by Ann Warner
Clare shook her head. “No way can I afford a nice apartment in West Roxbury.”
“Let me take you to meet them. Maybe you can work something out.”
The Rosens insisted on renting to Clare.
“It won’t be for long, you know.”
“Honey, you may love it so much you’ll decide not to leave, after all,” Mrs. Rosen said.
Next, on Vinnie’s advice, Clare signed up with a temporary employment agency. They called right away with her first placement—filling in for a maternity leave in the office of the Chairman of the English department at Northeastern.
The perfect position, since she’d be near both Hope House and Children’s Hospital. The only problem would be her proximity to Rob once he returned, although, luckily, his office was in a different building.
After Denise and Stephan’s visit, the thought of going back to where her marriage ended kept nudging at Clare. Nothing about the impulse made any sense, except perhaps as part of the overall effort she was making to understand herself and her relationship with Rob.
On Saturday, she finally gave in to the idea, although she made several wrong turns before she finally found the cottage. Stepping out of the car, she zipped her jacket against the cold fingering its way down her neck, and tucked her hands in her pockets. Sea and sky were both gray today with whitecaps and scudding clouds—weather as uncertain as her mood.
She walked around a dune, then stopped to examine the cottage, something she hadn’t done the first time. Like a child’s drawing, it was a simple square with a peaked roof, a door in the middle, and windows on either side. The tower to the one side was the fanciful kind of addition a child would make.
The blue-gray siding and rose-colored door accented with white trim gave the cottage a pleasant, welcoming demeanor. As she examined it, the steady wind keened through the grass and sea oats, producing a rattling that melded with the sough of the waves coming on shore. A percussion section of sorts to accompany the faint melody that sprang to life in her head—the first time she’d heard her music since the trip to Vieques.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on that music—a piano playing a dancing allégro accompanied by a single, solemn violin. She walked to the firmer footing at the edge of the surf, listening to the music, and beginning to picture choreography to complement the notes. Without conscious volition, her body moved, responding to the music.
When the notes faded, she sank into the softer sand above the tide line, feeling the pull in muscles long unused to leaps and twirls for, caught up by the dance, she had forgotten about her ankle and knee.
The sun came out, transforming the sea from navy to a sparkling royal blue with white apostrophes of foam. Odd to think that the water curling onto this beach might have once been where Rob had gone. Flowing thousands of miles from raindrop to rill to branch to tributary to the Amazon and then the ocean, to finally touch at her feet.
A cloud shadow abruptly erased the sun sparkles, but the waves continued to slide in then out in endless motion. Ebb and flow. The movement of living things. The eternal in and out, like breath, the contractions of the heart, or a man and a woman loving each other.
Tears pricked her eyes. She shook her head, trying to shake off the spell, not knowing if it was cast by the sea, her memories, or the phantom music.
Chapter Twenty-one
Balancé en avant et en arrière
A forward and back rocking step
Monday morning was cold with skiffs of spring snow. Clare walked to Northeastern, hunching against the chill, humming the melody that came to her during her visit to the Cape. It needed to be written down so she wouldn’t lose it and, luckily, she knew someone who could help with that—Wilson Taylor, the rehearsal pianist for Danse Classique.
“Best way, Clare. You come in after company class,” he told her when she called.
“I don’t want anyone to know.” Not until she was sure.
“You’re working on the fundraiser.” A wide smile underpinned Wilson’s voice. “Good for you, Clare. Denise and Stephan told me they asked you.”
“I don’t know if it’s any good.”
“We’ll find out quick enough. Tell you what. Sometimes I play after hours. You come in, we’ll work on it then.”
They set a time and Clare hung up, shaking. The scrap of music in her head was just that. A scrap. A minute, two minutes tops. She reached for the phone, planning to call Wilson to cancel, but remembering how pleased he’d been when she asked for his help, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
When Clare met with Wilson, it didn’t take long to work out the basic melody. She hummed and he picked out the notes on the piano before transferring them to paper. After he played what they had so far, the music in Clare’s head continued. She hummed the next bit and Wilson played. Another bit came and more after that. At the end of an hour, they had five minutes of music.
“It’s real fine, Clare. You got something in mind for the dancing part?”
“I thought I did.” But the slog to get the notes on paper erased that tentative inspiration.
“How about, I play and you dance.”
“Oh, I don’t dance anymore.”
Wilson frowned, then nodded. “Why don’t you sit and listen, then. See if it comes to you. Like the music did.”
When she didn’t answer, Wilson turned and began to play, but even though he added chords and layers of notes making the music sound more finished, she felt no imperative to get up and move.
