone to years before, and realized as he walked back to his hotel that he was still crying. He didn't understand. She had told him nothing would change between them, yet now she had shut him out. It was all over and they had become strangers. He felt like an abandoned child. And that night, as he sat alone in his hotel room, he called her.
He could hear the ruckus of music and voices and laughter in the background, and it only made him lonelier for her than before. “I'm sorry, Sarah. I didn't mean to interrupt your time with the children.”
“That's okay. They're making popcorn in the kitchen. Why don't I call you later?” And when she did, it was after midnight.
“What's happening to us?” He had to ask her, had to know, after two months all he could do was think about her and he still wanted her back more than ever. If she really wasn't coming back to him, he had to know it. “I don't understand this. When you left, you said you'd come home every weekend. Now, after almost two months, you keep me at arm's length and act as though we're divorced.”
“I don't know either, Ollie.” Her voice was soft, a familiar caress he wanted to forget, but couldn't. “Things changed for me once I got here. I realized how badly I wanted this, and that I couldn't go back to what we had before. Maybe I'll be able to one day … but it'll have to be very different.”
“How? Tell me … I need to know….” He hated himself for it, but he was crying again. Something terrible had happened that weekend and he knew it. She was in control of everything he cared about and wanted, and he was helpless to change it, or make her come home to him.
“I don't know the answers either. I just know I need to be here.”