Danielle Steel - Matters of the Heart

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.

Chapter 23

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.

It was a gloriously sunny day when they sailed over from the Vineyard, and she smiled when she saw his daughters stepping off the boat in bare feet onto the dock. They were carrying their sandals in their hands, and he was shepherding them around like a mother hen, which made her laugh. He was reminding them to put on sunscreen, take their hats with them, and put their shoes on so they didn’t get splinters on the dock.

“Dad!” His oldest daughter scolded him, and then he introduced them both to Hope. Amanda and Brendan. They were very pretty girls, and they both looked a lot like him.

They loved her house. And they sensed the peace there, and the warmth. That afternoon all four of them went for a long walk on the beach. The two girls walked far ahead of them, and Robert and Hope brought up the rear.

“I like your girls,” Hope said, as they walked along.

“They’re good girls,” he said proudly. He knew that she had lost a daughter who was about the same age and he wondered if it was hard for her being around them, but she said it wasn’t, it brought back happy memories for her. He thought she looked like a different woman from the shattered soul he had rescued in Blessington seven months before, in a woodshed behind a pub. The memory struck them both. She had never been as happy to see anyone in her life. And he had been so kind to her when he took her to his house, and let her sleep in his bed, while he slept on the couch.

“You recovered a lot faster than I did when it happened to me,” he said quietly. He admired her a lot for all that she’d been through and survived.

“India will do that for you,” she said happily. She looked like a free woman, as they turned finally and went back to her house, and then he had an idea.

“Do you want to sail back to the Vineyard with us? You can stay with us for a few days if you like.” She thought about it for a minute. She had nothing else to do, and it sounded like fun to be on the sailboat with them. They’d be back at the Vineyard by that night. And she could rent a car to get her back to the Cape.

“Are you sure?” she asked him cautiously. She didn’t want to intrude. She knew from what he’d said how precious his time with his daughters was, now that they were away at school most of the year. He talked a lot about how much he missed them all the time. But he insisted that he wanted Hope to join them, and the girls added their voices to his. They said it would be fun.

Robert helped her close the house. She packed a small bag and put the alarm on when they left. She drove them back to the marina and parked her car. She liked being with them. It was like being a family again. She was so used to being alone now that it didn’t bother her at all. But having opened her arms to it, as the swamiji had instructed her at the ashram, she found suddenly that being in a group like theirs was a precious gift.

She helped them toss the lines when they set sail, and then she stood next to Robert as they sailed slowly up the coast. And for some odd reason she thought of Finn then and his dire threats about how lonely she would be if she didn’t stay with him, reminding her of how alone she was and that she would have no one now. She looked at Robert then, and he smiled at her and put an arm around her shoulders and it felt right.

“Are you okay?” he asked her with that same kind look in his eyes she had noticed the first time she met him in Dublin, and she nodded with a smile.

“Yes, I am,” she confirmed. “Very much so. Thanks for bringing me along.” He had noticed the same thing she did, that the four of them seemed like a nice fit. The girls chatted with her as they made their way slowly to the Vineyard. The sun was setting as Robert trimmed the sails with Amanda’s help. Hope and Brendan went below to get snacks for all of them. It was one of those perfect moments when you wanted to stop time, and when they came back on deck, Hope took pictures of the girls. She wanted to give copies to Robert, and she got a lovely one of him in profile with the sails behind him, and his hair ruffled by the breeze. He quietly reached over and took her hand then. She had come a long, long way from where he’d found her on that terrible morning. And as he looked at her and they exchanged a smile in the balmy evening, she discovered that her master had been right, all her scars had disappeared.

“Thank you,” she whispered to Robert, and he nodded, smiling back at her, and then they both looked at his girls. They were laughing at something one of them had said to the other, and as Robert and Hope looked at them, they started laughing too. It was just one of those times when everything felt good. A wonderful day, a perfect evening, the right people, a moment to be cherished, and a feeling of rebirth.

MATTERS OF THE HEART

A Delacorte Press Book / June 2009

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.