"Are you still drunk?" She wasn't sure if he was serious or not.

"Probably. But why not, Kate? It might work out fine." He didn't sound totally convinced, but for the first time in thirty-five years, he was willing to give it a try.

"What made you decide that? Did my father put the heat on you today?"

"No. He told me I'd lose you one of these days, if I don't get smart. And maybe he's right."

"You're not going to lose me, Joe," she said softly as they sat down on the sand, and he pulled her close to him. "I love you too much. You don't have to marry me." She almost felt sorry for him. She had come to understand how much his freedom meant to him.

"Maybe I want to marry you. How would that be?"

"Wonderful," she said, smiling at him, and he had never loved her more. "Very, very wonderful. Are you sure?" She was stunned. It had finally come.

"Sure enough," he said honestly. Clarke had made a lot of sense. He saw something in them that Joe saw too, when he was brave enough to look. A love that was both powerful and infinitely rare. "I don't think we should rush into it or anything," he said cautiously "Maybe in six months or a year or so. I need time to get used to the idea. Why don't we keep it to ourselves for now."

"That's fine," she said quietly. They sat together without saying anything for a while, and then they walked back to the house hand in hand.

12.

THEY WENT BACK TO New Jersey to work side by side, and things changed subtly between them as soon as they decided to get married. Kate seemed to feel more confident and more secure, and Joe liked the idea for a while. They talked about plans they were going to make, the house they were going to buy, where to go on their honeymoon. But after several conversations, Joe started to look irritated when she talked about it. It was a nice idea, but too much of a good thing made him nervous. New Jersey to work side by side, and things changed subtly between them as soon as they decided to get married. Kate seemed to feel more confident and more secure, and Joe liked the idea for a while. They talked about plans they were going to make, the house they were going to buy, where to go on their honeymoon. But after several conversations, Joe started to look irritated when she talked about it. It was a nice idea, but too much of a good thing made him nervous.

He didn't have time to think about getting married. They were talking about building a second factory, and his business was exploding into new levels, and to new heights almost every day. By the fall, marriage was the last thing on his mind.

Things there were busier than ever for both of them. So much so that they didn't go to Boston for Thanksgiving, but managed to spend a week with her parents between Christmas and New Year's. By then her mother was so upset about their not being engaged that no one dared to mention marriage anymore. It had become far too sensitive a subject. But Kate was also beginning to realize that as long as she lived with him, there was no particular rush for them to get married. Joe had so much on his plate that she didn't want to press him about their plans. He was just too busy. And too frightened by the commitment he'd made. She could sense it: As soon as he'd proposed to her, he started to back away.

Kate didn't say anything about it until spring, it was 1947 by then, and she was beginning to wonder if he really did want to get married. She mentioned it once or twice, and he was always too preoccupied to discuss it with her. She had just turned twenty-four, and Joe was thirty-six, and the most important man in aviation. The business he had helped start a year and a half before had turned into a gold mine. He took her father up in one of his newest planes when he came to visit them. She was still keeping up the myth that she was staying at the hotel, and her father was discreet enough not to press them about it, but he was worried about her. And Joe seemed to be spending all his time either in meetings or in the air. He had given her a real job by then, she was handling PR for him, and earning a sizable salary. But it wasn't money she needed, the Jamisons had more than enough for her. As far as they were concerned, she needed a husband. Clarke was certain by then that his conversation with Joe the summer before had fallen on deaf ears, and Liz was pressing Kate to come back to Boston to live with them. By summer, Joe had not said a word about their getting married in months.

It was a full two years after he'd come home and a year after he'd proposed to her that Kate sat him down finally and asked him a blunt question. Whatever he was thinking, she wanted to know.

"Are we ever getting married, Joe? Or have you decided to skip it entirely?" Even he had to admit that he'd been avoiding the issue. He had liked the idea when he talked to Clarke, and he saw some merit to it, particularly for Kate, given her history, but it just seemed so unnecessary to him, from his point of view at least. And the truth was, he finally admitted to her again, he didn't want to have children. He had thought about it repeatedly, and knew it wasn't for him. It just wasn't what he wanted out of life. All he wanted were his business and his planes, and Kate to come home to at night. He didn't want kids or need marriage. He didn't want to be that tied down. What he was doing was too exciting. The prospect of screaming babies in the house and diapers to change horrified him. He had hated his own childhood, and had no desire to share, much less deal with, someone else's. "Are you telling me that if we get married, you don't want kids?" It was the first time he had actually spelled it out for her. She knew he wasn't enthusiastic about them, but it had never occurred to her that he had made a firm decision. And he had never before shared that with her quite as directly. He thought it was better not to. And she had been so incredibly helpful in his business that he had no desire to lose her to some screaming brat. Marriage seemed ominous enough to him without adding children to it.

