Four Wives

by Wendy Walker

  “I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

  He laughed when he said it, and Marie smiled in spite of herself as she lifted her head from the table. He was looking at her now, laughing and smiling in a way that made her believe she was actually making sense. There was a time when this would not have reached so deeply inside her, when she carried within her enough clarity to support her own convictions.

  Anthony had’once upon a time’looked at her that way. He used to laugh with her about the ladies with their tight butts and lunches without food. When had he stopped? It was too far back to even remember.

  Shit. Love’s words popped into Marie’s head. You’re flirting with your help. More words followed. Unprofessional. Unseemly. Pathetic.

  “So where are we on Farrell?” The shift was abrupt, but necessary. There was simply no time to find a clever segue. Still, it only served to underscore the direction in which her feelings were going, and an awkward tension swept through the room.

  Randy pulled back into his chair, then scrambled through a stack of notepads. He pulled one out and began to sum up his findings on the Farrell document production, his eyes consciously avoiding Marie. “We have three years of checks from the joint account.”

  “Anything pop out?” Marie asked, pulling up a chair next to his.

  “Hard to say. Lots of doctors.”

  “Not unusual with kids, believe me.”

  Randy checked his notes. “Most are ten, fifteen dollars. Insurance co-pays. But they did pay one doctor anywhere from six hundred to two thousand a month.”

  Her eyes lit up now, Marie felt the familiar surge of excitement at the puzzle taking shape. “For how many months?”

  “Looks like they start two years ago. There’s a sharp increase just after Simone’s death. Then they stop after the move.”

  Looking up from his notes, Randy met Marie’s eyes, and they both nodded. Without a word, Randy got up from the table and walked back into the office to his desk. Marie was right behind him.

  They logged onto the Internet, then entered the name Dr. Keller as it had appeared in the Farrells’ check register. Narrowing the field to the Boston area, they found psychiatrist Rachel Keller in Newton, Mass.

  “A shrink,” Marie said out loud, as they read the doctor’s resume. “They’re usually not covered.”

  “The Farrells were paying out-of-pocket.” Randy chimed in.

  “They were paying a lot. And it started before the accident.”

  Watching the screen intently, Marie thought about what this meant. Farrell had lied about things being fine before the accident. But they already knew that from the police report. His wife’s lawyer had handed over the check registers without the slightest protest. That in itself was not surprising. It always helped the case for alimony to prove expenses, to back them up with hard data. But it also meant that Connely had nothing to fear from disclosing the payments to Dr. Keller’or that he didn’t know any better.

  “Marriage counseling?” Randy asked, pulling Marie back from her thoughts.

  “Could be,” she said, nodding. “Could be Carson. I doubt it’s the wife. Connely never would have given us those records.”

  “What about the kids?”

  Marie shrugged, stepping back from Randy’s desk. It could be any one of them.

  “So what now? Can we contact the shrink?”

  Marie shook her head. “No. Not without a release from Carson.”

  “Why don’t we just ask him?”

  That was the question of the hour. Asking Carson was the obvious thing to do, the course most lawyers would take under the circumstances. But this case, and Carson Farrell, had bothered Marie from the moment he walked through her door.

  Randy was watching her now, the way he always did when she was lost in her thoughts. He waited for her expression to change from contemplation to resolve. When she finally spoke, he seemed pleased with himself that he had anticipated her response.

  “Let’s keep it under the radar. Where are you with the neighbors?”

  “I have general profiles going four doors out in both directions, both sides of the street.”

  “Any with kids of similar ages?”

  “Just one.”

  Marie shrugged. “Then that’s who will know.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  ABOVE THE GARAGE

  THE STAIRS LEADING TO the garage apartment were in the back, the last piece of the stone mansion before the start of six wooded acres. And although it was easily forgotten, the woods made up the bulk of her property, spanning twice the size of the lush green lawn abutting the main section of the house, the part she inhabited. That was her domain’the grass, the gardens that flanked it on three sides. It was the landscape she looked at from her bedroom balcony, the peaceful backdrop to her flagstone patio where she liked to read. Standing here at the foot of the staircase, she was about to enter another world altogether’a world that had been calling out to her for days. Ever since that night on the patio, that day in her kitchen. Finally, she was going to answer it.

