Danielle Steel - Matters Of The Heart

Robert’s secretary had hired a car and driver for her, and she traveled the three hours north to Rishikesh in comfort. And then they traveled a smaller road to the ashram where she had spent half a year before. It felt like coming home. She had requested a small room by herself. She had asked for time with the swamijis and monks so that she could continue the spiritual seeking she had pursued before. The Sivananda Ashram was a holy place.

She could feel her soul sing when she saw the River Ganga, and the Himalayan foothills where the ashram rested peacefully like a bird in its nest. The moment Hope stepped out of the car, it was as though everything that had happened to her in the past year faded into the mists. The last time she had come here, she had been heartbroken over Mimi, and devastated by the divorce from Paul. This time the pieces of her had felt so broken in Dublin, and the moment she walked into the ashram it was as though all else was stripped from her life and she could feel her essence come alive again like a brightly burning flame. It had been the right place to come.

They had passed several ancient temples on the way to the ashram, and just being there filled her soul. She fasted that night to purify herself, and did yoga in the early morning, and as she stood at the edge of the river afterward, she told her heart to let Finn go. She sent him with her love and prayers down the Holy River Ganga. She released him. And the following day she did the same with Paul, and she wasn’t afraid to be alone anymore.

She met with her beloved master every morning after she did her meditation and yoga. She was up each day by dawn, and her master laughed when she told him she had been broken. He assured her that that was a great gift, and she would be stronger now. She knew that what he said was right and she believed him. She spent as many hours with him as he would allow her. She could never get enough of his wisdom.

“Master, the man I loved was totally dishonest,” she explained to him one day, as she thought of Finn. He had been on her mind all morning. It was January by then. The Christian holidays had come and gone, with very little meaning for her this year. She was grateful not to have to celebrate them, and had slipped into January peacefully. She had been at the ashram for a month by then.

“If he was dishonest, he was a great lesson for you,” the swamiji answered her after a long pause for thought. “We are always better than before when those we love inflict wounds on us. They make us stronger, and when you forgive him, you will no longer feel the scars.” She was aware still that she did feel them, along with the regrets. And part of her still loved him. Her memories of the early days were the hardest to give up. She was more willing to forget the pain. “You must thank him for the pain, deeply, sincerely. He gave you a great gift,” the swamiji told her. Hope found it hard to see it that way, but hoped that eventually she would.

She thought of Paul a great deal too. She missed him, and being able to call him. He was always in her thoughts, somewhere, in the past behind her, along with their daughter, who was a gentle memory now. She had been for a long time.

Hope walked in the foothills. She meditated twice a day now. She prayed with the monks and the other guests at the ashram. And by the end of February she felt more serene than she ever had in her life. She had no contact with the outside world, and missed it not at all.

She was startled when she heard from Robert Bartlett in March. He apologized for calling her at the ashram. They had brought her to the main office for his call. He needed a decision from her. It was about the house in Ireland. They’d had an offer, for the same amount she’d paid for it, which meant that all her improvements would be a loss. But they were willing to buy the furniture for a fair price, which was a loss as well. He said it was a young couple who had fallen in love with it, and were moving from the States. He was an architect and she was an artist, they had three young children, and the house was perfect for them. Hope wished them well and didn’t care about the losses. She wanted to get rid of it, and it was good to know it would be in the right hands. He said that Finn had left right after Christmas, and said he was moving to France. Someone was lending him a château there, in Périgord.

“Did he give you any trouble?” she asked cautiously. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She had spent so much time pushing him from her mind that she was hesitant to think about him now, for fear that he would poison her again. She had worked so hard to heal the wounds, and didn’t want thoughts of him opening them again. Everything about him was toxic for her.

“No, he was all right. Kind of pompous and difficult, but he got out. It doesn’t matter. How are you, Hope?” He was happy to talk to her. He had thought of her often and the day he had put her on the plane to India. She looked so small and fragile, and so brave. He admired her enormously. Getting out the way she had, taking nothing with her, and running for her life through the night took tremendous courage. He knew it all too well.

“I’m fine.” She sounded happy, and free. “It’s so beautiful here. I never want to go back. I wish I could stay forever.”

“It must be beautiful,” he said wistfully.

“It is.” She smiled as she looked out the window at the hills around them, and wished he could see them through the phone. It was a long, long way from Dublin, which she hoped never to see again. It had too many ugly memories for her. She was glad he had been able to sell the house. He had said the new owners were keeping Winfred and Katherine, and Hope was glad to hear it. She had written them both letters of thanks and farewell from the ashram, with apologies for not saying goodbye to them. She was still paying them until the house was sold. “When are you leaving Dublin?” she asked him. It was nice talking to him. He had been part of such a strange time, and had saved her life with his wise counsel. He had been the swamiji of that hour in Dublin. Thinking that made her smile.

“In two weeks. I’m taking my girls to Jamaica for their spring vacation, and then I have to go back and settle in. It’ll be strange working in New York again. I’m going to miss Dublin. I’m sure you don’t have decent memories of it, but it’s been nice for me working here for all these years. It sort of feels like home.”