"I think that is what I'm saying," he said honestly. He had never lied to her, he just didn't discuss it. "In fact, I know it. I don't want kids." That decision had made him question the point of getting married, in spite of everything Clarke had told him a year before.

"Wow," she said, sitting back in a chair in his apartment. She had no home of her own, just his spa.r.s.ely furnished place, her hotel room, and her parents' home in Boston. She felt as though she had been slapped after what he'd just said. "I've always wanted to have children." It was a huge sacrifice for her to make for him, but she also knew how much she loved him, and she didn't want to lose him. Not after losing him for nearly two years during the war. She knew what that felt like. She wondered if he'd change his mind about having kids once they got married. It was a risk she could take, but he wasn't suggesting they get married either. All discussions of that had ended months before. "What do you think, Joe?" she asked him after he had told her about not having children.

"About what?" He looked at her awkwardly. He felt cornered by the questions she had asked.

"About marriage. Have you ruled that out too?" She was upset that he hadn't told her he'd decided he didn't want children. It seemed unfair not to have at least said so, but admittedly, he was busy and had other things on his mind. He thought of his growing empire all the time, and nothing else these days.

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "Do we need to? If we're not going to have kids, why get married?" His walls had gone up and there was a look of panic in her eyes.

"Are you serious?" She was staring at him as though he were a stranger, and she was beginning to think he had become one. She wasn't quite sure when. But everything had changed again. She couldn't help wondering if his decision not to tell anyone the year before that they had decided to get married was so that he would have the freedom to change his mind. And apparently, he had.

"Do we have to talk about this now? I have an early meeting tomorrow." He looked annoyed, and wanted the conversation to end. Just talking about it made him feel trapped, and worse yet, guilty for not wanting to marry her. And guilt was the one thing Joe couldn't stand. It struck terror in his heart, and it was a pain more acute than any he had ever known. It brought back each and every nightmare from his past, especially the echoed voices of the cousins who had relentlessly told him how "bad" he was as a child.

"This is our life we're talking about, our future," Kate insisted, "I think that may just be important." There was an edge to her voice that was like fingernails on a blackboard to him. Her tone reminded him of her mother instantly.

"Do we have to settle it tonight?" He was irritated, but she was more so. She could feel him withdrawing, which made her want to clutch at him, and only drove him away more. They were trapped in a deathly dance. She was feeling abandoned by him, and sensing that in her, and the panic it caused, made him want to run.

Joe wanted to escape, and hide somewhere to lick his wounds, but Kate wasn't wise enough to leave him alone. Panic was a powerful force she could not control.

"Maybe we don't have to settle it at all," she said unhappily, and hearing her tone made him feel guiltier and even more desperate to flee. Joe felt guilt like a physical blow she was dealing him. "Maybe you just did settle it," she said. "You're telling me you don't want kids, and you don't see any reason to get married. That's kind of a big switch in decisions, isn't it?" His decisions affected her entire future, and she suddenly felt even more panicky. She had been patiently waiting for the right time for him, for two years. And she had suddenly come to understand that there was no right time, as far as he was concerned, and never would be. Marriage was no longer an option for him. Or for her, as a result.

"I have a business to run, Kate. I don't know how much energy I'd have left for a wife and kids. Probably none." He was frantically seeking refuge from her, and in his own way, his panic was as great as hers, but for Joe, it translated to something very distant and cool, which frightened her as much as her advances did him.

"What are you saying to me?" she said, as her eyes filled with tears. He was destroying everything she'd hoped for, and all her dreams with him. She had only come to New Jersey to work for him to facilitate their life together, and speed things up so they could settle down. But it was the business he was in love with now. And the airplanes. Always the planes. There were no other women in his life. His planes were his mistresses, his children, and his wives.

"I guess I'm saying that this is it," he answered her finally, since she was pressing him. "This is as good as it gets, for me at least. I don't need the rest. I don't need marriage, Kate. I can't do it. I don't want it. I need to be free. We have each other. What difference does it make if we have a piece of paper? What does that mean?" It meant nothing to him, but it meant a lot to her.

