“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 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 shell-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.

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 assistant 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.