THE COST OF LOVING
A part of the House of Four Seasons saga, continuation of The Paris Hotel
With Toni and Max
By Atonia Walpole
(Top picture also by Atonia)
The old house was nearly quiet. Inside the front door, the ticking of the hall clock, down the hallway to the kitchen the sound of the large fridge doing its job of cooling. A faint scent of yeast bread left rising on the counter. The yellow glow from the light over the sink and through the window only the outline of the table beyond. Outside, velvet darkness dotted with a few visible diamonds pinpointed in the sky.
Toni walked past the fountain, but its trickle of water did little to calm her. He was late, should have been home over an hour ago. She looked up at the rear of the dear old chateau, lights coming from Tuppy’s room on the third floor, flashing now and again. She was watching TV. A faint glow from the nursery windows...the children were asleep.
She’d sent Max a text message I am home. She’d sent it yesterday afternoon but he hadn’t answered, hadn’t called. She didn’t know what to expect from him. In all the years they’d known each other, he’d never once been angry with her, they had never exchanged a cross word. She felt sick inside.
It was that extra sense that he had that had alerted him to Toni being in Paris. He couldn’t imagine why because Jacky had only just arrived for a month. He’d sent her a message and she hadn’t replied. He’d worried it over in his mind until Aubrey had claimed him for dinner, and too many glasses of wine later he’d slept, unable to think at all.
It was there the next morning again. He checked his phone…nothing. He thought about calling her but something stopped him and he lay the phone down on the bedside table. He closed his eyes and tried to contact Terry. Just a thought he had…fuzzy warm and shut down. He sat on the side of the bed and held his head, too much wine…she was with him. He knew. Something caught in his throat, something unfamiliar and painful and he tried to cough it up but it didn’t come out right. He blinked his eyes to find his lashes wet, went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face and looked into the mirror. You’ve lost her.
Distracted, he’d gone through the motions, meetings, lectures, wine tastings…wine he couldn’t taste at all. Finally a message from her that she was home. He wanted to get off by himself and think but he couldn’t without sending up a flag with Aubrey Duncan. He wanted to go home and even thought of feigning sickness. He was sick. All through the evening, dinner and drinks with wine merchants, he kept thinking what he should do. His first instinct was to go to London and confront Terry…possibly beat the shite out of him. But then he remembered how Terry had looked the other way in London when Toni had come to him. It was different now and he and Terry were two very different people. Terry knew how it was…why did he take her? The pain was back. It had moved to his chest now.
Toni had paced off the garden along the wall. She’d stopped and looked down at the vineyards. Another week and the harvest would be in full swing…would she see it? Max please come home.
She went back inside through the kitchen and dining room into the front hall, dipping her hand in the large bowl of lavender and rose potpourri. She opened the front door to the courtyard…dark, no headlights. It was becoming too much. She wanted to scream out into the darkness with no headlights. Back inside she paced and ended up in the living room on the sofa, hugging a pillow.
He’d opened the door so quietly she hadn’t heard it until it closed.
Max put his bag down and moved to the round table where the mail would lay each day until he picked his up. He fanned through it, aware she was standing a few feet away.
“Are you okay? You’re so late….”
“I missed my flight.” He carefully lay the letters down.
“I’ve been listening for the car.…”
“I had to rent one,” slight smile, “an electric…yellow.”
“Oh.”
He looked up at her, holding her with his eyes. “Why were you in Paris? You never said.”
She took a breath. “I had to know….”
He looked back down at the mail, moving it, squaring it up with his fingers. “What do you know?”
“I…I know I’m where I belong…with you.”
“You had to be with him to know that?”
“No…I think I knew before, but I’ll never…wonder again.”
“Wonder or wander…?” He said it quickly.
“Max….”
“I think…I think I’ve been unrealistic, maybe a fool, to think I could hold you. I told Terry,” he moved around the table, “there was no going back. I should have known he’d try. I know him that well. He’d have to…I would have.”
“He did try but he didn’t succeed. I came home.”
“That’s what your short little message was supposed to convey to me? I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know what home you were referring to, his or ours.”
“Oh, Max!” Her heart turned over. She bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.
“I thought I’d lost you, Toni.”
“No, oh, no…never.”
“But you went to him….”
“Yes…I did. I had to know, Max. We parted so abruptly, so horribly…I had to know where I belonged. I still love him but I know now without a doubt that it is you…you that I belong to, that I’m supposed to be with, and I don’t want to be with anybody else.”
He ran his fingers along the edge of the table, moving a couple of steps forward. “You say that but what will you do the next time he calls for you or when Jack calls for you, because I know that’s coming as sure as I’m standing here.”
Jack…oh, God, no! “I think Terry and I have passed over it now. I don’t think there will be a next time. In fact, I’m sure of it…we both know that now.”
She hadn’t answered about Jack. He dropped his eyes to the bowl of potpourri and he knew with all honesty…she couldn’t. He looked up at her, meeting her eyes, dark and frightened. It hurt to see her like that.
“When I brought you here to live as my wife, it was one of the happiest if not the happiest day of my life. But it came at a price…I haven’t forgotten what it cost all of us…Terry, Me, Jack, you and Connie. Not to mention Aubrey, Penny and Maxi and Jacky and Rose. It’s touched all of us in different ways, perhaps, but we’ve all paid for it in one way or another. I think the least you can do is respect what it’s cost to be where you belong.”
His quietly-spoken words hit her in the stomach and she wrapped her arms around her middle and dropped her head, crying silently, but her shoulders were shaking. She’d never in her life felt so unworthy of someone. She wanted to run, hide herself away, but she couldn’t move because his arms held her.
“You are my life, Toni. You hold me in your hands.” He kissed her temple and held her to him. “And I love you and have since the first time I ever came to the House of Four Seasons.”