"It means you love me and trust me, and care about me, and want to stay with me forever, Joe," that was the key issue for her. And forever forever was a word that frightened him. "It means you stand up and say you believe in me, and I believe in you. It means we're proud of each other. Somehow I think we owe each other that by now." He hated hearing that. It sounded painful to him. He felt like she was trying to nail him to the floor. Or the cross. He felt engulfed suddenly and overwhelmed by what she needed from him, and he was determined to protect himself at all costs. Even if it meant losing her. was a word that frightened him. "It means you stand up and say you believe in me, and I believe in you. It means we're proud of each other. Somehow I think we owe each other that by now." He hated hearing that. It sounded painful to him. He felt like she was trying to nail him to the floor. Or the cross. He felt engulfed suddenly and overwhelmed by what she needed from him, and he was determined to protect himself at all costs. Even if it meant losing her.

"We don't owe each other anything, except to be here if we want to be, on a day-by-day basis. And if we don't want to anymore, we do something else. There are no guarantees." Joe was shouting at her by then, which offended and frightened her. It was his way of trying to keep her at a safe distance. He was running away. What Kate saw, and felt, was that Joe was abandoning her, just as her father had, which only made her pursue him more.

"When did this happen?" she asked, her voice rising beyond what she intended, but he had pushed her too far. She felt as though she was spiraling down into an abyss. She felt desperate, frightened, and out of control. "When did you decide not to get married?" she asked plaintively. "When did everything change? And why didn't I understand that this was what you were thinking? Why didn't you tell me, Joe?" She was beginning to sob, and it was hard to breathe. "Why are you doing this to me?" He cringed, listening to her, and felt her words pierce him like knives.

"Why can't you just let it be?" he begged.

"Because I love you," she said miserably. But he was no longer sure he loved her. Or if he ever could, enough to make up for her father killing himself when she was a child. By then, Joe felt as desperate as she. As desperate as she was to avoid his abandoning her. It was Kate who was actually causing him to flee.

"Can we go to bed now, Kate? I'm tired." He looked like he was drowning. They both were. They were like two terrified children clawing at each other, and neither of them was able to be adult enough to stop. They were both too scared, she of abandonment, and he of being devoured.

"I'm tired too," she said in a tone of despair. She felt lonelier than she ever had in her life. She went to take a shower, and she stayed in it for a long time. She felt sh.e.l.l-shocked and unloved as she stood there and cried. When she got into bed, he was already asleep. She got into bed next to him and looked at him for a long time, wondering who he was. She stroked his hair cautiously, as though he might attack her again, and he murmured in his sleep, and turned away. She knew that in spite of what he said, he loved her, and she loved him, maybe even enough to give up all her dreams. But she couldn't see how anymore. He was afraid of loving her. He felt safer running away. And all she wanted was to be close to him.

She had made a decision in the shower that night. She knew she had to leave before they destroyed each other. He was never going to marry her. It was time to go. Her mother had been right about him all along.

She told Joe the next morning, over breakfast. She said it quietly and reasonably, and succinctly. "I'm leaving, Joe." Their eyes met across the table and he looked confused. He was still reverberating from the pain they had caused each other the night before.

"Why, Kate?" He looked shocked, but he didn't tell her not to go.

"After what you said last night, I can't stay here anymore. I love you. With all my heart. With all my life. I waited two years for you, unable to believe you were dead. I didn't think I could love anybody else after you, and I still don't. Not the way I love you. I never will. But I want a husband and children and a real life. You don't want the same things I do." There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, but she was trying to stay calm, despite the sinking feeling of panic in her stomach, or the knife in her heart. She wanted him to take back everything he'd said the night before, but he didn't say a word.

Joe finished his breakfast silently, and then he looked at her. It was one of those hideous moments in a life that you remember forever, visually and word by word. "I love you, Kate. But I have to be honest with you. I don't think I ever want to get married. I don't want to. I don't want to be married to anyone, except maybe my planes. I don't want to be tied down. I don't want to be 'owned.' There's room for you here, if you want to share my work with me. But that's all I can give you. It's all I have to give. Me and my planes. I probably love them as much as I love you. Maybe more some days. I can't love you more than that, I'm too afraid. Kate, it's who I am, and all I have to give. I don't want kids. Ever. I don't have room for them in my life. I don't need them. And I don't want them." Joe realized with regret that right then, he didn't want her either. She was too big a threat to him. He wanted his business and his planes, and her after that. But Kate was a twenty-four-year-old girl, and she wanted babies and a husband and a life, not just the opportunity to work for him. What he had just said to her struck her like a blow, and confirmed all of her worst fears.

"I don't want a business, Joe. I want children. I want you. I love you, but I'm going home. I guess I should have asked these questions a long time ago." She felt like an utter fool. And she felt the same way she had the day her father died. Overwhelmed by immeasurable loss.

