by Jean Stone
The enamel kettle whistled on the stove. “I saw your car the other day,” Fern said. “On the street in front of the house. You have your name on the side.”
“My mobile billboard,” Rita said with a laugh. “I guess it was worth the eighty bucks.” So far, Hazel was being quiet, and for that Rita was quite pleased.
“My daughter also told me she thought you were Ben Niles’s friend.”
Rita blinked, and Hazel coughed.
“Actually,” Rita answered, “I’m friends with Ben’s wife, Jill. We grew up together in Edgartown.”
The woman poured hot water over the tea bags with what looked like angry gusto.
“I saw her the other day,” Fern said, turning her back to them just long enough for Hazel to look at Rita and shake her head. “She’s some kind of celebrity, isn’t she?”
Rita wondered if Fern had been out of the country or just didn’t own a television. But something cautioned her not to be sarcastic, and not to give too much away.
“She was a celebrity. In TV news. But she gave it up when she and Ben got married.”
Fern turned and set two cups in front of them. “I think that’s so pathetic, when a woman gives up her career for a man, don’t you?”
Rita shrugged. “Depends on the career,” she said. “Depends on the man.”
Hazel drank her tea but did not say a single one of the twenty thousand things Rita knew she would say later, when they were safely in the car and out of earshot of the woman.
Fern laughed. “Well, I’m sure she’s learned by now that it wasn’t worth giving anything up. Especially for Ben.” A serious look came across Fern’s face. “I guess she didn’t count on the scandal.”
Rita scowled.
“What scandal?” Hazel asked, as if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut another minute longer.
Fern smiled. “Well, surely everyone knows.”
There was silence in the old, knotty pine kitchen. “No,” Rita said, “everyone does not know.”
Fern tossed back her hair and leveled her black-lined eyes first on Hazel, then on Rita. “Well, you could have asked my father-in-law, but he’s dead. So I guess you’d better ask Ben.” Then she cocked her head and sipped her tea and smirked like she’d won the lottery.
Mindy knew her mother was looking to start trouble.
After she heard her mother say those things, she left the house, got on her bike, and pedaled down the snow-packed street toward West Basin Road as fast as she could pedal, as fast as she could get away from there, though she had no place else to go.
She knew her mother hadn’t called Rita just because she saw Rita’s car out in Menemsha. Since her mother had come back, she’d spent every day and night grilling Mindy about Ben, about his wife, about his life.
At one point Mindy almost told her the truth, that Grandpa had sort of made her say that Ben had touched her, that Grandpa had sort of made her tell the lie.
But just when Mindy was about to tell her mother, her mother said it was a good thing they were taking the son of a bitch to court because he would get what he deserved. And that they had to stick together because they were all each other had now, and that once they had some money, everything would be fine.
No matter how weird Fern Alice Ashenbach was, Mindy figured she was better than a foster home. She’d seen those kids in foster homes. They were the kids at the Christmas parties, who got the stupid gifts.
It grew more difficult to steer her bike, because the tires kept sticking in the snow. So Mindy got off and walked alongside, panting from exertion, wondering why Grandpa had to die and whether any of this would have happened if she hadn’t told the lie.
Rita was determined to unearth what the hell was going on.
As quickly as she half-politely could, she “reminded” Hazel they had other “Christmas deliveries” to make, then left the house, not caring if Fern Ashenbach listed her house with Rita or not, not even sure that legally she could, because Ashenbach might have left it to the kid, and estate stuff took forever to settle. It had been her professional experience that people who wanted to sell post-haste were probably up to no good. And in Rita’s book, calling her on Christmas Day constituted haste.
They climbed into the Toyota and barreled down the road, staying in the unplowed ruts that other cars had carved.
“This is absurd,” she said to Hazel. “What kind of scandal could involve Ben? I wouldn’t think that adultery—especially from years ago—was exactly newsworthy today.”
