Close to Home

by Jenna Bennett

  “Of course he is,” Dix said. “Nobody is trying to take him away from you.”

  He leaned back too, casually, and crossed one leg over the other. “Let’s talk hypothetically for a moment. Let’s say that perhaps someone else gave birth to David and you adopted him. And let’s say that the person who gave birth to him has now passed away. There are no other members of her family; she was the last.”

  I thought I noticed a slight lessening of tension in Virginia’s face. Or perhaps it was just my imagination. I reached a hand across the table and slid the open yearbook toward me.

  “Let’s also say that the boy she had relations with when she was a teenager never knew about the baby, and in either case, he’s dead now too. His only living relative is a grandmother who suffers from dementia and who has no idea that David exists.”

  This time it definitely wasn’t my imagination. Sam’s posture changed, became less guarded, more open. He exchanged a glance with his wife.

  “There’s no chance at all that anyone will be taking your son away from you,” Dix said, abandoning the hypothetical. “All I’m trying to do is find my late client’s heir. She left assets worth at least a hundred thousand dollars. The house is probably worth another hundred thousand. At least.”

  He glanced at me, the real estate authority. I nodded. From what I’d seen of the house, and from what I knew about real estate in Damascus, the tiny town where Elspeth had lived, probably more.

  Sam and Virginia exchanged another long look. I glanced down at the yearbook, as Dix added, coaxingly, “It would help to pay for David’s education.”

  “We can pay for our son’s education on our own,” Sam said.

  “Of course you can. But it never hurts...” Dix’s voice faded into the background as my eyes sought and found Rafe’s face on the page in front of me.

  While he’d been in his senior year at Columbia High, I had been a freshman. We’d never had much to do with one another, but I knew who he was. Everyone did. He was the biggest troublemaker in Maury county. And although I hadn’t spared him a thought in the time between high school and meeting him again in August, I remembered quite well what he’d looked like back then. His face had been softer than it was now, more boyish, and his hair had been longer, braided into cornrows. He’d worn baggy clothes and what looked like the entire Fort Knox gold reserve in chains around his neck.

  I smiled. Somehow, LaDonna must have convinced him to clean up for his yearbook photo. The cornrows were still there, but pulled back from his face, and instead of whichever oversized sports jersey he’d been planning to wear that day, he was dressed in a button down shirt and tie. I was willing to bet the tie would have been off and in his pocket the second he was out of the photographer’s chair, but his mama had gotten a picture of her boy looking handsome, and that was all that mattered.

  I reached out a finger to trace his face in the picture, and froze when Dix cleared his throat. When I looked up, I saw that Virginia was watching me.

  “Sorry.” I closed the yearbook and pushed it back into the middle of the table.

  “Were you friends?” Virginia wanted to know.

  I nodded. “Not in high school, but more recently. Back then, my mother would have locked me in my room if I’d had anything to do with someone like Rafe.”

  “My mother wasn’t real thrilled when I told her was going to marry Sam, either.” Virginia smiled at her husband. “Of course we were much older. But a mother never stops worrying about her child, does she?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, just continued, “She got over it once she got used to him, even if it took a few years. And she adores David.”

  A shadow passed across her face, and the smile slipped off.

  “Does he know?” I asked.

  She must have decided to stop playing games, or maybe they’d reached an agreement while I’d been zoned out gazing at Rafe’s face in the yearbook. At any rate, she shook her head without any prevarication. “Nobody knows. Not David, not my mother. Nobody. Mom’s in Minnesota, and at the time when David was born, things were still strained between us. The fact that we had a baby made a difference. I was in my late thirties, and I think she’d given up hope she’d ever have any grandchildren. When she saw him, she said he had his father’s smile. We were so thrilled she finally seemed to accept Sam that we didn’t want to burst her bubble.”

  She smiled a little tearily, reaching for her husband’s hand.

