In the end, she lay and sobbed in his arms for most of the night, and in the morning they both looked as though someone had died. It took every ounce of courage she had to dress and follow him upstairs to breakfast. She just sat silently with tears rolling down her cheeks, as he looked at her, as bereft as she was. She hadn't felt this awful since Andrew had died, and that had made just as little sense to her. Her beautiful child had taken his life. And now this man was leaving her because he loved her.
“This is what I believe is right,” Quinn said quietly. “Please don't make it harder than it already is.” And out of sheer love for him, she nodded, and at least tried to pull herself together. He had already told her that he didn't want her to take him to the airport. And she knew she couldn't. He held her for a last time, and kissed her, storing the memories for himself, and she touched his face one last time before he put her in a cab. His was coming in a few minutes.
As she pulled away, he stood on the deck watching her. Their eyes never left each other for a single moment. He raised his hand once and waved at her. She blew him a kiss as the cab pulled away, and as soon as they were out of sight of the boat, she was engulfed in sobs, and the driver watched her silently in the rearview mirror. She had him take her home, and didn't go to work that day. She couldn't. She sat in her kitchen, watching the clock. And when she knew his plane had taken off, she put her head down on the table and sobbed. She sat there for hours, crying and never moving. She had cherished the months she spent with him, and now she knew she had to do what she had promised, no matter how painful. She had to let him go, to be how and where and what he wanted, whether or not it made sense to her. If she loved him as she said she had, she had to let him have the one thing he wanted of her. His freedom.
She sat with her eyes closed for a long, long time, thinking of him, and willing him to be as free as he wanted. And as she did, his plane circled slowly over the bay, and headed north toward Europe. He was looking down at the Golden Gate Bridge as they flew over it, as tears slid silently down his cheeks.
15
FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS, MAGGIE FELT AS SHE had when Andrew died. She moved through the days as though swimming underwater. She had no energy, she never smiled, she hardly slept at night, and when people spoke to her, she barely heard them. She felt disconnected from her entire world, as though she had fallen from another planet, and no longer spoke the language or understood the words people spoke to her. She lost her ability to decode the world around her. She went to work and was painfully distracted. She could barely manage to give assignments and correct papers. All she wanted to do was stay home, and think of the time they had shared. Each remembered moment now seemed even more precious.
The only useful thing she did was volunteer again for the teen suicide hotline. She had taken two months off from it over the summer. But since she couldn't sleep at night anyway, it seemed like a worthwhile use of her time. But she was just as depressed as her clients, although she made an effort to sound normal when she spoke to them. But nothing about her life seemed rational or normal to her anymore. Quinn leaving had opened up the wound of loss again, and reminded her of everyone she'd ever loved and lost. She felt as though yet one more person she loved had died. At times, she felt as though she had died herself.
She had dinner with Jack on Friday night. She hadn't wanted to, but he had called her that morning and insisted. She thought seeing him might remind her of Quinn. The bond to Jack was another valuable gift he had given her. And Jack looked almost as depressed as she did. He said he really missed him. Quinn had shared so much with them, and given of himself so freely, and yet she knew he couldn't forgive himself for past sins. She had his Satcom number on the boat, for emergencies, but she had promised herself not to call him. He had a right to the freedom he so desperately wanted. And she would give it to him now, no matter what it cost her. But the rest of her life stretched ahead of her like an empty desert. Jack said he had been so upset the night before that he and Michelle had had an argument about their wedding. And now he was sorry that he hadn't gone with him.
“At least he invited you,” Maggie said ruefully. They had both cried at the beginning of dinner.
“Every time I read something, I think about him.” He told Maggie then that college was hard, but he loved it, and he still wanted to go to graduate school in architecture when he finished. And he was determined enough to do it. “I'm going to be the oldest architect in San Francisco,” he said, and they both smiled.
It was nearly Christmas before Maggie felt halfway human. She and Jack had continued to have their Friday night dinners, although they no longer played liar's dice. It reminded them both too much of Quinn. Instead, they sat and talked about him. It was the only time when Maggie could indulge herself and do that. No one at the school where she taught knew anything about him. Jack said Michelle was sick and tired of hearing about him. Their wedding was scheduled for the week before Christmas. Maggie had promised to attend, but she wasn't in the mood for it. She hadn't bothered to buy a dress, and pulled a short black dress out of her closet the afternoon of the wedding. Jack had told her a few days before that he'd had a postcard from Quinn. He had flown back from Cape Town, to see Alex and the boys in Geneva. Jack had brought the card with him, and asked Maggie if she wanted to see it, but she didn't. It would just make her cry again, and there was no point in that. She had cried endlessly in the past two months. Her gift to him was to free him.
She went to Jack's wedding that afternoon, cried copiously during the ceremony, and felt morbidly depressed during the reception. She didn't want to dance with anyone. She just wanted to go home, to be alone, and think about Quinn. She was trying to pull out of it, but after Andrew's death, it had become increasingly difficult to lose anyone or anything. And losing Quinn was a loss of such magnitude that it had reopened all her other wounds. But no matter how painful it was for her, she knew she had to survive it. She owed Quinn that.
And as soon as it seemed respectable to her, she slipped away from the wedding. It was a relief to go home, and escape the noise and food and revelry. It had been good to see Jack happy again, and Michelle looked beautiful and ecstatic. Maggie was sure they would be very happy.
It was only on Christmas Eve that she began to find a sense of peace about what had happened. Instead of looking at the years she wouldn't share with him, she thought of the months she had, what a blessing they had been for her, and how lucky she was to have known him. Just as she had done two and a half years before with Andrew. She concentrated on gratitude instead of loss, and she thought of calling him on Christmas morning, and after wrestling with herself for two hours, she managed not to. She knew that if he wanted to talk to her, he would have called her, and he didn't. All she could do now was wish him well, and cherish the memories. And there were many of them. It was enough for her, it had to be. She had no choice but to go forward, with or without him. And when she went to church on Christmas Eve, she lit a candle for him.
16
ON CHRISTMAS EVE, QUINN WAS IN GENEVA WITH ALEX and her family. He went to midnight Mass with them, and in the long-forgotten tradition of his youth, he lit a candle for Maggie.
Alex had had the baby two weeks before, and as he had promised her he would, he had come to see her. It was something he knew Jane would have done, and he did it for her, since she couldn't.