“Theo, did you ever know my father?”
He laughed. “Please signal the next time you’re about to change directions. You’ve given me whiplash.”
“Sorry. It’s just that talking about Mother made me wonder. Actually, I’ve been thinking about him lately. Wondering what he was like. I guess they weren’t married when she was here getting her doctorate. Her maiden name’s on her degree.”
He gave me an odd look, surprised and puzzled. “Good heavens, no. They weren’t married until she returned to Minnesota. Rachel, don’t you know when your parents got married?”
“Not really.” Here was my opening, and I tried to sound as if it were all occurring to me on the spot. “Now that I think about it, I don’t know much of anything about their marriage. Mother won’t talk about him, you know.”
Theo shifted in his chair and seemed to be scanning the books on the shelves behind me. “Well, of course, it’s still painful for her. Losing him when they were both so young was a terrible blow. Terrible. She was very much in love with him.”
Why was it hard for me to imagine my mother as a young woman deeply in love?
“Did you know them while they were married?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I completely lost touch with Judith after she earned her doctorate and went back to Minnesota. I had no contact with her until she called, out of the blue, to tell me her husband had been killed in an accident and she wanted to get away from home and all the reminders.”
“So she came back here with Michelle and me. Just the three of us.”
Theo nodded. “Yes. Well, you know about that. Renee and I helped her get set up in practice, but she didn’t require a great deal of help. She’s always been a superb therapist, and her reputation spread quickly.”
“Did you ever meet my father?” I asked again.
“Oh, yes. He came to visit her once when she was my student. Actually, I seem to recall he was here because he had business in Washington. In any case, she brought him to one of our little buffets, you know the kind of party Renee liked to give for students and faculty. He made quite a stir among the women, as I recall.”
“Really? How do you mean?”
“Oh, his looks, of course, to begin with. You know how handsome he was. It was extraordinary the effect he had when he walked into a room. But that was only part of it.”
“I don’t remember any of that.” How had Mother felt about other women being attracted to her husband on sight?
“Well, look at his pictures and add to his handsome face a charming personality, very smooth, very self-confident, a talent for witticisms—”
He went on, but I’d frozen on one phrase: look at his pictures. Theo should know the pictures were gone, that I had destroyed them. Had he simply forgotten?
“I have to admit,” he said, “I was a bit worried about Judith marrying someone so different from herself. Not just the personalities, but the backgrounds.”
“How were their backgrounds different?”
He cocked his head, frowning. “Rachel, that’s a very strange question.”
“Why? I don’t know the answer.”
He studied me, his frown deepening. At last he sighed and said, a statement rather than a question, “Judith has never told you about the trouble in her family.”
I went still and cold inside. “No.”
He averted his head, staring into the empty grate of the fireplace. “I thought surely she would have told you by now.”
I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. Bursting with frustration, I demanded, “Tell me what you mean. What kind of trouble in her family?”
“Rachel, if your mother wanted you to know—”
I jumped up, dropping Sophia off my lap and startling both cats into resentful screeches. “Why is it up to Mother? This is my family we’re talking about too, my flesh and blood. What’s the big secret? You obviously know. Why shouldn’t I?”
He was silent for so long I thought I’d scream. But I could see him thinking. I stood with my hands clenched at my sides and made myself wait for him to speak.
“Rachel, dear girl,” he said, “please sit down.”
When I was on the couch again, facing him, he said, “It’s not so much a secret as something your mother simply doesn’t like to revisit. I’ve certainly never felt it was my place to talk to you about it. And since you’ve never asked before—”
“Theo!”
He raised a hand, asking for patience. “Judith’s parents, their home life, it was a dreadful situation. Devastation and chaos. It’s a testament to her strength of character that she made such a success of herself. She’s an admirable woman. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to ask your mother.”
