“I won’t say anything.”
“Thank you,” Marian said with an effort.
Agitated, Iris rose and paced across the small dining area. Her footfalls made the decorative tea cups displayed on a metal étagère tink in their saucers. “So, when I told you that he’d molested me—”
“I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t until the night of the reckoning stones that I saw, in the woods, that I let myself see …” Marian’s teeth snapped together. “I went to see Matthew the next night, the night you left, although I didn’t know then that you were gone. I needed to know the truth, needed to hear it from him, even though I suspected I already knew, that I had heard the truth from you.”
“You were there that night?” Iris arched her brows.
“Oh, yes,” her mother said grimly.
forty-three
marian
Twenty-Three Years Ago
Marian strode through the woods that edged Lone Pine, counting on the noise she made trampling twigs and rustling branches to warn away any wildlife. The bears were cranky this time of year, awaking hungry from their hibernation, and Quentin Welsh had reported seeing a black sow by the motel two nights ago. She hated the necessity of skulking through the trees, but she couldn’t march boldly up to Matthew’s door. Not tonight. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her cardigan tight at the neck. It had no business being so cold in early May. She stepped out of the woods, the smoothness under her feet signaling she was on the lawn, even though the moon was stingy and she could barely make out the turret and peaks of the Victorian house.
She saw no one as she crossed the lawn to the front porch. No surprise at past ten o’clock. Smoothing her hair, she rapped on the door. It opened almost immediately, and she fell back a step. She should have realized she might see Glynnis, but she hadn’t prepared a story.
“Marian,” Glynnis said in her dry, unanimated way. She had gone from being petite to fragile in the years Marian had known her, and now, with light gray hair pulled back into a low bun, and her sallow face makeup free, she looked ten years older than her rightful fifty years. “It’s late.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s only—” I need to find out if your husband cheated on me with my daughter. She couldn’t tell the truth.
“You’ll be wanting to talk to Matthew about Mercy, I expect.”
“Yes, I—”
“She took the stones hard; I could tell.” Glynnis opened the door wider to invite Marian in. “Matthew can maybe give you some ideas for helping her through this time, bringing her to the point of desiring reconciliation with the Community.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Marian said, stepping inside. “I’m worried about Mercy.”
“He’s in his study. You’ll excuse me—I’ve got some banana bread just about ready to take out of the oven.” She headed down the wallpapered hall to the kitchen.
A strange woman. Marian had always wondered what brought her and Matthew together, though she knew she couldn’t see Glynnis clearly through the fog of guilt. She needed to get this over with. Knocking once on the closed study door, she opened it without waiting for an answer. She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and stood with her back against it. The drapes were drawn and a small fire burned cozily in the hearth. Matthew sat at the desk, his broad brow propped on one hand as he read the large Bible opened on the blotter. He marked his place with a finger and looked up. A mix of emotions—surprise, consternation, fear—skittered across his face before he smoothed them away and stood, coming toward her with hands outstretched. When he got closer, she noticed the bruise, like a shadow, seeping from the corner of his mouth across his jaw.
“Marian! What are you doing here? Is Mercy okay?”
Marian brought her clasped hands up beneath her chin so he couldn’t take them. This was the first time they’d been alone behind closed doors since she’d married Neil. Matthew had told her he couldn’t trust himself with her, that they had to keep a distance to preserve their marriage vows, but she wondered now if he’d actually been worried that she’d enact a scene or beg him to resume their relationship if they were alone together.
“Tell me you didn’t do it, Matthew.” She blinked back tears. “No. Tell me the truth.”
He halted, his eyes wary. “What truth is that?”
She kept her gaze on his face. Her every muscle was tight; she felt as brittle as the ice on the pond, ready to crack with the slightest pressure.
He tried a sad chuckle. “Oh, Marian, how could you think—? You, of all people.”
“Exactly.” She regarded him coldly. “I, of all people.”
She became conscious of his body odor and realized he was perspiring beneath his maroon sweater. The smell of him brought back memories—wrong, hurtful memories—and she pushed them down. She studied him with the clear insight of a thirty-three-year-old woman, and not the bedazzled eyes of a lovesick teenager. Something gnawed at her insides … the growing conviction that she had wronged Mercy horribly and unforgivably.
“You fornicated with my daughter.”
He opened his mouth, and she could almost hear the words of denial hovering on his thick, pink tongue. But then he said, “She’s so very much like you were, Marian. Your image.”
She recoiled, bumping against the door. “You are a sick man. Sickening.”
His eyes glinted. “God made me as I am.”
Marian took two hasty steps toward him, hauled her arm back and slapped him full across the face. The blow stung her palm and rocked his head sideways. Tears wet her cheeks. She swung her arm again, but he caught her wrist and forced her backward, almost against the fireplace screen. Heat from the flames warmed her legs. “We are both guilty of horrible sins. Our relationship was wrong and sinful from the start. The only good to come from it was Noah. My son. Mine and Neil’s. You poisoned my relationship with my daughter. You molested her, just like she said, and I refused to believe her because I thought … I thought—”
“I do still love you, Marian,” Matthew said, trying to take her hand.
