I located Mother, with a knot of people twenty feet away. But she was watching us with an alert expression. Suddenly I was certain Michelle had betrayed my confidence.
Mindful of her gaze on us, I stepped back from Theo and said, “This is my friend, Luke Campbell.”
“Ah.” Theo was instantly distracted, his keen dark eyes making a quick assessment of the man before him.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” Luke said, shaking Theo’s hand. “Rachel tells me you’re originally from Athens. I spent a week in Greece one summer when I was in college, and I’ve always wanted to go back.”
In seconds they were talking about Theo’s family and background.
I left them and followed Michelle into the kitchen. “Did you have to be so rude to Luke?” I said, sliding the patio door shut.
“You know, Mother’s a good judge of people.” She lifted a big blue bowl of potato salad from the refrigerator and pushed the fridge door shut with her elbow. “You ought to pay more attention to her opinion.”
Through the glass doors I saw Luke and Theo at the far end of the patio, Luke with his hands in his jeans pockets, Theo leaning on his cane, gazing out over the flower beds as they chatted. Mother circulated among the other guests, but her head swiveled toward the two of them every few seconds.
“What did you tell Mother?” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Michelle sailed past me with her chin up and the blue bowl in her hands, but her exit was blocked by the closed patio doors. She tried to shift the bowl, cradle it in one arm so she could open a door with her free hand, but the bowl was too big and slippery. She grunted in frustration.
I slid back the door. Her gaze met mine for a second, and in her eyes I thought I saw a glimmer of apprehension.
“God, what a dull bunch of people,” Luke whispered when we managed to separate ourselves from the crowd and meet in a corner of the patio.
He’d discovered that a collection of shrinks talked about the same mundane things anybody else would: politics, the break in the heat, the drought that had them watering their lawns and gardens for hours every week.
“And they all want me to diagnose their cats and dogs, sight unseen,” he said. “That guy talking to your mother, he spent ten minutes describing some skin problem his Lab’s developed, and he got a little huffy when I told him to take the dog to his own vet. What a jerk.”
I laughed, watching Max Richter’s broad gestures. Every few seconds his large swooping hand landed on some part of Mother, her shoulder or hand or arm. Her smile was fixed and her body rigid against his incursions.
“He’s by himself this year,” I said. “Usually he brings his latest girlfriend or wife. He’s been married four times.”
“Jeez.” Luke studied Mother and Dr. Richter. “He likes her, he really goes for her, I can tell.”
“He’s been coming on to her as long as I can remember. Even when he had a wife or girlfriend standing next to him. Maybe he sees her as a challenge. But she’s not interested.”
“He’s lucky. He doesn’t realize he’s cozying up to a poisonous spider.”
I looked down at a potted hibiscus, watched a pollen-gilded bumblebee back out of a red flower, and wondered why I still felt this urge to defend Mother.
***
Luke and Theo and I sat at one of the improvised long tables and Mother and Michelle sat at the other. Dinner was cold ham and roast beef, potato salad, julienned cold vegetables, and Rosario’s meltingly tender butter rolls. Mother would only go so far in carrying on Renee’s tradition; she wouldn’t set up a messy barbecue on the patio and cook hamburgers and hot dogs.
At our table a long serious debate about the pros and cons of timer-controlled lawn sprinklers gave way to fascination with the idea of heart surgery on cats and dogs. Everyone chewed contentedly and urged Luke to describe myriad unappetizing surgical procedures.
Every time I glanced Mother’s way our eyes met. Half of my mind was keeping up with the conversation, while the other half frantically tried to construct plausible answers to Mother’s inevitable questions.
***
As afternoon slid into evening, the sun broke through the clouds and burned red low behind the trees, reaching through the foliage to lay long fingers of pink light across the grass. When the meal was finished, Mother went into the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later bearing aloft a white-frosted cake with lighted candles.
The guests burst into song. Happy birthday, dear Michelle.
Perennially delighted by the cake and the attention, Michelle laughed and blew out the candles.
“Born on the Fourth of July?” Luke said.
“Yeah. I forgot to mention it,” I murmured.
Why had I always felt this pang, as if the celebration of my sister’s birthday denied something to me? It didn’t make sense. Certainly I wasn’t envious of a song from these people.
With a wry smile, Luke said, “I hope your birthday’s livelier than this.”
I laughed. “Mine’s even quieter, actually. Just the three of us.”
“Not this year.” He stroked my back. “August 26. You’ll have a birthday to remember this time, I guarantee.”
I grinned. “I’ll look forward to it.”
My sister, smiling prettily, laid cake slices on the guests’ plates. Rosario had made two cakes to ensure we’d have enough for everybody. Twenty-four years old, Michelle was today. Mature in some ways, still so childlike in many others.
Mother’s cherishing gaze never left Michelle’s face. However hard I tried, I never brought that look to Mother’s eyes, that soft smile to her lips. Some kind of obstacle had always stood between Mother and me, something that made us draw back from one another. For all her show of love and concern and closeness, for all the gentle touches, she withheld herself from me, while her love for my sister overflowed, uncontainable, demanding expression.
***
“Rachel.”
