Brass Ring

by Diane Chamberlain

  Ginger was waiting for her inside the hospital. She was an energetic blonde and much younger than Claire had expected—probably younger than Margot had been by several years. Despite her youth, though, she had an air of self-confidence. Claire followed her into a small, windowless office. Ginger sat down behind a stubby desk, and Claire took the only other chair in the room—a small wooden rocker that looked as though it had been discovered in a garage sale.

  Claire rested her hands on her knees. “Now that I’m here, I’m really not certain what I’m looking for,” she said, an apology in her voice. “I just can’t seem to stop thinking about her.”

  “That’s understandable,” Ginger said with a smile. “I’d heard you went out on the bridge with her. I couldn’t believe anyone would do that.”

  “It was one of those things you do without thinking.”

  Ginger looked at her with curiosity. “You know that what happened is not your fault, don’t you?”

  Claire sighed. “On some level, I know that’s true. I just wish I could have gotten her to wait a few more seconds. The police were so close.”

  “You tried. That’s more than ninety-nine percent of the population would have done. And Margot”—she shook her head—”Margot had a mind of her own.” Ginger let out a sigh and moved to the edge of her seat as if she were about to stand up. “Would you like to see her room?” she asked.

  Claire nodded. She left her coat on the rocker and followed Ginger out of the office. They walked down a long, dim hallway, the walls painted a pale, dingy green. She remembered something she’d learned in college, something about psychiatric institutions using color to alter the moods of the patients. She wondered what this green was supposed to do. Certainly not lift anyone out of depression. Claire felt herself sinking lower with each step.

  “Margot had been ill for a very long time,” Ginger said as they walked. “Ever since losing her brother on the bridge. Her mother cared for her after that, but when her mother died, her father had her committed. He simply couldn’t handle her. He visited her once in a while, but he died a year ago.” She opened one of the doors that lined the hallway and stepped back to let Claire pass through. “This was her room.”

  The room was a small rectangle furnished with two twin beds, two night tables, and two small, squat dressers. The faded green walls on the near side of the room were covered with posters of Elvis Presley, and the three embroidered pillows on the bed all bore his likeness.

  “She was an Elvis fan?” Claire said, incredulous.

  “No.” Ginger laughed. “That’s Nonnie’s half of the room. Nonnie was Margot’s roommate.”

  Claire shifted her focus to Margot’s side. The walls were bare, the bed neatly made with a thin green spread. “Margot’s things have already been cleared out, then.”

  “Well, actually, no.” Ginger walked across the room to Margot’s bed, where she smoothed her hand across the bedspread. “Margot wasn’t much of a decorator. She never put a thing on the walls, at least not during the couple of years I’ve worked here. She had exactly one picture.” She opened the drawer of the night table to pull out a framed photograph, which she handed to Claire across Nonnie’s bed.

  It was a family portrait, a faded, five-by-seven black-and-white, obviously taken by an amateur photographer. A man and woman stood on the steps of a white house, the size and shape of which couldn’t be determined from the close-up angle of the camera. Three children stood in front of the couple: a blond girl and boy of about equal height and a taller, dark-haired boy.

  “Her brother brought this to her when she first came to the hospital,” Ginger said.

  “The tall boy?”

  “Yes. Randy. He owns a restaurant in Virginia. In Arlington. That’s near where you live, right?”

  “Yes. Not far.”

  “The Fishmonger. Have you heard of it?”

  Claire nodded. She had heard of it but had never eaten there.

  “Apparently he visited Margot pretty regularly that first year or so, trying to get through to her somehow,” Ginger said. “That was before I came here, so I don’t know for sure. But she paid as little attention to him as she did to everyone else, and by the time I started working with her, he was only visiting once every couple of months or so. He gave up, I guess. Can’t really blame the guy.”

  “What was their relationship like?”

  “Margot didn’t have much of a relationship with anyone, I’m afraid. I called to tell Randy about her committing suicide. He was very quiet. Just thanked me, told me to donate her things to Goodwill, and that was it.” She took the framed photograph back from Claire’s hands. “I’ve been meaning to send this to him, though.” She looked down at the picture. “He felt helpless, I think. I did, too, sometimes. It’s hard to work with someone you just can’t reach.”

  Helpless. The word described well how Claire had felt in her few brief minutes with Margot. She could imagine the depth of helplessness her brother had felt.

  Ginger nodded toward the door. “I’ll show you where she spent most of her time.”

  Claire followed the younger woman down another long, green hallway until they reached a large, open room. Windows lined three walls, and Claire imagined that on a sunny day, the room would be awash with light. She felt as though she’d walked into the fresh air after being trapped in a closet.

  Nearly a dozen patients were in the room, some watching the TV in the corner, a few playing cards at a small table. Only a couple of them looked up when she and Ginger walked in, and they quickly returned their attention to the cards and TV.

  Ginger pointed to the upright piano against the far wall. “That was Margot’s hangout. Everyone misses the music. Always classical, although one time—” Ginger smiled. “This was so weird. One time, when Nonnie walked into the room, Margot started playing ‘Love Me Tender.’”

  Claire laughed.

