by Jean Stone
She sat on the rocker in the attic, the yearbook open on her lap, the paper in her hands.
She never should have kept them. Why had she ever kept them?
A sound came from the corner by the eaves under the window.
Was it Riley again?
Hannah didn’t move. Another bat? A mouse?
She sat and waited. Silence fell again.
I’ve got to get rid of this once and for all, she thought, yet still she clutched the paper, as if she knew that once it was gone, it would be … gone.
Again, her gaze drifted across the fading type. “Twenty years to life,” the district attorney said. Then she read the last line that she’d not noticed before, because before it hadn’t mattered; it had seemed so far away.
“Twenty years to life, with early release on good behavior.”
Good behavior.
Early release.
Slowly Hannah counted from the date of then to now.
Sixteen years.
Early release.
Oh, God, she thought. Was sixteen years enough time for her to be let out? And, if so, would Betty Barnes one day soon be at Hannah’s door, exposing Hannah for the liar and the fraud she was, the kind of selfish daughter who had left her mother when she’d been needed most?
NINETEEN
If fresh cod was in the refrigerator and a bottle of Chardonnay was chilled, Faye would be prepared to invite R.J. to stay for lunch.
She checked her watch: eleven-thirty. It had been a busy morning. Tired though she was, Faye had made a quick trip to the market, straightened the downstairs of the house, run the vacuum and dusted. Other than her sister, Claire, and the brief visit from Doc, it had been a long time since anyone but Faye and Mouser and occasional maintenance people had been inside the Vineyard house.
At first she’d hesitated to wear a pair of jeans, despite that they were Donna Karan. Faye had never been comfortable in jeans—coarse blue denim somehow seemed so unfeminine to one who’d been raised in Boston, the aristocrat of nonaristocrats. Still, unlike her linen or her silk-noir pants, the jeans did not wrinkle and they seemed much more in keeping with the island. She did, however, add a short-sleeved, silk sweater. Now that it was May, long sleeves were not needed.
May. Were the days ticking by more quickly because she was approaching the downside of her life?
Standing in the living room in front of the large bay window that looked out to the sound, Faye supposed she was obsessing over clothing and death because those things might be preferable to what R.J. might say.
She leaned against the grand piano that no one had played since Greg had left.
Did he still play piano?
Did he have a good and happy life?
Was he in love?
Ask again later. The triangle in the black fortune-telling ball came to her mind. How many times had Greg and Dana sat on the back porch and played that child’s game, asking a litany of questions from will they be rich and famous to will Dana marry Eddie and would she have a lot of kids.
They had not asked if Dana would die before she came of age.
Mouser jumped from the windowsill, then came the sound of gravel churning in the driveway. Faye stood up straight and tucked her silver hair behind her ears. Oh, she thought, sometimes the worst part of being on the Vineyard was that there was too much damn time to think.
He drove one of those big SUVs that reeked of masculinity, and that for some women, Faye supposed, was a final statement of feminism that shouted, “Hey, I have power, too.”
R.J. Browne, however, did not need a vehicle to define his sexuality. He merely turned off the ignition, opened the door, and—voilà—testosterone oozed from all his pores. Faye quickly thought once again that if only she was ten years younger … Then she smiled at how that thought would horrify her sister who would no doubt see it as further proof that Faye was hopeless when it came to men.
“How was the crossing?” Faye asked as she led R.J. into the house, because that’s what one asked anyone who’d just come over on the boat.
“Fine,” he replied. “Uneventful.”
They commented on the beautiful day and that maybe summer would be early this year. She did not mention Greg; she remembered when she’d been a young child, eager to share with her father some exciting, childhood news, how her mother made her wait until “he caught his breath.”
She supposed that was what she was doing now, letting R.J. catch his breath.
“Iced tea?” she asked. “First of the season.”
He shook his head. “I won’t stay long,” he said, taking a seat on the couch. “I left my friend in town to shop.” He laughed. “Not all the stores are open yet,” he added, as if Faye didn’t know that.
“Soon,” she replied. “Memorial Day.” She tried to act pleasant, not to feel or show disappointment that R.J. had a friend. Well, what did she expect? That he felt any chemistry with an ancient, dried-up woman? You’re not the only woman over fifty searching for a rich man, Claire had said. Claire would not have guessed that Faye did not care if he was rich. She sat down next to R.J. and forced a smile. “Are you staying over?”
He nodded. “For a few days. At Mayfield House in Vineyard Haven.”
With his friend, of course.
“You gave me a good excuse to make a trip out here,” he continued. “This break has been much needed.” His grin was wide and happy; distracting herself was work.
She folded her hands and wished she’d worn her linen after all. “What about Greg?” she asked abruptly. “I take it you found my son?”
He propped his elbows on his knees and tented his fingers together. “Yes, Faye, I found him. He is doing very well.”
She closed her eyes. A slow, light dizziness floated through her head. She gripped the cushion of the sofa. She took a deep breath. “Where is he?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“Phoenix,” he replied. “He owns a restaurant there with his partner, Mike Tanner. Actually they own two restaurants: one in Phoenix, one up in Sedona. They call them Crawdaddies.”
