Rushing Waters (27 page)

“No, it was so weird when I left. We weren't friends, we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. We were so confused and so messed up over everything that had happened. I just want to see her and leave it in a good place so we can be friends.” It sounded like a good plan to her, and she tried to reassure his parents. They were panicked. What if he had a flashback or a freak-out in New York? Or on the plane?

“He's not going to have a flashback, because he remembers everything,” she explained to them. “And he may experience some stress, even severe stress, but I think he can handle it now, and I think seeing Anna may give him some closure he needs so he can move on. She was almost like Ben's sister.” She asked Peter in their next session if he was going back to see the building, or the street, or make some kind of pilgrimage to the area where Ben had died, and Peter rapidly shook his head with a pained look.

“I don't ever want to see the house again, or the street. I can't,” he said in a choked voice.

“You don't have to. I just wanted to know what you had in mind. You don't ever need to go back there.” And she hoped he wouldn't.

“All I want to do is see Anna, and then come home again. She said I could stay at her place for the night if I want to. We were friends before we started dating.”

“Are you going to see Ben's parents?” Gwen asked him, and he hesitated with a guilty look in his eyes.

“Do you think I should? I wasn't going to. I think it might be too much. I just want to see Anna.”

“That's fine. You don't have to visit them. And I think it would be hard too.” He looked relieved, and she told him she approved of his plan. And when he mentioned it to her, she gave him a letter on her professional stationery that said he was a victim of Hurricane Ophelia, was currently experiencing PTSD, and as part of his therapy, his black Labrador was to accompany him freely as an emotional support dog, and she signed it. Peter beamed and high-fived her when she handed him the letter, and she laughed.

“Yes!” he said loudly. With her letter he could take Mike in the cabin with him, and not put him in a crate in cargo, which he wouldn't have done. In that case, he would have left him with his parents, but he was thrilled to take him along.

Peter's parents took him to the airport a few days later, with the dog, and they were nervous wrecks the moment his flight took off, and reassured each other all the way home that Peter would be fine. Peter had presented Gwen's letter at the airline desk, they had read it carefully, looked at him, looked at the dog, nodded, and waved him through after giving him back the letter he'd need to get him home too.

And he took a cab from La Guardia to Anna's home. She was expecting him and nervous about seeing him too. Neither of them had any idea what to expect, and Gwen had told him to keep an open mind and just let things flow, and to call her if he felt too stressed. He kept her cell phone number in his phone, and had called her several times when he had a tough time, mostly in the beginning. They both felt he was doing great now.

The moment Anna opened the door to him, she squealed and threw her arms around his neck, and a minute later they were both crying and laughing and so happy to see each other, and Mike was barking frantically, as Anna's mother came out of her room to hug Peter too. For Peter, he had lost two friends. Ben and Anna. And now he had Anna back.

“You look terrific,” Elizabeth said, relieved to see him. He was a great boy, and she had always liked him.

“I lost my hair for a while,” he said to Anna with a shrug, “but I'm okay now.” He felt like he had lost his mind for a while too, but he didn't tell her that. She didn't need to know. And Gwen had assured him that everything he had felt and experienced was normal, given what he'd been through.

“What do you want to do?” Anna asked him, and on the spur of the moment, Peter said he wanted to see the Christmas tree all lit up at Rockefeller Center. He had seen it once as a little kid with his parents and loved it, and now he wanted to go with her.

They took a cab there and left Mike with her mother, and stood in awe of the giant tree with the decorations and lights on it, and then hung over the railing and watched the ice skaters. Anna suggested they go to St. Patrick's and light a candle for Ben, which was the first time they had mentioned him, and Peter agreed. They lit the candle, and both said a prayer and then left, and walked back uptown to Anna's apartment. They ordered sushi takeout, and talked about what they were going to do.

“Do you think you'll go back to school?” Anna asked him. Her parents had left them alone, and they had talked all afternoon. And eventually, he told her about his therapy with Gwen and said he felt better. Anna was seeing a therapist too, for loss in her case, not guilt, although she blamed herself for not “making” the boys come uptown with her. Her therapist had told her that she couldn't “make” them do what they didn't want to do. It had been the same thing Gwen had said to Peter.

“I don't know,” Peter said about school. “Maybe. I'm not sure.” It felt good to be back in New York, and he loved the city, but he knew he didn't want to go back to NYU. It would be too hard now without Ben, and the location was too close to where everything had happened. And he was afraid that if there was ever another hurricane, he would lose it. “I might come back here to live though one day after school.”

“I want to go to L.A. and study acting,” Anna said firmly, which she had already been saying for two years, about after she graduated from Tisch. And now she was going to be a straight English major at Barnard. “You can come and visit me when I make my first movie,” she said with a grin. There had been no word of their rekindling their romance, and it was obvious that neither of them wanted to. They just wanted to be friends. And in a way, he could step in for Ben now, as her almost brother. It was the role he aspired to in her life, and so did she as his nearly sister. Their dating days seemed to be over, too much had happened, and they had both suffered too shocking a loss of someone they loved. It had ended their romance but strengthened their love for each other.