I turned to Dr. Aaron Krislov, distinguished professor of psychology at Georgetown University, a bearded man in blue Bermuda shorts and a yellow Izod shirt that stretched thin over his bulging belly. “Before it gets too dark,” he said, “could I wangle a look at your animals?”
Half a dozen others asked to go along. Luke and I led them down through the trees to see four orphaned baby raccoons and a battle-scarred squirrel. Everyone was disappointed to hear they’d missed the hawk.
***
When I stepped back onto the patio, I saw Mother and Theo in the kitchen. She stood straight and still, hands clasped, her eyes boring into Theo as she spoke words I couldn’t hear. He raised an arm a couple of times in a gesture I recognized as a plea, but she went on talking and didn’t allow him to interrupt.
I spun around, searching for Michelle. She sat at a table chatting with Melinda Morse and nibbling the last of her cake.
When I reached her, I squeezed her shoulder hard enough to make her wince. “I want to talk to you.”
“Rachel—” She squirmed out of my grasp.
Dr. Morse’s big eyes got bigger.
I leaned close and whispered in Michelle’s ear, “You little rat. You told her, didn’t you?”
Michelle’s face went red. The tip of her tongue flicked over her lips, catching a stray crumb at the corner of her mouth. “Not everything,” she whispered back.
But enough to do damage, I’d bet. I left Michelle and maneuvered through the crowd to the sliding doors. When I pushed one open, Mother broke off before I could catch anything she was saying. Theo stood with his head bowed, one hand clutching his cane and the other raised to his mouth.
“Rachel,” Mother said, “you’re interrupting a conversation.”
“About me?” I wasn’t going to slink away and be a good girl. I shoved the door shut, catching a glimpse beyond it of Luke’s puzzled face and behind him Michelle, both of them moving toward the kitchen.
“If you want to berate somebody,” I told Mother, �
��then pick on me. Leave Theo alone.”
Her mouth opened and I saw a flash of pure amazement on her face. But her words came out as a gentle reproach. “Rachel, really, what’s gotten into you?”
Her tone made me wonder momentarily if I’d misunderstood. But Theo’s tear-filled eyes told me I hadn’t. “Mother, I don’t know what Michelle told you, but Theo was trying to help me.”
“And you thought you had to keep it a secret from me.” Soft, sad voice and expression. She was infinitely disappointed and hurt by her daughter and her friend.
The door slid open and Luke stepped in, followed closely by Michelle. Mother made a little noise of exasperation. “Dr. Campbell, would you mind letting us have some privacy?”
Luke ignored her, asking me, “What’s going on?”
“It’s none of your business!” Michelle cried.
“I think I should go,” Theo said.
I laid a hand on his arm. “No, please don’t.”
“I think it’s best.” He patted my wrist, but his sorrowful gaze was on Mother. “Judith, I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you, and you should be well aware of that after all these years. I was simply trying to help this dear girl.”
Mother regarded him icily. He waited through a moment’s silence, then said, “If I might use your telephone to call a taxi—”
“I’ll drive you home,” Luke said.
Theo protested a little, but weakly, before accepting the offer.
Luke took my hand, and I cut him off as he was about to speak. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Really I will.”
“Call me later. Or come over to my place.”
I nodded, and he kissed me lightly. When he stepped away I saw Michelle roll her eyes. Mother’s mouth was a thin line.
“Shall we go out the front way?” Theo said, and I realized he didn’t feel sufficiently collected to stop and say goodbye to everyone on the patio.
I was left standing in the kitchen with my mother and sister, the two of them side by side, united against me.
“We still have guests,” Mother said. “We’ll talk about this later.”
When Mother decided it was time for guests to go, she could get the idea across firmly without lapsing for a second from her perfect hostess act. She’d move among the men and women on the patio, telling them how much she’d enjoyed seeing them, that she hoped they’d be back next year, and they’d have no choice but to leave.
***
I waited in the kitchen, scraping leftovers into the garbage disposal, slamming plates and silverware into the dishwasher, trying to decide what I’d say to Mother. I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t do that anymore. It was time I stood my ground and got some answers.
Under my defiance I harbored the hope that it would all make sense in the end, that Mother would explain, make me understand.
***
When the last guest left it was nine o’clock, nearly full dark. In the distance I heard the crack and boom of the fireworks display getting started at Langley High School.
Mother and Michelle gathered the remaining dishes and brought them in. We scraped and rinsed in silence. After we’d stacked the dishwasher for the first of two cycles that would be needed, Mother told Michelle, “You’re the birthday girl, you’ve done enough work. Go on upstairs and relax now. Rachel and I need to talk.”
Michelle’s eyes widened. “Don’t you want me to stay?”
“Please, Michelle.” A firm order, not a request.
Michelle was clearly wounded by this exclusion, but Mother let her go without attempting to salve her feelings. I suspected Michelle would stop halfway down the hall and tiptoe back to listen at the door.
Mother and I were alone in the kitchen, facing each other.
“Let’s sit down,” she said.
All right, I thought. Now. My mouth had gone dry.
For what seemed an endless time, we sat in silence at the little maple table where we always ate breakfast. On the far side of the kitchen water sloshed in the dishwasher. A stream of air from the baseboard vent chilled my ankles.