“How well do you know him?” Hazel asked.
Rita blinked, then looked sharply at her mother, then to the road again. It was Hazel who didn’t really know Ben—she’d left the island long before Jill had returned and met and married him. “He’s kind and generous and an upstanding guy. He’s my business partner. And for God’s sake, Mother, he’s married to Jill.”
“So that means he can’t have any secrets?”
If her mother didn’t sound so genuinely doubtful, Rita might have been pissed. She shook her head. “No way. Not Ben.”
Her mother shrugged, as if it were no skin off her false teeth. “I’m sure Jill felt the same until she learned about Fern Ashenbach.”
As Rita turned the corner, she saw the kid walking beside her bike, trudging along as if she had a fire to get to and without her the whole island would burn down.
Rita steered the car into a small snowbank and slammed on the brakes. She quickly jumped out, banging her belly on the steering wheel. She slipped on the snow. “Shit,” she muttered, grasping the sideview mirror and pulling herself up.
“Rita Mae, be careful!” Hazel hissed.
Rita caught what was left of her breath, apologized to the baby, and then shouted “Hey, kid!” at the little girl who was back on her bike now and trying to escape at snow-impeded speed. “Stop! I have to talk to you about your house!” The kid kept struggling to pedal. “I have to ask you about your grandfather!”
The kid slowed to a halt, a hundred or so feet ahead of Rita. She stopped but did not turn around.
Rita bent sideways and pressed her hand against the gas pain in her side. “Could you come here, kid? I’m pregnant. I can’t run up there.”
The little girl turned and looked back at Rita but made no move to return.
“Please,” Rita said. “I know you’re friends with Ben Niles. I need to know what’s going on. Do you know about some sort of scandal that maybe had to do with Ben and your grandfather?”
At first the little girl did not move. Then she hoisted herself back on the seat, set her feet squarely on the pedals, and pushed off down the road, heading toward that fire, wherever the hell it was.
Chapter 24
Ben rang the doorbell at Carol Ann’s and hoisted a sack of presents, like Santa fresh off the sleigh.
“Dad,” Carol Ann said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s Christmas,” he replied. “In case you forgot.”
“Well, of course not. But I thought you and Jill were in New York.”
He looked past his daughter to John. “Why would you think that?”
His daughter turned to her husband. “Honey, I thought you said my father and Jill were going to the city.”
Ben stepped inside the house, as if he did not know that John had lied again. “Well, pretend I did go, and now I’m wishing you a Merry Christmas in person instead of on the phone.”
The kids ran in from the other room. “Poppa!” Emily squealed. She hugged his leg while John, Jr. seemed more interested in the sack.
Carol Ann ushered him into the living room, with a reluctant John close behind. Ben did not dare look at his son-in-law—he was too inclined to kill him, or at least to try.
They sat on the wooden-armed, plaid-cushioned couches and opened presents. Ben lied (what the hell, he figured, everything else was out of whack, so he might as well lie, too) and said Jill had gone off to England because Jeff was homesick. “She decided to surprise him for Chris
tmas,” he said, wondering if John lied to Carol Ann without guilt or remorse.
Carol Ann and John gave him a framed black-and-white drawing of Menemsha House. He winced and thanked his daughter, who undoubtedly had had it commissioned without the knowledge of her husband. The kids gave him new mittens, “just like theirs” that Mrs. Bowen made, Mrs. Bowen being a widowed lady who’d once tried to woo a widowed Ben with casseroles and small talk.
They seemed to like their gifts, though John did not have much to say. Ben reminded himself he’d come there for his daughter and the kids. But when Carol Ann offered to heat up leftovers from the early dinner they’d had, the tension between Ben and John became more tense, the silence more silent.
“Thanks, honey,” Ben said, “but I want to get home for Jill’s phone call.” Carol Ann accepted that, apparently without realizing that it was too late in England for anyone to be calling. He chalked it up to holiday exhaustion.