I rubbed at the tiny fierce pain between my eyes. Devastation and chaos. I couldn’t remember Mother ever talking about her family. It was one more subject that wasn’t discussed in our home. But what astounded me was the realization that I’d never given them more than a passing thought. Surely it wasn’t natural to have no curiosity about my grandparents, aunts, uncles—Good God, I didn’t even know if I had any aunts or uncles.
I felt as if some part of me was waking from a long sleep.
Theo watched me with a kind, steady gaze. “Is this why you came to see me? To ask me these questions?”
Helen and Sophia crowded onto my lap, jostling each other and muttering resentfully. I stroked them and tried to speak in a calm and reasonable tone. “I want answers. About my family, my childhood. I don’t think Mother’s ever going to tell me any more than she already has. Theo, I can’t remember my father at all. Or our lives before he died. I want to remember what happened to me right after he died.”
I saw him flinch and draw back, his fingers tightening on the chair arms. I hurried on, before he had a chance to deflect my questions. “Was I really in such a bad state that Mother thought about putting me in a mental hospital?”
“Oh—” He hesitated, a crease cut between his full white brows. “She would never have done it, Rachel. She knew the three of you needed to be together.”
“Then it’s true?” My voice wavered. “I had some kind of breakdown?”
“Not a breakdown. I wouldn’t use that term at all. You were very hard-hit by the loss of your father. But you were perfectly functional. You did well in school. Your mother made certain the headmistress and teachers understood the situation. They went out of their way to help you.”
The faces and names came up on cue, the wonderful staff at McLean Country Day School, where I’d attended classes in a sheltered, privileged atmosphere. I remembered the headmistress and teachers, and I recalled myself in the later grades, but the first couple of grades were a blank.
“Was I difficult? Did I—fly into rages, or what?”
Theo laughed gently and shook his head. “Rages? That’s a very harsh word. You had occasional outbursts, yes, early on. Completely understandable. But for the most part, whenever I saw you during that time, you were withdrawn, very quiet. Grieving, as I said. But eventually you healed, as much as any child can heal from such a loss. You have your mother’s patience and love to thank for that. It turned out she knew what was best.”
“How—What—” My lips felt numb, and I stumbled over my words. “What was that? What was best? Did I see a doctor? A child psychiatrist?” Somebody who might still have records.
“No. I urged her to place you in therapy with a specialist, but Judith was determined to get you through it by herself. Frankly, at the time I thought it was a bad idea, not only because you’re her daughter, but because she was in a terrible state of grief herself. She believed it would be a healing process for both of you. And she was right, I must admit.”
“What did she do? Did we talk, have therapy sessions?”
“Talk, yes. Hypnosis, also, on occasion. You were always receptive to hypnosis, but of course you know that.”
I nodded. Mother had hypnotized me, and Michelle, many times. To calm pre-exam jitt
ers, to cure Michelle of her fear of thunderstorms, to relieve anxiety about any big upcoming event. I’d been a willing subject until the nightmares and inexplicable visions started when I was fifteen. After that I’d refused Mother’s help, however much I wanted or needed it, for fear that I would inadvertently allow her a glimpse of the crazy things going on in my head.
I sat silent for a moment, sifting through Theo’s words, Mother’s words, layer on layer. “Why don’t I remember grieving over my father’s death?”
“I don’t know, Rachel.”
“I’m blocking it out—I’m blocking him out—for some reason.”
Theo’s voice was quiet. “There’s a reason for everything the mind does.”
I was sitting but I felt like I was falling, tumbling through empty space. I gripped the sofa cushion on either side of me. Unsure what I was asking of him, I asked anyway. “Theo, will you help me?”
He leaned forward and stretched out a hand. His twisted fingers had little strength, but they were warm and gentle.
“Of course I will,” he said. “If I can.”
Chapter Six
During dinner that night my gaze stole toward Mother again and again, furtively studying her, seeing her anew. What did I know about her, really? She was the parent who’d raised me, but in many ways she was as much of a mystery as my dead father.