Her arms now around his waist, she snubbed back her tears. “Max, I’m sorry.”
“I know, I know, love. We’ve been through a lot, you and I, and here we stand in each other’s arms with nowhere else to go because this is where we both belong. I know it’s not easy for you.”
“Max, I have to be better than that, stronger…because I love you and I know what I have…I know. This thing with Terry had to be settled between us and it is now.”
“I don’t blame him for trying but I’m glad it’s over and done with. It’s awfully quiet. Everybody asleep?”
“Yes. Do you want a drink or something to eat?”
“No. I’ve had two days of drinking and not much sleep. I’m just…tired.”
“I’ve hurt you and, believe me, that’s the last thing in the world I ever meant to do.”
He pulled away from her. “I think I’ll just go up and.…” Picking up his bag at the bottom of the steps, he added, “You can come, too…” He looked over his shoulder.
“…okay.” She wondered if she had enough breath to climb the stairs. The oxygen seemed to have been pulled from the air around her. She followed him to their bedroom.
He kicked off his shoes, loosened his tie and tossed it on a chair, the jacket following. Removing his cufflinks and unbuttoning his shirt, he heard the door close softly and turned and looked at her.
She’d seen that look before a very long time ago at the House of Four Seasons when she’d told him it was Terry she was taking out. She hurt so bad inside for him. She knew what he needed but would he let her love him? He’d pulled himself back, keeping his pain inside, but he wasn’t very good at hiding it, man-child that he was.
He was trying to tuck himself up in that little cocoon he’d built when he was a child, a place to go when the world around him was more than he could stand. The only person who’d ever reached in there and pulled him out was his Uncle Henry. This house had come to represent his Uncle Henry but she was here inside of it, a part of it now. There was nowhere to go.
His stomach felt queasy again. He hoped he wasn’t going to be sick. He’d been sick in the airport in Bordeaux and had missed his flight. Aubrey hadn’t wanted to leave him and he’d finally yelled at him to go. It wasn’t Aubrey’s fault; no way for him to know what was wrong. It wasn’t bad wine, bad food. It was fear. He didn’t know when he came home whether she would be there or not and now that he was home and she was there, it still hadn’t left him.
Toni broke eye contact and moved over to her dressing table, removing her earrings and bracelets. She toed off her shoes under the bench. Not looking at his reflection in her mirror, she took off her skirt and pulled her sweater over her head. In the bathroom she removed her underwear and slipped over her head the nightgown she found on the back of the door. Not much protection in that soft, cotton knit bit of fabric. Did she need it…maybe. She wasn’t sure. She brushed through her hair and washed her face, brushed her teeth, all the normal things, her hands trembling.
He’d slipped on his pajama pants out of some primeval need to cover himself, brushed by her on his way to the bathroom to clean his teeth, wash his hands, take care of the necessaries. A drink of water…there was absolutely nothing else he needed to do in the bathroom. Relieved to see the light was out, she was in bed, he went to the window and opened it a little, pulling the curtains together. He took off his watch and slipped between the sheets. Almost afraid to move, he lay there needing to plump his pillow but not.
She rolled over, facing his back. He was hardly breathing, she could tell. She placed a palm in the middle of his back, running it slowly over his shoulder and down his bicep, moving closer, her knees in the crook of his legs, feeling his warmth against her.
He turned over, pressing his face into her breasts and his arm around her waist. She gathered him close and held him tightly, kissing the top of his head.
He lay there breathing her in and it began to drain away. He found her erect nipple and took it between his teeth. Feeling her sharp intake of breath, he moved to the other one, pushing her gown out of his way. She pulled the gown over her head and he moved up, kissing her breasts, her chest, her neck, until he found her lips. It was a sexual kiss the way he took her lips one at a time, tugging, sucking gently and then probing her mouth deeply with his tongue and inviting her to do the same for him. He moved to her neck and reached down, trying to extricate himself from his pajama pants, getting a foot tangled in the drawstring. She could feel his smile on her neck... damn pajamas.
“You okay?” she whispered.
“Umm.” The pants went to the foot of the bed along with the sheets and blanket. She ran her hands down over his hips, his firm buttocks and back up his sides and he turned her over, pulling her on top of him. She kissed him, his lips, his face, his eyes and his neck and moved down, taking him until he pulled her up. Turning her over again onto her back, he entered her. It was a dance, a waltz with smooth movements, knowing the steps and the rhythm they’d played out many times. Slow and sure until the tempo increased and the kettle drums rolled and the cymbals crashed.
She was home in his arms where she belonged. He kissed her playfully in her ear, biting her earlobe. She bit him back.
“We’re okay now,” he said softly, taking his weight on his arms. “I love you.” He kissed her lips gently.
“I love you, Max. You’ll never know how much.”
“I’ll make you tell me every day. That’s your punishment for Paris.”
“I’ll take it.” She thought about what Terry had said to her, ‘need me’. If ever anyone ever needed her, it was Max and she knew it.
“Don’t ever do that to me again, love.”
“No…no, I will never ever again.” She placed her hands on his soft bearded face. “I know what the price of our love is and we’ve paid it. I won’t forget again.”
Later she pulled the covers up over them, tucking the blanket around him while he slept. She pushed her hair back and lay down on her pillow. She hadn’t thought about the cost of love when she went off to Paris. It never entered her mind. There was only Terry at the other end and she had to get to him. Had it been worth it? It was hard to answer that. Yes, as far as he was concerned…but when she turned her head and looked at Max’s tousled head beside her...no, nothing was so important, nothing. She couldn’t hurt him again. He was too precious to her. He’d said she held his life in her hands…he held hers, too, and it seemed to Toni he did a much better job of it. She smiled a little. Telling him he was loved was punishment?