“As the years went by, I realized that David not only didn’t love me, that in fact he probably isn’t capable of loving anyone. He only possesses people. He loves the girls, because to him they are extensions of himself. Me he cared about only in terms of what I provided for him-his home, his children, his meals. Sex. I was expected to do my job, like any good employee, while his function, like that of any good boss, was to delegate as much work and responsibility to me as possible, and in return provide me with a living wage. Period.”
“God,” said Tom under his breath, almost involuntarily.
Jane glanced at him and found that this time it was impossible to look away again. She said softly, “Little by little, I came to understand that I was very much alone. And that I was lonely. I decided that I had to do something, because if I didn’t, I was going to die of loneliness. I believe it, you know-that you can die of loneliness. You die inside, the part of you that really matters, a little at a time.”
“And so,” he murmured, not disagreeing, “you got a divorce.”
“No,” she said. “I took up dancing.” And she had to laugh at the look on his face. “It’s true. I signed up for dancing lessons. I meant it as a way for David and I to share something, to actually do something together for once. But he thought it was silly, said he was too busy and refused to go, and because I’d already spent the money, I went ahead anyway. It was pretty awful, at first. I hated the group lessons-as one of several unattached women, I always seemed to wind up dancing the man’s position-but the instructor was very good. So I signed up for private lessons.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said when Tom restlessly stirred, frowned and reached for his cigarettes. “It’s what David thought, too-that I was having an affair with my dance teacher. How trite, huh? And actually, I did adore Hans-”
“Hans?”
“He was Dutch, I think-maybe German. Probably gay, but so what? He was young and lithe and graceful and charming, but more to the point, he made me feel all those things. When I was on that dance floor with Hans, I felt…as if I could fly. As if I were a bird, just released from a cage, and I was soaring… and that there was no limit to the sky.”
She stopped on a high note that was too dangerously close to being a sob, and after a few restorative moments, gave a low chuckle and murmured, “Oh, boy, David was furious. He demanded that I quit. But…” She paused then, remembering, reliving the terrible sense of panic and futility she’d felt as she’d tried to make David understand. She felt it again now as she wondered how she could ever expect Tom, a man, to know what it felt like to be a woman and trapped by other people’s expectations.
Passion filled her chest with pain; once more she doubled her fingers into a fist and used it to press against the ache. “He might just as well have asked me to give up light. I mean, I felt as if I’d been living in the dark for so long, you know? And now someone had come along and turned on the light. And here was this man who supposedly loved me, and he was asking-telling-me I had to go back to the dark! I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. He didn’t understand. He kept saying, ‘How could you put a dance class above your marriage, for God’s sake?’ He didn’t know it wasn’t a dance class he was asking me to give up, it was life.”
“And so,” said Tom in a rough, quiet voice, exhaling smoke, “you got a divorce. Hell, I don’t blame you.”
“Not even then,” Jane said, relaxing slightly, but not quite believing he really understood. “Believe it or not. It never entered my head. All I wanted then was to do some of the things I’d always dreamed of doing, in spite of his disapproval. I enrolled in some college classes, for instance.” She gave a soft, derisive snort, and said the rest with a little smile on her face, knowing it would sound too angry, too bitter if she let all her pain and frustration show. “Well, when David found out he couldn’t control me any longer, he just withdrew from me completely. Punishing me, I suppose. Sex was the last thing to go, probably because that meant a certain amount of inconvenience for him, as well. Eventually, all I was getting from him was hostility and disapproval.”
“That’s no way to live,” Tom said in a voice so gravelly it almost hurt to hear it.
“No,” Jane agreed softly, “it isn’t. And I knew that. But it still took a couple more years of pain and fear and the most awful guilt before I was finally able to tell David I wanted out. It was on the eve of our twenty-first wedding anniversary. I think it was partly that-” she smiled a little “-partly the fact that I’d just turned forty. Maybe a little that Lynn was a senior in high school, and I knew she was going to be leaving home soon. Then in a few more years, Tracy…and I’d be truly alone.
“Anyway-” she drew a deep, shuddering breath “-I did it, and it was a hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I vowed that I would never, ever go through something like that again. I also vowed,” and finally she had to whisper, “that I wouldn’t let myself settle, ever again, for anything less than someone who would love me, cherish me…and give me the freedom to fly. It’s been five years, dammit, and I haven’t.” She paused to snatch an agonized breath before blurting out, “Do you think it’s too much to ask?”
Tom shook his head. There was a long silence while he scowled at the floor.
“And now,” she said gently, and his eyes came back to her, warily, still frowning, as if he knew what she was going to say, “you are asking me to give you…all these feelings I have for you.” As hard as it was, she gazed at him without wavering, letting him see everything that was in her heart at that moment, knowing how it must hurt him to acknowledge it. “You want me to give all that I have to give-because that’s the only way I know how. Tom. When I feel something, I give it all. And believe me, that’s a lot. And in return, you can give me… nothing?”
There was another long silence before he finally coughed and said in that voice that was as raw as tearing cloth, “Right now, yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
He stubbed out his cigarette clumsily, like a blind man, and got to his feet. His smile was as skewed and painful as she’d ever seen it when he looked at her and muttered, “I always have been pretty much of a sonuvabitch.”
He paused, then shook his head and added on a note of wonder, “That’s what made Jen such a miracle, I guess. A man can’t expect to get two such miracles in one lifetime.”
And she knew that he was leaving.
It was what she wanted, of course. It was what had to happen. It was the way things had to be-for her sake. For her well-being and happiness, for all that she’d promised herself, all that she’d dreamed. Tom, of the gentle hands, the thrilling kisses, the unthinkingly caring little gestures…Tom had nothing left of his heart to give her. He’d invested it all in a woman and a child and buried it with them when they died. And she was sorry for him. She ached for his loneliness and need. But she couldn’t sacrifice her need for his. She couldn’t.
Oh, God, she thought, please don’t let me do this.
He knew he had to leave. It wasn’t what he wanted. God knows… Hawk actually thought it might have been easier to leave behind one of his appendages-at least for that they gave you some kind of anesthesia.
This was almost as bad as losing Jen and Jason all over again. In a way, he felt as if he was reliving it, those terrible days after the bombing…the hospital…leaving Marseilles, returning to their house in Florence…walking away from it that last time. Feeling as if his whole body had been tied down with lead weights, as if he were swimming against a powerful undertow, and every move he made, even the smallest move, required a tremendous effort, all the strength in his body, all the power of his will.