“Rachel,” she said at last.
Her long slender fingers reached toward me. I laid both my hands in my lap. For a moment she left her arm outstretched on the tabletop, then withdrew it and sat back.
“Rachel,” she said again, her voice soft. “I’m so worried about you.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she said, “when I discovered you’ve been to see Theo as a patient, that you attempted hypnosis—”
“You had no right to jump on Theo about it. Don’t you people have any ethics? Don’t you have any respect for doctor-patient confidentiality?”
I met her gaze for a second before a jolt of alarm made me look away. I was afraid of her. I was afraid she could reach into my mind with her eyes.
“Rachel, you’re my daughter—”
“I’m a grown woman and I’m entitled to my privacy.”
A pause, then she spoke with gentle humor. “At the moment you seem more like a defensive teenager.”
Stung, I realized she was right. I recognized the old resistance, the stubborn need to be a concrete wall to her velvet-covered battering ram.
When I didn’t answer, she went on, “Yes, you are entitled to your privacy. I suppose I’m just a little hurt that you went to Theo for help instead of coming to me.”
I could have screamed. I refused to let her do this. After the way she’d played with my mind, she was not going to make me feel like the ungrateful daughter, spitting in the face of her love. My hands clasped to my suddenly throbbing head, I said, “I didn’t think you’d—”
“Do you have a headache? Let me get you some ibuprofen.”
She started to rise.
“I don’t want you to get me anything!”
She sat down again. “All right. Why don’t you tell me what’s put you in such a state? What have you and Theo discussed? You know, Theo’s a good friend, but he’s not the one to give you information about our family.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever get it from you. Anything he told me would’ve been more than you have.”
“And what has he told you?” Her voice, her face, her body, were quiet, cool.
My eyes filled with maddening tears. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about your family? Why did you keep them such a deep dark secret?”
Behind Mother, Michelle appeared in the doorway. Instead of interrupting as I expected her to, she stopped and waited with me for Mother’s answer.
Silence, for what seemed an eternity. She followed a fly’s zigzag trek across the tabletop but showed no reaction to the filthy insect’s invasion of her kitchen. When she spoke at last, her voice was hollow and remote. “What did Theo tell you about them?”
“Not much of anything. He just said it was bad, you had a terrible family and it was amazing you survived.”
With a flick of one hand she drove the fly from the tabletop. It zoomed past my right shoulder. “Then you must see why I don’t want to talk about it.”
Guilt rattled its cage at the back of my mind. This time I wouldn’t turn it loose. “Mother, Michelle and I have a right to know about our grandparents, and our—our—” Aunts, uncles? I had no idea. “We have a right to know.”
“Be grateful for being spared, Rachel. Some things are too—” She broke off and shook her head. “Just be grateful for being spared.”
“Spared what?” I said, my voice rising. “Mother, I want to know. I want to know now.”
She leaned toward me, anger flaring in her dark eyes. “All right, Rachel. What do you want to hear first? Do you want to hear what my father did to my mother? Breaking her arms, fracturing her skull, knocking out her teeth. Kicking her in the ribs. Do you want all the details?”
I couldn’t speak. The chill around my ankles spread through my body.
“You said you wanted to know.” Her voice cracked, but she forced the words out. “Maybe you’d like to hear about the way my mot
her killed herself—”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“She drank a pint of Clorox bleach. It ate through her throat and esophagus and stomach. She died in agony. I watched her die.”
I reached for her hands. “Oh, God, Mother, I’m sorry—”
She snatched her hands away, raised them in a defensive motion in front of her. Her gaze darted about the room. “Then he didn’t have her around to beat up anymore. He wasn’t happy then. He needed her. So he put a shotgun in his mouth and blew his brains out. And I was glad. I was glad he was dead and it was finally over.”
She stopped abruptly. I heard my own breath, ragged and noisy, and in the background the rhythmic sloshing of the dishwasher. Beyond Mother, I saw Michelle, eyes wide and shocked, both hands clamped over her mouth.
Mother slumped back in her chair, and a mask came down over her face, smoothing away emotion. She was deathly pale. “I had a sister,” she said, her voice quiet and toneless. “Anna. She disappeared and never came back. And that’s what I did too, in my own way.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them her lashes were wet. “I didn’t want to give you and your sister that kind of heritage. What would have been the point?”
I sat numb and cold, groping for the questions I’d wanted to ask, the demands I’d meant to press. My father. The pictures. The missing birth certificate. The things she’d said to me under hypnosis. What was she trying to make me forget?
I blurted, “Mother, was I adopted?”
She stared at me, her dry lips slightly open.
“Mother?” I said. “Was I?”
She let out a little cry that mixed amazement, bewilderment, pain. “Why would you think something like that?”
I couldn’t waver now. I couldn’t let the familiar grip of guilt stop me. But I was unable to make my voice any louder than hers. “Is it true? Is that why I don’t have a birth certificate?”
“Rachel, for God’s sake!” Michelle exclaimed. She rushed forward and threw her arms around Mother’s shoulders. “Have you gone completely crazy?”
The Heat of the Moon: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 16