“Oh, Dad,” she said instead, “I forgot to ask. Did Hugh Talbot ever reach you?”
Ben was standing by the back door between his daughter and his son-in-law.
“Hugh?” he asked, as if he could not recall the name.
“You know,” Carol Ann replied, “Hugh Talbot. The sheriff at Gay Head.”
“Oh,” Ben said. “Him.” He’d forgotten that Hugh had gone to Carol Ann when Ben was in New York.
“I’m sure he must have seen Hugh by now,” John said, nearly shoving Ben toward the door. “I think it was something about Menemsha, wasn’t it, Ben?”
He felt ridiculous and turned to the back door, his black-and-white framed drawing tucked under one arm. “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I guess. I don’t remember, so it must not have been important.”
“No,” John said, “I’m sure it wasn’t.”
But as Ben said good-bye and slipped out the door, he did not miss the quizzical look on Carol Ann’s face, a look so like Louise’s that nothing much escaped.
Jill sat on a bench in the international terminal at Logan Airport, sad and numb from a sleepless night in a nearby hotel and a long, dull day of waiting for the evening flight to London.
Not long ago, she could simply have telephoned the Four Seasons in downtown Boston, and they would have made a suite available even on such short notice, because the name Jill McPhearson meant something in this town—hell, her face had been on half a dozen billboards on Route 128 alone.
The name Jill McPhearson had meant something, but the name Jill Niles did not, so she’d checked into a small dark room that matched her mood and tried to bring some order to her mind.
Rita had said the fact that Ben had screwed around with Fern Ashenbach did not matter because it was ancient history and did not involve Jill.
Would Rita have felt the same if she’d known about Mindy Ashenbach? Or if she’d known about the question mark that lingered in Jill’s mind, the one that asked how well we can know one another and how much we should trust?
A cacophony of strangers hurried through the huge hall beneath the canopy of flags of many nations, bound for destinations far from Boston. Brassy, life-size angels glittered with blinding lights; yards and yards of inexpensive plastic garland were draped from up above. She found the decorations as irritating as the incessant drone of Christmas carols, the Muzak of Noel.
Deciding to go to England had been one of two smart things she’d done. She would stay there for five weeks, then fly to New York and return at least temporarily to her old life as Jill McPhearson, co-host to Mr. Edwards. She did not know how she would feel by then, or if she would go back to Ben, but today it did not matter. What mattered today was her sanity and her children, the only people she could truly trust.
She’d tried to phone Ben this morning, to at least say Merry Christmas, to thank him for the lovely blue pashmina he must have packed inside her bag while she’d been calling Amy to say good-bye.
She’d tried to phone him, but he’d been out.
Maybe he’d been with Fern Ashenbach.
A chill crawled through her. She dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Mom?”
Jill picked up her head. On her weakened body, she managed to stand up, then wrapped her arms around her daughter and hugged her with all the strength she had left.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Jill pulled back and looked at Amy, her beautiful, little-bit-crazy daughter with the burgundy hair. “I am now, honey,” she said, pushing a strand of runaway burgundy from Amy’s forehead. “Did you check your bags?”
It had been the other smart thing that she’d done. Right after she’d tried calling Ben this morning, Jill had called her daughter again. She’d told her to make her way to Boston, that they were going on a family holiday and were going to have some fun.
Chapter 25
Richard McPhearson was at Gatwick, on the other side of the glass, waiting for Jill and Amy to pass through immigration. At first Jill didn’t recognize him. When Amy shouted, “Hey, Dad!” it took a moment for Jill’s eyes to light on the face she’d once known so well.
A handsome man returned their daughter’s wave. He did not look like Richard: he had a neatly trimmed beard sprinkled abundantly with gray, and he wore a bulky navy turtleneck, a wool jacket and jeans. It had been many years since she’d seen him, since their last in-person rift. During that time he’d apparently shed his proper, stuffy image for one that was more human and more hip.
