The Woman Next Door

by Barbara Delinsky

  She didn’t know whether she liked that idea, particularly on a night like this. She felt too far from home, too removed from the lives of her husband and children. She was with them every weekend, but it wasn’t the same. Nor was talking with them on the phone each night.

  She had come a long way. Everyone said it, and they weren’t only talking about her business. Seven years ago, she had been a frumpy mother with flyaway hair, hiding her stomach under loose sweaters and, tired of being humiliated at the gym, trying to shape up by drinking carrot juice. Now she was twenty pounds lighter, with short, sleek hair, a daily makeup routine, and a wardrobe of chic business suits.

  Oh, yes, she had come a long way. But there’d been a price to pay.

  ***

  Amanda was at the high school for two hours. By the time she drove back down the street, it was nearly eight, and she was thinking that she might not want to be a parent at all, if it meant waging wars like the one she’d just been through. Granted, she and Graham would be more reasonable than the Davises had been—hopefully more understanding of their own child and his needs, and Quinn Davis did have needs. She had seen the chink in his armor tonight. He sat there looking sick, grinding each thumb against its forefinger while his parents argued on his behalf. Apparently they chose not to see the nervous gesture. When Amanda had dared suggest—gently and privately at the end of the session—that she would be happy to talk with Quinn, they had jumped down her throat. There was nothing wrong with their child, they said.

  The whole thing left her weak.

  Having her period didn’t help. It drained her.

  But enough. Taking a deliberate breath, she focused on releasing the tension.

  The setting helped. Darkness brought its own serenity to the cul-de-sac. Gaslights glowed at the head of each walk, while softer lamplight spilled from the houses. A television screen flickered in the Langes’ first-floor den, saying that Russ was there. Likewise, next door and one floor up, twin lamps in twin windows, coupled with twin shadows cavorting, vouched for the presence of the Cotter twins. And, yet another house over, where was the widow? Her front windows were dark; it wasn’t until Amanda reached her own driveway that she saw the light at the back of the living room. Gretchen was in the library, as she often was at night.

  Amanda wondered what she did there. June used to read every bestseller she could get her hands on—fiction, nonfiction, whatever. She had belonged to three book groups that took her beyond the cul-de-sac, and she often replayed those groups’ discussions with Amanda, Georgia, and Karen. June’s two sons, both over forty now, had always known that books were a sure winner as gifts. Ben knew it, too, and indulged her.

  Was Gretchen reading books from June’s collection, then? Amanda doubted it. On the occasions when Amanda had mentioned a book in an attempt to make conversation, Gretchen looked totally blank.

  So maybe she was reading books on pregnancy now. Amanda could loan her a few.

  Speaking of which—Amanda looked at her own house, and her stomach tightened. Quinn Davis had been a diversion, but she was home now, and she needed Gray. She needed comfort on the matter of sixteen-year-olds who couldn’t live up to the image their parents set, not to mention thirty-five-year-olds who couldn’t live up to the image their in-laws set.

  Other than the gaslight at the head of the walk, the only other light came from the small room under the eaves of the garage, Graham’s half of their home office. She could picture him at his drafting table, one foot propped on the rung of a stool, his knee bent, elbows bracing his arms, steadying the hand that sketched his plan in the narrow shaft of light cast by a gooseneck lamp. Computer equipment was lined against the wall to his left, but it would be idle. He had bought it in deference to the three associates and a business manager who worked at his office in town, and it was state-of-the-art and fully networked. So was Graham. He could work with CAD programs as expertly as every new graduate from design school. Given a choice, though, he worked by hand.

  He would definitely do that on a night like this. He would be hungering for some pleasure, any pleasure, though it meant taking solace in work rather than his wife.

  But she was a fine one to talk. She escaped into work, too.

  Things were eroding. They were eroding. Not even the caress of the soft night air on her face when she slid out of the car could soothe the sting of that.

