The Promise - By Danielle Steel Page 0,88
He probably wouldn't even be running after me for my work now, if he knew who I really was—who I used to be. But I'm not Nancy McAllister anymore, Faye. And he's not the Michael I knew.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw him. He's callous, hard, driven, cold. Oh I don't know, maybe there's something there. But there's a lot of new stuff too.”
“How about pain? Loss? Disappointment? Grief?”
“No, Faye, how about betrayal, abandonment, desertion, cowardice? Those are the real issues, aren't they?”
“I don't know. Are they? Is that how you still feel when you see him?”
“Yes.” Her voice was hard again now. “I hate him.”
“Then you must still care for him a great deal.” Marie started to deny it, but then she shook her head as tears sprang to her eyes. She looked at Faye for a long time without speaking. “Nancy, do you still love him?” She had purposely used the old name.
The girl sighed deeply and let her head fall back against the couch before answering, and when she did, she looked at the ceiling and spoke in a monotone. “Maybe Nancy still loves him, what little bit of her is left. But Marie doesn't. I have a new life now. I can't afford to love him anymore.” She looked up at Faye with sorrow.
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn't love me. Because that's not real. I have to let it go now. Totally, completely. I know that. That isn't why I came here today, to cry on your shoulder about still being in love with Michael. But I needed to tell someone how I ful. I can't really talk to Peter about it; it would upset him too much, and I needed to get some of this off my chest.”
“I'm glad you did come, Marie. But I'm not sure you can just decide to let something go as simply as that, and have it fall away from you from one moment to another.”
“In truth, it fell away from me two years ago, I just didn't let go until now. I told myself I had, but I hadn't. So …” She sat up straight again and looked squarely at Faye. “I'm leaving for Boston tomorrow to attend to some business.”
“What kind of business?”
“Letting-go business.” She smiled for the first time in an hour. “There are some things I left unfinished back there, some things that Michael and I shared. I've let them stand as a monument to us, because I always thought he'd be back. Now I have to go back there and take care of it.”
“Do you really think you're ready to handle that?”
“Yes.” She sounded sure of herself, even to Faye.
“Is that what you really want to do?”
“Yes.”
“You don't want to tell Michael who you are, or rather who you were, and see what happens?”
Marie almost shuddered. “Never. That's over. Forever. And besides,” she sighed again, and looked down at her hands, “that wouldn't be fair to Peter.”
“You have to think about being fair to Marie.”
“That's why I'm going to Boston tomorrow. But I keep thinking, too, that maybe after this I'll be free to make some kind of real commitment to Peter. He's such a nice man, Faye. He's done so much for me.”
“But you don't love him.”
It was frightening to hear someone else say the words, and Marie instantly shook her head. “No, no, I do!”
“Then why the problem making a commitment?”
“Michael always stood between us.”
“That's too easy, Marie. That's a cop out.”
“I don't know.” She paused for a long time. “Something always stopped me. Something isn't … there. I guess I haven't really let myself be there. In some ways I was waiting for Michael, and in some ways it just hasn't felt… I don't know, it just doesn't feel right, Faye. Maybe it's me.”
“Why do you think it doesn't feel right?”
“Well, I'm not sure, but sometimes I get the feeling that he doesn't know me. He knows me, Marie Adamson, because that's the person he helped create. He doesn't know the person I was or the things I cared about before the accident.”
“Could you teach him about that, Marie?”
“Maybe. But I'm not sure he wants to know. He makes me feel loved, but not for myself.”
“Well, there are a lot of other fish out there, you know.”
“Yes, but he's a good man, and there's no reason why it shouldn't work.”
“No. Unless you don't love him.”
“But I do love him.” She was getting agitated as they spoke.
“Then relax, and let that problem take care of