Repulsed that he could intuit her thoughts, she yanked it away and staggered back, bumping against the fireplace tools which jangled to the floor.
Another crash sounded from the hallway. Matthew shot Marian a look that warned her she had as much to lose as he did, and opened the door. Glynnis knelt on the floor, surrounded by a litter of broken china and a tray. Her hand clutched a jagged shard and she stared up at her husband, hatred burning in her eyes. “I was bringing you tea, and I heard … I heard …”
She stopped mid-sentence and her jaw hung slack, mouth ajar. Glynnis had deliberately eavesdropped, Marian suspected. What else had she overheard over the years? She began to think there was more to Glynnis Brozek, a slyness, than she had ever recognized. The heavy aroma of banana bread drifted from the kitchen and Marian knew she’d never be able to eat it again.
Matthew said soothingly, “I don’t know what you thought you heard, Glynnis, but Marian was just asking my advice about poor Mercy. That misguided girl—”
“Don’t touch me.” Glynnis struggled to get to her feet, and breathed with effort, laying a hand on her chest. “I’ve known what you were for years, and turned a blind eye because I loved you, because you were the father of my children, but now—”
“Let me help you clean this up,” Matthew said easily, robbing his wife’s words of their power by ignoring them. He stooped to pick up slices of shattered cups and place them on the tray. “Oh, you’ve broken one of your mother’s saucers. I know how you love that pattern. Maybe we can get it repaired.”
Forcing her stiff limbs to move, Marian sidled around the pair, frantic to get out of the house. “I’ve got to go. Neil will be wondering where I am. Glynnis—”
The woman’s now empty eyes swiveled to her and Marian found it impossible to utte
r the apology she knew she owed her. She banged against the newel post as she stumbled past it, and looked up at the sound of a soft footfall from the landing. A shadow moved and then Marian was out the door, leaving it ajar as she raced toward the woods and home, the stench of burning banana bread chasing her.
forty-four
iris
Iris sat frozen when her mother finished speaking, feeling like only stillness could keep her together. She was in the eye of a hurricane, and if she moved at all, she’d be swept into the wrecking winds and torn apart. Noah was her half-brother. Her mother and Pastor Matt had—Iris’s mind refused to go there. She understood now, at least, why Marian hadn’t believed her, couldn’t believe her, when she said Pastor Matt had molested her. Marian had been in love with Matthew Brozek all along, even after her marriage ended their affair. Admitting that he’d slept with her daughter, that he was a pedophile who’d never really loved her the way she loved him, would have destroyed her, Iris recognized. She looked at her mother. Maybe had destroyed her.
Marian, after one brief, almost furtive look at Iris, had dropped her gaze to her lap where her fingers worried at a button on her dress.
“Do you hate him?” Iris asked.
“I did. For a while. After you left, because he’s what made you go. I hated us both. I cut my hair as a sign of penitence.” Her fingers pulled at one short strand. “Neil never asked why I cut it. With Jesus’ help, I forgave Matthew long ago. I’m still working on forgiving myself, window by window.” She made a circular motion with one hand, as if she was polishing glass. “You need to forgive him, too. Not for his sake, but for yours.”
Iris stared at her mother, biting back an instinctual denial. An image of Pastor Matt as she’d last seen him, lolling in his bed as she shook it, came into her mind’s eye and almost immediately faded. She looked at her mother with wonder, thinking about the years she’d spent caring for the church, trimming shrubs, steam-cleaning carpets, changing furnace filters. She’d taken the task on like a penance, Iris thought. She remembered Cade talking about going to confession and receiving Hail Marys as a punishment for something trivial. How many cleaned windows did it take to get a clean slate? Studying the way her mother’s gray robe drained her face of color, how her dark eyes stood out against the pallor, troubled, beseeching, Iris realized it wasn’t Pastor Matt she needed to forgive.
The knowledge thudded into her like a rockslide, making her sway in the chair. She reached for her mother’s hand. It was cool, work-roughened, strong. The knuckles were slightly swollen and Iris wondered if they pained her. This hand had smoothed her hair back from her sweaty forehead when she’d had the flu, spanked her, held hers for balance when she learned to roller skate, plucked chickens for family dinners, and slapped Pastor Matt for her.
“I want to forgive, Mom,” Iris whispered, and they both knew she wasn’t talking about Matthew Brozek. A concept for the Green Gable sculpture rose up before her suddenly, born of what her mother had said. A window, or window panes …
Marian sniffed hard and stood to fetch a box of Kleenex. She blew her nose and returned to the table, but remained standing. “Well. It’s late.” Her tone suggested it was time for Iris to go.
Iris refused to budge, her mind buzzing. “So neither you nor Dad really has an alibi,” she said slowly.
Giving her a sour look, Marian said, “Well, really! After all this, you’re saying Neil beat Matthew after all? Or I did?”
“If you were at the Brozeks’, you can’t know what time Dad left the house. What if he followed you there? Cade was there before you—that’s why Pastor Matt’s face was bruised.”
