Lone eagle

Andy took her to the hospital when the baby came. It was a little girl this time. They named her Stephanie. And two weeks later, Andy moved out. It was surprisingly unemotional. Everything between them had been dead for so long that neither of them felt anything but relief.

Kate left for Reno with both children and a nurse when Stephanie was four weeks old. She stayed for six weeks, and came back on the train, divorced, on December 15th. She had been legally married to Andy for three and a half years, and in reality only for one. She heard from a friend that Andy was going out with someone else by then, and supposedly madly in love. She hoped he was. They had both been lonely for long enough. She wished for him that he would marry again and have more kids. He deserved a lot better than she'd given him, although they both loved Stephanie and Reed. He was going to see them every Wednesday afternoon, and alternate weekends. It had all been so neatly and quietly done, as though it had never happened at all. Now that it was over, it seemed like a dream. Her parents mourned the marriage far more than either she or Andy did. They had never fully accepted or understood why it died.

A week after they got back from Reno, she took Reed to buy a Christmas tree, and she felt like herself for the first time in years. They sang Christmas carols as they walked along, and when they got to the lot on the corner, Reed picked an enormous Christmas tree. She was telling the men where to deliver it, as Reed jumped up and down clapping his hands, when she saw someone get out of a car with his head down in the cold. It had just started to snow. He was wearing a hat and a dark coat, and she knew it was him even before he turned around, and as soon as he did, he saw her. It was Joe. He stopped and then smiled at her. They hadn't talked on the phone in months, or seen each other in two years.

As he walked toward her, she smiled in spite of herself. Destiny. There he was. Just seeing him reminded her of the magic they had always shared. Their paths crossed and then disappeared again, separately, and then suddenly there he would be. At the barbecue, on the ship, at the ball when she was seventeen. It had been twelve years since then. And just seeing him brought back the dream.

“Hello, Kate.” He had come to buy a Christmas tree. She didn't even know where he was anymore. California, New York. Somewhere else. She hadn't called or written to him. They had put each other through enough two years before. It was done, she had told herself. If nothing else, she owed him peace. But some power or force had intervened, and brought him back to cross her path yet again.

“Hello, Joe.” She smiled at him. It was so good to see him in spite of everything. He looked the same. And her heart ached at the sight of him.

“How's your life these days?” There was a lot he wanted to know, but it seemed awkward to ask with a lot of people milling around, and Reed standing next to her. He was old enough to understand what they said.

Kate laughed, remembering Andy's words before he left. Tell him. Call him. Find him. He had found her. She decided to jump in. “I'm divorced.”

“When did that happen?” He looked startled, but pleased.

“We got back from Reno last week. I took the kids with me.”

“Kids?” he seemed surprised.

“Stephanie. She's three months old. I got drunk last New Year's Eve.” It was a lot of information to share over a Christmas tree, after two years, and Joe looked amused. “What about you?”

“I got drunk last New Year's Eve too, but I don't have anything to show for it. I got engaged in June. Things are a little rocky these days. She hates my planes.”

“That won't work,” Kate said sensibly. She was basking in the pleasure of just looking at him. They both knew, just standing there, that nothing had changed. It was still there for both of them. Just the way it had been since the first day. What they had shared had been infinitely rare, and still was.

“Will we work, Kate?” he asked, as he moved closer to her. They had already put each other through a lot of pain. Maybe it was too late for them, there was always that possibility. Or the chance that they'd get lucky this time if they tried, if they dared. Maybe one day they'd have to be brave enough to take the chance, and do it right. And as he looked at her, all the terrifying things Andy had said about her two years before no longer mattered to him.

“I don't know. What do you think?” She was game. But she didn't want to say it to him.

There had been so much water under the bridge, oceans of it. Wars, and the empire he'd built, her marriage, their affair two years before, and now her divorce. They had come together and apart so many times, in so many ways, and yet the bond was still there, the magic, the flame. They could both feel it as they stood looking at each other in the snow.

“Go home, Mommy,” Reed said, tugging at her arm, he was getting impatient waiting around, and he didn't know who the man was.