by Clare Hexom
“She took the same argumentative tone with me tonight as she did with him that morning.”
“She does love to bicker.”
“She was condescending.”
“She’s condescending to everybody, Mallory. I’m surprised Erik doesn’t leave her. She takes long trips without him or Emma sometimes. He doubts it’s business. I suspect she’s cheating.”
“Not work-related trips?” I asked.
“He thinks not.”
“Well, she’s not cheating with Jack. He was long before Erik.”
“Where is he now?”
I rolled my shoulders. “And there’s our mystery. Nobody knows.”
“He must have been awfully important to you.”
“Because he was a good friend to all of us during those years. He and others moved on and we never heard from them again.”
“A decent guy, then.”
“He was. Ronnie and I can’t find him when we search.”
“Dropping off the grid is next to impossible.” Lance took his eyes off the road to look at me, his expression serious. “Your Jack Harwood may have ended up badly. You say he and Dana argued.”
“Yes. And Ronnie and I think he’s dead.”
Lance became silent.
I leaned my head against the headrest and listened to the music. After arriving home, I scooted Caleb off to bed and tucked him in. As though he sensed I needed time alone with Lance, he passed on his usual bedtime story and went straight to sleep.
Lance was shoving his DVD into his jacket pocket when I returned downstairs.
“I meant to give you that earlier.”
He pulled it back out of his pocket. “Keep it. Maybe your mom and her boyfriend want to watch it.”
“I’ll ask. Thanks.”
He set the movie down on the end table next to the sofa. “I should get going. It’s late.”
“It’s Saturday.” I moved closer, longing for more intimacy than I believed I was ready for but more than willing to try.
He held me firmly at arm’s length. “This week at work was brutal. I am sorry, Mallory. I’m too exhausted to stay a minute longer. Any second now my eyes will shut and won’t open ’til morning.”
He’d been fine on Friday. I gestured to the sofa. “Take a nap before you drive home or have a cup of coffee.”
“No. No, thanks. I’ll be all right by morning. I’ll call you. We’ll plan the afternoon with Caleb.” He gently pinched my chin. “And a candlelight dinner for us.”
“Sounds romantic.”
He pulled me close and hugged me tight. “I promise.”
He lost enthusiasm. I worried the Jack Harwood conversation put him off. His parting kiss was nothing more than a faint brushing of my upper lip. His car backed out to the street. Tired as he was, there was nothing erratic about his driving. He even pulled alongside the curb to let the red motorcycle pass by. When he did, the rider raised his arm and gave Lance a wave.
Mom prattled on about their trip to Iowa after she returned home late morning the next day. Carl wanted to return a day early, claiming he was tired. Truth was, according to Mom, he’d grown tired of his brother winning cribbage and gloating.
“She makes the prettiest quilts, Mallory, and she sells them at craft shows all over Iowa. I gave her Elaine’s number so maybe they can share ideas.”
“Expand their selling territory. Good idea.”
“Here, I’ll show you a few pictures I took.” Mom took out her phone. “Pick one and I’ll buy it for you. Nice and warm. Not heavy, either.” She paused on one picture. “This heart quilt is my favorite.”
“They are nice, and I’m sure a lot of work, but I’m not a quilt person, Mom. Try Aileen and Natalie.”
“Oh well, then.” She sipped her coffee. “You and Lance went to the Fowlers last night.”
“A good dinner.”
“You look down.”
“He hasn’t called, and we made plans for today. I think I upset him.”
“Unlikely.”
I folded my arms against my body. “I mentioned Jack Harwood was a friend back in college. I think my bringing him up might have made Lance jealous. There is no other reason why he wouldn’t have called by now.”
“Knowing Jack years ago shouldn’t bother Lance.”
“Thinking about another guy might. Lance might be a jealous man. I don’t know how he is. I shouted Jack’s name when I remembered the day he broke up with Dana.”
