Chapter Thirty-Five

September, 1971

It had been over a year since Jack's death, and Rose had come to accept that he was gone. She spent a great deal of time with friends and family members, but it was Cal that she saw the most. They walked around the neighborhood together every day, rain or shine, and had finally admitted that Gregory and Emily were right—they were dating. It wasn't the same as when they had been young, and Ruth and Nathan had arranged a marriage between them; instead, it was a much more mature relationship, without the power struggles that had marred their early times together.

Late in September of 1971, Cal took Rose out to a restaurant that had been a favorite of his for years. It wasn't fancy, and certainly wasn't the sort of place he would have considered patronizing before he lost his fortune in the stock market crash in 1929, but he learned, with time, that less expensive establishments could be equally satisfying; sometimes moreso, without the one-upmanship and competition that had so often characterized his old crowd.

Cal escorted Rose to a small table near the back of the restaurant, and waited while the waitress dropped off their menus and left. After they had perused the menus for a moment, he spoke to Rose.

"It's been a long time."

"What has?"

"We've known each other a long time."

She nodded. "Yes. Sixty years now, if I recall correctly. Wasn't it in September of 1911 that our parents first arranged for us to marry?"

"And yet, it doesn't seem that long ago. I remember meeting you as a debutante, with that lovely red hair and an unquenchable fire."

Rose smiled ruefully, touching her now-gray hair. "You certainly tried to put that fire out."

"I didn't know what to do with you. You were so lively, so fascinated with the world around you—not like most debutantes. Your very independence frightened me."

"Unlike Laura, who was everything you could have wanted in a wife."

Cal laughed mirthlessly. "So I thought, until I realized that under the pretty face and fine manners, there was nothing there. No substance, no thoughts of her own."

"But you got her with child, and married her."

"And I've never regretted the children. Laura and I were never really happy together, but I was never sorry for the children we brought into the world. Emily and Nathan were my pride and joy from the moment they were born."

"And now there's grandchildren, and great-grandchildren."

"Yes. And we share them all."

"It's a pity that Nathan never married, but I suppose that marriage isn't for everyone."

They were interrupted as the waitress came back to take their orders. When she had left, Rose looked at Cal again.

"Whatever happened to Laura? Did she ever divorce you?"

Cal shook his head. "No. She never did. She wanted the protection and status of my name, even if she had no wish to be with me, or I with her. And I never bothered to force the issue. There was never another woman who I wanted to marry, so I saw no reason to push for divorce."

"Where is Laura now? Did she ever contact you or your children after she left."

"No, she never did. I think it hurt Emily more than it hurt Nathan—he had long since accepted that his mother was never going to be close to him, but Emily kept hoping. She never saw either of them again, though, or even wrote or called. We finally heard from her lawyer in 1960—she was dying of cancer, and wanted to make sure that her wishes were fulfilled. She died two weeks later. I arranged for her funeral and burial in Pittsburgh, near to her family. I was the only one at her funeral. Emily and Nathan refused to be there, and she didn't have anyone else. She had so thoroughly alienated people that she had no friends in the end."

Rose was silent for a moment. "I didn't like Laura—I can't pretend otherwise—but I pity her. How sad to have no one care for you, to be unable to care for anyone else."

"She always wanted to be on top of the social ladder, but she never was. She never had many friends, and once she married me, her parents virtually ignored her. She was never a very happy person, and I must admit that I didn't help. We didn't deal well together, except for in the marriage bed, and that's not enough to base a successful marriage on. I was relieved when she left, in a way—I had lost everything, and she couldn't stop berating me for that."

"Was that before or after you tried to put a pistol in your mouth?"

"Before. That...incident...came two days after she left. Her leaving was a blow to my pride, and I felt that with my life in shambles, everything I had worked for gone, there was no reason to go on. But Nathan stepped into my study just as I put the gun in my mouth, and screamed for Emily to help. They got the gun away from me, and talked me out of it. I realized then that I did have something to live for—my two children. I had lost everything else, but I still had them, and they were more important than anything else could have been. I shudder to think what would have happened to them if I had pulled that trigger."

Rose put her hand on his. "Jack and I would have taken them in. They had spent so much time with us that they had almost become members of the family. But it was better that you took care of them. They had already lost their mother—not to death, but to abandonment. Think of how losing their father to suicide would have affected them."

He nodded. "I know. It would have been selfish of me to leave them that way. And I'm glad that I didn't, glad that all these years later, I'm still alive. I'm eighty-nine years old, and I've had a good life—but it isn't over yet."

"Some people say that in old age people no longer want to live, no longer take any pleasure in life. I've rarely seen that to be true."

"Nor have I. Old age doesn't seem so old, once you get to it. I'm still wondering when I will really get old."

"Eighty-nine isn't old enough?" Rose teased him.

"Not if I can live to see ninety."

Rose's laughter rang out in the quiet restaurant, making a few people look up and stare. When her laughter had faded away, she looked at Cal, her eyes still sparkling with mirth.

"We both have a lot of living to do," he told her, his eyes taking on a serious look that made Rose's smile fade somewhat.

"Yes," she responded, grateful when the waitress brought their meals, breaking the mood for a moment.

Cal went on. "Sixty years ago, I asked you to be my wife. We've both grown and changed since then. We've married other people, had children—and you, at least, had a long happy marriage, one that I sometimes envied. I envied Jack for having you for a wife, and I envied both of you for your happiness. Now, we're both widowed, but perhaps we can claim some of that happiness for ourselves, in these late years of our lives." He pulled a box from his pocket, revealing a simple but pretty ring. "Rose, I'm asking you to marry me."

There had been a time when Rose would have been shocked by the proposal, would have laughed or stalked out in fury. Now, however, she had no such qualms. She would never forget Jack, but life did go on, and she was ready to move on with hers. As she answered, she could almost sense Jack watching her, looking on approvingly.

"Yes," she told him, giving him her hand. Cal slipped the ring on her finger. "Yes, after all these years, I will marry you."