Passing Through Paradise

by Susan Wiggs

  “I don’t talk about it, Malloy. Not even to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it won’t change anything.”

  “He used to be my best friend. I want to know what happened. Especially since I’ve gone crazy for you—”

  “You have?”

  He spread his hands. “What, you didn’t notice?”

  She slipped her arms around his neck. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “You need to meet more people, then.”

  “Crazy for me,” she repeated, sitting back to study him. “Really?”

  He thought of the things they had done in the bow of the boat, the ways he’d touched her, the places she’d taken his heart. “Hell, yes. That’s why I want you to talk about the accident. That night changed your life.”

  “Weren’t you listening at all? I don’t talk about it. To anyone. Ever.”

  “Maybe you should.” He caught her face in both his hands. “Please.”

  She blinked fast, as if she had sand in her eye. “I don’t see the point.”

  He lowered his hands to capture hers and tucked them deep into her jacket pockets. “Tell me, Sandy. Tell me about that night.”

  “Why is this so important to you?”

  It was a question he’d asked himself dozens of times. “Because you ‘re important to me. I need to know because what happened that night is part of you.”

  She inhaled deeply, a diver about to take the plunge. “It was a black tie gala at the Newport Marina,” she said. “A political fund-raiser, what else?”

  “You and Victor attended a lot of those.” This was nothing new, but he would let her start slowly, build to the critical point.

  “He spent more time raising money than he did drafting legislation. It’s the name of the game in politics. He who has the biggest war chest wins. Anyway, this was a major party bash. The Winslows attended, of course—they sponsored a table for ex-POWs and one for breast cancer survivors. We could always count on Victor’s folks to make an appearance and bring in heavy donors. They were a big part of his success. He was a wonderful politician but I won’t pretend his charisma alone could have carried him.

  “That night, he drank more than usual.” She flashed Mike a look. “The stress of the job, the pressure to raise funds for the next campaign, his mother’s health. There was plenty for him to worry about.”

  “Everybody has worries about work and family. It doesn’t drive us all to drink. Why Victor? And why that moment?”

  “His drinking wasn’t obvious. He made it through the speech just fine.”

  Mike noticed that she hadn’t addressed his question.

  “Afterward,” she said, “he seemed tense, short-tempered. I asked him to dance. He relaxed, made a joke. Then I said something stupid, and it set him off.”

  Interesting choice of words, thought Mike. Set him off. “What did you say?”

  “A throwaway remark. I don’t even remember it. I’d been pretty up front about wanting kids, and he seemed on board with the idea. So I said something about getting busy in that department. I wanted a baby so badly, and I was out of patience. My mistake was in discussing it when he obviously had other matters on his mind. But that night I—I brought up the subject in a way I never had before. I don’t know, maybe I gave him an ultimatum, I don’t really remember. He . . . sort of made a scene. It was so strange, so unlike him. He walked away from me on the dance floor. I was totally humiliated. Not our finest moment.”

  She poked a dry stick into the heart of the fire, letting blue flames curl around the end. “It was so public. And he was always painfully conscious of appearances. But that night he was—I don’t know—wild. Everyone was staring at me. I didn’t know what to do. So I left. I intended to drive myself home.” She pulled the stick from the fire, the flaming tip vivid against the gathering night. “He followed me out to the parking lot and . . .” She hesitated.

  Mike waited, not sure whether she was sorting out her thoughts or hesitating over one of her “problem” words. Maybe it was all in his head, but he sensed some indefinable difference in the quality of her brief silence. Weightiness. Calculation, maybe.

  “He got in the car with me.”

  “And you let him.”

  “I was furious. Con-confused. But what else could I have done? He was my husband, and he needed to get home, too.” She paused as if to gather her thoughts. “I live through that accident a dozen times a day, and in my night-mares when I sleep. It was sleeting that night. Windy. The anemometer at the bridge recorded gusts of up to forty miles per hour. Victor and I were still . . . arguing in the car.”

  “Arguing about what?”

  She was silent for a long time. Inside her pockets, he gently squeezed her hands. She looked at him, and her eyes were drenched in despair. Then she dropped her head to stare at the fire. “The storm grew worse, and Victor didn’t seem to pay attention or care that my driving was erratic, dangerous. On the bridge, I lost control.”

  “Why?”

  She watched a spark drift upward from the heart of the fire. “I don’t know. It was icy. Black ice.”

  He tried to picture the scene—were they yelling? Did Victor grab for her? Christ, did he strike her? “Were you drunk?”

  “No. I’d had a glass of champagne at the party. That’s it. Do you need to see my blood alcohol test from that night? There is one, I assure you. They did every possible test on me.”

  “You’re an experienced driver. You know that road. I ‘m trying to figure out what made you go off the bridge.”

  “I was distracted by the quarrel, the car hit a slippery patch on the bridge. It smashed right through the rail.” Finally she looked back at him with tortured eyes. “The airbag went off. I remember the noise it made, a popping sound, like a firecracker, followed by a loud hiss. It was huge, and sort of blasted me against the seat. I remember a spray of white powder—and then, nothing. The car went into the water, but I have no memory of that. The next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital.”