“I think you’re imagining a problem exists where one doesn’t.”
“I should have kept my mouth shut, but it was one of those meaningless thoughts a person has, and I said it out loud.”
“I hope you don’t talk too much about Ben.”
“I hardly mentioned him. I keep my answers short whenever he asks. I’ll never stop loving Ben, but I know I need to get over him.”
“Then you have dating jitters.”
“Funny, I don’t feel jittery.”
“Getting acquainted, sharing those first special moments, dusting off your unused heart so you can love again. All that is stressful. Good stress, but nonetheless stressful.”
“I suppose you had jitters when you started seeing Carl.”
“Heavens no, I’m too old. If Carl hadn’t been interested in me, I wouldn’t have cared. Daddy loved me for decades.”
“Daddy still does. I know he thinks Carl is a nice guy, except I think Daddy could beat him at cribbage, too.”
“He always was good at cards. I hope he isn’t upset that I’m seeing Carl.”
“He’s glad you have somebody nice to take you on dates and all the way to Iowa for cider and apples.”
“And a new teakettle.” Mom was dreamy-eyed. “Lance will call. You’ll laugh at yourself for being silly.”
My ringtone for unknown callers played. I grabbed my phone off the counter expecting a wrong number. It was Jillian Dale. She asked to come over. She had a matter to discuss in person.
“How odd.” I told Mom that Jillian added, “Don’t call the Fowlers.” My speaking with them would confuse the reason she’d given them for wanting my number.
Mom looked expectantly at me. “Sounds as if she lied.”
“A lot of people dislike Dana and Erik these days. Even Lance.”
“They’ve always been nice to me.”
“It seemed strange how a few of their neighbors spent more time visiting with me than her or Erik at the party where I met Lance. Now one of them wants a private conversation.”
“People are funny. Way too particular if you ask me.” Mom ran water into the new teakettle she’d bought in Iowa. “They’re too darn picky about who they’re willing to like. Can’t accept people for who they are. My parents brought us up to get along with everybody.
Of course, we steered clear of criminals.”
“Of course.”
“When Dana was here the day of your party I suspected she drinks too much. None of our business why.”
She took a plate from the cupboard above her head and placed cookies on it from Grandma’s cookie jar on the counter. “We used to be more accepting of a person’s foibles. Times have changed. Now if you don’t act a certain way, always use the right words, people criticize you to death and you aren’t worth bothering with.”
“I want the Fowlers out of my life, Mom.”
“Not because of what others think, I hope. You go ahead and like Dana if you want. Forgive her quirks and forget the others. Maybe she needs a strong friend to lean on. Help her through her troubles.”
The doorbell later chimed above the teakettle whistle. I answered the door and Jillian stepped into the living room, declining my offer to hang up her jacket.
“You got here fast. You must have called from outside my house.”
“Almost.” She sat on the sofa and patted the cushion for me to sit beside her.
“You look as if you’re carrying the weight of the world.” I squeezed her hand gently.
She shook her hea
d slowly. “I am carrying the weight of the world.” Tears welled in her eyes. Her mouth opened as she prepared to speak, but faltered. “Travis tells me you and Lance are dating.”
“Yes. We are.” I paused.
“We thought you needed to hear this from us. I’m here about Lance.” She quieted, bowed her head.
“Go on.”
“He made a desperate call to Travis during the night.” She paused, her voice quavered. “Mallory, Lance died this morning.”
My mouth fell open. “He what?” The tears streamed from my eyes because tears were always right below the surface. “You’re wrong.”
She spoke softly while I cried.
“He sent Travis part of a text late last night about being seriously ill. When Travis called back first thing this morning, a police officer answered but he didn’t say much. Travis had to track down the hospital where they’d taken Lance. We found out a while ago that he died, and I got in the car as soon as we heard.”
Little feet were hopping in the kitchen. Mom was speaking to Caleb. My body went limp. I was sitting in the spot where Lance had been sitting when he held me in his arms. The spot where I decided to give him a chance and let him kiss me and begin to love me.