My head ached. I couldn’t eat. I was grateful for the excuse to escape when my rehabber friend Damian Rausch arrived to pick up both me and the red-shouldered hawk.
The bird was less than thrilled about being grabbed just as he was settling down for the night, then stuck in a cat carrier and taken for a ride, and ultimately pinned on a cold steel table at the vet clinic. He protested the only way he could: he opened his beak and hissed. If Damian and I hadn’t been wearing falconers’ gauntlets, we might have lost a finger or two.
“Ungrateful little bastard,” Damian said affably. He restrained the bird’s body while I extended its wing under the tube head of the x-ray machine. Damian, who looked a little like a hawk himself with his beaky nose and hooded dark eyes, had been rehabbing raptors for twenty years, and showed none of the tension I felt at handling such a dangerous yet exquisitely delicate creature.
The clinic, closed for the night, was eerily quiet around us. From inside the cubicle housing the x-ray controls, Luke called out, “Ready. Hold it.”
The machine hummed. The hawk’s body vibrated with rapid breaths and racing heartbeats.
“Okay, now,” Damian said. “Let him up real easy.”
We synchronized our movements, slowly allowing the hawk to get to its feet and fold its wing. The bird was back in the carrier and glaring at us from behind the grilled door when Luke came out with the developed radiograph. He slapped it onto the lighted view box. We studied the white-on-black image of a hollow bone healed around a tiny metal rod.
“Looks great,” Luke said, beaming at me as if he took a personal pride in my achievement.
“Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.” It was the first surgery of this type I’d ever done. “When I see him flying free, I’m going to pop the cork on a bottle of champagne.”
“I want to go with you when you release him,” Luke said. “I’ll supply the bubbly.”
“Won’t be long,” Damian said. He hoisted the carrier off the table. “Okay, pal, let’s get you to your new accommodations.” He had a big flight cage where the bird could get back into hunting condition before being freed. “You ready to go?” he asked me.
“I’ll give you a ride home, Rachel,” Luke put in quickly. “It’s right on my way.”
My house wasn’t even close to his route home. I hesitated, reading the question in his eyes. For the last two days I’d avoided being alone with him for a second, and it had felt like a form of self-torture. The so-near-and-yet-so-far method. Doubts clamored in my head, but suddenly I wanted him so much I thought I couldn’t get through another hour without him.
“Okay, thanks,” I said, trying to sound casual.
Damian glanced between us, then nodded with the same knowing expression I’d been seeing on my coworkers’ faces. Luke and I hadn’t so much as touched since his visit to the house, but we must be giving off some kind of signals. Alison, the desk manager, had even taken to wiggling her dark eyebrows at me when Luke walked by.
When Damian was gone, we were alone on the darkened main floor of the clinic. Under the pale security light in the reception area, Luke put his arms around me and said, “I missed you today. The place seems kind of empty when I know I’m not going to see you coming around a corner.” His lips skimmed mine. “You know I’ll take you straight back to your house if you want me to, but—” His smile was nervous, boyish. “Will you come home with me for a while first?”
The uncertainty and longing in his voice brought a rush of warmth that dissolved my doubts. “Yes,” I said, and put my arms around his neck and kissed him. I was going to do this, and I wouldn’t let myself think about anything else.
***
He lived in a highrise off Leesburg Pike, in a congested area ten minutes from the clinic and a world away from the quiet streets of McLean.
Going up in the elevator, Luke pulled me into his arms for a kiss that lasted to the eighth floor. The door opened on a white-haired woman carrying a small plastic basket of laundry. When we separated quickly, she smiled and said, “Don’t stop on my account. It looks like fun.”
Laughing, his arm around my shoulders and mine around his waist, we walked down the long hallway to his door.
It was hard to believe he’d lived in this apartment for weeks. An open carton of books sat beside a half-filled bookcase. No pictures on the white walls. Venetian blinds, no curtains, on the wide window. Half a dozen cardboard boxes formed a ragged pyramid in a corner. The beige-striped couch and two chairs seemed marooned on the forest green area rug, trying their best to look cozy.