  “The emergency medical service found you on the shore.”

  Suspicion flashed in her eyes. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

  “You don’t recall escaping the car.”

  “The doctor who examined me said people who suffer trauma frequently have gaps in their memory. Sometimes the truth never does fill in the blanks. According to the death investigator, I exited the car via the windshield and made it to shore.”

  “Wearing an evening gown, a long coat and high heels.”

  “My shoes were off. And no, I don’t recall taking them off. They’ve never been found. But I’m sure you know that, since you obviously researched this.”

  “What was Victor wearing?”

  “A tux.”

  “What did he carry in his pockets?”

  “Back off, Malloy. This is absurd.”

  He ignored her resentment and changed tack. “Did you tell anyone you can’t swim?”

  Her expression didn’t change. “Nobody asked.”

  “And you didn’t think to point it out?”

  “It was one of those adrenaline-induced feats of desperation. People can do the impossible when it’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Even survive in frigid water.”

  “Yes.”

  “Amazing.”

  “But not unheard of. The crime investigators explained that. Under the circumstances, swimming wasn’t an option even for an expert. If you had read the reports, you would understand.”

  “Victor’s blood was found on your clothes.”

  “Traces of it. The assumption being that he was injured in the crash, and bloodstains don’t necessarily wash out in seawater.”

  “And the bullet holes?”

  “An unsolved mystery. N-neither Victor nor I owned a gun.”

  He noticed something about her. Sometimes she stammered over her words when she lied. She had stammered twice during this c
onversation. Once when she described their quarrel, and just now, about the gun.

  Chapter 27

  Journal Entry—March 19—Tuesday

  Ten Places to Go After I Sell the House

  1. Manhattan

  2. Big Sur

  3. Cape Cod

  4. The Caribbean

  Sandra gave up. She wanted to leave, but realized she couldn’t escape herself. Some days, she woke up, unsure even of who she was, unable to decide what she wanted to do. Deep in her heart, she knew she and Mike were headed for trouble. Raging hormones could only take them so far. At some point, they’d have to engage on a deeper level — or disengage.

  But she could never quite seem to make herself do it. At first, she’d tried to ignore the strange electricity leaping between them, but finally gave in to the attraction. She had been giving in ever since that first stormy night aboard his boat. His unconscious, primal magnetism overrode her will every time. Her need for him turned into a force more powerful than common sense or fear or even the implacable reluctance of her own uncertain heart.

  As time passed, she felt more tightly bound to the house on Blue Moon Beach when she should be letting go. Despite her determination to move away, she sensed the tug of a place she wanted to call home. Walking through the freshly plastered front parlor, she chafed with irritation. Maybe he didn’t mean to, maybe he did, but Mike Malloy opened her eyes to what she wanted—and she wasn’t particularly happy to know that she secretly yearned to stay.

  But her whole world was at stake—her life, her future. Even as she clung to Mike, everything seemed to be slipping away or gone. Home, community, her parents’ marriage, the life she thought she’d had with Victor. Stinging flashes of guilt warned her that the illicit affair with Malloy was wrong and no doubt headed for disaster. He seemed too interested in the past, and all she wanted was to leave it behind.

  On impulse, she drove to Providence to see her father. Since her mother had left, she’d hardly heard a word out of him; he’d never been big on sharing his feelings. It was impossible to gauge how he was handling the breakup with her mother. Perhaps it was like grieving for a death. Some one who had been with him for years was suddenly gone to a place where he couldn’t see her, touch her, hear her singing in the shower, ask her where the coffee filters were.

  And would he talk to his daughter about it? He’d always been emotionally stiff, though his love for her had run like a steady stream through her life. She had vivid memories of him sitting with her when she was very small, practicing the breathing exercises her speech therapist recommended. He made a game of the tedious process, rewarding progress with M&M’s and gold stars on a chart. In the spring when she was five, he’d put her on a brand-new bike, pretending not to hear her sputters of apprehension. He kept his hand at the back of her bike seat, trotting along beside her as she learned to ride the two-wheeler. At some point, he let go, but stayed next to her so she wouldn’t realize she was on her own.

  When she went away to college, he had been quietly bereft but encouraging. And when she married Victor, he’d had little to say. “He’ll look after you,” her father had said, but she wondered if it was hope rather than certainty. After the accident, he and her mother had sat vigil at her hospital bed. Somehow, he’d always been there, but he was not always present in the way she needed him to be. Not that it was his fault. She didn’t know what she needed; why should he?

  She parked in front of the little bungalow on the street where she’d lived until she was eighteen. It was a small, unassuming neighborhood of arching trees whose roots had heaved up the sidewalks, brick houses hunched atop postage-stamp yards, cars that didn’t fit into one-car garages built in the forties.

  The front steps of her father’s house needed sweeping, and the mailbox overflowed with catalogs, flyers, a bill or two. She grabbed the mail and knocked at the door. No answer. Maybe she should have called first. But his car was in the driveway, and he never walked anywhere.

  What if he’d fallen? she thought in sudden panic. What if he was sick? Her hand shaking, she took out the house key she had carried since she’d turned ten years old and was deemed responsible enough to have a key of her own. She used to wear it on a string around her neck.