"I don't think I knew how I felt when we started the business. Now I do. Do whatever you have to do, Kate."

"I'm leaving you," she said simply, as their eyes met.

"Is it worth leaving the business?" He couldn't imagine her doing that. He thought she'd be crazy if she did. Didn't she understand what he was doing here? It was something that had never been done before, and he wanted to share it with her. It was the best he could give. But right then, she didn't care.

"It's not my business, Joe, it's yours." He hadn't thought about that. That clarified things for him, or at least so he thought.

"Do you want stock?"

She smiled at him. "No. I want a husband. My mother was right, I guess. Eventually, it matters. To me anyway."

"I understand," he said, and believed he did. He wanted to. But they both had a lot to learn. Joe picked up his briefcase and looked at her. "I'm sorry, Kate." After all they'd been to each other for seven years, in one form and another, he had to let her go. He wasn't willing to be forced into marrying her. He had too many other things to think about. In public life on the exterior, he knew that he had become an important man, but deep inside, no matter how important he was, he was still a frightened, lonely little boy.

"I'm sorry too, Joe," Kate whispered.

It was like a death scene. Their relationship was dying. He was killing it. He had made disastrous choices about their life without even consulting her. But he felt he had no other choice.

He didn't kiss her goodbye. He didn't say anything. And neither did Kate. He just walked out the door with his briefcase, without looking back, as Kate watched him go.

13.

KATE'S PARENTS KNEW she had come home for good, but they didn't know why. She never explained it to them, never said anything about Joe or what had happened in New Jersey. She felt too bruised and broken to discuss it with them. And she was crushed when he never called her. She kept hoping that he would wake up and miss her unbearably, and call to tell her that he wanted to marry her and have children with her after all. she had come home for good, but they didn't know why. She never explained it to them, never said anything about Joe or what had happened in New Jersey. She felt too bruised and broken to discuss it with them. And she was crushed when he never called her. She kept hoping that he would wake up and miss her unbearably, and call to tell her that he wanted to marry her and have children with her after all.

But he meant what he had said. He sent her a small box of clothes a few weeks later, things she had forgotten in his apartment, and there was no note with it. Her parents could see how much pain she was in, but they didn't press her, although her mother suspected what had happened. Kate spent three months in the Boston winter, going for long walks and crying. And it was a painful Christmas for her. She thought of calling Joe a thousand times, and she desperately wanted to, but she wasn't willing to live with him as his mistress. In the long run, it would have made her feel like an outcast. She went skiing for a few days after Christmas, and came back to spend New Year's Eve with her parents. She didn't reach out to Joe, and he never called her. She felt as though part of her had died when she left him, and she couldn't imagine a life without him. But now she had to. She had taken a brave stand, and now she had to live with it, and make the best of it. She had no other choice.

She made an effort to see a few old friends, but she no longer seemed to have anything in common with them. Her life had been too entwined with Joe's for too many years. Not knowing what else to do, and determined to have a life of her own again, she decided to move to New York in January and take a job at the Metropolitan Museum, as an a.s.sistant to the curator in the Egyptian wing. At least it called into play her art history studies from Radcliffe, although these days she knew a lot more about airplanes. Her heart wasn't in it at first, but she was surprised to find, once she got there, that she loved her job, far more than she had expected. And by February, she had found an apartment. All she had to do now was get through the rest of her life. The prospect seemed grim and endless and depressing and incredibly empty without him. Night and day, she missed everything about him. Even when she was working, Joe was all she thought of. She read about him constantly in the papers. Seven years ago he had been in the news for setting flight records, and now the whole world was talking about him building fantastic airplanes. And when he wasn't working on them, he was flying them.

She saw in the paper in June that he had won a prize at the Paris Air Show. She was happy for him. And miserable, and lonely for herself. She was twenty-five years old, more beautiful than she knew, and her life was more boring than her mother's.

She never went on dates, and when people asked her out, she told them she was busy. It was just like when his plane was shot down, she was mourning him, and missing him intensely. She didn't even go to Cape Cod that summer because she knew it would remind her of him. Everything reminded her of him. Talking, living, moving, breathing. Even going to restaurants and eating. Cooking. It was absurd and she knew it, but he had become part of her essence. All she had to do now, she was convinced, was wait a lifetime to forget him. It could be done, she told herself, she just wasn't sure she could do it. She woke up every morning feeling as though someone had died, and then she remembered who. She had.