Three days after the session with Wilson, a tape arrived in the mail—her music, played by piano and violin. She’d told Wilson there should be a violin, playing more slowly and solemnly than the piano, and he’d run with it.
Saturday, Clare drove to the Cape, carrying a player and the tape Wilson sent. Once again, the beach worked its magic, and this time she wrote out the sequence of steps before the memory faded.
Monday she took a deep breath to quell an attack of nerves and called Denise to say she had something to show her and Stephan.
“Rabbit came by the hospital this afternoon and questioned Tyrese,” John told Clare when she arrived at Hope House for an evening tutoring session.
“Is Tyrese that improved?”
“He’s better, but he’s still one sick little boy.”
“So how did it go?”
“It’s a mess.” John looked worried. “Nellie lied about Tyrese getting beaten up on Monday. It happened Tuesday about the time Jamal was killed. Tyrese made his mom promise not to tell anyone he went out. She was trying to help. Unfortunately, Rabbit now knows Tyrese placed himself at or near the scene.”
“Do you think Tyrese killed Jamal?”
John shook his head then shrugged. “I don’t know. Seems unlikely, but this isn’t going to go away.”
“So how is the witness saying Tyrese did it?”
“He says Tyrese ambushed Jamal, stabbed him. Then he jumped Tyrese to fend him off.”
“Tyrese wanted to avoid the Bull Sharks. Why would he attack Jamal, especially when there were other gang members there?”
“Witness is claiming Jamal was by himself when Tyrese attacked him. He just happened on the scene.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it.”
John nodded. “The prosecutor will barely need to break a sweat on this one.”
Clare stopped by Hope House on her lunch hour to ask about Tyrese.
“He was assigned counsel.” John spoke from under the sink in Beck’s kitchen. He stood, stretched, and rubbed his neck. “Rabbit says the attorney they assigned couldn’t save Mother Teresa.”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “What are we going to do?”
“Unless you’ve got a chunk of spare change lying around, not much we can do.”
Given her determination not to take anything more from Rob, she had only enough to stretch to the end of the month. She’d have to see if she could get a loan.
“The coroner did say Jamal was stabbed by someone ho
lding a knife in his right hand,” John added.
“Did you tell Rabbit that Tyrese is left-handed?”
“And I reminded him about the broken finger.”
“Then why is he charging Tyrese?”
“He’s got the witness. So he’s playing it that Tyrese stabbed Jamal with the only hand available. His right.”
As the dates for Rob’s return to Boston and her move to West Roxbury approached, Clare worked on the note she would leave for Rob. Writing it was more difficult than she anticipated. Eventually, she turned to the computer to see if that would be easier than covering page after page with disjointed words, then crumpling and tossing the sheets when she reread them.
Dear Rob... She tried to picture him, but the only image she could bring up was of him standing with his back to her, fishing off the side of the Ariadne. She willed him to turn around, but when he did, his face was still invisible, backlit by the sun. The memory of his voice was gone as well. But not the guilt.
She took a breath and tried to concentrate on the computer screen. Slowly her fingers moved and words began to form. As the screen filled, her eyes blurred and the words became indecipherable. Her fingers slowed, then stopped.
Nothing would make this easy for Rob. Not a note. Not her leaving without seeing him. And if she really wanted to erase herself from his life, why had she changed the apartment? Imprinting herself on every square inch. Better to have left it alone and simply removed all traces of her occupancy.
Once again, she’d been thinking only of her needs.
“What happens when you get home?” Sam asked, as she and Rob packed for their return to the States.
“I go back to my routine.”
“And your wife?”
Clare’s moving to Cincinnati, Lynne said the last time they talked, and his mouth went dry.
When, he’d asked.
Before you get back. And just like that, he realized he was counting on seeing Clare, hoping to find a way to salvage their marriage.
Hope. The cruelest emotion.
“Rob?” Sam was peering at him with a troubled expression.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“You have to face things with her. Your wife.”
His steady movements packing the supplies Sam was handing him slowed. He rubbed his forehead, realizing as he did so, his head had begun to ache.
“When you were sick you asked for her. Her name is Clare, isn’t it? You’re still in love with her.”
“No.” The word took all his effort, but lies usually did.
“You need to at least speak with her. Tell her how you feel.”
“I don’t think so.” He shoved the filled duffel aside, struggling to hold on to some semblance of courtesy, although Sam had to know she’d stepped, and was continuing to step, way over the line.