  “Ginny hadn’t told her that we were trying to adopt,” Sam added. “We figured it’d be just another way we were failing. Couldn’t get pregnant; had to get a baby from someone else. So we didn’t tell her. And we haven’t told David.”

  Virginia—Ginny—sniffed back tears. “From the first time I held him in my arms, he was mine.”

  “No one’s going to take your son,” Dix said again. He hesitated before asking, a little awkwardly, “Would you happen to know the name of his birthmother? Whether he is, in fact, my client’s son?”

  But Ginny and Sam both shook their heads. “We got no information about anything,” Sam said. “Just a phone call that our son had been born, and we could come pick him up.”

  Ginny added, “The nurse who gave him to me said the hospital would take care of filing the birth certificate. When it arrived in the mail, it had our names on it.”

  “You didn’t sign any papers? There’s no official record that David was born to anyone else?”

  Ginny shook her head.

  “Would you be willing to have David undergo a DNA test?” Dix asked.

  Sam and Ginny looked at one another. “I don’t know...” Ginny murmured.

  “He wouldn’t have to know what it was for. You could come up with an excuse. Does he play sports?”

  “Basketball,” Sam said.

  “Maybe you could tell him he needs another physical.”

  “We’ve always told him to tell the truth. I don’t feel good about lying to him.”

  They’d been lying by omission for twelve years. I didn’t see that this tiny additional white lie would make a difference.

  “There might come a time when you’ll wish you knew for sure,” I said. “Or when David will.”

  They exchanged another glance. “We’ll talk about it,” Sam said. Ginny nodded.

  There was a creak from out in the hallway, and I glanced that way. “Is David here?”

  “He’s upstairs doing his homework,” Ginny said. “I don’t want him to know about this. Not until Sam and I have had a chance to decide what to do. I’m sorry. I’m sure you’d like to meet him, but not tonight.”

  She sounded determined. I would probably be determined too, in her position. Nonetheless, I was disappointed. I’d been looking forward to meeting David. I wanted to see for myself just how much of Rafe was in him, whether he really looked as much like Rafe as it seemed from the photograph. But I also wanted to see him because—and I hadn’t quite articulated this desire to myself, not in so many words—I wanted an idea of what the tiny life inside me might turn out to look like. If Rafe and Elspeth had created David, then Rafe and I would probably create something very similar.

  When I didn’t speak, Ginny added, with a look at my midriff, “Just imagine if it was your child.”

  My jaw dropped. I knew I’d put on a couple of pounds, but surely I didn’t look pregnant?

  “I spent ten years watching pregnant women,” Ginny said. “I can pick them out long before they start to show. It isn’t just in the stomach, you know. It’s the hair and the skin and the look in their eyes. Although you are starting to show just a little. How far long are you? Two months? Three?”

  “About that.” I avoided looking at Dix.

  “The father?” Ginny’s eyes, pale blue, dropped for a second to the closed yearbook. I nodded. “And he’s dead? I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” I said. Although not because Rafe was dead, because I knew better, but because I had to pretend he was and thus lie to everyone.

  “Maybe yo
u could let them adopt the baby,” Dix said ten minutes later, when we had left the Flannerys and were in the car on our way back to East Nashville. Ginny and Sam had held firm to their need to discuss the situation before they agreed to anything, and Dix and I had had to be satisfied with that. They already had Dix’s phone number, and I left them mine, and we took our leave. And when we were in the car, rolling down Davidson Road toward the interstate, Dix dropped his bombshell.

  I found myself putting a protective hand on my stomach. “What do you mean?”

  “They might be happy to have another child. Especially if it’s their son’s brother or sister.”

  “We don’t know that David is Rafe’s son,” I said. “You know, I really wish they would have let us meet him.”

  “Would you have?” He continued without waiting for my answer. He probably figured he knew what it would be: a resounding no. “I think he must be. The photograph of him was in Elspeth’s house, and he looks too much like Collier for it to be a coincidence.”