Marian looked stricken, but recovered quickly. “That’s ridiculous. If you don’t know by now that your father is no more capable of beating a man half to death than … than Angel is, then you’re hopeless.” She stood and plucked a sponge from the sink, and began wiping down the table with short, angry swipes.
Iris remembered the look on her father’s face when she told him she hadn’t attacked Pastor Matt. His shock was real. Sucking in a deep breath, disturbed at the path her thoughts had taken, she asked, “Did you think I’d done it?”
Marian shot her an impatient look. “Not for one second. Not one! Why do you think I was so against Neil confessing? You didn’t—don’t—have it in you to beat a man to near death, any more than Neil does. A mother knows. I tried to make Neil see that, but he was convinced, with you gone, that—. He insisted on confessing. If you hadn’t run off, Neil would never have gone to prison.” She scrubbed viciously at an invisible spot on the table.
Iris looked at her with wonder, touched despite the acid rider by her mother’s adamantine belief in her innocence. Iris changed the subject slightly. “Who do you think was on the landing?”
“What?”
“The landing. You said you heard someone. Who else was in the Brozek house?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Probably Esther or Zach, wouldn’t you think?”
“Yes. But they both say they were gone. Zach told me he was looking for Jolene, although he never found her, and Esther said she was at the church, working on something for Sunday school.” Iris knew she’d learned something else, something about the church, but she couldn’t place it. She tried sifting through everything she’d heard this week. She’d talked to Jolene and Zach about that night, to Cade … the knowledge she sought clicked like a puzzle piece locking into place. “Cade vandalized the church that night,” Iris said, rising in her excitement.
“That was him?” Marian looked indignant. “Well! He ought—”
Iris spoke loudly to override her mother. “Wouldn’t Esther have heard him smashing windows if she was really in the church basement like she said? Wouldn’t she have come up to see what was going on, or, at least, mentioned it to the cops the next day if she was too scared to confront an intruder?”
Marian stilled and Iris locked eyes with her. “You think Esther was at the house,” Marian said finally, “that she knows what happened to Matthew.”
“It makes sense,” Iris said with fierce exultation at having discovered the truth that would free her father. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Iris bit her lip, trying to think through what might have happened. Maybe Glynnis had finally snapped and gone after her husband with the poker. Had Esther intervened?
“If Esther was there, why wouldn’t she say so? Why lie about being in the church?” Water dripped from the sponge, betraying Marian’s convulsive grip.
Iris said, “I don’t know. But I damn well plan to ask her.”
forty-five
iris
Back in her room, having accepted her mother’s advice to wait until morning to tackle Esther, Iris reached for her sketch pad with shaking hands. She wanted to still her brain, going around and around with Marian’s revelations. The window idea for the award commission sang within her and she burned to get it down on paper. What if she couldn’t do it, if her fingers wouldn’t translate what was in her head onto the page? What if she was still blocked? She hadn’t confronted Pastor Matt, after all. Only one way to find out. Flipping the pad open, she picked up a pencil, hesitated, and then began to draw. The lines came stiffly at first, but then more fluidly as she gave herself up to the images. Filling page after page with drawings, each one more detailed, more crisp, more exactly what she envisioned, she worked until almost dawn, afraid to stop. When the pencil finally slid from her cramped fingers, she crawled into bed fully clothed, leaving the sketch pad open on the bedside table. Happy exhaustion pressed her into the soft bed. It was back. Her gift was back. Even though she’d never had it out with Pastor Matt like she’d planned, her gift was back. Feeling a superstitious reluctance to examine it too closely for fear that thinking about it too much might close her off again, she rolled over on her side and smiled, letting sleep steal over her.
Still filled with a sense of well-being, even tho
ugh her talk with Esther might turn ugly, Iris approached the Victorian home at just after eight in the morning. Clouds had moved in and the day was chilly enough that Iris wore a hoodie over her T-shirt and tucked her hands into the kangaroo pocket after she knocked. Shifting from foot to foot, she waited for Esther to answer. The door stayed closed. Iris made a visor of her hand, stepped over to a window, and peered in. A sleepy dining room, empty, met her gaze. No light shone from the hall beyond.
Iris descended the veranda stairs. Damn. Where could Esther be at this hour? Maybe she was visiting her father. No, her car was under the carport; Iris had noticed it when she walked up from the church parking lot. She could be breakfasting with Zach and Jolene or a friend. Seeing the futility of going on a door-to-door hunt for Esther, Iris left her car where it was and wandered into Lone Pine in search of coffee and information.
Debby’s Café hummed with activity and conversation, but Joseph Ulm spotted Iris as soon as she came in. “The usual?” he asked over the heads of two women chatting at the counter.
Feeling absurdly warmed by his greeting, Iris nodded. As he counted out her change, she asked where she might find Esther.
“Try the barn. She usually works with the alpacas on Saturdays. Stop back by for a piece of pie when you’re done. That way I’ll know she didn’t put a pitchfork in you.” He grinned again, but Iris wasn’t altogether sure he was joking.
“Thanks. Say ‘hi’ to Gabby for me, next time you talk to her,” Iris said.
The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense Page 26