  With a tired breath, she looked up at the night sky, so beautiful and star-filled, so devoid of answers. She didn’t know why she and Graham couldn’t have a child. They had so much going for them.

  Righting her head, she was about to go inside when she caught a movement on the Cotters’ front porch. It was the tip of a cigarette, glowing a deep orange on the uptake. Karen was there.

  Taking this last, small, diversionary measure before facing Graham, Amanda crossed the cul-de-sac and followed the cigarette smell over the grass to the porch.

  “Don’t say anything,” Karen warned softly. She was backlit, deeply shadowed. “I’m only having one.”

  Amanda settled onto the step beneath hers. “You’ve been so good. You had it licked.”

  “Only one. That’s all. What’s the latest on Quinn?”

  Amanda would have preferred to ask what had triggered the need to smoke, but the therapist in her was beat. “He’s sober.”

  “Is he being expelled?”

  “Expelled? Lord, no. He’s being suspended from the team for the rest of the season.” She wasn’t betraying a confidence, but was simply correcting a rumor that was wrong. The truth was public knowledge.

  “Suspended from playing baseball? Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  Karen stared out at the night. Quietly, she said, “That’s the same punishment as the other two boys got. I’d have given Quinn more. When you’re in a leadership position, the standards change. We expect more then.”

  “What does Jordie have to say?”

  Karen put the cigarette to her mouth and pulled on it. Her answer followed a narrow stream of smoke. “Not much. At least, not to us. He raced out of here soon after he heard. God, do I hate this age.”

  “Ours? Or theirs?”

  “Right now, theirs. I hate the secrecy. It makes you wonder what’s really going on.”

  “Do you think Jordie drinks?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t have said Quinn did, either. So what do I know?” She took a longer drag on the cigarette, but if it was meant to relax her, it failed. Her voice remained tight. “I do know one thing, actually. Gretchen’s pregnant. I took her a batch of cookies. Close up, it’s clear as day.”

  Then Amanda hadn’t imagined it. There was some satisfaction in that.

  “She’s seven months along.”

  “Seven? She didn’t look that big.”

  Karen snorted. “No doubt the baby will be as willowy as she is.”

  Amanda did the math. “If she’s seven months along, she conceived in October. The carpenter was around then replacing the porch roof.”

  “Uh-huh,” Karen said, “and after the roof, he built shelves in one of the spare bedrooms, then he added support beams under the master bathroom for a Jacuzzi. The plumber and the electrician were both around for a while getting it hooked up.”

  “A ménage à trois?” Amanda asked, tongue in cheek. Comic relief was in order on a day like this. “So who’s the father?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “I didn’t dare.” When she took another drag of the cigarette, curls of smoke rose from her lips to her nostrils. “We’re not exactly pals, Gretchen and me. My husband’s the one who’s her pal. He’s the one running over there to shovel snow or stack wood or put on storm windows. I should send him over to ask.”

  “Maybe he already knows,” Amanda said, being facetious as she and the other two women used to be on the issue of their husbands and Gretchen. It was common knowledge that Gretchen would talk to their men.

  Now though, defensive, Karen
pulled back. “Why do you say that?”

  Amanda paused before replying. “I was thinking that one of the men working there might have winked or made a suggestive comment—some man-to-man kind of thing to imply he was getting it on with Gretchen. Do you think she’ll be moving?”

  Momentarily appeased, Karen returned her elbows to her knees. “Not soon. She told me she was decorating the nursery. There were paint spatters on her shirt.”

  Amanda could picture it. She would do the same thing if she were pregnant. She had dreamed of decorating a child’s room more times than she could count—one color here, another there, stencils for a border, a big rocking chair. She had been superstitious enough to wait, not that waiting had done any good. So maybe she ought to go ahead with it. Maybe a sign of commitment was needed. She could paint, buy furniture, hang mobiles. She could fill shelves with fuzzy animals, and if it broke her heart to pass a room like that every day of the week, was it any worse than passing a room filled with cartons that should have been unpacked and disposed of years before?

