Annabelle was in the bathtub when she got home, and she and Carmen were singing. It was a song from Sesame Street, and Alex joined them as she put her briefcase down and walked into the bathroom.
“And how was your day?” Alex asked as she bent down to kiss her after the song was over.
“Okay. How did you hurt your hand?”
“I didn't … oh, that.” It was her Band-Aid from the chemo. “At the office.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Nope.”
“I got a Snoopy Band-Aid at school,” Annabelle said proudly, and Carmen told Alex that Sam had called and said he wouldn't be home for dinner. Alex hadn't heard from him all day and she assumed that he was still furious about the night before. But now she couldn't even tell him that the chemo had gone smoothly. She thought of calling him at work, but after all the ugliness they'd exchanged the night before, she thought it was better to wait until she saw him. She noticed too that he was going out a lot more with clients at night than he used to. Maybe it was another one of his ways of avoiding dealing with her, and it was certainly working. She felt as though she never saw him.
She had dinner with Annabelle, and decided to try and wait up for him. But she was so exhausted that she fell asleep at nine o'clock, in bed, with the light on. It had been the hardest day of her life, harder even than the surgery, and she was totally exhausted.
And as she slept, Sam was having a quiet dinner with Daphne, in a small restaurant in the East Sixties.
He looked agonized and she was sympathetic as she listened. She never made demands on him, never pressed him, never reproached him for what he didn't give her.
“I don't know what's happening to me,” he said, his steak untouched and getting cold, as she held his hand and listened. “I feel so sorry for her, I know what kind of need she's in, but all I ever feel for her anymore is anger. Rage at what's happened to our life. It seems like it's all her fault, except I know it isn't. But it's not my fault either. It's just rotten luck, and now she's starting chemotherapy and I just can't face it. I can't look at her anymore, I don't want to see what's happening to her. It's terrifying to look at, and I'm just not good with things like that. My God,” he was near tears, “I feel like a monster.”
“Of course you're not,” Daphne said gently, still holding his hand, “you're only human. Those things are terribly upsetting. You're not a nurse, for heaven's sake. Surely she can't expect you to take care of her … or even to be able to stomach …” she groped for words, “…looking at it. It must be quite awful.”
“It is,” he said honestly. “It's barbaric. It's like they just took a knife and sliced it off. It made me cry the first time I saw it.”
“How awful for you, Sam,” Daphne said warmly, thinking entirely of him and not Alex. “Don't you think she understood? She's an intelligent woman. She can't possibly expect it not to affect you.”
“She expects me to be there for her, to hold her hand, to go to treatments with her, and talk about it with our little girl. I just can't stand it. I want my life back.”
“You have a right to it,” Daphne said soothingly, she was the most understanding, least demanding woman he'd ever met. All she wanted was to be with him, under any circumstances, in spite of all the limitations he'd imposed on their relationship. He'd finally agreed to have dinner alone with her occasionally, as long as she understood he couldn't sleep with her. He couldn't do that to Alex. He'd never been unfaithful to her, and he didn't want to start now, no matter how great the temptation, although everyone in the office already thought he was having an affair with Daphne. And Daphne had made it very clear to him that she was so in love with him she would accept any conditions, as long as he just saw her.
“I love you so much,” she said softly, as he looked at her, consumed with conflicting emotions.
“I love you too …that's the craziness of all this … I love you, and I love her too. I love both of you. I want you but my obligations are to her. But all we have left now are obligations.”
“It's not much of a life for you, Sam,” Daphne said sadly.
“I know. Maybe this thing will resolve itself eventually. It can't be happy for her either. Eventually she's going to hate me. I think she does already.”
“Then she's a fool. You're the kindest man that ever lived,” Daphne said staunchly, but Sam knew better, and so did Alex.
“I'm the fool here,” he said, smiling at her. “I should grab you and run before you come to your senses, and find someone your own age with a less complicated life.” He'd never been as smitten with anyone since his boyhood, maybe not even with Alex.
“Where would you rim to?” she asked innocently, as they finally both began eating their dinner. Whenever they were together, they talked for hours and forgot everything around them.
“Maybe Brazil … or an island near Tahiti …someplace hot and sensual where I could have you all to myself, with tropical flowers and smells,” and as he described it, he felt her hand go to him under the table. It made him smile, and her fingers were deft and artful. “You're a bad girl, Daphne Belrose.”
“Perhaps you ought to prove that to yourself one of these days. I'm beginning to feel like a virgin,” she teased him, and he actually blushed.
“I'm sorry.” He wasn't making life easy for anyone, but he felt so guilty.
“Don't be sorry,” she said seriously. “It'll make it all the more worthwhile when you finally do work it out.” She was certain he would, it was just a question of time. But she could wait. He was well worth waiting for. He was one of the most desirable men in New York, and one of the most successful. Even here, in an out-of-the-way restaurant, people recognized him, and nodded recognition, and the headwaiter had considered it a real coup when he saw them. Sam Parker was one of the biggest fish on Wall Street.
“Why are you so patient with me?” he asked, as they ordered dessert and he ordered the restaurant's only bottle of Chateau d'Yquem at two hundred and fifty dollars a bottle.
“I told you,” she lowered her voice conspiratori-ally, “because I love you.”
“You're crazy,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed her. And then he toasted her with the Yquem. “To Simon's little cousin,” he said harmlessly, but what he wanted to say was “To the love of my life,” but he didn't. It would have been too disloyal to Alex. How could this happen to him? How could Alex get cancer and he fall in love with someone else all at once? It never dawned on him that the two events were related.
“I'm going to be very grateful to Simon one day,” he said conspiratorially, and she laughed.
“Or very angry. That's the bad thing about all this foreplay. You're building up an awful lot of expectations about me. I might turn out to be very disappointing.”
“Not likely,” he said confidently, aching to make love to her right then. Every moment they spent together was a tantalizing caress that tortured his body.
He walked her all the way home afterwards, but as always, he refused to go upstairs with her. They lingered forever, kissing on the doorstep, with her caressing him, and his hands covering every inch of her body.
“We might as well go upstairs, you know,” she tried to entice him with her lips and her hands, and he was about to burst with desire. “I think it might be a great relief to the neighbors.”
“It would be a great relief to me, I can promise you. I'm not sure how much longer I can stand this,” he said, kissing her again in desperation.