“Selfishly, I suppose I am, but I'm glad too. I think college will be good for him. What about Michelle? Do you like her?”
“She's very sweet, and she adores him.” She had seemed very young to Maggie, but so was Jack in his own way. They shared a certain innocence and naïveté, and she suspected, or at least hoped, that they'd be happy.
“It takes more than that,” Quinn said wisely. “It takes so much more than that to be married.” He had a profound respect now for the job he felt he had done so badly as a husband. He was his own worst critic.
“Maybe it doesn't,” Maggie said kindly. “Maybe in the beginning all you have to do is trust yourself, and each other.”
“I know myself far too well to ever trust myself again,” he said, as he rolled over on his side and looked at her. “I trust you, though, Maggie.” The way he looked at her, she was deeply touched when he said it.
“You're right to trust me. And I trust you, Quinn. Completely.” All he could think of as she said it was that he wanted to tell her not to.
“I'm not sure that's wise of you. What if I hurt you?” He already knew he would, when he left her. But she had entered into the relationship willingly, knowing what the ground rules were, and what the final outcome would be.
“I don't think you will hurt me,” she said honestly, “not intentionally. I'll be sad when you go, very sad. I know that. But that's different than your hurting me. You haven't lied to me, you haven't misrepresented who you are, or anything else that I know of. Those are the things that hurt people. The rest are accidents of life that no one can foresee or prevent. What you do about them is what matters. There are no guarantees between two people, Quinn. You can only do the best you can.” What was killing him, and eating him up inside, was that he didn't think he had. There was no changing that now, no turning back the clock. Jane had done her best. And Maggie had, he knew from all he knew of her. But he hadn't. And Maggie's husband hadn't. And all Quinn could do was live with it now. He could never erase the pain he'd caused those who loved him. And he didn't want Maggie to be another casualty to him, even if she was willing. He wanted more than that for her, even if it meant protecting her from himself. He didn't think that he deserved her love. Nor did he feel he had deserved Jane's. Her journals, and the pain he'd read in them, were ample proof of that. “Don't be so hard on yourself,” Maggie said, as she cuddled up to him in the dark.
“Why not? Don't be so generous with me,” he said sadly. He was sad that Jack wasn't coming with him. Sad that he was leaving her. For all the joy he knew his boat would give him, he knew that it was not a sign of victory, but of defeat, when he finally sailed off. He knew he had failed to give Jane the best he could, and in a way, he was doing it again with Maggie. She was willing to settle for the brief time they had to share. And she was doing what he had asked her to do, to love him for a time, and then out of still more love for him, to let him go. It was the ultimate act of love, and she was willing to give him that too. He knew it was a lot to ask. In all fairness, probably too much.
“I love you, Quinn,” she whispered, as she looked up at him. There was a thin sliver of moonlight that had stolen into the room, and she could see his face clearly, etched against the darkness around them. He lay silently next to her for a long time, and held her close to him. He wanted to say the same words to her, because he felt them in his heart, and he wanted to give them back to her. But the words he wanted to say to her were lodged tightly in his throat, and were unable to reach his mouth. And as he held her, and felt her hair on his cheek, there was a tear in the corner of his eye that slid slowly down his cheek.
12
JULY AND AUGUST WERE IDYLLIC FOR THEM. QUINN HAD finished most of his work on Jane's estate. He had gone through almost everything in the house, sorted it, packed it, and sent several things to Sotheby's in New York for auction. He had called Alex in Geneva several times, and asked her which pieces of furniture she wanted. She asked for only a few favorites, and a portrait of her mother, and asked him to store the rest. She said they didn't have enough room in their house for more at the moment. Each time he called, she hung up as quickly as she could. Once their business transactions were complete, she was always in a hurry to get off the phone. Quinn hadn't seen her in more than a year, since her mother's funeral, and he talked to Maggie about it one day, when they were lying on the boat, enjoying the summer sun and a late afternoon sail. They were spending most of their time on the boat these days. And Jack still came to have dinner with them every Friday night. He didn't bring Michelle with him when he came, he liked being with Quinn and Maggie on his own. But he said he was happy with her, and she was a good sport about his weekly night out with his buddies.
“What am I going to do about her?” Quinn asked Maggie about Alex. “I can't get through to her at all. She completely shut me out.” He told her about the calls regarding the furniture. Once she had answered his questions, Alex thanked him for the call, and hung up as quickly as she could get off the phone.
“She'll think about it one day. Maybe when something happens to her, or something frightens her. She can't shut you out forever, Quinn, she's your daughter. She needs you, as much as you need her.”
“No, she doesn't,” he said, looking worried. It was yet another failure on his part, to Jane. He knew she would have been devastated to know how estranged they were especially after her death. “She has her husband and her sons. She doesn't need me.”
“She's punishing you. She can't do that forever. One of these days she'll see who you really were, and even if you weren't there for her all the time, she may finally understand why you weren't.”
“I'm not even sure I understand why myself. I was running all the time in those days. I thought I was building something, and I was. It was more important to me than my kids, or Jane. My priorities were all screwed up. The only thing I cared about was the empire I was building, the money I'd made, and the next deal on the table. I didn't know it then, but I entirely missed the point.” As he said it, he thought of Doug and Jane, and how swiftly life changes, and opportunities are lost forever. He finally understood that, too late.
“A lot of men do that, Quinn,” Maggie said compassionately, and for an odd moment, he wished he had been married to her then, and not Jane. He felt instantly guilty for the thought, but Jane had become a victim to him. After all she had suffered, Maggie had greater insight into him, and understood far more even than he did. She was a very different woman from the one he'd had. “You're not the only one who's done what you did. Wives leave men because of it sometimes, children get angry. People feel cheated by what they didn't get. What they don't see is what they did have, and that it was the best the man could do at the time. You can't do it all, or be perfect for all those you love. There are women who do the same thing these days, focus on their careers and shortchange their families. It's hard to keep that many balls in the air.” But the ones he had dropped were the people he had loved. He knew that now. But he also knew that he had understood it far too late. “Why don't you invite Alex to come to the boat in Holland?”
“She hates boats,” he said glumly, as he lay with his eyes closed, stroking Maggie's hair, as she lay with her head on his chest.
“What about her boys?”