Brian parked the car in front of the hospital. Vanessa reached for the door handle, but Brian stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“Marry me,” he said.
She had to laugh. “Why are you bringing this up now?” she asked. “I’m a mess. I just almost killed someone. I wake up every damn night with bad dreams. You should be running in the opposite direction from me, not proposing.”
“I’m asking you now because I want you to know that even at your angriest, saddest, most volatile, most screwed-up moments, I still love you.” He leaned his head back against the seat, but his eyes never left her face. “I love you because you’re the smartest woman I’ve ever known. And because when you talk about your patients, there’s passion in your eyes, and your concern for them is so genuine, and you get such a thrill out of the challenge of figuring out ways to help them. And when we make love, you make me feel like no one ever has before. And I love you because, even though you’re busy as hell, you take the time to make me chicken Kiev, and you tuck mushy cards in my suitcase when I have to travel.”
She felt the tightness in her jaw as she tried to keep her tears from falling again. The Adam’s apple bobbed in Brian’s throat. He ran his finger lightly over her swollen hand. “And when something hurts you, I feel it too, Vanessa,” he said. “If you choose never to marry me, I would still stay with you. But you won’t ever convince me that’s what you really want.”
She wanted to believe he meant what he was saying. She did believe him. “I don’t know how bad this is going to get,” she said, “this mess with Patterson, and—”
“Van?”
She said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“If I were diagnosed tomorrow with a terminal illness, and I had three years to live, and they were certain to be terrible years during which I could do nothing except lie in bed and drool, what would you do?”
The scenario was impossible to imagine, yet she felt herself tearing up at the thought of him wasting away like that. “I would take care of you,” she said. “I’d try to make you comfortable and make you chicken Kiev every night and—”
“Or if my ex-wife suddenly sued me for who knows what and sent me death threats and I had to spend all my money—every last dime—on lawyers, what would you do?”
“I’d help you any way I could. I’d listen to you rant and rave about her.” This made her smile—she had already done a few years’ worth of that listening. “I’d give you my money to help you pay your legal fees.”
“So, why do you think I would walk away from you when you have problems, huh? Do you think I’m less noble than you are?”
She smiled again. “I love you,” she said,
“So, will you please marry me?”
She looked into her lap, where his hand formed a nest around her bruised and swollen finger. “Yeah,” she said, heart thumping. “I will.”
20
JEREMY, PENNSYLVANIA
I960
AT LUNCH ONE DAY, Vincent Siparo announced he was too tired to take an afternoon walk with his granddaughters. He was tired a lot toward the end of that summer, and he got out of breath easily, so Claire and Vanessa decided to go for their walk in the woods without him, Tucker tagging along at their heels.
They were smart girls, and they knew the woods well; it wouldn’t even occur to them to feel fear as they trudged through the trees.
“Let’s explore,” Claire said, turning off their usual path, and Vanessa followed dutifully. Soon, they were walking through an unfamiliar section of the woods, and the girls carefully twisted branches and dropped stones on the path as markers, the way Vincent had taught them to do, so they would always be able to find their way back.
Suddenly, Vanessa stopped walking, her eyes riveted on the ground near a gnarled old oak tree.
“What’s the matter?” Claire asked.
Vanessa pointed to the ground in front of her. Claire walked toward her sister gingerly—in case it was a snake that had caught Vanessa’s eye. But it was not a snake. In front of Vanessa, beneath some fallen limbs and dried leaves at the foot of the oak, a wooden cross jutted from the earth. Claire tugged away some of the dead limbs, and the two girls stared at the cross. Painted in white letters on the wood was the name tucker.
They knew a little about graves, but not much. Their grandpa Harte, Len’s father, had died a year ago, and Mellie wouldn’t let them go to the funeral, but they’d heard someone talking about the grave where he was buried. When Claire asked Mellie if Grandpa Harte was under the ground, Mellie had laughed. “Of course not. He’s in heaven. You know that. The grave is just a place for people to go to remember the person who’s in heaven.” It was hard to believe what Mellie said sometimes. Kids at school talked about people being buried. Perhaps some people were buried when they died, but not if they were a Harte or a Siparo.
