Danielle Steel - Full circle

“You're what?”

“Getting married … I … he feels that we've gotten older … we've been foolish for long enough.…” She stumbled over some of the words he had said to her only days before, blushing furiously and at the same time terrified of what Tana would say. She knew that she hadn't liked Arthur for years, but maybe now.…

“You weren't the fool in all that, Mom. He was. He should have married you fifteen years ago, at least.” She frowned for a moment, mulling over what Jean had said. “Is that what you really want to do, Mom? He's not young anymore, and he's sick … he's kind of saved the worst for you.” It was blunt, but true, but until his heart attack he hadn't even wanted to marry her. He hadn't thought of it in years, not since his wife had come home from the hospital sixteen years before, in fact. But suddenly, everything had changed, and he realized his own mortality. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Tana, I am.” Her mother sounded strangely calm suddenly. It was what she had waited almost twenty years for, and she wouldn't have given it up for anything, not even for her only child. Tana had her own life now, and she had nothing at all, without Arthur. She was grateful to him for finally marrying her. They would have a comfortable, easy life, and she could finally relax. All those years of loneliness and worrying; would he show up, would he come by, should she wash her hair, and then just in case … and he didn't come for two weeks, until the night when Tana had the flu, or she herself had a bad cold … it was all over now, and real life was about to begin. At last. She had earned every minute of it, and she was going to enjoy every minute of it now. “I'm very sure.”

“All right, then.” But Tana did not sound thrilled. “I guess I should say congratulations or something like that.” But somehow she didn't feel like it. It seemed like such a boring bourgeois life, and after all Jean's years of sitting there waiting for him, she would have liked to see her tell him to go to hell. But that was youth thinking, and not Jean. “When are you getting married?”

“In July. You'll come, won't you, sweetheart?” She sounded nervous again, and Tana nodded to herself. She had planned to go home for a month anyway. She had worked it out with her summer job. She was working at a law firm in town, and they understood, or so they said.

“I'll sure try.” And then she had an idea. “Can Harry come?”

“In a wheelchair?” Her mother sounded horrified, and something hardened instantly in Tana's eyes.

“Obviously. It's not exactly as though he has a choice.”

“Well, I don't know … I should think it would be embarrassing for him … I mean, all those people, and … I'll have to ask Arthur what he thinks.…”

“Don't bother.” Tana's nostrils flared and she wanted to strangle someone, primarily Jean. “I can't make it anyway.”

Tears instantly sprang to Jean's eyes. She knew what she'd done, but why was Tana always so difficult? She was so stubborn about everything. “Tana, don't do that, please … it's just … why do you have to drag him along?”

“Because he's been lying in a hospital for six months and he hasn't seen anyone except me, and maybe it would be nice for him. Did that occur to you? Not to mention the fact that this did not happen in a car accident, it happened defending a stinking country we have no right to be in anyway, and the least people can do for him now is show him some gratitude and courtesy.…” She was in a blind rage and Jean was terrified.

“Of course … I understand … there's no reason why he can't come.…” And then suddenly, out of nowhere, “John and Ann are having another baby, you know.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Tana looked blank. It was hopeless talking to her. They never saw eye to eye about anything anymore. Tana had almost given up.

“Well, you could be thinking of that one of these days. You're not getting any younger, dear. You're almost twenty-three.”

“I'm in law school, Mom. Do you have any idea what that's like? How hard I work night and day? Do you have any idea how ridiculous it would be for me to be thinking of marriage and babies right now?”

“It always will be if you spend your time with him, you know.” She was picking on Harry again and Tana saw red at the words.

“Not at all.” Her eyes were fierce, but her mother couldn't see that. “He can still get it up, you know.”

“Tana!” Jean was appalled by Tana's vulgarity. “That's a disgusting thing to say.”

“But it's what you wanted to know, isn't it? Well, you can relax, Mother, it still works. I hear he screwed a nurse a few days ago, and she said it was great.” She was like a big dog refusing to release its prey, and her mother was hanging there, by the neck, and unable to escape. “Feel better now?”

“Tana Roberts, something has happened to you out there.” In the flash of a moment, Tana thought of the grueling hours of studying she had put in, the love she had felt for Harrison, to no avail, the heartbreak of seeing Harry return crippled from Vietnam.… Her mother was right. “Something” had happened to her. In fact, a great deal.

“I think I've grown up. That's not always real pretty, is it, Mom?”

“It doesn't have to be ugly or rude, except in California, I suppose. They must be savages out there at that school.”

Tana laughed. They were worlds apart. “I guess we are. Anyway, congratulations, Mom.” It suddenly dawned on her that she and Billy were going to be stepbrother and -sister now, and the thought almost made her sick. He would be at the wedding, and it was almost more than she could stand. “I'll try to be home in time.”

“All right.” Jean sighed, it was exhausting talking to her. “And bring Harry, if you must.”

“I'll see if he's up to it. I want to get him out of the hospital first, and we've got to move.…” She cringed at the slip, and there was a deafening silence at the other end. That really was too much.

“You're moving in with him?”

Tana took a breath. “I am. He can't live alone.”

“Let his father hire a nurse. Or are they going to pay you a salary?” She could be as cutting as Tana when she tried, but Tana was undaunted by her.

“Not at all. I'm going to split the rent with him.”

“You're out of your mind. The least he could do is marry you, but I'd put a stop to that.”

“No, you wouldn't.” Tana sounded strangely calm. “Not if I wanted to marry him, but I don't. So relax. Mom … I know this is hard for you, but I just have to live my life my own way. Do you think you can just try to accept that?” There was a long pause and Tana smiled. “I know, it's not easy.” And then suddenly she heard Jean crying at the other end.

“Don't you see that you're ruining your life?”

“How? By helping a friend out? What harm is there in that?”

“Because you'll wake up next week and you'll be forty years old and it'll be all over, Tan. You'll have wasted your youth, just like I did, and at least mine wasn't a total waste, I had you.”

“And maybe one day I'll have children of my own. But right now I'm not thinking of that. I'm going to law school so I can have a career and do something useful with my life. And after that, I'll think about all that other stuff. Like Ann.” It was a dig, but a friendly one, and it went right over Jean's head.

“You can't have a husband and a career.”

“Why not? Who said that?”

“It's just true, that's all.”

“That's bullshit.”

“No, it's not, and if you hang around with that Winslow boy long enough, you'll marry him. And he's a cripple now, you don't need a heartbreak like that. Find someone else, a normal boy.”