Brown to teach for a semester, during a sabbatical he had taken from Harvard. It was Hope’s junior year at Brown. Paul had fallen in love with her the first time he laid eyes on her, and their affair had been passionate and intense, until they married a year later right after graduation. And even in the two years since their divorce, she had never loved any other man. Paul Forrest was an impossible act to follow, and she was still deeply attached to him, whether they were married or not. He had been able to divorce her, but not to make her fall out of love with him. She just accepted it as a fact of their life. And even though his illness had changed him, she still saw the same brilliant man and mind within the broken body.
The loss of his profession had nearly destroyed him, and in many ways he was greatly diminished, but not in the eyes of his ex-wife. To her, his tremor and shuffling gait didn’t change the man he was.
Hope spent the night quietly in her hotel room, reading O’Neill’s book, trying not to think about Paul, and the life they had once shared. It was a door neither of them dared open anymore, there were too many ghosts behind it, and they were better off keeping their exchanges about the present, rather than the past. But her eyes lit up when she saw him the next day. She was waiting in the lobby for him, and saw Paul shuffle his feet slowly as he moved toward her with a cane, but he was still tall and handsome, stood erect, and despite the tremor, his eyes were bright and he looked well. She still thought he was the nicest man in the world, and although his illness had aged him, he was a fine-looking man.
He looked equally happy to see her, and gave her a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You look terrific,” he said, smiling at her. She was wearing black slacks, high heels, and a bright red coat, with her black hair pulled back in a bun. Her dark violet eyes looked huge and full of life as she took him in. To her practiced eye, he looked no worse than he had in a while, maybe even slightly better. The experimental medication he was on seemed to be helping, although he was still somewhat unsteady as she took his arm and they walked into the dining room. She could feel his whole body shake. The Parkinson’s was so cruel.
The maitre d’ gave them a good table, and they chatted easily as they caught up with each other and decided what to eat. It was always so comfortable for her with him. They were so familiar with each other, knew each other so perfectly. She had known and loved him since she was nineteen, and it seemed strange to her at times to no longer be married to him. But he had been intransigent about it-he refused to have her saddled with a sick old man. She was sixteen years younger, which had made no difference to either of them, until he got sick, and then it had mattered to him. He had opted out of her life, although they still loved each other, and always had a good time when they were together. Within minutes he had her laughing about something, and she told him all about her recent shows, trips, and work. She hadn’t seen him in six months, although they talked on the phone fairly regularly. Even though they were no longer married, she couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.
“I looked up your subject on his publisher’s website last night,” Paul told her as his hands shook while he tried to eat. Inevitably, he had a hard time feeding himself, but was determined to do it, and she made no comment at whatever he spilled, nor reached over to help him. It took every ounce of dignity he could muster to go out to restaurants, but she was proud of him that he still did. Everything about his illness had been an agony for him, the career he had lost that had meant everything to him, and on which his self-esteem had rested, the marriage that had ultimately been a casualty to it, because he refused to drag her down with him. The only real pleasure he had now was sailing, while slowly he deteriorated. Even Hope knew that he was only a shadow of the man he had once been, although out of pride, if nothing else, he tried to hide it. At sixty, he should have been vital and alive, still in the bloom of his life and career. Instead, he was in the winter of his life, alone now, just as she was, although she was so much younger. Paul was slipping ever so slowly out of life, and it always upset her deeply when she saw it. He put a good front on it, but the reality was brutal, especially for him.
“O’Neill is a very interesting man,” Paul went on, looking intrigued. “He seems to have been born in the States, of a noble Irish family, and he returned to reclaim his ancestral estate. There was a photo of it on the Internet too, it’s quite a place. It’s beautiful, in a fallen-down ancient way. There are some lovely old houses like that in Ireland. I’ve noticed that a lot of the furniture from those places comes up for auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. They look like French antiques and in many cases are. In any event, he lives in an enormous house, and he’s an Irish aristocrat, which I’d never realized before. He went to some ordinary American university, but he has a doctorate from Oxford, and he was decorated by the British, after he won the National Book Award in the States, for fiction. He’s actually Sir Finn O’Neill,” he reminded her, which jogged a memory for her.
“I’d forgotten that,” she admitted. Paul was always a source of endless knowledge for her. And then she looked sheepish. “I forgot to call him Sir Finn when he called me. He didn’t seem to care though.”
“He sounds like a wild character,” Paul said, giving up on eating. Some days were harder than others, and there was only so much embarrassment he could tolerate in public. “He’s been involved with a number of very well known women, heiresses, princesses, actresses, models. He’s a bit of a playboy, but he certainly has talent. It should be an interesting shoot. He sounds like a loose cannon with some fairly outrageous behavior, but at least he won’t be boring. He’ll probably try to seduce you,” Paul said with a sad smile. He had relinquished all claim to her, except in friendship, long since, and never asked about her love life. He didn’t want to know. And she spared him the agony of telling him that she was still in love with him. There were a number of subjects they never touched on, both past and present. In the circumstances, what they shared, over the occasional lunch or dinner, or on the phone, was the best they could do. And this last bond between them was what they clung to.
“He’s not going to seduce me,” Hope reassured him. “I’m probably twice the age of what he goes out with, if he’s as wild as you say.” She didn’t look interested or worried. He was a subject, not a date, in her mind anyway.
“Don’t be so sure,” Paul said wisely.
“I’ll hit him with a tripod if he tries anything,” she said firmly, and they both laughed. “Besides, I have an assistant working with me tomorrow. Maybe he’ll like her. And he’s sick, that should help.”
They chatted amiably after lunch, and dawdled over dessert. Paul made two attempts to drink the tea he’d ordered and couldn’t, and Hope didn’t dare offer to hold the cup for him, although she wished she could. And after lunch, she walked him out of the hotel and waited while the doorman got him a taxi to take him back to his apartment.
“Are you coming back to New York one of these days?” she asked him hopefully. He had an apartment at the Hotel Carlyle, which he rarely used. And he avoided Boston entirely now, except for medical treatments. Going back to visit his old colleagues was too depressing for him. They were all still at the height of their careers, and his had been over for ten years, far too soon.
“I’m going to stay in the Caribbean for the winter. And then probably come back here.” He liked the anonymity of London, the fact that no one knew him. There was no one to feel sorry for him here, and it was painful for him to see the sympathy in Hope’s eyes. It was one of the reasons why he hadn’t stayed married to her. He didn’t want to be an object of pity. He preferred being alone to being a burden to someone he loved. And in making that decision, he had deprived them both. But there had been no swaying him once he made up his mind. Hope had tried to no avail, and finally accepted that he had a right to choose how he wanted to live out his final years, and whatever the reasons, it wasn’t with her.
“Let me know how the interview with O’Neill goes,” Paul said, as the doorman hailed him a cab. He looked down at her with a smile then, and he pulled the small familiar figure into his arms, and as she hugged him, he closed his eyes. “Take care of yourself, Hope,” he said with a lump in his throat, and she nodded. Sometimes he felt guilty for letting her go, but he had firmly believed it was the right thing for her, and he still did. He had no right to ruin her life, in order to serve his.
“I will, you too,” she said, as she kissed his cheek and helped him into the cab. It pulled away from the curb in front of Claridge’s a moment later, and she stood and waved in the cold, as they drove off. It always made her sad to see him, but he was the only family she had left. She realized as she walked back into the hotel that she had forgotten to wish him a Merry Christmas, but she was glad she had. It would only have brought back memories for both of them, which would have been much, much too hard.
She went up to her room and changed into flat shoes, and a heavier coat. And a few minutes later, she left the hotel quietly and went for a long, solitary walk.
Chapter 3