Yet here was a grave. Both girls turned to look at Tucker, who sat nearby waiting for them. When they looked in his direction, he flapped his pointed tail on the leaves.
“Is this the other Tucker?” Vanessa asked.
“It can’t be,” Claire said. “Mellie said he lives with another family with a lot of children, remember?”
“Yes.” They stared again at the cross. The lettering was perfect, white outlined with a line of gold, like the gold Vincent used on the horses.
“Maybe there was another Tucker before that Tucker,” Claire suggested. “And he’s in heaven and this is where Grandma and Grandpa come to remember him.”
Vanessa nodded solemnly. “Maybe there’s been a million Tuckers,” she said. “We could ask Mommy.”
“No,” Claire said. “I don’t know why this grave is here, but if we ask Mellie, we’ll never be able to figure it out.”
They considered asking their grandfather, but even though Vincent was working in his shop by the time they got back to the barn, he seemed too tired to bother with their questions. He breathed hard every time he got up to get a paintbrush or a rag, and he grunted every time he lowered himself to his workbench again. The doctor had told him not to smoke his pipe any longer, but he still slipped it, unlit, into his mouth when he worked.
Claire and Vanessa sat down to play with their clay. Claire had quietly given up on the wood after last summer, and no one had said a word to her about it. Vincent never even mentioned the fact that she no longer picked up the wood and the carving knife. Perhaps he had seen her frustration when she worked with it. No matter how careful she was with the block of wood, she was always cutting off a piece she’d wanted to remain on the carving, and there was no way to fix that sort of mistake.
When Vincent announced it was time for their afternoon ride, the girls set their clay on the worktable and ran into the barn. Once they’d hopped onto the platform of the carousel, Vanessa ran straight to Titan.
“I want to ride on Titan today,” she announced.
Claire stared at her younger sister in disbelief. “Titan’s mine,” she said.
“You always get to ride him. I should get a turn, too.”
Claire’s fists were knotted at her sides. “Grandpa!” she called.
Vincent started walking toward them from the workshop. “What’s the problem, girls?” he asked, stepping onto the platform next to Titan. He stroked the horse’s long white head lightly with his hand as he looked down at his granddaughters.
“Vanessa wants to ride Titan!” Claire said. “Tell her she can’t.”
“Ah,” Vincent said. His blue eyes looked tired, but there was still a sparkle in them. “Well, how about giving her a turn?”
Vanessa nodded vigorously while Claire went red with rage. “He’s mine!” She wrapped her arm possessively around the jumper’s delicate leg. “He’s always been mine. She can have all the other horses on the whole carousel.”
Vanessa stomped her foot. “She always gets to ride him.”
Vincent picked up his blond granddaughter, wheezing with the effort. “You know he’s Claire’s favorite, An
gel?” he asked. “That she’s always picked him to ride on?”
Claire nodded indignantly, her own nostrils flaring.
“And that even if you get to ride him every once in a while, he’ll always be Claire’s special horse, just like any of the others can be your special horse?”
Claire cocked her head at Vincent suspiciously.
Vincent knelt at her side, Vanessa still in his arms. “I know Titan’s your horse, honey, but don’t you think you could let Vanessa have a turn on him sometimes?”
Claire pouted at her younger sister, whose glittering blond curls spilled over her grandfather’s arm. Strangers on the street couldn’t resist running their hands over that golden hair. It was nearly the same color as Titan’s mane.
“I hate you,” Claire said to Vanessa.
Vincent reached out to touch Claire’s arm. “Now, Claire,” he said. “No, you don’t.”
“I do too. I don’t even want to ride on this stupid carousel if she’s on it.”
