“Tomorrow.” She nodded. What else was there to say? She knew it would be over by the time he returned. For her anyway, if not for him. She felt as strongly about this as he had about her lying about her name. If you were in a relationship, as far as she was concerned, you spent the holidays together. He didn't see it that way. They didn't even exist for him. And maybe neither did she. She needed someone emotionally available, not someone who couldn't allow himself to feel anything, because it hurt too much. Life hurt too much, but was to be lived. Together, hopefully.
“Have a good trip,” she said, as she stuck a fat file into a drawer.
“You too,” he said quietly.
“Me too what?” She didn't get his drift. She was too tired to play games with him.
“You have a good trip too.”
“I'm not going anywhere.” She stood up straight and looked at him.
“Yes, you are, or at least I hope you are … or I hope you will.…” He stumbled over his own words as she stared at him. “If you're willing, I'd love you to come down with Adam and Maggie on the twenty-sixth. He's flying down then. And he's bringing her. We worked it out today.”
“And you want me to come too?” She looked stunned as she smiled at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am.” Perhaps even more so than he wanted to be. “I'd love you to come down, Carole. Will you?” he asked, looking at her. “I hope you can get away.”
“I'll try. And I hope you know I wasn't trying to shove my way into your trip. I just wanted you to be here over Christmas, and leave on the twenty-sixth with him.”
“I know. I can't do that. Not yet anyway. Maybe one day. But if you can do it, we can have two weeks together there.” It sounded fantastic to her, and even to him now. It was a great idea. He was glad Adam had called him.
“I don't think I can stay for more than a week. I'll see.”
“Whatever you can do,” he said, and then kissed her. She looked at him longingly and kissed him. And then they took a cab back to her place, and spent the night together before he left the next day. He even saw her tree.
When Adam got home that night, he handed Maggie a credit card. She was sitting over her law books and didn't look up when he came in. He dropped the credit card on the desk.
“What's that for?” she asked, without looking up. She was still angry at him over the trip. Their weekend with his kids had only been a brief respite from open warfare. Now they were back to the cold war.
“You need to go shopping,” he said, as he took off his tie and threw it on a chair.
“What for? I don't use your credit cards. You know that.” She threw it back at him, and he caught it, and stood holding it.
“You need to use it this time.” He set it down next to her again.
“Why?”
“Because you need a lot of stuff. You know, bathing suits, wraparounds, sandals, girl stuff, what do I know? You figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” She still didn't get it.
“What you need for the trip.”
“What trip? Where are we going?” She wondered if he was taking her to Vegas again, as a consolation prize.
“We're going to St. Barts on Charlie's boat.” He said it as though reminding her, and she stared at him.
“No, you're going to St. Barts on Charlie's boat. I'm not. Remember?”
“He called today and invited you too,” he said gently, and she stared at him and put her pen down.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am. So is he. I told him I didn't want to upset you, and I don't think he wants to upset Carole either. He's going to invite her too.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God! OH MY GOD!!” She kissed him and ran screaming around the room and then jumped into his arms, as he laughed at her.
“Does that do the trick?” He could see that it did. And then some.
“Are you kidding? Oh my God! I'm going on a yacht with you to the Caribbean! Yes yes yes YES!” And then she turned to him with a grateful look. “Adam, I love you. I'd have loved you anyway, but I was so hurt.”
“I know,” he said, kissing her again.
“I really love you,” she said, clinging to him. “I hope you know that.”
“Yeah, baby…me too.…” And then he kissed her. Come December 26, they'd be off to the Caribbean.
23
THE ARGUMENT BETWEEN SYLVIA AND GRAY, OVER HIS seeing her children, continued until nearly Christmas. He was staying at his studio now nearly every night, and she wasn't pressing him to stay at her apartment. She was too angry at him. She understood that he had “issues,” but as far as she was concerned, he was taking it too far. He wasn't even trying to deal with them. Gilbert was arriving in two days. And Emily the day after. And Gray had dug his heels in. He was not going to meet them.
“If you're that upset about it, then go to counseling,” Sylvia had shouted at him in the course of their last fight. They were having them nearly daily. It was a hot topic, for both of them. “What's the point of reading all those goddamn self-help books, if you're not willing to help yourself?”
“I am helping myself. I'm respecting my boundaries, and so should you,” he said grimly. “I know my limitations. Families freak me out.”
“You don't even know mine.”
“And I don't want to!” he had shouted, and stormed out.
Sylvia was profoundly depressed over what had happened, and the position Gray had taken. It had been going on for nearly a month, and had taken a toll on the relationship. The joy that they had shared in discovering each other had all but disappeared. And when Gilbert arrived two days before Christmas, she hadn't seen Gray in two days. She tried to explain it to her son, when he asked about him, but it sounded nuts even to her. As she had pointed out to Gray, people their age were supposed to be saner than that, but apparently he wasn't, and was making no attempt whatsoever to get his neuroses in check. He was reveling in them. Like a pig in slop.
The only good thing about it, for him, was that he was so upset, it was driving him to paint more. He hadn't stopped painting in weeks, and had finished two paintings since Thanksgiving, which was fast for him. His dealer was thrilled. The new work was great. He had always said that he did his best work when he was unhappy. And he was proving it. He was miserable without her. He couldn't sleep. So he painted. Constantly. Day and night.
He was hard at work late one night, after their most recent argument, when his bell rang. He thought it was Sylvia, come to drive her point home one more time, and without asking who it was, he hit the buzzer and let her up. He left the door to his apartment open, and braced himself for another round as he stared at the canvas, frowning. It was almost becoming a game between them. She begged him to see her kids. He said no. Then she blew her top. And so did he. It had become a vicious cycle. She refused to let go, and he refused to give in.
He heard the door open, and looked up, expecting to see her, and saw a wraithlike young man looking at him instead. “I'm sorry… the door was open…I didn't mean to interrupt. You're Gray Hawk, aren't you?”
“Yes, I am.” Gray looked startled. Whoever the young man was, he looked sick. His hair was thin and short, his face looked like a cadaver's, and his eyes were sunk deep into his head. His skin was concrete colored. He looked like he had cancer, or something just as bad. Gray had no idea what he was doing there, or who he was. “Who are you?” He wanted to ask him what he was doing in his apartment, but he had left the door open so it was his own fault that there was a stranger standing there.
The man hesitated for a moment and stood where he was. “I'm Boy,” he said softly, as though he didn't have the strength to say more.
“Boy?” Gray said, looking blank. It took a moment to register, and then he looked like he'd been shot. He went almost as pale himself, as he stood rooted to the spot. “Boy? Oh my God.” He had thought about him, but not seen him in so long. He was the Navajo baby his parents had adopted twenty-five years before and named Boy. Gray walked slowly toward him and then stood in front of him, as tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. They had never been close. There were twenty-five years between them, but he was a ghost from a piece of history that had haunted Gray all his life, and still did. It was at the root of his battle with Sylvia now. He wondered for a moment if it was a hallucination. Boy looked like the Ghost of Christmas Past. Gray put his arms around him then and just held him as they cried. They were crying for what might have been, what had been, and all the insanity that they had experienced separately but in the same place and for the same reasons. “What are you doing here?” he finally managed to choke out. Gray had never even tried to see him, and probably wouldn't if he hadn't been standing there.