  Those cartons contained remnants of their premarriage lives, each clearly labeled with Graham’s name or hers. There was no merging of a couple here. Amanda wondered if, taken metaphorically, that was the problem.

  Karen drew on the cigarette a final time before stubbing it out on the underside of the step. “Georgia’s due back tomorrow. I wonder what she’ll say to all this.”

  “She’ll be worried about Allison drinking.”

  “I mean about Gretchen. Of all the possible suspects, Russ is the one with the greatest opportunity.”

  Amanda would have said that Russ respected Georgia too much to cheat. Only that implied Lee didn’t respect Karen—which he didn’t, but rubbing it in wouldn’t help. Besides, who was Amanda to pass judgment? Sure, Lee had a history of cheating. Sure, Russ spent his days in Gretchen’s front yard, so to speak. But Graham had been in that house last October—an hour here, an hour there. If they were listing suspects, Amanda had to include him.

  Chapter Five

  The house was silent. Graham usually had music on—something soft, often bluegrass, perhaps Alison Krauss or Darrell Scott, both of whom they loved—but there was nothing playing tonight. Nor was there any sign that he had eaten. The kitchen was pristine.

  Once, not so long ago, Amanda might have come home from working late to find that he had dinner on the stove. He knew how much she loved the homey feeling of that. Her life before him hadn’t had much hominess in it, and she treasured it.

  She could have used a little hominess now. Especially she could have used that sign of caring.

  But he hadn’t made dinner.

  Which was fine. She wasn’t hungry.

  The phone rang. She waited, hoping that Graham would pick up in his office. By the fourth ring, when he didn’t, she answered it herself.

  “Hello?”

  Her sister-in-law Kathryn launched right in. “Gray called Joe, and he called me. I’m sorry about the baby, Amanda. Are you okay?”

  What she was just then was annoyed. She didn’t know why Graham had had to call his brother so fast. “I’m fine.”

  “Next time, it’ll take. Three’s a charm.”

  It certainly was for Kathryn. She had three children, three dogs, three weeks’ vacation from a three-day-a-week job. Amanda envied her. She envied the other O’Learys, too. Life just seemed to fall into place for them.

  Things weren’t so easy for Amanda and Graham. She couldn’t begin to think about the next time yet.

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Kathryn was saying. “You’ll have that baby. O’Learys always do. So, cheer up, sweetie, okay? But that’s only one of the reasons I’m calling. The other is to remind you about Sunday. Everyone’s coming here at three. Is that okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “No birthday gifts. Mom doesn’t want gifts.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’ll bring a trifle?”

  “Uh-huh, made with Paddy whiskey, to your grandmother’s specifications.” One didn’t make an Irish trifle without Irish whiskey. Amanda had learned that the very first time she had met the O’Leary clan. One didn’t eat Irish trifle—at least, not in an O’Leary household—without toasting Paddy.

  “Mom will love that,” Kathryn said. “Did she give you the recipe?”

  “No, MaryAnne did.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s okay. MaryAnne gets it right. You know not to use Cool Whip, don’t you? You have to whip real cream, or it isn’t perfect, and you have to do it yourself. Fresh. Canned stuff won’t do. I tried taking that shortcut once and, believe me, you can taste the difference. I’ve made that trifle a hundred times, so if you have any questions, give me a call. Otherwise, I’ll see you Sunday at three?”

  “We’ll be there.”

  Amanda hung up the phone, wishing with all her heart that her mother-in-law’s birthday was any weekend but this one. It wasn’t that Amanda didn’t like Graham’s family. She adored his sisters and brothers and their spouses and children. The problem was Dorothy.

  Kathryn’s exuberance notwithstanding—Kathryn’s manipulation notwithstanding, since she had been the one to say who would bring what—Amanda wasn’t at all sure that Dorothy would be pleased to know that she was the one making the O’Leary family trifle.