“It’s unfinished business. You can’t move on, until—”
“Wrong. I’ve moved on.” The words felt wrenched from him. He turned away and picked up an empty duffel as a distraction.
“You can’t fool me, Rob. A person under the influence of drugs doesn’t lie. Running away didn’t solve anything for you, and chances are it didn’t solve anything for her either.”
“The hell it didn’t. She’s doing fine. Planning a new life. In Cincinnati.” Oh, God. What was happening to him? Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut? Why was he standing here, letting Sam batter at the defenses he thought he’d managed to construct? Defenses that would allow him to live without Clare in his life. Defenses he now knew had all the protective power of a house of cards.
Sam reached out and touched his arm. The last straw. He vaulted off the hut’s platform. The shaft of pain in his gut barely registered in the roaring desolation of what she’d forced him to accept. That when he got home, Clare would be gone.
Later, he apologized to Sam.
She gave him a long look. “You remember me telling you I never got close enough to anyone to plan any sort of future.”
He made it as gentle as he could. “Don’t, Sam.”
“I just wanted you to know.”
The trip back to Cuzco was grueling. As the van ground along, bouncing in and out of potholes and ruts, Rob held on, bracing himself against the jolting and lurching.
When they stopped for the night, every inch of his body felt pummeled. But what made him feel worse was seeing how Sam was avoiding him.
Exhausted from days of primitive travel capped by the long flight from Lima to Boston, Rob took out the key he’d not needed for months and fumbled it into the lock on the apartment door. He slid his luggage inside and went down the hall to the living room where blue walls striped with gold from the setting sun met his startled gaze. He walked into the kitchen, taking in the tangerine backsplash, dishes in the drying rack, and an African violet—a splashy purple—on the windowsill.
He turned and walked to the den. In the doorway, he stopped once again. After he’d absorbed the impact of the burgundy-colored walls, the painting caught his eye. He recognized it from a day he and Clare spent in Rockport. What was it doing here? Puzzled, he turned to the master bedroom. Here the walls were a pale silvery gray and a new bedspread in a blue, green, and black geometric design covered the bed.
Until Clare entered his life, he’d always been satisfied with the basics—a reasonable amount of cleanliness and neatness, a minimal amount of furniture, a comfortable bed. Then Clare opened his eyes to other possibilities, and he’d hoped she would make this apartment a bright and beautiful home, but she hadn’t.
So what was this about?
He walked down the hall to the second bedroom where he’d slept those last months before leaving for South America. It was the only unchanged room—its walls still a sterile white and the room itself neat to the point of asceticism. He walked past the bed into the bathroom to find Clare’s cosmetics on the counter.
What were they doing there? Hadn’t Clare left? The end of March, Lynne said. So why were her things still here?
Leaving the bathroom, he noticed boxes lined up alongside the bed. He opened the closet door and the light scent Clare used drifted off the clothes still hanging there.
When he turned, Clare was standing in the doorway watching him, eyes wide with shock. They stared at each other for a moment before he managed to clear his throat.
But Clare spoke first. “You weren’t due home until Friday.”
“We finished up early. Changed our flights.” He struggled to figure out what was different about her. Her hair was whiter, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t as thin, but that wasn’t it either. She seemed more...herself, somehow. And what was she thinking as she stood looking at him. That he’d changed too?
He’d discovered the extent of the change after they’d arrived in Cuzco. He’d showered, letting the hot water sluice over his body and ease his aching muscles. When he’d stepped out and as the mirror cleared, he’d been shocked at the sight of the man standing there. A man with shaggy hair and a thin face with sharp contours in cheek and chin. A man with none of the softness that had begun to settle around his middle, and through that now-flat middle, the red and silver track of a scar. And there were other changes. Invisible ones.
“I meant to be moved out,” Clare said. “I thought it would be easier.”
It would, but maybe Sam was right about them needing to talk.
“My apartment won’t be ready until tomorrow. I’ll go to a hotel tonight.”
“You don’t have to do that.” The words came automatically, the thought more slowly—what apartment? Wasn’t she moving to Cincinnati?
Clare bit her lip. “Thanks. I imagine you’re tired.”
“What’s this about, Clare? Paint, pictures, plants?”
She looked away, clenching her hands together. “It’s supposed to be an apology. Then I realized I shouldn’t have changed it without asking you.”
He thought about how warm and welcoming the apartment now looked, how walking into this one remain
ing white room gave him a chill. But sorting all that out would have to wait. “I’d like to take a shower, and after that I expect I’ll sleep at least twenty-four hours.”
“Are you hungry? I can fix something.”
“That’s okay. You don’t need to do that.”