She had been in New York nearly a year when she was in the grocery store one day buying dog food. She had just gotten a puppy to keep her company, and even she laughed at herself and admitted that it was pathetic. She was checking out the different brands, when she looked up and was startled to see Andy. She hadn't seen him in more than three years, and he looked very grown-up and handsome in a dark suit and a Burberry. He had just come home from work and was obviously buying groceries. She a.s.sumed by then that he was married, although she didn't know that for sure.

"How are you, Kate?" he asked, smiling broadly. He had long since recovered from the blow she had dealt him, although even thinking about her had pained him for a long time, and he had thrown away all his pictures of her. But he was fine now.

"I'm fine, how've you been?" She didn't tell him that she'd missed him. Good friends were hard to come by, and it had been a long time since she'd had someone to talk to like him.

"I've been busy. What are you doing here?" He seemed happy to see her.

"I live here. I work at the Metropolitan. It's fun."

"That's nice. I read about Joe everywhere these days. That's an incredible empire he started. Do you have kids yet?" She laughed at the question. It made an obvious a.s.sumption, which was not only incorrect, but now obsolete.

"No. I have a puppy." She pointed at the dog food, and then decided to correct the a.s.sumption for old times' sake. "I'm not married." He looked stunned when she said it.

"You and Joe didn't get married?"

"No. He's married to his airplanes. It was a good decision for him."

"What about you?" he asked honestly. He had always been straightforward with her, it was one of the things she liked about him. "How was it for you, his decision, I mean?"

"Not so great. I left. I'm getting used to it. It's been about a year now." It had been fourteen months, two weeks and three days, but she thought she'd spare him the details. "What about you? Married? Kids?"

"Girlfriends. Many of them. Safer. No heartbreak." He hadn't changed at all, and she laughed at his response.

"Good for you. I'll see if I can find you some more. There are lots of cute girls working at the museum."

"You among them. You look great, Kate." She had cut her hair shorter, mostly out of boredom. Her big excitement these days were manicures and haircuts, and the dog.

"Thank you." It had been so long since she'd talked to a man her own age for more than five minutes that she wasn't sure what to say to him.

"How about a movie sometime?"

"I'd like that," she said, as they wheeled slowly toward the checkout. He had bought cornflakes and some soda, she noticed. And he was carrying a bottle of scotch he'd just bought at the liquor store. A bachelor's diet. "Shouldn't you at least have toast or milk with that?" she suggested and he grinned. She hadn't changed either. "Or do you just put the scotch on your cornflakes? I'll have to try that."

"I drink it neat as a chaser."

"What do you do with the soda?"

"I use it to clean my carpets."

They were enjoying the banter that reminded them both of the old days at school, and he insisted on paying for her dog food. He had always been generous with her, and chivalrous and kind.

"Are you still working for your father?" she asked as they walked out of the store.

"Yes, it's worked out pretty well. He gives me all the divorce cases, he hates them."

"That's cheerful. Well, at least I was spared that."

"Maybe you were spared more than that, Kate. Men like that are never easy. Too brilliant, too creative, too difficult. You were so in love with him, I don't think you saw it." She had, and she had loved it. Much as she had loved Andy as a friend, he had never seemed exciting enough to her. Joe was like a shining star, just out of reach, and always what she wanted, perhaps all the more because of that.

"Are you suggesting I look for a dumb one?" She was amused by the implication, but he was serious when he answered.

"Maybe just someone a little more human. He was hard to measure up to, and a tough act to follow. You deserve better." She was grateful for Andy's kindness in rea.s.suring her. He was such a wonderful, kind man, she was surprised he hadn't married. "I'll call you," he said as they started to head in opposite directions. "How do I find you?"

"I'm listed, or call the museum."

He called her two days later, and took her to a movie. And then ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. And out to dinner. They had been together almost constantly by the time she went home for Christmas three weeks later. She didn't tell her parents she'd seen him, she didn't want her mother to get excited. But she answered the phone when he called her in Boston on Christmas morning. And she was happy to hear him. It was almost like the old days, except she liked him better now. He was comfortable and easy and kind to her. He had none of Joe's brilliance, but he cared about her. Just as she had never gotten over Joe, he had never gotten over Kate completely.

"I miss you," he said when she answered. "When are you coming back?"

"In a couple of days," she said vaguely. She was disappointed that she hadn't heard from Joe for Christmas. He could have done that much. It was as though he had forgotten her completely, as though she'd never existed. She had thought of calling him, but decided it was better if she didn't. It would just depress her, and remind her of everything they'd had, and then lost.

"When did you start seeing Andy again?" her mother asked with interest when she hung up the phone.

"I ran into him a few weeks ago, in the grocery store."

"Is he married?"

"Yes. And he has eight children," she teased her mother.