  Dorothy had never accepted Amanda. It was almost as though she blamed Amanda for the breakup of Graham’s first marriage, though in fact that marriage had been over and done well before Amanda and Graham met. Even the lengthy process of obtaining an annulment from the church was completed before that day in Greenwich.

  If Amanda were Catholic, Dorothy might have felt differently. Barring that, having an O’Leary baby would help. But it was easier said than done.

  Feeling weary and weak, Amanda went through the darkened hall into the living room and dropped into the nearest sofa. It was a deep, cushiony one, different from the tailored pieces her mother favored, and when she and Graham had been furniture shopping, she had fallen in love with it on sight. His love for it had been more physical; he had gone from sofa to sofa, plopping down, sitting this way and that to assure a generous fit; but the outcome had been total agreement on their parts.

  She sank back now as he had then and let the cushions envelop her. She didn’t turn on a light; the darkness pillowed her mind as the sofa did her body. She was as brain-tired as she was bone-tired. She wanted Graham. She just wasn’t sure she wanted everything that went with him right now.

  When she heard the kitchen door open, she told herself to be grateful that her husband cared enough to come down from his office when she returned.

  “Mandy?” he called.

  “In here.”

  She heard his muted footfall on the adobe tiles in the kitchen, then the hardwood of the hall. They stopped at the living room arch. Had she looked back, she knew she would have seen no more than a handful of inches between the top of that arch and the top of his head. She had watched him there before, had watched from the very sofa she sat in now. She had watched him approach with a hunger in his eyes that translated to sex right here on the Oriental rug. They had made love in most every room in this house. Not lately though. Lately, they did it in bed, every forty-eight hours on the days when she was ovulating and most likely to conceive.

  Now she didn’t look back, didn’t move an inch.

  “Are you okay?” he asked with such welcome gentleness that her eyes filled with tears.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Want some tea?”

  “No. Thanks.” Rolling her head on the cushion, she extended a hand. She didn’t want to argue. She loved Graham.

  Seeming to appreciate the gesture, he closed the distance, took her hand, and brought it to his mouth as he sank into the sofa by her side. His lips were warm against her fingers.

  “Were you working?” she asked, nestling in, feeling his warmth envelop her.

  He tucked her hand to his heart and stretched out his legs. “I tried. I wasn’t
inspired. So I took a walk. I just got back and saw your car.”

  “I didn’t see you.” She should have passed him when she’d been driving down the street.

  “I was in the woods. Went right through the graveyard. Didn’t see any ghosts.”

  They had a running joke about those woods, which began behind the Tannenwalds’ and stretched for acres through conservation land. The area wasn’t only lush with hemlock and fir, oak, maple, birch, and every imaginable kind of moss and fern. It was also rich in history, starting with gravestones so old that the markings on them were nearly indecipherable. That led Amanda and Graham to provide their own comical and often irreverent embellishments, for which they told each other that the ghosts of those good folks would be after them one day, hence the joke.

  There had been houses in those woods once, too, and the unknowing hiker could easily tumble into an old stone cellar hole. Worse, a foolhardy one might try to climb the only structure that remained erect, a tower built of the same rough fieldstone that formed low walls through the woods. It stood forty feet high. Each of its four sides tapered from a width of twelve feet at the bottom to five at the top. The stairs that had once filled the inside were gone, leaving a dark receptacle for wind-blown leaves in various stages of decomposition, though neither of those things discouraged climbers. The outside walls, slanting in, were rife with toeholds.

  The tower had as many stories woven around it—dead animals inside, dead people inside—as the gravestones had jokes, though none was based on fact. No one quite knew whether it had been built by Native Americans or by early settlers. Nor could anyone say for sure that it was haunted. All they knew was that those who managed to climb up couldn’t climb down. It happened again and again, and not only to children. Rescue teams had to bring in ladders to help adults down as often as not. Worse, for each climb made, for each rescue made, the stones grew more shaky. A recent minor earthquake had dislodged a few, making what remained more precarious than ever, but there was nothing to be done.