A restaurant. Two restaurants. Greg had always loved to cook. But his partner must have money: Greg only had five hundred dollars when he left. Five hundred dollars and one suitcase. He’d left his rich-boy clothes at home. “What kind of restaurants?”
“Cajun. They make a great étouffée,” R.J. added with another laugh.
“You went there,” Faye said. “To Phoenix.” She’d been to the city two or three times on business. She’d been there and she hadn’t known …
What if she’d eaten at his restaurant …
R.J. was nodding. “I went there to be sure that it was him.”
Of course, she thought. She wished she’d poured herself some iced tea, because her mouth was suddenly dry. “Did you talk with him?”
“No. I talked to Mike Tanner. I asked if they were from New Orleans, because the étouffée was so good. He said he was from Chicago and his partner was from Boston.”
“Did … did you see him? Did you see Greg?”
“Yes. The next day I drove up to Sedona.” His voice lowered and his tone grew soft. “He was at the restaurant, Faye. He’s quite a handsome boy.”
She sat there for a moment and did not know what to say. Then she remembered R.J. had done exactly what she’d asked. Once I know where he is, she’d said, I’ll decide what to do next. She smiled a tentative smile, because it had been too long between words.
She asked how she could find him.
R.J. handed her a paper that had been folded in his pocket. “This is the name and number of the restaurant in Phoenix.”
Faye stood up and extended her hand. “Well, thank you, R.J. Once again you’ve proved your worth.”
He paused a moment, then stood up and took her hand. He held it lightly. “My pleasure,” he said, then kissed her cheek.
And then R.J. was gone. Faye returned once again to the sofa by the window, where she sat down and touched her fingers to the place
he’d kissed. Her tears spilled down her cheeks and dropped onto her white silk sweater.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Rita said to Charlie on the phone that afternoon. “It’s too much responsibility on top of the kids and Hazel.” He had called after lunch, which he rarely got to do because he was so busy.
“In a few weeks I’ll be home for good and we can have a real, old-fashioned talk,” he said. “Can you hang in ‘til then? You know how Doc depends on all of us at one time or another.”
The hurricane of ’92.
The overload of tourists in ’95 and ’96 when the Clintons came to town.
The year—Rita did not remember when it was—that the flu outbreak had been so bad that there were patients in the halls of the hospital.
Despite that he was a gynecologist, in times of need Doc was the elder statesman of health care on the island, and when too many needed him, he always needed others to help do the laundry, make the coffee, mop and clean the floors. The island had been its own, dependable support group long before support groups were in fashion, no matter what Hazel said.
“It’s not an emergency, Charlie,” Rita explained. “The breast cancer support group is just … women.”
“I’ll bet it’s an emergency to them.” Having known Rita all her life, Charlie knew the best ways to get to her. She hadn’t planned to tell him she was abandoning the group, but it was Monday, so he had asked. “Besides,” he said, “there are only three of them. How much trouble can they be?”
Rita pulled her feet up on the couch. She studied her plain, unpolished toenails. She had not left them unpolished that summer she’d spent Wednesday afternoons with Joe: She’d done anything and everything to keep herself looking good, because Joe was where the money was and Rita was using him. “It’s not them,” she admitted, because sooner or later she admitted everything to her husband.
And then, with Mindy off at school and Hazel at the Center and the twins playing merrily on the playmat on the floor, Rita confessed to Charlie the summer of Joe Geissel and her sins against the man.
When she was finished, Charlie did not say a word at first, then he commented in a low, not unhappy voice, “And I thought you were a virgin when we married.” Which was, of course, a laugh, because they’d only been married two years now and he and Rita had first had sex in high school and she’d had Kyle as a result.
“But how can I look this woman in the face?” Rita added. “What if I was the reason for their divorce?”
He did not say, “Well, what did you expect?” or anything to make Rita feel even more like the low-life form she already knew she was. “Does she remember you?”
“With this hair of mine, how could she not?”
“Still, you don’t know for sure. Maybe she’s forgiven you. Then again, with breast cancer and all, maybe you’re the last thing on her mind.”
Rita did not say anything.
“And maybe,” Charlie added slowly, “you should think about something else. It seems she’s in the group because she wants the help of others. Maybe this is your chance to make it up to her.”
One thing that always drove Rita crazy about her husband was that he was so patient and so kind and, often, so preposterously right.
Dear Diary, Rita wrote, because what was good for one goose was good for another. She’d waited until the twins went down for their naps, then settled at the kitchen table with a small notebook and a pen.
A long time ago I was broke and I was scared. I’d raised a kid all on my own before most women did that sort of thing.
Chewing the tip of her pen, Rita reread what she’d written. It was true, of course, that she’d raised Kyle long before being a single parent was in vogue. She’d raised him and sometimes it had been damn hard.
Of course, her mother had been a single parent when she’d raised Rita, too. But that had been different. Rita had a father who’d taken off long before she was old enough to remember him, or so her mother had said, and who would have had the nerve to ever question Hazel?