But Vincent was firm. And so Claire sat sulking on the blanket-covered crate in the corner while her grandfather puttered with the hinges on one of the doors and Vanessa spun around, giggling, tossing back her head as she galloped through the barn on the proud white stallion.
In front of the farmhouse, a short distance from the barn, Len and Mellie were getting into their car. They started down the long driveway in the green Plymouth, and even though the carousel music was loud, the car could still be heard as it passed outside the barn. At least Claire could hear it from her perch on the crate. Behind the barn, the car engine stopped abruptly and a door slammed. Then the yelling began, mean and ugly and loud. Vincent raised his head from his work on the door, looking at the wall of the barn as if he could see through it to his daughter and son-in-law on the other side.
Claire watched her grandfather, her mouth open, waiting for him to acknowledge the fight and do something about it.
Vincent walked over to the carousel. He grabbed hold of one of the poles and stepped onto the moving platform, making his way among the horses to get to the organ. He turned the music up, so loud that the floor of the barn trembled and no other sound could possibly be heard. Then he crossed the platform again and stepped off. Droplets of sweat poured down his cheeks, glistening in the gray of his beard, and he pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his overalls to wipe his face.
He smiled at Claire then. “Vanessa’s having a great ride there on Titan, isn’t she?” He had to shout to be heard above the music.
Vanessa was leaning over, hugging Titan’s neck as she rode up and down, up and down. It was impossible to tell where the horse’s mane ended and the girl’s hair began.
Vincent went back to the door and lifted his hammer to one of the hinges.
In the corner, Claire raised her feet to the crate, hugging her knees to her chest, pulling herself into a tight little knot against the wall.
The fighting was gone, if it had existed at all. It could have been laughter, some sort of game perhaps. If any memory remained of the shouting, or the anger, or the slamming of the car door, it would soon be swallowed by the loud, lilting music of the carousel.
21
MCLEAN
SHE’D LIED TO JON, for the first time in her life. It couldn’t even be called a white lie, a simple fib she could shrug off. She’d called him from home, leaving a message on his voice mail at the foundation. Her hand had trembled as she clutched the receiver, but her voice was cheerful and even. She thought, with some disgust, that she sounded remarkably believable, as if she were a liar with plenty of practice. And she had been practicing lately, if omission could be considered a lie. It had been nearly a week and a half since that abysmal morning in the hotel in Baltimore, and she hadn’t told Jon any more about the flashbacks, although they certainly hadn’t stopped. He thought she should be able to control them; she wished that were the case. While doing paperwork in her office the other day, she’d seen a drawing of a robin on the forms and memos instead of the words actually printed on the paper. A child’s drawing, as if from a coloring book. The robin’s breast was outlined in a deep, waxy red. She found the drawing curious and was annoyed that it stole her attention from her work, yet it didn’t frighten her as the other images had.
But then there was the music box. She’d been shopping after work yesterday with Amelia. They were at the mall in a shop filled with music boxes. Amelia was hunting for a birthday gift for her niece. Claire walked among the boxes, studying the dancers or skaters or, in a few cases, carousel horses that adorned their lids. She opened one with a horse and carriage on the top, and the melody that drifted out into the store was “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Innocent enough, but with the first few notes, Claire began trembling. She slammed the lid closed so sharply that the saleswoman looked up from her seat behind the counter.
“Please be careful,” the woman said, “they’re very delicate.”
The vertigo was immediate, and the nausea followed quickly. Claire leaned against the glass counter, breathing deeply through her mouth.
“I’m not feeling well,” she said to the woman. It was a struggle to get the words out. “May I use your restroom, please?” She was only vaguely aware that Amelia had stepped to her side and was resting a hand on her back.
The saleswoman shook her head. “I’m sorry. We don’t have a restroom for the public, but there’s one at Bloomie’s. That’s just—”
“Please,” Claire said. The room was beginning to spin.
“Claire.” Amelia smoothed a strand of Claire’s hair away from her face. “You’re so pale. What’s the matter?”
