“I'll think about it.” It was the most positive response he'd ever gotten on the subject, and he was pleased.
“See that you do … Marie.” He looked at her with a broad smile, and she giggled.
“It feels funny to have a new name.”
“Why? You have a new face. Does that feel funny too?”
“Not really. Not anymore. Thanks to Faye, and to you. I've gotten used to it.” Most women would have given their right arms to get used to that face, and she knew it.
“Should I start calling you Marie?” He was only teasing, until he saw a new light in her eyes. They were mischievous and wonderful and alive.
“As a matter of fact… yes. I think I'll try it on for size.”
“Perfect Marie. If I slip, step on my foot.”
“No problem. I'll just hit you with my camera.”
He signaled for the check and they exchanged a long, tender smile. After lunch they walked through the small beach town, peeking into shops, poking into narrow alleys, and wandering into galleries when something looked interesting. And everywhere they went Fred ran along behind them, equally accustomed to his Sunday ritual. He always waited in the car when they had lunch, and then shared their walks with them afterwards.
“Tired?” He looked at her carefully after they had meandered for an hour. Although she was gradually building up her endurance, Peter, more than anyone, was aware of how easily she tired. But in the seventeen months since the accident, she had had fourteen operations. It would be another year before she felt fully her old self, although anyone who didn't know her well would never suspect her occasional fatigue.
She always looked vivacious, but an hour's walk still required an effort. “Ready to go back?”
“Much as I hate to admit it, yes.” She nodded ruefully, and he tucked her hand in his.
“A year from now, Marie, you'll outrun me in any race.”
She laughed at both the idea and his easy use of her new name. “I'll accept that as a challenge.”
“I'm afraid you'll win. You have one great advantage on your side.”
“And what's that?”
“Youth.”
“So do you.” She said it earnestly, and he laughed with a shake of his handsome head.
“May you always see me through such kindly eyes, my dear.” But as he looked away there was a sad shadow lurking in his eyes. She caught only a glimpse of it, but she knew. There was no denying the age difference between them. No matter how much they enjoyed each other, how close they became, one could not deny the twenty-three-year gap. But she found that she didn't mind it; she liked it. She had told him that before, and sometimes he even believed her; it depended on his mood. But he never admitted just how much it bothered him. She was the first girl who had made him want to be young again, to throw away a decade or perhaps two, decades he had cherished but now found a burden in the face of her youth. “Nancy—” The new name was suddenly forgotten as he looked at her with great seriousness, a question in his eyes.
“Yes?”
“Do you … do you still miss him?” There was such pain in Peter's eyes when he asked that she wanted to put her arms around him and tell him it was all right. But she couldn't lie to him either. She was surprised to find that the question brought tears to her eyes as she shrugged and then nodded.
“Sometimes. Not always.” It was an honest answer.
“Do you still love him?”
She looked very hard into his eyes before answering. “I don't know. I remember him as he was, and us as we were, but none of that is real anymore. I'm not the same person, and he can't be either. The accident must have left a mark on him. Maybe if we saw each other again we'd both find that we had nothing left together. Like this, it's hard to say. You're left with only dreams of the past. Sometimes I wish I could see him just to get it over with. But I … I've come to understand that I never will … see him again.” She said it with difficulty but finality. “So I just have to put the dreams away.”
“That's not so easily done.” There was pain in his own eyes as he spoke to her. And suddenly she began to wonder if he had been through something similar. Perhaps that was why he always understood what she felt.
“Peter, how come you've never married?” They walked slowly toward the beach, with Fred at their heels, all but forgotten now. “Or shouldn't I ask?”
“No, you can ask. A lot of sensible reasons, I suppose. I'm too selfish. I've been too busy. My work has swallowed up my life. All of that. Also, I move too fast, I'm not really the sort to settle down.”
“Somehow I don't believe that.” She looked at him closely, and he smiled.
“Neither do I. But there's some truth in all those reasons.” He seemed to pause for a long time, and then he sighed. “There are other reasons too. I was in love with someone for twelve years. She was a patient when we met, and I was very taken with her, but I avoided getting involved. She never knew how I felt until … until much later. We seemed destined to be constantly thrown together. At every party, every dinner, every social or professional function. Her husband was a doctor, too. You see, she was married. I resisted 'temptation,' as it were, for a year. And then I couldn't anymore. We fell in love, and we had a beautiful time together.
“We talked about getting married, running off together, having a child. But we never did. We simply went on as we were—for twelve years. I can't understand how we did it for so long, but I suppose things happen that way. They just go on and on and on, and one day you wake up and ten years have gone by, or eleven, or twelve. We kept finding reasons not to get married, for her not to get divorced—because of her husband, my career, her family. There were always reasons. Perhaps we preferred it the way it was. I don't know.” He had never admitted that before, and Nancy watched him as he spoke. He was looking out at the horizon, and he seemed a thousand miles away even as he talked to her.
“Why did you stop seeing each other? Or—” Maybe they hadn't. As the thought came to her, she blushed. Maybe she was prying. It was possible that there was a great deal about Peter's life that she didn't know, and had no right to know. She had never thought of that before. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked.”
“Don't be ridiculous.” His eyes and his thoughts came back to her with their usual gentleness. “There's nothing you can't ask me. No, she died. Four years ago, of cancer. I was with her most of the time, except on the last day. I think …. I Richard knew at the end. It didn't matter anymore. We had both lost her, and I think he was grateful that she didn't leave him in the years before. We mourned her together. She was an incredible woman. She was … very much like you.” There were tears in his eyes when he looked at her, and Nancy felt tears come to her own eyes. Without thinking, she reached up with a careful hand and wiped the tears softly from his cheeks, and then without taking her hand away from his cheek she moved gently toward him and kissed him, softly, on the lips. They stood there for a long, silent moment, very close, with their eyes closed, and then she felt Peter's arms go around her, and she felt more at peace than she had in over a year. She felt safe. He held her that way for what seemed like a very long time, and then he bent his face down to hers and kissed her with the pent-up passion of four years. He had had other women since Livia had died, but there had been no one he had loved. Not until Nancy. “Do you know that I love you?” He stepped back and looked down at her with a smile she had never seen before. It made her feel at once happy and sad, because she wasn't sure she was ready yet to give him all that he was giving her. She loved him, but not … not the way his eyes told her he loved her.