Rita went back to her writing. I have no excuses for the things I did back then. Things like sleeping with men I did not love and who did not love me, simply because I needed attention or I just needed sex. Once I did it because I needed money. I am especially ashamed of that, because I’m afraid my actions might have broken up a marriage. Anyway, I’m just writing this to say I’m sorry, in case anyone is listening.
She closed the book and set down her pen. She’d never been one who liked writing, but she had to admit that something, somewhere deep inside her, felt a little better now.
If she could screw up her courage, she’d read her words tonight to the group. And maybe Faye would listen, and maybe Faye would know. And maybe Rita’s apology would be accepted, and they could get on with the business of why they were really there.
God, sometimes Rita hated being married to Charlie Goodie-Two-Shoes Rollins.
“Did you do it?” Katie asked Hannah after the three women had decided not to wait for Faye, because by seven-thirty it was fairly clear that she wasn’t going to show up. “Did you tell your family about San Antonio?”
Rita tried to act interested, when, in fact, she was angry that she could have saved her breath and her paper and her ink. She would not read the passage in her journal tonight: There was no point in her salvation falling on irrelevant ears.
“I told Evan,” Hannah explained. “He’s angry that he didn’t know. He insists that we’re not going to tell the kids.”
“Hiding things from the ones you love will only hurt them more,” Katie spoke quietly and shook her head.
Hannah nodded and continued, “And now I’m worried because I realized my mother could be released sooner than I thought. What if she’s already out? What if she tries to find me?”
Rita knew she should say something wise and insightful, never mind that she was, after all, a nonprofessional. Just try to be their friend, Doc said. But right now she didn’t have the patience. Instead, she twisted on the plastic chair, looked up at the round white clock with the large black hands, and wondered if this evening would ever end.
The big sun was magnificent as it swashed its stripes of pink and orange across the wide horizon that stretched above the Elizabeth Islands. As often as Faye had watched the sun set on the Vineyard, there was nothing quite as special as seeing it from the air.
She did not know if, physically, she could make the trip. Radiation and the adventure to New York had completely worn her out; she only felt a need to sleep.
But how could she sleep, knowing where Greg was, knowing that the time had come for them to put aside the past and try and find their way back to each other?
She had called Claire. If her sister could go with her on this journey, maybe Faye might have the strength that it would take. But the perky message on Claire’s answering machine said, “Sorry you missed us; we’ve skipped out of the country.” It was May; Claire and Jeffrey must be in Paris.
Faye and Joe had gone to Paris once, when the kids were still young and they still had been in love. Despite Joe’s rough, uneducated edges, Paris had softened him: They’d held hands as the elevator climbed the Eiffel Tower; they’d stood in awe beneath the Arc de Triomphe while reading the names of war dead; they’d ascended Montmartre just to see the artists in the square, busy at their easels, though Faye knew the Mont was now a tourist attraction and the artists’ works no longer were considered so noteworthy.
The small plane banked now and made its way toward LaGuardia International. And Faye began to wonder what had happened to her family and what had happened to the man whose hand she’d once held with joy, though her mother had warned her that Joe was not their kind. Randolphs, after all, did not marry contractors, no matter how much money they had amassed, no matter that Joe’s firm was involved with many major buildings in the city.
“Damn Irishmen,” the Widow Randolph had said in her declining years. “We never should have allowed them to move into our town.”
>
Faye, however, had not listened, because Joe thought she was a goddess and told her many, many times that he could not believe his luck in finding her. Coming from a household where her younger sister had collected all the men except their father, Faye found the Irishman quite irresistible.
Of course, everything had changed the night Dana was killed.
And now, there was Faye, divorced and alone, twice-stricken with breast cancer, a commercial, if not personal, success, seated on a small plane headed for LaGuardia where she would board a larger one that would take her to her son.
She rested her head against the seat back and wondered if the slight tremble that had come into her hands was one of trepidation or if that was an aftereffect of the radiation, too.
TWENTY
When Riley had not come home in time for dinner, Hannah was annoyed. Her daughter knew the rule: dinner together as a family except in times of fire, flood, or medical emergency. The kids and Evan laughed about it, but abided nonetheless. They did not know how important “family” was to Hannah, or that it was because, without them, she had none.
So Hannah had been annoyed, but not as angry as when she went home after the group meeting and found Evan pacing in the kitchen. “I need you in the shed,” he said, which was where they went to discuss something in private.
Casey looked at Denise and rolled his eyes and Hannah followed Evan out back to the greenhouse.
“Did you tell her?” Evan accused once they were inside and he’d closed the plastic-covered door behind them.
Hannah inhaled the soil scent. “Tell who what?” But even as she asked, Hannah simply knew.
He folded his arms at his waist as if holding in his anger. “Riley. Did you tell her about Texas?”
Hannah moved to a row of peat-moss cups that showed tall, greening sprouts of summer flowers—impatiens, perhaps—that should be ready by Memorial Day. Her chemo would be finished, and she’d be scheduled for surgery. The lavender, pink, and coral flowers would be in full bloom; she would not. “Of course I didn’t tell her, Evan. But not because I agree with you.” She did not add that she might have told her out of spite, but Riley had left for school too early that morning.