Claire started to cry. She was still lucid enough to know her public tears should embarrass her, yet she was not lucid enough to care.
“You must let her use your restroom,” Amelia said to the woman. The strength in her voice was wonderful, and Claire leaned against her friend, weeping freely. She felt the eyes of other customers on her. They could all go to hell.
The saleswoman relented, leading Claire and Amelia into a corridor behind the shop where there was a small bathroom cluttered with boxes.
“Will you be all right alone?” Amelia asked, and Claire managed to nod before stepping into the room and locking the door behind her. She sat down on the toilet, fully clothed, and leaned back against the tank. She shut her eyes but immediately saw her hand lifting the lid on the music box, the small horse and its miniature buggy tilting into the air. She opened her eyes again quickly and began reading the handwritten signs on the wall and door of her little cubicle. A Satisfied Customer is a Repeat Customer. Salesgirl of the Month: Ginny Axelrod. There were at least a dozen of the signs, and reading them calmed her, numbed her.
“Claire?” Amelia knocked on the door. “You all right, hon?”
“Fine,” she said. She was breathing normally again. She wet a tissue at the sink and, without looking into the small wall mirror, dabbed at the skin below her eyes, hoping to wipe away any trace of her tears.
Amelia, white-lipped and worried, was waiting for her when she opened the bathroom door. Claire gave her a big smile.
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to me. Just felt like I was going to be violently ill for a moment, but it passed.”
Amelia put an arm around her shoulders, hugging her. “You scared me, girl. You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m perfect,” she said. But once they’d stepped back into the shop and Amelia announced she wanted to look at more of the music boxes, Claire felt the panic boiling up again.
“I’ll wait for you out in the mall.” She pointed to the bench outside the door of the shop, and Amelia nodded.
It was not enough to escape from the store, she thought as she waited on the bench. She needed to escape from her skin. Glancing at her watch, she wondered if she would have time to call Randy before Jon got home that night. She wanted to tell him what had happened. She hadn’t seen him since their visit to the Smithsonian, but she�
�d spoken to him every day on the phone. She was no longer telling Jon about those phone calls.
When she finally did reach Randy that evening, he pushed her as she’d known he would, in a way she both dreaded and welcomed. He wouldn’t stay on the surface of her thoughts any longer. Where might she have heard that particular melody before? he asked. Could she imagine how it would sound played with different instruments? What did she hear if she gave her imagination free rein? She had no answers to his questions, but she endured them anyway until the discomfort got too great and she begged for a change of topic.
She heard Jon pull into the garage while she was still talking with Randy, and she hung up the phone before he got to the back door, angry with herself for her deception. If Jon asked her who she’d been talking to, she would tell him. But he didn’t ask, and she didn’t volunteer.
The lie she’d told him tonight, though, was deliberate. Calculated. Unforgivable.
“I know you’re working late,” she’d said in her message on his voice mail, “so I hope you don’t mind if I take in a movie with Amelia.” Take in a movie? She’d never used that expression before. It had just popped out. “I’ll see you tonight.”
The truth was, she and Randy were going dancing.
She thought about the lie as she put on her violet dress, which was too dressy for the office, but nothing special, really. She should have at least told Jon she was seeing Randy tonight, simply omitting the part about dancing. That’s what would hurt Jon—the dancing—because that was one thing they’d never been able to do together.
She’d loved to dance as a teenager, before meeting Jon, and she remembered the sadness with which she’d given up that pleasure. She’d lost a lot of friends back then. It wasn’t that they disliked Jon, although he had sometimes pushed people away with his bitterness during those early months after he’d transferred into her high school. She’d lost her friends simply because she gave them up for him. He was new to his wheelchair back then, and the activities of her friends seemed out of his reach. Claire didn’t mind. She was in love. She never let herself think about what she’d given up for him. There was danger in thinking too much.
Brass Ring Page 19