  I was quietly thrilled to see that there was a little bit of color in his cheeks and a touch of sparkle in his eyes. For the moment, he had something on his mind other than the death of his wife, and it was good to see that he still had the ability to care about other things, and to forget about his loss, even if it was just for a few minutes.

  “You think they’ll agree to do the DNA test?”

  “It’s several hundred thousand dollars,” Dix said. “And no danger of losing their child. They’d have to be stupid not to.”

  When he put it like that, I guess I could see his point. “So we just wait?”

  “Nothing else we can do,” Dix said, and turned the car onto the ramp for I-40 in the direction of home.

  Chapter 10

  “The autopsy confirmed cause of death,” Detective Grimaldi told me by phone the following morning. “Drowning. Though the crack on the head probably didn’t help. I’m pretty sure she was unconscious when she went in. It’s just as well, really; drowning is a nasty way to go.”

  “Gah!” My own stomach protested at the thought. It was still early, and the conversation wasn’t helping my morning sickness.

  “Sorry,” Grimaldi said, without sounding it. She was used to my squeamishness, and made no bones about that fact that she found it annoying and girly.

  “No problem. You said she might have been in that parking lot to buy drugs. Was there any evidence that she’d been using?

  “The M.E. found no evidence of drug use. If she had a habit, it seems to have been a recent one.”

  “I don’t think she did,” I said. “I just can’t see my sister-in-law as a druggie, I’m sorry. She must have been there for something else. Maybe she was meeting someone. Any news on her phone calls?”

  “The service provider got back to me with a list of her incoming and outgoing calls for the past week. There’s nothing unusual there. Calls to her husband, her mother-in-law, her sister-in-law, a couple of friends, and her gynecologist.”

  “Dr. Seaver.”

  “I spoke to her. She confirmed what the autopsy had already told us.”

  My heart sank. I had a pretty good idea what was coming. “Sheila was pregnant. Wasn’t she?”

  Grimaldi sighed. “I’m afraid she was. About six weeks along. The M.E. confirmed it, and so did her doctor.”

  “So when I saw her at Dr. Seaver’s office last week, it was about the pregnancy.”

  “Must have been,” Grimaldi said. “We’re trying to trace her movements on Friday. So far we’re coming up empty. She was at home when your brother left for work in the morning. The alarm system was reset just after nine. I had your brother check with the monitoring company. She dropped her youngest child off at Mother’s Day Out at her church just before ten. Thirty minutes later, she used her debit card to fill her gas tank at a station outside Sweetwater, near the interstate.”

  “If she drove straight through, she would have gotten to Nashville around noon,” I said. I’d driven that distance plenty, in light and darkness, rain and shine, and I knew exactly how long it should take, door to door.

  “Her debit card was used one last time, at a café in Brentwood at a quarter to one. A place called Sara Beth’s. She must have had lunch there. After that, there’s nothing. No purchases or charges on the card. Two phone calls. One to Dr. Seaver, one to a friend in Sweetwater. Both just after two o’clock.”

  “Have you asked them about it?”

  “Dr. Seaver said it was a follow-up call after the appointment. No reason not to believe her. And the friend didn’t speak to Sheila. Sheila left a message. By the time her friend received and returned it, it was late and Sheila didn’t pick up. I’m thinking she was already dead by then.”

  Probably so. “So now what?”

  “We’ll keep digging,” Grimaldi said. “I’ll let you know if anything new comes up.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” I contemplated telling her about the Flannerys, but decided against it. It was none of her business, really. It had nothing to do with the case, and I didn’t want to take any of her focus off the investigation into Sheila’s murder. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “No doubt,” Grimaldi said, and hung up. I did the same and got to my feet, wincing, and headed toward the kitchen for a refill of ginger ale.

  It was still early, and I hadn’t managed to get out of my jammies yet. The long skirt of the lacy nightgown swirled around my ankles as I padded barefoot across the floor, and when I looked down, the soft fabric curved over my stomach.