They talked until after three
A.M.
, and fell asleep in sleeping bags next to each other, holding hands, on the den floor. And the next morning after her mother made them breakfast, Anna took Peter to the airport to go back to Chicago.

“I'm so glad you came,” she said as he hugged her goodbye and held her tight for a long moment.

“I'll always love you, Anna,” he said with tears in his eyes, “just like he did. I'm not as good a guy as he was, but I'll try.”

“I love you too,” she said as they both cried. They had something better than a romance now. They were friends. For life.

“Come and visit in Chicago.”

“Maybe after Christmas,” she promised.

“We can go skiing. I'll show you around.” She nodded and they hugged again, and then he presented his emotional support dog letter for Mike, and went through security, frantically waving at her, while they blew each other kisses like little kids.

“I love you!” she screamed loud enough for him to hear her, and she didn't care what anyone thought in the airport.

“I love you too!” he yelled back, and Mike barked. And they could both feel Ben with them, as Peter disappeared through security, and they both knew that they would be the Three Musketeers forever.

Peter's father was waiting for him at the airport in Chicago. Peter hadn't started driving again yet, but now he wanted to and felt ready. He was going to talk to Gwen about it when he saw her.

“How was the flight?” his father asked him, because it was easier to say than ask about the visit to New York. But he could see that Peter was euphoric, and he wondered if he and Anna had rekindled their romance. He didn't understand that the friendship and bond they'd formed was something even better for them.

“It was great,” Peter said and meant the visit, not the flight. “We went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center.” He didn't mention the candle and prayers at St. Patrick's.

His father smiled at what he said. “We took you there once when you were about five. You probably don't remember. You loved it and didn't want to leave.”

“Of course I remember, Dad. That's why we went. I wanted to see it again. And I still love it.” He beamed and acted like a carefree child again. The trip to New York had done him good.

And then on the drive home, he told his father he wanted to apply to Northwestern, if he wouldn't lose credits in a transfer. “I want to stay around here to finish school. I might go back to New York for graduate school, like get an MBA at Columbia,” he said, looking out the window as his father glanced at him and smiled. His hair had come in thick and full again.

“That sounds like a good plan to me,” John Holbrook said quietly, and hugged his wife when he got home. He held her in his arms with tears rolling down his cheeks. “He's going to be okay,” he said about their only child, when Peter went upstairs with Mike. He was whole again, and scarred perhaps in subtle ways, but better than ever. It had been a hard road, and a tough journey, but he had found his way back.

Ellen and Bob managed to have dinner together twice before the pressure of the holidays started, and talked about the benefit for hurricane survivors. They had both volunteered to be on the committee, as had Jim and Grace. It was being held in March.

Ellen wanted to go Christmas shopping, although her list was short this year. Her mother, Phillippa, and Alice, with handsome bonuses for them and all her employees in London. She no longer had to find something special for George or shop for their London friends. And she wanted to find a nice gift for Jim, after housing them during the hurricane. And something small for Bob, if she could find a gift she thought he'd like.

Her mother seemed to be busy in meetings all the time, and out with Jim at holiday parties. Her social life had picked up noticeably, and Grace enjoyed it with him. He was taking her to St. Barth's for New Year's, “like Miami, only better,” she told Ellen and her daughter laughed. They were clearly enjoying their romance, and as Bob said, “why not?” Bob had helped Ellen buy a tree and decorated it with her. It suddenly really felt like Christmas, despite the changes of the past year. And they enjoyed spending time together. Aside from dinners, they had gone to the symphony and the theater and loved talking to each other for hours. And when she expressed interest in it, he had invited her to join him at a television show where he was being interviewed. He was blasé about it, but she had found it exciting and watched from the green room at
The Today Show.

Bob was preparing for his children's visit, and going skiing with them for a few days, but he wanted Ellen to have dinner with them first, and she was looking forward to it. Talking about them led them into a subject that Bob had wondered about but been afraid to ask her. But after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner one night, he did.

“I take it you and your husband decided not to adopt,” he said carefully. She had told him the results of her infertility treatments, and that she would never be able to have a child of her own.

“It went against all his ideas about his bloodlines and heritage. He didn't want a child that wasn't entirely his, and I sort of agreed. I don't know if he talked me into it or not, but he was also averse to the risks of adoption, and opposed to surrogacy, so we ruled them out. Adoption seemed like risky business to me too, given drug histories of birth parents and things you don't always know about with adopted kids.”

“My son is adopted, you know.” He had never mentioned it to her before. “We wanted a second child, and after five miscarriages we gave up and adopted. He's a terrific boy,” he said. “I just thought you should know. It's not always a bad idea. And there are risks with your own biological kids too, health problems you can't anticipate, genetic stuff that turns up from earlier generations you never knew about. Shit happens, as they say. Sometimes adoption is a wonderful idea, if you really want a child and can't have your own.” She had never seen it quite that way before, and George had been so violently opposed to it that he had convinced her too. But Bob made it sound almost appealing. “Do you think you'd ever consider it?”

“I don't know. I always ruled it out before. It's hard to say what I'd do. I've been trying to let go of the idea of having kids. We went through so much agony over it.”

