She was standing there — suddenly, it seemed — with one hand on the edge of the door, the other up as if in greeting. It struck McGarvey that she had not aged; in fact, if anything she had somehow learned the secret of eternal youth and become younger. She was dressed in a silk lounging suit, high heels on her feet, her hair done up, wearing only the slightest bit of makeup and a thin gold chain around her long, slender neck. She smelled of lilac; clean and fresh and new. He hadn’t remembered that her eyes were so green.
“Hello, Kathleen,” he said, finally finding his voice.
“You should have called,” she replied, her voice smoother than he remembered, well modulated, cultured. She’d definitely changed over the past five or six years. For the better.
“I’m sorry. I can come back. I was nearby …”
“You never were much on timing,” she said wryly. She looked beyond him to his car. “You’d better come in, then.”
“I can only stay for a minute,” he said, stepping past her into a large hall.
“Yes. I was just leaving. If you’d come five minutes later you would have missed me.”
She led the way into a large living room, extremely well furnished with Queen Anne furniture. A harpsichord, its sound-box lid propped open, its finish an antique lacquer, dominated one end of the room. A large oil painting of Kathleen and Elizabeth hung over a natural-stone fireplace. McGarvey walked over to it.
“Elizabeth is away at school. I’d rather you not bother her there.”
McGarvey couldn’t tear his eyes away from the portrait. His daughter was a beautiful young woman; not the little girl in braces he had left, but a young woman with straight, fine features, long lovely hair, and graceful limbs. How much like her mother had she become? The spitting image, he hoped. Yet couldn’t he see a spark of rebellion in his daughter’s eyes?
“She is a lot like you, Kirk,” Kathleen said. “I suppose I should be grateful. She’ll probably grow up to do great things. They absolutely adore her at school. And Phillip thinks the world of her. But she is tiresome at times.”
McGarvey turned. Kathleen hadn’t changed after all. “She is beautiful. Like you.”
The compliment was her due. She barely acknowledged it. “When did you return from Switzerland?”
“A few days ago.”
“Business?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. I also wanted to see you.”
“If it’s about Phillip’s letter, the alimony …” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
She was actually embarrassed by her own crude comment. “No,” she said. “It wouldn’t be that, would it. But you are back in the States for good?”
“I don’t know, Kathleen. I doubt it.”
“Then what?” she asked softly. He’d known her for a couple of years before they were married, and they were married for twelve years; they’d been separated now half that long. Yet he was conscious that this was probably the very first time he had ever seen her for what she really was; merely a woman, like others, trying to find her way. He could see her now not blinded by love, nor confused by hatred. And in a small measure he felt sorry for her loneliness — though he also felt a great deal of pride that this self-sufficient, classy, and certainly tough woman had once been his to love, had once been in love with him. He could see her now through more objective eyes, however. He saw that she had indeed aged, but that the process had not been unkind to her. She’d matured, advanced along with the times; she was a modern woman in makeup, dress, life-style, and certainly in attitudes. There was no lagging for her. He saw also that she was frightened of him. Frightened that he would somehow disrupt her carefully constructed life. But perhaps also frightened that she was still vulnerable to him.
For the very first time he felt no need or desire to find out.
“I never knew what to say to you,” he said. “Is Elizabeth the same? Does she hate me?”
She softened. “I haven’t taught her that, Kirk. I promise you. She doesn’t hate you.”
He wondered why he had come here. He looked back up at the portrait over the fireplace.
“I wanted to make sure,” he said. He turned back.
“We were on a different plane, Kirk. We still are, for that matter. Nothing has changed … or if it has, it’s changed for the worse.” Her eyes glistened. “The odd part is that I never stopped loving you, Kirk. It’s just that I can’t live with you.”
She took out a handkerchief and daubed her eyes with it. She came across the room and took his arm. Her touch shocked him with its sudden tenderness. Together they looked up at the painting of their child. Theirs. The artist had only rendered what they had created with their love, with their bodies. At this moment looking at their creation, they were both proud. They could feel their pride in each other. It was something at least.
“Phillip is a good man, Kirk,” she said. “Elizabeth has a lot of respect for him.”
Of all the statements she had made that one hurt the most. “Will you marry him?”
“It’s possible. He hasn’t asked yet.” She looked into his eyes. “I plan to say yes when he does. Happiness is out there for some of us, you know.”
“He writes a nasty letter.”
She laughed. “You didn’t take it that seriously, I hope. Good Lord, Kirk, you haven’t changed that much have you? Even I might get to like you if you had, you know.”
They no longer knew each other. Maybe they never had, he thought.
He drove away wondering again why he had come out to see her. Elizabeth was away at school. He knew that, yet he had come out anyway. It was a beautiful spring day, quite different from a lot of the days he had had in Lausanne. He’d never really given Marta a chance. Another of his mistakes. She had put up with a lot of his uncertainties, which had caused him to do a lot of lashing out. At first it had been duty, she tried to tell him. “I swear it was only duty at first. Not later. I love you, Kirk.” She had pleaded with him. “I have loved you for a long time. Didn’t you know that, too?” They used to read Elizabeth Barrett Browning to each other:
The Boynton Tower apartments on the corner of R and 31st streets in Georgetown, overlooked Dumbarton Oaks Park to the north and Yarnell’s fortress to the south across 32nd Street in its own little mews. McGarvey adjusted the the focus on his powerful binoculars, and the roof and top two floors of the house came into sharp focus. The attic window was dark, though as he watched a man in short sleeves, his tie loose, appeared momentarily and then disappeared. He looked bored to McGarvey. Bored but professional and very dangerous. He had seen the type before.
“Do you know him?” Trotter asked, standing at his elbow.
McGarvey looked up from the binoculars. Trotter was worn out, though here he was in his element. It was like the old days.
“No. Do you?” McGarvey asked.
“There’s another up there, too. Shorter. Black, I think. Maybe a Mexican. God only knows. We’ll run photos on them both.”
McGarvey nodded. “In two hours? By yourself?” Trotter had held the others back for just a moment or so. He wanted to get a few things straight with McGarvey first.