“I almost feel that way here.”

“When are you coming back?” he asked her.

“I don’t know yet. I’ve been turning down assignments. I think Mark’s getting mad at me, but I’m in no hurry to rush home. Maybe this summer. Monsoon season starts in July. It’s not so great here then. I could go to the Cape.” She had told him about her house there.

“We go to Martha’s Vineyard in the summer. Maybe we could sail over to see you.”

“That would be nice.” He had told her about his girls. One was a dancer, like Mimi, the other one wanted to be a doctor. She remembered their talks about them during those strange days before she left for New Delhi. It all seemed very surreal now. The only thing that still seemed real to her were the early happy months with Finn. It really had been a dream that turned into a nightmare. She wondered who his next victims would be in Périgord or elsewhere.

Robert promised to keep her informed about the sale. And a week later she got a fax. It had gone through at the price she’d paid for it. Blaxton House was no longer hers. It was an enormous relief to her. Her last tie with Ireland and Finn O’Neill had been severed. She was free.

Hope stayed at the ashram until late June. The monsoons were coming, and she savored her last days there like a gift. She had done a little traveling this time with other seekers from the ashram, and had discovered some beautiful places. She had taken a boat trip on the River Ganga. She had bathed in the river many times to purify herself, and she had taken spectacular photographs again of the pink and orange colors at the ashram and along the river. She had worn saris for the last several months. They suited her, and with her jet-black hair, she looked completely Indian. Her teacher had given her a bindi, and she loved to wear it. She felt so much at home here. She was sad for days before she left, and spent many hours with her favorite swamiji on the last day. It was as though she wanted to store up all his knowledge and kindness to take them with her.

“You will be back, Hope,” he said wisely. She hoped he was right. It had been a healing place for her for the past six months. The time had flown by.

On the last morning, she was praying long before the sun came up, and meditating. She knew she was leaving a piece of her soul here, but as she had hoped to, she had found other pieces of herself in exchange. Her teacher had been right in the beginning. Her scars had healed here, faster than she expected. She felt like herself again, only more and better, stronger, wiser, yet more humble. Being there made her feel pure. She couldn’t imagine going back to New York. And she was planning to spend two months on Cape Cod, before starting work in New York in September.

When she left the ashram, they drove through sleepy Rishikesh. She wanted to cling to every moment, every image. She had her camera over her shoulder, but didn’t use it. She just wanted to watch the scenery she loved so much slide by. She had very little with her, except for the saris she had worn, and a beautiful red one she had bought to wear to parties at home. It was prettier than any dress she owned. Robert had sent her camera to her when he retrieved her belongings from the house in Ireland. On her instructions, he sent the rest to her apartment in New York. She had been happiest at the ashram with almost no possessions to weigh her down.

She felt light and free when she boarded the plane in New Delhi. The flight stopped in London on the way back, and she bought a few silly things in the airport. This trip hadn’t been about acquiring objects, it had been about finding herself, and she had. As she flew home she knew that at long last she was whole, possibly more than she ever had been in her life.

When Hope left India, she flew straight to Boston. She wasn’t ready for New York yet. Predictably, it was a shock to her system. People looked so drab here, there were no saris, colorful clothes, or beautiful women. There were no pink and orange flowers everywhere. There were people in blue jeans and T-shirts, and women in short hair. She wanted to put her sari on and wear her bindi. And she wished she were back in New Delhi when she went to rent a car at the airport.

She drove to the Cape, thinking quietly to herself, and for a moment she looked around the house when she got there, and thought of her time there with Finn, and then she opened the shutters and forced him from her mind.

She went to the market that afternoon and bought flowers and groceries, and then put the flowers in vases around the house. She went for a long walk on the beach and felt peaceful being alone. It had been Finn’s greatest threat to her, that if she didn’t give him what he wanted, he would abandon her and she would be alone forever. And instead she had embraced it, and now she enjoyed her solitude. She took her camera with her when she went walking on the beach and she never felt lonely, only quiet and happy and serene.

She saw her old friends there, and went to a Fourth of July picnic. She was still meditating every morning and doing yoga, and she was happy to hear from Robert Bartlett in the second week of July. She had been at the Cape for three weeks then. She had adjusted to some of the culture shock from being back from India. And she still wore simple saris sometimes at night when she was alone. It was a way of reminding herself of her time at the ashram, and she would instantly feel a sense of peace come over her when she wore them. And in the mornings she did yoga on the beach.

“So how is it being back?” Robert asked her when he called her.

“Weird,” she said honestly, and they both laughed.

“Yeah, it kind of is for me too,” he admitted. “I keep wondering why people don’t have brogues when I buy my groceries.”

“Me too,” Hope said, smiling. “I keep looking for saris, and monks.” It was nice to talk to him. He no longer reminded her of a bad time. He was just a friend now, and she invited him and his daughters to come for lunch that weekend. They were coming by sailboat from Martha’s Vineyard, and she told him where they could anchor. She would pick them up at the marina, and then bring them back to the house for lunch and the afternoon.