“Not exactly what you’re used to, I know,” Luke said. He stood beside me, hands in his pockets, as I surveyed the room.
“Well,” I said. “It’s very…clean.”
He laughed. “I can’t get real excited about decorating when I’m the only one who ever sees the place.” He slid a hand under my hair and caressed the back of my neck. “Now, if I could count on regular company, I’d make it more inviting.”
I turned into his arms, letting my shoulderbag slide to the floor. We kissed, then I said, my voice muffled against his shoulder, “I should call home and tell them I’ll be a while getting back.”
“Ah, I like the sound of that. The phone’s right there.” He pointed to a desk that also held a computer.
If Mother’s Caller I.D. registered Luke’s number I would be barraged with questions. “I’ll use my cell phone,” I said, reaching for my shoulderbag.
While I talked to Mother, Luke’s arms circled my waist from behind and he trailed kisses down the side of my neck. Somehow I managed to keep my voice cool and even.
After I snapped the phone shut, Luke asked, “Want something to drink?”
“Not a thing.” I dropped the phone into my purse and faced him.
“How about a snack? I’ve got a bag of cookies that might still be fresh.”
I laughed. “Very tempting, but no, thanks.”
“I’m just trying to be a polite host,” he murmured against my ear.
“Oh, Miss Manners would give you an A-plus.” Nuzzling his neck, I drew in the wonderful smell of his skin, like grass and wheat and clean air on a hot day.
The top buttons of his blue shirt were open, showing a pale gray tee shirt with some sort of picture on it. With a fingertip I traced the outline of a canine ear. “What species are you wearing?”
He grinned down at me as I undid the rest of the buttons to his waistline and pulled his shirt open. A gray wolf looked back at me with a disarmingly friendly expression. “A wolf fancier, huh?” I said. “I like wolves myself.”
“Is that right?”
He s
moothly freed my shirt from my jeans waist and slipped a hand beneath it, onto my bare skin. His hand felt hot, but his touch made me shiver.
“I went to the Wolf Sanctuary once,” I said, “and did the twilight howl thing.” I kissed his neck and ran my fingers up through his hair. It looked coarse but it felt silky. “You know, when they get the people and wolves howling together.”
His tongue flicked my earlobe. “I’ve got a tape of wolf howls,” he said. “Want to hear it?”
“Well, I had my heart set on seeing your etchings—”
“The tape’s in the bedroom.”
“What luck.”
His bedroom looked as unfinished as the living room. The bed was made with white sheets and a couple of pillows. We removed our shoes and stretched out, propped on our elbows, the tape player between us. The glow from the lamp behind him turned Luke’s hair a soft gold.
From the recording a single wolf’s voice lifted in a long deep-throated undulating howl. One by one other voices joined in, rising and falling in an ecstatic chorus, like a gospel choir at Sunday service, carried away by the joy of being alive.
I began to howl with them, and so did Luke, both of us lying back and baying at the ceiling until we burst out laughing.
“The neighbors are going to call the cops,” he sputtered. “God only knows what they think we’re doing in here.”
He clicked the tape player off and laid it on the bedside table, his laughter settling to a smile. He drew his thumb across my lips and looked into my eyes for a long time. “Are you sure about this?” he said at last.
Was I? A stab of fear made me hesitate. But then I said, “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”
We undressed each other slowly, fabric slipping over skin, hands exploring. No one had ever touched me the way Luke did, lingering, savoring the fullness of my breast in his palm, the curve of my hips, tasting the hollow at the base of my throat.
I moaned shamelessly as he kissed my nipples, my stomach, my thighs, and I cried out when he touched his tongue to the ache between my legs.
When he slid inside me a sharp flash of alarm froze me and I jerked my head aside so he wouldn’t see my face.
The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 8
