“I wanted to see the boats.” He looked so disappointed.
“There are none.” She was looking frightened, but he was too young to know it. “Come on…let's go;”
“Can we walk on the ice?” he asked, fascinated by the thin crust that lay across most of the boat pond, but she pulled him away even harder. “Never, ever do that, Teddy, do you hear me?” He nodded, startled by the vehemence of her reaction. It was then that she looked across the ice, and thought she saw him. It seemed impossible this time, as though her mind were playing tricks on her again. Maybe she was finally going mad. Maybe coming here today, to the pond, with its thin veil of ice on it, had been too much for her. She closed her eyes for a moment, as though to clear her vision, and then opened them again, very quickly.
“We're going home.” Her voice was a croak of terror as her eyes darted between Teddy and the man she thought she saw across the lake, as though she were still not sure of what she was seeing.
“Now?” Teddy looked as though he might cry. “We just got here. I don't want to go home. Can't we go to the Carousel?”
'I'm sorry…well go for a drive…the zoo…tea…maybe the skaters…” anything to get away from here. As she stood there, her whole body began shaking. But as she tried to lead the child away, the man she had seen ran as fast as he could around the lake, coming toward them. And as he reached her, his black hair was disheveled, his eyes looked wild, and she saw with dismay that she knew she hadn't been mistaken. As Teddy saw the look on his mother's face, he was suddenly frightened. His mother had always instilled in him a vague terror about strangers, and this one looked particularly dreadful. He was tall and disheveled and he seemed to swoop down on them breathlessly, and without warning, he grabbed both of Marielle's shoulders in his hands, looked her in the eye, and then stared down at Teddy. But at least she knew now she wasn't mad. She hadn't dreamed him. It was Charles, and then she remembered how close the boat pond was to the Delauney mansion. He had had a long drunken, sleepless night himself, and had come out for some air to sober up before a meeting with his father's lawyers.
“What are you doing here?” He looked at her, and then at the boy. “And who is that?” There was something of Andre in his face, and yet he was so different. There was something almost angelic about this child's face, it was a face you wanted to kiss, with eyes that made you want to laugh the moment you saw him.
“This is Teddy,” she said quietly, her voice still shaking.
“Teddy who?” He stared at her accusingly, and she suspected instantly that he was not entirely sober. “This is Teddy Patterson.” She straightened her chin and looked Charles in the eye. He couldn't do this to her, couldn't make her feel guilty again, couldn't ruin her life… or could he?…”My son.” Teddy held tightly to her hand wondering who the man was. He thought he looked pretty scary.
“You didn't tell me that yesterday. You only told me about Malcolm.” His eyes bore into hers so hard it was almost painful to meet his gaze, but nonetheless she met it. She was braver than Malcolm thought. But Charles had always known that.
“It didn't seem the time or place to tell you.”
“Why not?” He was accusing her again. He was angry at her. “Why didn't you tell me?” She knew his anger too well. It was the same anger which, nine years before, had almost killed her.
“It seemed unfair to tell you about him yesterday.”
“And now?” His eyes were furious and his face was right next to hers, as Teddy watched in terror. In a minute, he was going to scream, if he could, if only to protect her. “Is it unfair?” Charles asked again, this time louder, seeming very drunk now. But she was calm, and in total control. She had Teddy with her, and she was not going to let Charles hurt them. No matter what had happened in the past, he no longer scared her. She could not let him.
“I don't think we should discuss this now.” She pulled Teddy closer to her, and gently touched his face so he wouldn't be afraid. But it only seemed to make Charles more angry. He was still such a striking-looking man, and she still felt weak in the knees when she looked at him, but he seemed so out of control now.
“Why do you have a child?” He shouted at her as she tried not to flinch, so she wouldn't frighten Teddy. “What do I have?”
“I don't know…your battles in Spain…your beliefs…your friends…your writing…if you have nothing else, perhaps that's a choice you made.” She was desperate not to discuss it in front of Teddy, but she was afraid just to walk away and make Charles even more angry. She held tightly to the child's hand, trying to give him courage with her pressure.
“That's a choice
“We have to go now.” She began to cry as she said the words and Teddy stared at them, wondering what it all meant as she spoke to Charles again, this time more softly. “What kind of life could we have had? You hated me, and you were right then, I hated myself too…maybe I always will…but Charles, I couldn't have stood it. I couldn't have looked you in the eye, knowing how you felt about me.” She had told him all that seven years ago, before she left Europe.
“I told you I wanted you back,” he said stubbornly.
“It was too late then.” She took a breath and wiped her eyes, forgetting Teddy for an instant. “I think you'd always have blamed me, just as I blamed myself.”
She had still loved him in some ways, but she could never have stayed with him, not after what happened.
Charles looked down at Teddy then, as though he still could not believe he even existed. He was a beautiful child, in some ways, even more beautiful than Andre. And then Charles looked at Marielle again, wanting desperately to hurt her. “You don't deserve this,” he raised his voice to her, and for an insane moment, he wanted to slap her. Why had she married again? Why did she have this child? Why in God's name had she left him? But they both knew why, and perhaps it could never have been any different. “You don't deserve him,” he said with the cruelty she still remembered. It was the other side of their great love, the side that had battered her before she left him.
“Perhaps not.”
“You shouldn't have left me.”
“I had no choice. If I'd stayed, it would have killed me.” And he knew that was true too. They had both gone more than a little crazy. She with attempted suicides, he with his wild attack on her the night it happened. But they had both been so mortally wounded by what had happened.
“Perhaps we would all have been better off dead…” There were tears in his eyes now too, as Teddy drew even closer to his mother.
“That's a terrible thing to say.'
“For you, maybe…you have a life now… a husband… a child. And why should you? Why should you, dammit, when I still wake up every day thinking of him…and of you…wishing I had died with him. Do you ever think of him? Do you ever remember… or is it all forgotten?” But as he said the words, fury suddenly raged in her eyes. Fury born of years of pain and anguish, about which Charles knew nothing.
“How dare you? There isn't a day that I don't remember, that I don't think about him…that I don't see his face if I close my eyes… or even yours…” Just as she had seen them the night before as she lay sleepless, remembering, fighting herself not to call him. “But nothing is going to bring him back, no matter how badly we destroy our lives now, or each other. He's gone…he's at peace…perhaps it's time for us to be at peace too.”
“I will never be at peace without you.” He raged at her, looking young again, and this time she smiled at him, and shook her head. In some ways, despite the fact that he was older, he seemed even more childish. He hadn't gone on, hadn't grown, hadn't healed, he had just stayed there, doing the same crazy things he had done as a boy, playing the expatriate, fighting other people's wars, and in some ways, hiding from being a grown-up.
“That's a stupid thing to say. You don't even know who I am now. Or maybe even who I was then. Maybe it would have all died a normal death anyway, if things had been different.” She looked