  She let herself in and stood in the dim living room. The blinds were drawn, and a faint musty smell of neglect hung like dust motes in the air.

  “Dad?” she called. “Dad, it’s me.” She set the mail on the hall table and headed toward the back of the house. Maybe he was in the shop attached to the garage where he often went to tinker with his golf clubs or fishing lures.

  “Dad,” she called again.

  Then she heard his voice in the study upstairs. Exhaling a sigh of relief, she went to find him. The door was ajar, and she saw him wearing headphones and sitting at the computer, his back to her.

  Curious, she watched him for a moment. A picture of a tapestry suitcase appeared on the screen, and her father said, “La maleta.” A pause. The picture changed to an umbrella and he said, “Un paraguas.”

  Sandra’s heart melted. His accent was terrible, but he held himself with such tense concentration and spoke so earnestly that she couldn’t help smiling. Ah, Dad, she thought. I hope it’s not too late for you.

  Finally, when the picture changed to a passenger train, she stepped into the room and touched his shoulder. “Hey, Dad—”

  He jumped violently, nearly falling out of the chair. “Jesus, Sandra.” He ripped off the headphones. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Sorry.” She squeezed his shoulder and kissed his cheek, its rough familiarity comforting her. “I rang the bell, and I was calling for you, but I guess you didn’t hear.” She picked up the illustrated book he had propped open in front of him. “Spanish lessons?”

  His color deepened a shade. “A new computer program. I was just fooling around with it.”

  “Le admiro,” she said, drawing a phrase from her college Spanish courses.

  “Gracias,” he said. “Puedo conseguirle algo beber?”

  She laughed, impressed. “I’d love a cup of tea.” She could tell from his expression the idea of actually having to make tea intimidated him, so she said, “Actually, I’d prefer a soda.”

  They went down to the kitchen and he took a ginger ale from a fridge that looked even more toxic than it had the last time she had visited. Her mother would have a fit when she saw it. But maybe she’d never see it. She might never come back here again.

  Sandra noticed a business card stuck to the fridge with a magnet. “An audiologist?” she asked, turning to her father.

  “I’ve got an appointment to get my hearing checked.” He shuffled his feet, even more chagrined than he’d been about the Spanish lessons.

  She set down the ginger ale and hugged him. “Aw, Dad. That’s great.”

  He shrugged. “Your mother was always nagging me to get it checked.”

  “She’ll be so glad,” Sandra said.

  “Who knows?” He moved a stack of newspapers and motioned for her to sit down.

  “How are you doing?” Sandra asked.

  “Fine.”

  “How can you be fine?”

  “Golf and fishing whenever I want, nobody telling me to wipe my feet or to quit using so much salt.”

  She studied his kind, ruddy face, trying to see past the studied nonchalance. “I think you’re lonely.”

  “Never been busier. I have my pals at the golf course. I joined a poker group on Thursday nights.”

  “Lonely for Mom,” she amended. She touched his hand. They’d never been a demonstrative family, and she found herself wishing they had been. Mike had shown her the power of a human touch, the way it could reach a level of unspoken intimacy she had never known before.

  “It’s all right to say you miss her,” she said. “What good does it do to pretend you don’t?”

  “You think I’m pretending?”

  “Yeah. I do, and it’s no good, Dad.” Had she been pr
etending about Victor? And if someone had pointed it out, would it have made a difference?

  Her father stared down at their joined hands. “Okay. I guess I’ve had plenty of time to think.”

  “About what?”

  He scowled. “I guess I like being with her. I like her cooking. I like sitting with her in the evening, reading the paper or watching the tube. Hell, I even like her nagging.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I ever told her those things.”

  “It’s not too late,” Sandra said with sudden urgency. “When she gets back from her trip, you can ask her to come home.”

  He took his hand away and shoved it through his hair, which was getting too long. “I was a jerk for a lot of years. Hearing aids and Spanish lessons aren’t going to erase all that.”

  He had to be wrong. She thought of the way her parents used to be—her mother matching his socks and scheduling his haircuts, her father checking the tires on the car and phoning home twice a day, no matter where he was. They were always thinking of each other even when they didn’t realize it.

  “Dad, it’s not the hearing aids and Spanish lessons per se. It’s the idea behind it. Convince her that if she comes back, things will be different. And then make sure they are different.”

  “I’m working on it.” He looked glumly around the cluttered kitchen. “I’ll work harder. So have you heard from her?”

  “She’s been sending postcards. Says the cruise is great but the stop-smoking seminars are boring—”

  He shifted in his chair. “She’s quitting smoking?”

  “Sounds like she’s trying. It’s called a Cruise to a New You. Self-improvement of all sorts. You didn’t know?”

  An endearing, lopsided grin lit his face. “You don’t say.”

  “I do say. Another postcard said she’d moved up to the advanced tai chi class. And she caught a trophy-size marlin.”

  “Yeah? So your mother’s fishing?”

  Sandra finished her ginger ale. “I don’t think she’s ready to write off your marriage either, Dad.”