“He can’t be dead.”
“We don’t know how.”
My body shook. An uncontrollable sobbing moan rose from deep within me. I fell against her and wept.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Travis phoned Monday evening to say the funeral was in the planning stages for later in the week due to the forensic autopsy. He’d taken the liberty of sharing my number with the Garners. My friendship with their son was new, less than a month out. Nevertheless, they wanted to meet me.
Jillian and I spoke several times between Sunday and Wednesday. She found out that Lance must have become increasingly ill during the night. A neighbor heard loud crashing noises and called the police. Whatever Lance succumbed to, it caused him to move through his condo knocking over lamps and falling into tables before he collapsed near the door. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Knowing he died alone, as Ben had died alone, broke my heart. I cried constantly. Apart from the hospital staff, who I’m confident cared and did their best for both men, no loving family member or loyal friend had stood by either man’s deathbed.
Doctor Benson gave me the week off. Ronnie and Sam stopped in Monday evening. She said she missed not being there for me when Ben died and vowed to stay close now.
Rick and Natalie showed up, too. My brother remembered those unbearable days following Ben’s death. Like Ronnie and Sam, my brother and sister-in-law stayed for hours.
Caleb spent more time with Gavin. His hours away allowed me to grieve openly. He told Christine he was sad because he knew I was crying. She told me that she reminded him often how much I wanted him to spend happy days with Gavin instead of feeling unhappy, too.
Caleb took a few meals here and slept a few nights at home. His laughter ceased and he no longer recited his monkey rhyme. Without my son’s cheerfulness, my hopelessness deepened. We no longer heard whispers or knocking on the upstairs windows. All was quiet and the rooms were warm, as though the spirit withdrew and waited.
Mom checked on me every night. The sliver of light from the hallway startled me whenever she cracked open the door. I was certain she set her alarm to awaken at intervals.
She fixed tea and broth because solid food sickened me. I spent my waking hours sitting on the living room sofa. I clutched Lance’s DVD against my heart while I stared out the front window.
Seeing the motorcycle pass each day, hearing its roar late at night became mundane. Its noise annoyed me, distracted my thoughts about Lance. I melded his passing with Ben’s. A single heartbreak instead of two made coping easier. By Wednesday morning, I hated the bike. A motorcycle had taken Ben away and its sound no longer offered comfort.
I would soon despise whatever took Lance. Perhaps in deciding to switch dinner plates, he believed he would endure a few hours of vomiting and abdominal pain—a six-hour trip to the emergency room to prove Dana’s culpability yet allow him to live.
Mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the doorbell chimed. Mom had gone to pick up Caleb and Gavin from school. I pulled myself up from the sofa to answer the door. A man and a woman stood on the porch and held up police badges for me to see.
“We’re here to speak with Mallory Bain,” the woman said.
I opened the storm door and invited them inside. “That’s me. How can I help you?”
“We’re making inquiries into the death of Lance Garner,” the man said. “We need to ask a few questions.”
I recounted our last evening together and provided the few details I actually knew about him. They cared less that he preferred classical music and light jazz.
“He seemed sick during our drive home,” I told them regarding Saturday night.
“Describe ‘sick’ for us,” said the woman.
“Stomach upset. Heartburn. And he was exhausted from a busy week at work. He just wanted to go home and sleep. We made tentative plans for Sunday, but that never happened.”
I gave them the Fowlers’ address and phone numbers, uncertain where questioning them would lead. I held back a direct accusation, mostly because I was scared—not afraid of the accusation, but terrified of retaliation.
“His complaints were similar to the ones I had after ingesting poison mushrooms.”
“How did that happen?” asked the man.
“Still not sure. I ate takeout before having dinner at the Fowlers. No one else at their dinner party became sick. Only me. I had undigested portions of both meals in my stomach.”
