And Megan listened to them talk, barely able to suppress a smile. She didn't even care when she had to go back to the office to set a broken wrist for an eight-year-old. When she came back they were still talking. And by the end of lunch, Bernie's eyes were in flames. Phillippa knew exactly what she wanted to do, and she was dying to do it with him. She didn't have the money to make the investment, but Bernie felt sure that he could handle that himself, with a loan from the bank and maybe even a little help from his parents.
The trouble was, it just didn't make sense for him to undertake a project like the one they discussed. He still had to go back to New York sooner or later. But the idea preyed on his mind after his lunch with Phillippa.
He drove past the house Megan had shown him several times. It gnawed at him, but there was no point in his buying property in California except maybe as an investment.
But whenever Paul called now, Bernie sounded distant and distracted. He was suddenly haunted by old ghosts again. Liz seemed to come to mind far too often and it made him testy with Megan.
Bernie spent the entire summer with the San Francisco store, in body anyway. But his heart and his mind and his soul seemed to be somewhere else. In Napa with Megan, and the house he wished he were buying, and the store he wished he were starting. He felt guilty about his mixed emotions, and Megan sensed what was happening to him. She was very calm and quiet and supportive and she asked him no questions about his plans, and he was grateful to her for that. She was a remarkable woman. But he worried about that too now.
They had been living on borrowed time for seven months, and sooner or later they'd have to face the music. And he didn't like it. He loved being with Megan, going for long walks, talking late at night, even going to the hospital with her when she had a late-night call and she was so wonderful with the children. Alexander was crazy about her, and now so was Jane, and so was Nanny Pippin. She seemed to be the perfect woman for him …except there was still Liz' memory to contend with. He tried not to compare them to each other, they were two entirely different women, and whenever Jane tried to, Megan would always stop her.
“Your mommy was very, very special.” It was impossible to disagree with her and it was comforting to Jane when she said that. She seemed to know the children so well, and Bernie even more so. He didn't even like staying in the city anymore, and there was something about their house there that depressed him. The memories there didn't seem happy anymore, and all he could think of now was when Liz had been sick and dying, and trying so desperately to hang on, dragging herself to school, cooking dinner for them, and weakening hourly. He hated thinking about it now. It was two years since she'd left them, and he preferred thinking of other things. But it was hard to think of her at all, without thinking of her dying.
In August his parents came out to visit the children. Bernie and the children were living in Napa for the summer, and they settled in as they had the year before, and his parents took Jane on a trip as they had before. And when they brought her back, he introduced them to Megan. It was obvious who she was from the earlier description he had given them. And his mother looked her over carefully with a knowing look, but she didn't disapprove of her. She even liked her. It would have been impossible not to, even for his mother.
“So you're the doctor.” She said it almost proudly, and there were tears in Megan's eyes when she kissed her. She drove them around Napa the next day, when she was off call and Bernie was at work, and she showed them all the sights. Bernie's father could only stay for a few days. He was going to San Diego for a medical convention. And Ruth opted to stay in Napa with the children. But she was still deeply troubled about her son. She sensed that, in spite of his involvement with Megan, he was still grieving for Liz. And they talked about it over lunch at the Saint George in Saint Helena. Ruth felt that she could be open with this young woman she liked so much.
“He's not the same as he used to be.” She said it sadly, wondering if he ever would be again. In some ways he was better, more sensitive, more mature, but he had lost some of his joie de vivre after Liz died.
“It takes time, Mrs. Fine.” It had already been two years and he was only beginning to recover. And it was the decisions he had to make that were weighing on him now. The choices that were so painful. Megan or Liz' memory, San Francisco or New York, a store of his own or his loyalty to Wolffs and Paul Berman. He felt torn in every direction, and Megan knew it.
“He seems so quiet right now.” Ruth spoke to her like an old friend and Megan smiled gently. It was the smile that comforted hurt fingers and aching ears and painful tummies, and it comforted Ruth too. She felt that in this woman's hands her son would be happy.
“This is a hard time for him. I think he's trying to decide if he wants to let go. That's scary for anyone.”
“Let go of what?” Ruth looked puzzled.
“His wife's memory, the delusion that she'll come back again. It's not unlike what Jane has gone through. As long as she rejects me, she can pretend that her mother might come back one day.”
“That's not healthy,” Ruth said, and she frowned.
“But it's normal.” She didn't tell her of Bernie's dreams of his own store in the Napa Valley. That would just have upset her further. “I think Bernie's on the verge of making some decisions that are difficult for him, Mrs. Fine. He'll feel better when he gets them behind him.”
“I hope so.” She didn't ask if one of those decisions was whether or not to marry Megan. But they chatted on through lunch and she felt better when Megan dropped her off at the house after lunch and waved as she drove off. “I like that girl,” she told Bernie that night. “She's intelligent and sensitive and kind.” She took a short breath. “And she loves you.” For the first time in Bernie's memory, his mother looked frightened to annoy him, and he smiled at her.
“She's a terrific woman.”
He agreed.
“Why don't you do something about it?”
There was a long silence as he met his mother's eyes, and then he sighed. “She can't move her practice to New York, and Wolffs isn't going to keep me out here forever, Mom.” He looked as torn as he felt and his mother felt sorry for him.
“You can't marry a store, Bernard.” Her voice was soft and low. She was operating against her own interests, but for her son's and it was worth it.
“I've thought of that.”
“So?”
He sighed again. “I owe a lot to Paul Berman.”
For an instant, Ruth looked angry. “Not enough to give your life up for him, or your happiness, or the happiness of your children. As I see it, he owes you more than you owe him, after all you've done for that store.”
“It's not as simple as all that, Mother.” Bernie looked exhausted and she hurt for him.
“Maybe it should be, sweetheart. Maybe you should think about that.”
“I will.” He smiled at last and kissed her cheek, and then he whispered, “Thank you.”
Three days later she joined Lou in San Diego, and Bernie was genuinely sorry to see her go. She had become his friend over the years, and even Megan missed her.
“She's a wonderful woman, Bernie.”
He grinned at the woman he was so desperately in love with. It was their first night alone since his mother left, and it felt good to be lying side by side in her bed again. “She said the same thing about you, Meg.”
“I have a lot of respect for her. And she loves you a lot.” He smiled. He was glad that they liked each other. And she was happy just being with him. She never tired of his company, they spent hours together whenever they could, talking and hugging and making love. Sometimes they stayed awake all night just to be together.