  “It was positively the only show of humor I’d ever seen from her, though.” Ginger looked thoughtful. “She never spoke to anyone. Not the staff, not her fellow patients.”

  “But she spoke to me on the bridge,” Claire said. “It didn’t make much sense, but she was talking.”

  Ginger nodded. “Oh, she’d utter a few scattered words here and there, but nothing of substance. I know she was able to talk. I always got the feeling she didn’t feel like it was worth the bother. She was bright, though.”

  “How do you know she was bright if she didn’t speak?”

  “She read constantly. We have a little library here, mostly paperbacks, and I bet she read every one of them. Fiction, nonfiction, it didn’t matter. And she wrote, too.”

  “Really?” Claire was intrigued. “Stories?”

  “No, or if she did write stories I didn’t know about them. She wrote letters to other patients. They were often quite long and well written, although her handwriting wasn’t very good. Lack of practice, maybe, or it might have been the medication she was on. She’d usually give advice in the letters. She was the Dear Abby of ward C. During group therapy, she’d hear someone talk about a problem they were having, and of course she’d offer nothing during the group, but later she’d write out her thoughts to the person.”

  “Wow. Was her advice on target?”

  Ginger grinned. “Surprisingly insightful. Except for the fact that she’d say that God had told her what to write, or sometimes it would be her dead brother, Charles.”

  “Oh.” Claire smiled. For a moment she had forgotten why Margot had been a resident in this sad place. “If you like, I could take the picture to Margot’s older brother,” she offered impulsively. She pointed to the photograph, still in Ginger’s hand. “Save you mailing it. I’d like to talk with him.”

  Ginger hesitated. She looked at the picture again. “I suppose that would be all right,” she said, handing it to Claire. “I’ll call him to let him know you have it.”

  Once she’d stepped outside the hospital again, Claire gulped in the cold, clean air with relie
f.

  She should have called Jon to let him know she was on her way home, she thought as she got into her car. He was worried about her these days. She could hardly blame him. She would stop somewhere on the road to call him.

  She set the photograph of Margot and her family on the passenger seat of her car and looked again at the taller boy. Randall. Randy. With his dark hair and his adolescent gawkiness, he didn’t quite fit in. He squinted in the sunlight, and from between his dark lashes, his eyes seemed to be looking directly at the camera. At her.

  She glanced over at the picture from time to time during her drive back to Vienna, her gaze drawn to the narrow-eyed boy. He had tried to get through to Margot, Ginger had said. He had tried to save her, too. Who better than Randy St. Pierre could understand how it felt to fail in that effort?

  6

  VIENNA

  THE LUNCH CROWD AT Carney’s Cafe was boisterous as usual, but Jon had requested a table in the rear of the restaurant, and he and Pat were at least able to carry on a conversation. Carney’s was their favorite lunchtime restaurant, despite its perpetually fevered level of activity. Like Jon, Pat Wykowski used a wheelchair, and Carney’s had an easily negotiated ramp to the front door and plenty of open space between the tables. The fact that the food was palatable was merely a bonus.

  Claire was on her way home from West Virginia. She’d called him from the road a few minutes before he left the office and told him about her meeting with the social worker at the psychiatric hospital. He’d listened to her as patiently as he could. He didn’t understand her preoccupation with Margot St. Pierre. Something was changing in Claire, and it worried him. She wasn’t keeping up with her work at the foundation, and at home he’d catch her staring off into space. If this sort of obsession had occurred in anyone else, he might have been able to make some sense of it. But Claire was a woman who could rise above the worst experiences with a shrug of her shoulders and some cliche about no one ever promising her a rose garden. To someone who didn’t know her well, Claire could seem almost simple. But simple was not a word he could ever imagine applying to his wife.

  The waiter stopped by their table to take their orders.

  “My regular.” Pat flashed her dimples at the young man with his long dark ponytail. The waiter nodded and turned to Jon, who ordered the grilled swordfish. Pat’s regular, Jon knew, was the large, weedy-looking house salad. He felt a little sorry for Pat, his sympathy unrelated to the fact that her injury—sustained in a boating accident at the age of fifteen—was far more debilitating than his. He felt sorry for her because she could put on weight just by thinking about food. She was beautiful, although he supposed his assessment of her was colored by the fact that she was the person he felt closest to in all the world next to Claire and Susan. She had thick blond hair that fell in waves over her shoulders, and huge, sexy, green eyes in the sort of face men dream about. She was feisty, earthy, a little crass. And she was at least thirty pounds overweight. She dressed in drab colors and shapeless blouses that made her look as though she was carrying a sack of potatoes around in her wheelchair.

  Driving to the restaurant in Pat’s van, he’d considered talking to her about Claire, sharing his niggling concern about her preoccupation with Margot. Pat was the foundation’s psychologist and a great listener. He’d changed his mind by the time they’d pulled into the parking lot. He was probably making too much of it. It had only been a week since that traumatic night in Harpers Ferry. He’d been safe inside the Jeep while Claire had dangled from the edge of the bridge. Who was he to judge how long it should take her to get over an experience that horrific?