They also asked for the name and location of the restaurant where I’d purchased the takeout. They left me with a peace of mind that somehow they’d find the answers everyone wanted.
Mrs. Garner phoned Thursday morning to let me know the wake was starting at four. She apologized for the last-minute notice, but there had been many phone calls back and forth, and out-of-town guests arriving for the funeral.
A gracious and soft-spoken lady who maintained composure during our difficult conversation, Mrs. Garner, the anguished mother who had given Lance life, comforted me, the new girlfriend. Before our visit ended, she thanked me repeatedly for caring for her son and making his last days on earth the happiest he’d been in a long time.
Sam bowed out, saying he’d feel more in the way instead of offering any comfort, but Ronnie stayed with me at the wake as promised. I watched her pass from one floral bouquet to the next, pausing to read each condolence card. She lingered close to the autumn spray Mom had sent, and wiped her eyes when she read the card.
“Neither Dana nor Erik’s name is in the guest book yet. Noticeably absent,” she whispered when she sat down beside me. “They sent the tacky plant on the end.”
“With the yellowed leaves.”
“You noticed.”
I watched the other mourners and saw no Fowlers among them. Family and family friends stood out. Lance’s parents and brothers shook hands with everyone, taking a moment to speak a few courteous words. The bride-who-never-was introduced herself to us and extended her sincerest condolences. Knowing I was the bereaved girlfriend, people consoled me as a member of his immediate family, otherwise, they gathered in small groups and spoke softly in their quiet areas of the chapel and the lobby.
Most of the time, I averted my eyes from the casket. I desperately tried reining in the pain searing my heart. I finally gave in and sobbed without regard to appearance.
Ronnie engulfed her arm around me and cried, too. “I will go with you whenever you’re ready to see him.”
I swallowed hard and let the tears fall. “I can’t.”
“You don’t have to.”
Lance lay several feet away, appearing asleep in the confined, bronze box surrounded by cream-colored satin. I thought of the handsome prince bestowing the kiss of life on his princess and
wished I could as easily bring him back again. How ideal to live in a fairytale, where in the blink of an eye, a wave of a wand, a kiss on the lips, no more death—only life and enduring love.
Ronnie tilted her head toward me. “The funeral is at eleven tomorrow.”
“In Maplewood.”
“This is Maplewood.”
“I know. Tomorrow Mom can drive.”
“I’m sorry I can’t get away. Still too new of a job.”
“No worries.” I straightened up and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I’m glad you’re here now. I couldn’t see that casket and face all these people by myself.”
Ronnie glanced around us, and then leaned sideways to whisper, “I wonder if Dana and Erik know what Lance suspected.”
“I doubt it.”
“And yet they haven’t called.”
I shook my head.
Mr. and Mrs. Garner approached us with consoling expressions. After a brief conversation, Lance’s father took my hand and helped me stand. His parents walked with me to the casket to spend a moment with their son. Two brothers joined us and stood behind their father. Both resembled Lance. My body trembled and their mother laid her arm gently against my back.
“We are grateful for you, sweetheart.”
“Thank you.”
I rested my hands on the edge of his casket and stared down at his white shirt, his green necktie, and the suit he’d worn for our first date. My gaze moved upward to his face. His brightness gone. I laid my hand atop his folded hands—cold, dead. While staring down at his lifeless form, the word “murdered” resounded in my mind clearly, as if spoken aloud. Anger flooded my heart.
And that anger renewed my strength to cope and find answers. We spent a while longer meeting more family. I went through the appropriate motions of decorum when at times my weakened body wanted nothing more than to collapse and sob its heart out.
We visited with two inconsolable aunts, who mentioned the front fender of Lance’s car was badly damaged. I refrained from commenting that he probably crashed into something while driving home that night. We left them after they dropped the word “poison” as the preliminary cause of death. Ronnie and I moved back to the farthest edge of the chapel and sat.
