White Apples by Jonathan Carroll Page A

espe•cially now. He had left his family and moved into Margaret Hof's apartment. Only until he could put his life in order and then he planned to move to Vienna to be with her. He already had a ten•tative job lined up with a German public relations firm that had offices here. It would be a huge salary cut from what he was re•ceiving in the United States but he didn't care.
    Vincent was not like other men—he had never made promises to her but then reneged on them when it came time to act. He told her only once that he could not live without her and would leave his family when he felt he had sufficient strength and resolve. She never doubted that he would do it because Ettrich always kept his word to her. But he acted much sooner than Isabelle had envisioned. It came as a shock when he called her and said, "It's over. I'm alone." His voice was breathless when he told her; it sounded as if he had been running for miles.
    She already knew she was pregnant then but didn't tell him. She wanted to see his face when he heard the news. They arranged to meet in London that weekend. Isabelle asked if one of those nights they could have dinner at the OXO Tower because of the incredible view it offered of the city and the Thames. She wanted to tell him there. The beauty of the place, the convergence of their lives, and the secret she was about to tell Vincent so overwhelmed her halfway through the meal that she got up, walked around the table, and kissed him. "I love this," she said an inch from his de•lighted face. "I love this more than anything."
    Half an hour later their relationship was finished as far as she was concerned. Until that meal, the subject of Ettrich's leaving his family had been left to cool on a side table, as if it were a dish just taken out of the oven and too hot to eat. They spoke of other things; they spoke of what had happened in their lives since they'd last been together. All the time though they kept looking over at that dish wondering if it was cool enough yet to try a first bite. Almost casually he brought it up by saying how weird it was to live alone again in a very small apartment after all those years of space and a noisy family. That began the discussion. Way too soon they were both sitting stiffly in their chairs staring at each other as if they did not like what they saw.
    To her dismay, Vincent said he had left his family for her. To his dismay, she glared at him as if he had slapped her face. It was one of those conversations that became an argument that became a bleeding disaster. None of it ever should have happened. These people simply missed each other's points, and because they had brought separate but very charged hearts to the table that night, everything said from that point on was distorted then exaggerated then misunderstood and finally used as ammunition to shoot point blank at each other. It was the worst discussion they ever had. They got up from the table, no, they staggered up from the table like dazed survivors of a tornado that had killed their families, flattened their house, and left them with nothing but the breath in their lungs.
    What's worse, they foolishly returned together to the hotel room in Chelsea that Vincent had rented for the occasion. They thought they could fix things up in bed. It didn't work and both of them ended up looking at the ceiling, not wanting to touch the other.
    Exhausted by jet lag and all the recent upheavals in his life, Ettrich did not awaken when Isabelle rose very early the next morn•ing, packed her few things, and left. She did not linger at the door hoping for his voice, or look back over her shoulder to see if he was watching. She only wanted out of there. Downstairs in the lobby she wrote him a quick note, intending to write more later when her head was clear and no longer muddied by emotion. She gave this short note to the clerk at the front desk. He looked at her dubiously, as if she were a prostitute finishing up her shift. Any