Danielle Steel - Full circle

“Why?” Tana's heart ached for him. “He's human too. More so than most, in fact.”

“You hardly know any boys. You never go out.” Thanks to your darling stepson, Mom. But actually, lately, it was thanks to law school. Ever since Harrison, she had begun to feel differently about men, in some ways more trusting and open, and yet so far no one measured up to him. He had been so good to her. It would have been wonderful to find someone like him. But she never had time to go out with anyone now. Between going to the hospital every day and preparing for exams … everyone complained of it. Law school was enough to destroy an existing relationship, and starting a new one was almost impossible.

“Just wait a couple of years, Mom. And then I'll be a lawyer, and you'll be proud of me. At least I hope you will.” But neither of them was too sure just then.

“I just want a normal life for you.”

“What's normal? Was your life so normal, Mom?”

“It started out to be. It wasn't my fault that your father was killed and things changed after that.”

“Maybe not, but it was your fault you waited almost twenty years for Arthur Durning to marry you.” And the truth was that if he hadn't had his heart attack, he might never have married her. “You made that choice. I have a right to my choices too.”

“Maybe so, Tan.” But she didn't really understand the girl, she didn't even pretend to anymore. Ann Durning seemed so much more normal to her. She wanted what every other girl wanted, a husband, a house, two kids, pretty clothes, and if she'd made a mistake early on, she'd been smart enough to do better the second time. He had just bought her the most beautiful sapphire ring at Carder's, and that was what Jean wanted for her child, but Tana didn't give a good goddamn.

“I'll call you soon, Mom. And tell Arthur I said congratulations to him too. He's the lucky one in this deal, but I hope you'll be happy too.”

“Of course I will.” But she didn't sound it when she hung up. Tana had upset her terribly, and she told Arthur about it, as much as she could, but he just told her to relax. Life was too short to let one's children get the best of one. He never did. And they had other things to think about. Jean was going to redecorate the Greenwich house, and he wanted to buy a condo in Palm Beach, as well as a little apartment in town. They were giving up the apartment she had had for years. And Tana was shocked when she discovered that.

“Hell, I don't have a home anymore either.” She was shocked when she told Harry that, but he looked unimpressed.

“I haven't had one in years.”

“She saicL there'll always be a room for me wherever they live. Can you imagine my spending the night in the Greenwich house, after what happened there? I get nightmares thinking of it. So much for that.” It depressed her more than she wanted to admit to him, and she knew that marrying Arthur was what Jean wanted, but somehow it seemed so depressing to her. It was so ultimately middle class, so boring and bourgeois, she told herself, but what really bothered her was that Jean was still at Arthur's feet after all the crap she had taken from him over the years. But when she told Harry that, he got annoyed with her.

“You know you've been turning into a radical, and it bores the hell out of me, Tan.”

“Have you ever considered the fact that you're more than a little right wing?” She started to look uptight.

“Maybe I am, but there's nothing wrong with that. There are certain things I believe in, Tan, and they aren't radical, and they aren't leftist, and they aren't revolutionary, but I think they're good.”

“I think you're full of hot air.” There was an unusual vehemence about what she said, but they had already disagreed about Vietnam several times. “How the hell can you defend what those assholes are doing over there?” She leapt to her feet and he stared at her, there was an odd silence in the room.

“Because I was one of them. That's why.”

“You were not. You were a pawn. Don't you see that, you fucking jerk? They used you to fight a war we shouldn't be fighting in a place we shouldn't be in.”

His voice was deathly quiet as he looked at her. “Maybe I think we should.”

“How can you say a dumb thing like that? Look what happened to you over there!”

“That's the whole point.” He leaned forward in his bed, and he looked as though he wanted to strangle her. “If I don't defend that … if I don't believe in why I was there, then what the hell good was it anyway?” Tears suddenly sprang to his eyes and he went on, “what does it all mean, goddamn it, Tan … what did I give them my legs for if I don't believe in them? Tell me that!” You could hear him shouting all the way down the hall. “I have to believe in them, don't I? Because if I don't, if I believe what you do, then it was all a farce. I might as well have gotten run over by a train in Des Moines…” He turned his face away from her and started to cry openly and she felt terrible. And then he turned to her, still in a rage. “Now get the hell out of my room you insensitive radical bitch!”

She left, and she cried all the way back to school. She knew that he was right—for him. He couldn't afford to feel about it as she did, and yet, ever since he had come back from Vietnam, something had begun to rage in her that had never been there before, a kind of anger that nothing could quench, and possibly never would. She had talked to Harrison about it on the phone one night and he had put it down to youth, but she knew it wasn't just that, it was something more. She was angry at everyone because Harry had been maimed, and if people were willing to take more chances politically, to stick their necks out … Hell, the President of the United States had been killed a year and a half before, how could people not see what was happening, what they had to do … but Tana didn't want to hurt Harry with all of it. She called him to apologize but he wouldn't talk to her. And for the first time in six and a half months since he'd gotten to Letterman, she didn't go to see him for three days. And when she finally did, she stuck an olive branch through the door of his room, and followed it in sheepishly.

“What do you want?” He glared at her, and she smiled tentatively.

“The rent, actually.”

He tried to suppress a grin. He wasn't angry at her anymore. So she was turning into a crazy radical. So what? That's what Berkeley was all about. She'd grow out of it. And he was more intrigued by what she had just said. “You found a place?”

“I sure did.” She grinned at him. “It's on Channing Way, a teeny little two-bedroom house with a living room and a kitchenette. It's all on one floor, so you'd have to behave yourself somewhat or at least tell your lady friends not to scream too loud,” they both grinned and Harry looked ecstatic at the news, “you're going to love it!” She clapped her hands and described it in detail to him, and that weekend the doctor let her drive him over there. The last of the surgeries had been completed six weeks before; his therapy was going well. They had done all for him they were going to do. It was time to go home. Harry and Tana signed the lease as soon as he saw it. The landlord didn't seem to object to the fact that they had different last names, and neither of them offered to explain. Tana and Harry shook hands with a look of glee, and she drove him back to Letterman. Two weeks later, they moved in. He had to arrange for transportation for his therapy, but Tana promised to take him. And the week after her exams, he got the letter congratulating him on his acceptance to Boalt. He sat in his wheelchair waiting for her when she got home, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

“They took me, Tan … and it's all your fault.…” They hugged and kissed, and he had never loved her more. And Tana knew only that he was her very dearest friend as she cooked him dinner that night and he uncorked a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne.