Turning Point(44)
“I’ve waited for you all my life, Stephanie. I’m not going to let you go now. Are you having doubts?” He looked hurt.
“No, but this is a very big deal if we both leave our marriages,” she said quietly.
“I want to, and I hope you do too,” he said, and she nodded as she listened to him.
“Then you have to give me some time. I have to tell Andy, and I want to find the right time to do it.”
“As soon as you get to San Francisco seems the right time to me,” he said quickly. “Then you can stay with me when I arrive two weeks later.” He was on a fast track, and she wasn’t quite there yet. She was passionately in love with him, but there would be a lot of practical details to work out and discuss with Andy, like custody of their two very young children, particularly if she moved to France. She knew that would break Andy’s heart. She could tell how hard it was for Bill from talking to him, and his girls were slightly older than Aden and Ryan. She couldn’t imagine flying them back and forth to France, at least for a few years, and in today’s world of security risks, it was a terrifying prospect to have them alone on a plane.
“I can’t just breeze in and out and stay at the hotel with you while you’re there,” she said pensively. “It would be putting it right in Andy’s face. We need to be more discreet than that.”
Gabriel thought about it for a minute. “Then maybe you should tell him after I leave. That way, you can stay with me at the hotel, and tell him you’re at the hospital, on call every night.” It was dishonest but would postpone an explosive announcement while Gabriel was there.
“Not for a month,” she said realistically. She had never lied to Andy before, and she didn’t like the idea of starting now. But she might have to, to some degree, to keep the peace until after Gabriel left. She didn’t want high drama and ugly scenes with Andy while Gabriel was in town. She wanted to avoid having her romance with Gabriel turn into a soap opera, a classic love triangle, with two small children in the middle. That sounded like a mess to her. She needed time to work it out. Gabriel turned to her then and slipped the robe she was wearing off her shoulders and put his lips to her breast. It distracted her from everything she’d been saying to him and he didn’t want to hear. A moment later, her dressing gown was on the floor, and he had her backed up against the wall making love to her, engulfed by passion, with her legs wrapped around him, and from there he carried her to the couch, and they forgot everything but each other. She couldn’t think clearly and didn’t want to, and then they went to bed and made love again. He was a powerful man and an extraordinary lover.
She brought up the subject of Andy again that afternoon when they went for a walk. She had thought about it and made a decision. “I’ll talk to him after you leave. If I do it before that, everything will be a mess for the month you’re there, but I can’t stay with you every night. I have to be with my children too. I’ll stay with you as often as I can.” It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was the best she could do. And there was another subject they hadn’t resolved. “What am I going to do about work if I move here with you?” In two weeks, they had leapt far ahead down the road and were already dealing with big issues much sooner than they would have otherwise. “How would I practice medicine in France?” she asked practically. “I’m not going to medical school all over again here.”
“You wouldn’t have to. You would have to present your academic and work records, take a test, and you’d have to learn French, but it’s feasible eventually,” he reassured her, which came as a surprise to her. So she wouldn’t have to give up her career for him, just her marriage, which was a lot.
“And I could probably get you a consulting job while you wait to be certified.” But it would still be an enormous adjustment practicing in another country and starting all over again. She needed to think about that too, or she might resent him one day. She didn’t want that to happen, nor did he.
“Do you want more children?” he asked her. He hadn’t thought of asking her before. She was young enough to have several more if she wanted to, but she shook her head. They had six between them, which seemed like more than enough for her, although the prospect of more children didn’t frighten him, and appealed to him with her.
“I can hardly manage the two I have,” she said honestly, it wasn’t what she wanted. Her work was a big issue, and he wasn’t going to give up his career and move to San Francisco. He had an important government position and all the prestige that went with it, and a pension he would lose if he quit now. At forty-three he was on a serious trajectory. He no longer had a medical practice, but he had a very important job with public health, which she knew now was a big deal in France. So she would have to make the move for him, and all the changes and adjustments that went with it. She wasn’t refusing to do so, but she knew she had to give it serious thought, so it was a conscious decision, and not a mad impulse she’d regret.
“We’ll work it out,” he said gently as they walked home. He seemed totally confident that they would. He had an arm around her waist, and when they got back to the apartment, they made love again. It made everything else seem less important and the practical issues less acute. She felt drunk on love when he went home at six o’clock to see his children. She dozed after he left, and she called Andy and the boys when she woke up. They were going to his mother’s house for the day. She was going to bake cookies with them. They sounded happy and busy, and she felt oddly disconnected from them now. They seemed so far away.