She stood off to the side and waited for Amy to break from her father’s huge embrace. “I wondered when I’d see you again,” he said and at first Jill thought he meant her.
“I’ve been busy, Dad,” Amy replied, slipping her arm through his and looking around the vast arched ceiling of the terminal. “I love living on the Vineyard, but it’s great to be back. You look smashing.”
Jill quickly reminded herself not to judge the relationship her children had with their father. She must encourage it, not judge it. But right now she hadn’t slept all night and not much the night before.
“Jill,” Richard noted, as if suddenly recognizing her as well. He did not take her hand or kiss her cheek, for which she was grateful. Instead he took her carry-on from her and began leading the way. “You look wonderful,” he said.
“And you,” she replied. “Silver hair becomes you.” She had not meant it to sound sarcastic, but Amy rolled her eyes.
“Mom,” she said, “no fights, okay?”
Jill smiled. Of course there would be no fights, because she was no longer married to this man, and he could no longer hurt her, no matter how many women he chose to sleep with. “Where’s Jeff?” she asked.
“He and Mick are trying to make their flat presentable. I suppose that means getting rid of beer bottles and pizza boxes and girls.”
Jill did not know why she was surprised. Her son had been in college two years, after all. His roommate would finish this year: surely they would have normal, healthy lives.
But Jeff? Quiet, introverted Jeff?
“I’ll drive you to Oxford,” Richard was saying, “so you won’t have to take the train. I’ll take my favorite girl and her mom for eggs and bangers before they settle out there in the country.” He winked at Amy and gave her another one-armed hug.
Jill stepped back to walk behind them, Dad and daughter.
“How long are you staying?” Dad asked.
Mom did not respond that they’d be here until February, unless her new husband was cleared before then of assault and battery of a child under the age of fourteen. Instead she said, “For a while,” and let it go at that.
• • •
Ben wandered through the quiet rooms of the house on North Water Street in the middle of the goddamn day, trying to figure out where to put himself and what to do and how much longer this day or the next would—could—last.
He’d thought about going to bed, but if he took a nap now, he’d set himself up to pace half the goddamn night.
So he wandered, stepping over dried pin
e needles, straightening sad red bows, while the hollow clomping of his work boots on the hardwood floors reminded him that this time the house felt different, that Jill was simply not off at work but off—well, gone, perhaps for good.
He couldn’t blame her. What woman in her right mind would have stuck around even this long? It was bad enough what Ashenbach had made Mindy do. But dear God, now Fern? He almost wished he had the guts to call Jill in England and tell her not to bother coming home at all.
How many more surprises? the look on her face had asked. Well, he couldn’t quite be sure.
He balled his fist and slammed it against the hallway doorjamb, the solid, hard oak doorjamb that he had painfully restored, hand-carving the turns and grooves to replicate the authenticity of the past.
Back when he was a respected craftsman. Back before anyone would have thought that he was a child molester and an adulterer to boot.
“Shit,” he cried, his knuckles quickly reddening. He straightened out his fingers. Pain shot up his arm. “Shit,” he said again, then worked to catch his breath. “Shit.”
At least the pain had taken the edge off the emptiness in his gut, the deadened air, and his indecision about what to do next. He went into the kitchen, cracked some ice, and pressed it against his knuckles, hoping he hadn’t done any real damage, wondering where in hell he’d found the anger to do that in the first place.
Just then he heard footsteps cross the porch, followed by a determined knock on the back screen door.
He figured he might as well see who it was. After all, how much worse could things get?
“Common sense—and, believe it or not, my mother—told me to mind my own damn business,” Rita said, stepping into the kitchen and eyeing the ice on the back of his hand, “but as you may know, I’ve never had much sense, common or otherwise.” She shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her street-length quilted parka. “Where’s Jill?”
Ben moved to the sink and dropped the paper towel with the ice cubes. “She’s not home,” he said.