  I’ve never been rail thin. There’s always been a few extra pounds I’d like to lose. Although at the moment, my stomach looked bigger than usual. Good God, I really was starting to look pregnant!

  I put a hand on it. It didn’t feel any different. And it was much too soon to feel any kind of movement from inside.

  Leaning against the counter, one hand on my stomach, I asked myself again what I was going to do. Did I have the courage to have the baby—Rafe’s baby—and to bring it up on my own without any help from him, and with potentially very little help from my family? Would I be able to weather the stares from everyone I knew when I showed up with a baby whose complexion shouted to the world that I’d dallied outside my own gene pool?

  Watching Virginia Flannery last night had been interesting. She’d said her mother hadn’t approved when she wanted to marry Sam. There had probably been stares and comments. These days, people are a lot more used to interracial couples than they used to be, but in some circles, there’s still stigma attached. Had people whispered about David, too? Had Ginny been made to feel people’s prejudice when she took her son to the playground and the grocery school?

  If she had, I doubted she’d cared. She clearly adored David, and loved Sam. Their sense of togetherness was beautiful. The way they communicated with just glances and movements, but no words. Bradley and I had never had that, not even in the beginning. Todd and I didn’t either. Todd sometimes didn’t seem to understand me even when I did use words.

  Rafe knew instinctively how I felt. And he was never surprised by anything I told him.

  But he didn’t want anything permanent, I reminded myself. And I couldn’t marry him even if he did. My mother would kill me.

  On the counter next to my empty glass of ginger ale sat the abortion pill from Dr. Seaver’s office, and I picked up the little cardboard sleeve and contemplated it, the way I did every morning on my trip to the kitchen for ginger ale and crackers. If I put it in my mouth and swallowed it, by tomorrow night, my situation would no longer be a problem. I wouldn’t have to tell mother anything. I wouldn’t have to tell Rafe anything. I could just go on as if nothing had happened.

  If it was just that easy.

  And like every other morning—so far—I put the pill back down and turned my back on it. I still wasn’t ready to make a decision. Or at least not that decision. Not quite yet. I knew I’d probably end up having to terminate the pregnancy—preferably sooner rather than l
ater, before doing so got any more difficult than it was already—but today, at least, wasn’t the day I could bring myself do it. I told myself I still had some time to decide and left it at that.

  Padding toward the bedroom, I pep-talked myself into another battle with nausea. It was time to brush my teeth.

  Sara Beth’s Café turned out to be a little hole in the wall in a strip mall in Brentwood. They served artisan sandwiches and quiches and other upscale, healthy-looking lunch foods at small round tables set close together in a space no bigger than my living room. There was an odor of incense in the air and only one waitress, dressed in a skimpy T-shirt in spite of the November temperatures, with a long apron over her super-skinny jeans. Her hair was halfway down her back, worn in dreadlocks, and she had silver studs in her ears, her nose, and through her bottom lip. The kohl outlining her eyes would have made Cleopatra weep with envy.

  I ordered a drink and a salad and waited for her to come back with the fruit tea before I showed her the picture of Sheila I’d brought from home. “She was here on Friday. Do you recognize her?”

  She contemplated it, head cocked. “Sure. Sat over there.” She pointed to a table in the corner. “Had a roast turkey with field greens on ciabatta and a 7-Up.”

  “Was she alone?”

  She squinted at me. “Why? Are you with the police, too?”

  “She was my sister-in-law,” I said. “That’s my brother.” I pointed to Dix’s face in the picture. It was his, Sheila’s and the girls’ Christmas card. I’d just received it in the mail a week ago. And I realized, with a pang, that I wouldn’t be getting one next year. Not one like this.

  They were all dressed in red—Dix in a sweater, Sheila a silk blouse, and Abby and Hannah in matching corduroy dresses—and all four were grinning like mad at the camera. It was especially poignant to see Sheila’s beautiful smile, knowing she was lying cold and dead on a slab at the morgue. And Dix’s relaxed face looked nothing like it had the last time I saw him, just last night.