“Sometimes letting go is the right idea too. Only you can know. And you're young enough to take some time to figure it out. The nice thing about adoption is that there's no clock ticking. You can look into it when you're ready, or not. Children are wonderful, but you don't have to have kids to be happy. I just thought I'd let you know that ours was a real success story. We were always glad we did it.” And he smiled at her then. “He's much smarter and better looking than we were. He says he might like to meet his birth mother one day, but he hasn't been compelled to do it so far. He doesn't seem too interested, but he might look into it later. My wife wasn't too crazy about the idea, but we'd have helped him find her if he asked. She was a fifteen-year-old girl in Utah.”

“That's everyone's ideal situation but hard to find. I was always scared about some drugged-out kid in the Haight-Ashbury. You never know.”

“You can be careful, if you decide to go that route. I just thought I'd mention it as a viable option. I usually don't volunteer that he's adopted, but it seemed worthwhile saying something to you.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, as they smiled at each other, and he reached across the table and held her hand. Ellen thought about what Bob had said about his son when he took her home that night. She had never seriously considered adoption, and she still wasn't sure she ever would. But maybe one day she might if she married again. She didn't want to adopt as a single mom. For now, it didn't seem like the pressing issue it had been before. She was alone and had a lot to think about. Her divorce was going to be final in April. And it would be a whole new life after that. It already was.

The night before his children were due to arrive from California, they had dinner again. He looked genuinely excited in anticipation of their visit. His daughter had just announced that she was bringing her boyfriend, which hadn't been part of the plan, but Bob was good humored about it.

Ellen had found a Christmas present for him, and gave it to him at dinner. It was a first edition of a book he had said he had loved as a young man, one of the original Sherlock Holmes books, which had inspired his career. He had lost it in the flood in Tribeca, and had been upset about it. It felt good to replace it for him, and he looked touched when he opened the package.

“I have something for you too,” he said, with a tender look. “I was hoping I'd see you again closer to Christmas.”

“I didn't know if you'd be too busy with your children, so I brought yours tonight.”

“Let's all have dinner together the day after they arrive. I'm taking them to ‘Twenty-one.' ” It sounded like a good plan.

They went back to her apartment afterward, and he built a fire in the living room, while she told him that she'd had an offer on the house in London. It wasn't fabulous, but it was a good solid offer at a respectable price, on good terms.

“I'm tempted to take it. I'm ready to give up that house. I want to move on. I don't like knowing it's just sitting there, like a relic of the past.” It was a past she wanted to put behind her. The more she thought about her life with George, the more she realized that it had been wrong for her, and she had compromised too much. It was what he had expected of her, and she had willingly complied. In retrospect, she hadn't respected herself, only him. Bob had understood that long before she had, and he could see her changing every day. She was more definite, more sure of herself, delicate about it but willing to state her opinions. He was impressed to see how much she had grown in the short time he'd known her.

“What are your plans for New Year's?” he asked her, as they sat next to each other on the couch, looking into the fire. “My kids will be gone by then. They want to go back to California to spend it with their friends. You don't get to hang on to them for long at this age.” He said it without regret and had come to accept it—he was happy they were coming at all. He knew that one day, with partners and children of their own, it would be more difficult. He figured he had a few years left the way things were, but not many. Otherwise like Ellen, he was alone. Even for people with children, the holidays could be lonely or hard.

“I don't have any plans,” she said, turning to look at him. He was already keeping her busier than she'd anticipated when she moved to New York. She hadn't expected to have a man in her life, or even a male friend to take her out to dinner. And now her mother was busy with Jim, which was a big change. She no longer had to keep her mother company—she was out almost every night, and working harder than ever. “We used to go to friends in the country on New Year's, typical British house parties, always very jolly. They love their weekend parties. It's a nice way to see the new year in.” And like everything else in her previous life, they were now a thing of the past.

“How about dinner at my place?” Bob suggested, and meant Jim's apartment where he was still living. And Jim would be in St. Barth's with Grace. “We can cook dinner together and sit by the fire, and look at floor plans of my new apartment,” he teased her. “Or stand in the plaster dust and dream.” She laughed at the thought.

“I'd like that,” she said simply. “I don't like making a big deal of New Year's Eve. And this year, I think we all have a lot to be thankful for. I was so upset on Thanksgiving about my divorce, but I realize now that after Ophelia, we're all lucky to be alive. This could have been a very different New Year's Eve, for any of us.” Her whole life had changed since the hurricane, in a much better way than she could ever have dreamed.

And as he looked at her, Bob pulled her slowly into his arms and held her close to him as he kissed her, and she could feel herself melt into him. It was a new beginning, one neither of them could have expected, and better than anything he could have written.

“You're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time, probably ever,” he said with amazement. The mysteries of life were unpredictable and precious, with unexpected blessings where you never thought they would occur.

“It sounds awful to say, given the destruction it caused, and the lives that were lost, but Hurricane Ophelia didn't leave any of us where it found us,” Ellen said to him. Ophelia had changed each of them in important ways.

He nodded as he listened to her, and the fire crackled in the grate as he pulled her closer and kissed her again. The future was looking very bright.