  Pat glanced out the restaurant window at the gray sky. “It’s gonna snow again,” she said merrily. “I can feel it. If I don’t go skiing soon, I’ll be crawling the foundation walls.”

  The waiter approached their table once more, setting Jon’s swordfish in front of him and a bowl of rabbit food in front of Pat. Jon watched Pat dab the thick white dressing onto her salad with a fork.

  “Do you have some ski trips planned?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh. With the club. How about you and Claire joining us this year?”

  He rolled his eyes. “When are you going to give up?” he asked.

  “Never.” She leaned toward him. “Come on, Jonny. You’re always telling me what a hot skier you were as a kid.”

  He had been good, before the accident. When the mono-ski was invented a few years ago, Claire tried to lure him into going, but he resisted. It simply wouldn’t be the same. And the thought of going with a club of paras and quads—a club funded by his foundation— was particularly unappealing to him. The club was Pat’s outlet. What else did she have? No spouse, no lover, no family close by. He couldn’t imagine the emptiness that waited for her at home each night. Pat was usually cheerful, but sometimes he caught a glimpse of that core of loneliness inside her, and he hurt for her.

  “Well, I’m going to have a word with Claire about this,” Pat said. “She and I will talk you into skiing. You two are always working, you know that? You never have any fun.”

  “Sure we do.”

  “When? Name it. When was the last time you took a trip together?”

  He started to answer, but she interrupted him.

  “Not related to work,” she said. “When’s the last time you just goofed off together or laughed until you peed in your pants? When, huh?”

  “Peeing in my pants is not my idea of a good time,” he said.

  They talked about travel and vacations for a few more minutes before Jon managed to shift the conversation to plans for the retreat. But he couldn’t get Pat’s words out of his mind. Could she be right? He didn’t need a break, but maybe Claire did. Maybe that was all it would take to wipe that night on the bridge from her memory.

  It was dark as he drove home from the gym that night. The cold air still held the promise of snow, and as he turned onto the winding forested road leading to his house, a few flakes began to dust his windshield. By the time he pulled into his driveway, he had to turn on the windshield wipers. The snow was dry and powdery, though, and flew off the glass almost before the wipers touched it.

  He pulled the Jeep into the garage, noticing that Claire had parked her car very close to his space, leaving him too little room to get his chair out. She must have been preoccupied. A bad omen.

  He pressed on the horn a couple of times, the sound loud and sharp inside the garage. He waited in the Jeep, hoping against hope that the Claire who came out to move her car would be the same woman he had known and loved for the past twenty-three years and not her gloomy shadow. Maybe her afternoon at the hospital had provided her with a sort of catharsis that would allow her to close the door on Margot St. Pierre.

  Claire didn’t appear. He backed the Jeep out of the garage and pulled his chair from behind the front seat. Snowflakes fluttered in the air around him as he got out of the car. With his briefcase in his lap, he wheeled through the garage toward the house. The ramp to the back door made his arms ache a little—he’d pushed himself harder than usual at the gym. He could feel his muscles stiffening up.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen. As he rested his briefcase on one of the chairs, he noticed the music. Claire favored old, old rock and roll. Not too heavy. Motown, mostly. Some rhythm and blues. But the music pouring from the stereo was classical. Piano.

  Chopin, no doubt.

  Damn it.

  Claire walked into the kitchen. She was wearing jeans, a green sweater, and green tennis shoes. Her hair was loose, hanging long and dark over her shoulders. He caught its clean scent as she bent low to kiss him.

  “This is the Nocturne in C-sharp Minor,” she said. “Remember? The one Margot mentioned on the bridge? Isn’t it beautiful?”

  He looked up at her eyes. Her smile was enough to soften his irritation, and he wrapped his hand around her denim-covered thigh, squeezing lightly. “Yes,” he said. “It’s almost as beautiful as you are.”

  7

 
SEATTLE

  VANESSA CHANGED INTO HER running clothes—the blue warm-up suit Brian had given her for Christmas and her Nikes—and took the five flights of stairs down to the ground floor of the hospital. She walked through the long hallway to the rear of the building and knocked on the open door to Darcy Frederick’s office.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Darcy looked up from her littered desk, her glasses slipping halfway down her nose. “Oh, Van.” She used both hands to adjust the heavy, purple frames on her delicate nose. “I can’t go today. I’m swamped.”

  Vanessa pushed into the office and dug Darcy’s running shoes out of the canvas bag in the corner. She dropped them on the floor in front of her friend. “Off your butt, Darce.”

  They’d been running together for over two years, and both of them knew this routine. Darcy would probably never get out of the building if she didn’t have Vanessa pushing her. Vanessa, though, would run with or without a partner. She had to. By the end of the day, she felt as though thousands of restless, prickly creatures coursed beneath the surface of her skin. The only way to settle them down was to do something physical. Aerobics would work, or biking. Anything. But running was easiest.

  Darcy made a halfhearted attempt at straightening the papers on her desk before finally standing up. She took off her glasses and ran her fingers through her short, almost-black hair before picking up her gym bag and disappearing into the bathroom across the hall. In a moment she was back in a gray sweatshirt and black warm-up pants.