Danielle Steel - Miracle

They went on easy sails over the weekend, and the weather was spectacular. It was sunny and warm, and the breeze was exactly what they wanted it to be for sailing. Jack came to dinner with them on Friday night, and he said he was loving school, and Michelle was busy planning their wedding. Quinn offered to charter a boat for their honeymoon, and Jack declined regretfully. Michelle would have hated it, since she got seasick, unlike Maggie, who would have loved it.

Their first week together on the boat was easy and comfortable, Quinn and Maggie managed to make time for each other, and they spent a lot of time talking at night, as though storing memories to save for the many years ahead when they would no longer be together. Waiting for him to leave was like planning a death, or a funeral. They knew it was coming, and even when. She felt as though he were going to pull the plug on her respirator, and even though she had always known it would come to this, she had never expected it to hurt quite so acutely.

By the second week, the anticipated end began to cause both friction and tension between them. It was impossible for it not to. Maggie began dreaming of Andrew every night, and she had a nightmare about Charles, and woke up screaming. And there was very little Quinn could do to help her. All he could have done was change his plans, and decide not to leave, and Maggie would never have expected that of him. But nonetheless, as the days rolled by, she felt as though the life and air were being sucked out of her. She could hardly breathe on their last weekend, and Quinn was feeling the full weight of what it was doing to her, although she never said anything about it. He knew he had to leave her, even though for a crazed instant he almost asked her to come along. But he owed more than that to Jane. And Maggie needed a real life again, with people and friends and work. He couldn't just abscond with her on a boat. And if he took her with him, however tempting that was, he would have broken his vow to Jane. He said as much to Maggie again as they sat on the aft deck under the sails. She was looking miserably unhappy, and could no longer conceal it, nor tried.

“I can't believe she'd have expected that of you,” Maggie said, looking out to sea, and feeling as though she were about to scatter her own ashes. “I read her poems to you. She loved you, Quinn. She wouldn't have wanted you to be unhappy.”

And the odd thing was, he wasn't. He was sad to be leaving her, but there was a certain sense of peace to be going to solitude and freedom, almost like a monastic life he had chosen. He needed the respite he knew it would give his soul. He no longer had the energy to begin a life with anyone, and he hadn't earned it. He had made too big a botch of the last one, as far as he was concerned. And he didn't want to make a mess of it with Maggie, he didn't want to risk it. He loved her too much to hurt her. They had each suffered enough pain in their lives. He wanted to leave her knowing that he had made her happy. They had been good to each other, and he didn't want more than that from her, nor did he feel he could give her more than he had. They had done it, and loved well. And now it was time to end it. “On Monday, he was leaving for Holland. All that remained to them now was one final weekend. Jack came to dinner on Friday night, and he and Quinn said good-bye with a warm hug and a powerful handshake.

On Sunday, Maggie was agonizingly silent. She could barely talk to him. There was nothing left to say. It had all been said a thousand times, a thousand ways. She wished that she had had Jane's gift with poems. But all she felt in her heart now was pain, the agony of loss she had already felt too often for one lifetime.

Quinn lay next to her on the deck, and held her hand. They lay there for a long, long time, and the crew left them alone, knowing what was coming. Quinn had ordered a sumptuous dinner for them, with caviar and champagne, and Maggie barely touched it. And shortly afterward, they went to their cabin. It was then that she began to cry, and looked at him with eyes that tore his heart out. It almost made him regret coming back after the sea trials. This was too hard for both of them, and he wondered if he had made a mistake coming back to San Francisco, if that had been even crueler to her. But however they had done it, or when, the end would have been excruciatingly painful.

Before they went to bed, she stood in her nightgown please take me with you.”

“I can't, Maggie. You know that,” he said sadly.

“No, I don't. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand why we have to do this.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks in silent rivers.

“We agreed to this in the beginning,” he reminded her. “You know that.”

“That was then, and this is different. We didn't know we'd love each other then. I love you, Quinn.”

“I love you too, Maggie. But sooner or later, I would hurt you.” He wanted to add that he didn't deserve her, but he stopped himself. That was the flaw in all of it. He still felt he had to atone for his past sins. Alex had forgiven him. And Jane would have, Maggie was sure. But Quinn couldn't forgive himself. And as long as he didn't, he couldn't allow himself to be happy. He had to find solitude to atone for all that he could never change now, and he wanted Maggie to understand that. “I've hurt everyone I've ever cared about. My daughter, my son, Jane…. How can I forget all that? Can't you understand that?” In Maggie's eyes, he was like Charles, unable to forgive himself for what had happened. And he had also blamed her. Quinn blamed only himself. And whatever their reasons for leaving, whether it was Andrew, Charles, or Quinn, she was the loser.

“You can't run away forever, Quinn,” she said, looking agonized.

“Yes, I can,” he said sadly. “I ran away in the past, and it was the wrong thing then. But this time it's right, Maggie, I know it. You'll have a better life without me.” There was no reasoning with him. He was convinced that he was doing the right thing, and it was what he wanted. Maggie couldn't sway him. He would not let her.

“I don't want a better life. I want to be with you. You don't have to marry me, or betray Jane. You can stay married to her forever. I just want to be with you. How can you throw this away, or walk away? It's totally crazy.” It made no sense to her now, particularly because she knew he loved her. But to Quinn, that was all the more reason to leave her. It was what he expected of himself. He owed this final sacrifice to all the people he had hurt in the past, whether or not Maggie understood it.

In the end, she lay and sobbed in his arms for most of the night, and in the morning they both looked as though someone had died. It took every ounce of courage she had to dress and follow him upstairs to breakfast. She just sat silently with tears rolling down her cheeks, as he looked at her, as bereft as she was. She hadn't felt this awful since Andrew had died, and that had made just as little sense to her. Her beautiful child had taken his life. And now this man was leaving her because he loved her.

“This is what I believe is right,” Quinn said quietly. “Please don't make it harder than it already is.” And out of sheer love for him, she nodded, and at least tried to pull herself together. He had already told her that he didn't want her to take him to the airport. And she knew she couldn't. He held her for a last time, and kissed her, storing the memories for himself, and she touched his face one last time before he put her in a cab. His was coming in a few minutes.

As she pulled away, he stood on the deck watching her. Their eyes never left each other for a single moment. He raised his hand once and waved at her. She blew him a kiss as the cab pulled away, and as soon as they were out of sight of the boat, she was engulfed in sobs, and the driver watched her silently in the rearview mirror. She had him take her home, and didn't go to work that day. She couldn't. She sat in her kitchen, watching the clock. And when she knew his plane had taken off, she put her head down on the table and sobbed. She sat there for hours, crying and never moving. She had cherished the months she spent with him, and now she knew she had to do what she had promised, no matter how painful. She had to let him go, to be how and where and what he wanted, whether or not it made sense to her. If she loved him as she said she had, she had to let him have the one thing he wanted of her. His freedom.