  As she made her way to the top, she could hear his footsteps on the hardwood floor. The smell of incense and the sound of soft music drifted from the small opening in the back window. She stopped for a moment, thinking her presence here an intrusion into this man’s private life. But each step brought new information, the music becoming clearer, a view into his kitchen opening up, revealing dozens of sketches hanging from the wall. She continued up the stairs, then knocked on the door.

  “It’s me. Mrs. Beck … Gayle,” she said, when the music stopped. She heard rushed footsteps across the room, then the turning of a lock.

  “Mrs. Beck.” He was startled, and unusually self-conscious. Quickly, he began to tuck his shirt, a casual button-down, into draping, drawstring pants. His feet were bare, the shirt partially unbuttoned, revealing parts of him she had never seen’innocuous parts’the tops of his feet, the bones around his neck. Still, had his face not quickly conformed to the serious employee persona he wore in the other parts of the house, she might not have recognized him at all.

  “Did you need me early today? “

  On most days, Paul took time for himself between the lunch and dinner hours. Working from sun-up to two, then again from five until nine each night, there weren’t many hours left for him to claim.

  Embarrassed, Gayle shook her head. “No. I’m sorry to disturb you. This can wait.” She turned to leave, but he reached out, touching her lightly on the arm.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Gayle took a few steps forward into the narrow kitchen. Closing the door behind them, Paul led her into the small living area. She knew it well, having designed the room herself and overseen its construction. With vaulted ceilings, skylights, and an abundance of windows, it was a comfortable apartment. Still, today it felt like a place she had never been. Standing in the center of the room, she slowly took in the personal effects that had transformed the space so completely.

  The furnishings were minimal. A small sofa, a side chair and reading table. Books were piled on the floor, many books, some of them very old. A small CD player sat in the corner, though the music had stopped. And all around her, scattered randomly about, were easels, at least ten of them, each with a sketch drawn in black pencil. They were in various stages of completion, a few being too abstract to identify the subject. But most depicted people, many in scenes that were familiar’the pond at the foot of the town park, the local coffee shop.

  “I had no idea you were an artist,” she said, walking slowly through the makeshift gallery.

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. It’s a hobby. Can I get you something to drink?”

  She wasn’t thirsty, but it seemed a good idea’following ritual formalities. “Water is fine. Thank you.”

  Paul disappeared into the kitchen, his voice trailing behind him, then through the small opening separating the two rooms. “When I traveled,” he began to explain, “I didn’t have a camera, but t
here were so many things I wanted to capture. Take with me.”

  As he talked, Gayle picked up a thin portfolio of drawings that lay on the floor. She opened it, and began to turn the pages. The pictures were of people, like the others. But the setting was here, her home. She turned back to the first one, looking more carefully at the images before her. The drawing was of a small child sitting in a field. The stone fountain in the distance was unmistakable. The child seemed a stranger, until she studied his face. The jawline, the shape of his eyes. It was Oliver. Most of the pictures she had of her child depicted a smiling, happy boy. Those were the shots that made it from the pack to the photo albums. But this drawing was also Oliver, the way he looked when he was sad, contemplative, as he was so much of the time lately. Tracing the boy’s face with her fingers, there was no doubt that this man had perfectly captured her son.

  She turned the pages, recognizing now the subjects in the drawings. Francisco, the groundskeeper, laboring in the hot sun over her garden. Their maid ironing in front of the television, her attention on the latter. She heard the faucet in the kitchen, Paul’s voice still telling of the places he had been when he was a young man, a wanderer. She turned the pages faster, until she found the one she was looking for. There was no landscape, no setting. Just a face. Her face.

  “Water,” Paul said, coming through the doorway. “With a slice of lemon.” Gayle was sitting on the chair now, the small portfolio closed and returned to the spot on the floor where she had found it.

  “Thank you,” Gayle said, allowing her eyes to meet his.

  There was a brief silence, a slight but distinct hesitation before Paul sat on the sofa across from his employer, and Gayle sensed the same discomfort that had recently come between them.

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to explain about the other day … when you came in and …,” she started to say. But Paul interrupted her.

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “Yes. I do. I want to. It’s been on my mind.” Gayle paused, looking at the ceiling, trying to find the words that would say everything, and nothing.

  “Really, you don’t have to.” Paul saved her once again.

  Gayle nodded, wondering now if the closeness she’d felt between them that night had been entirely of her own making, and tolerated by him as nothing more than an obligatory indulgence.

  “I won’t keep you then,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. She got up from the chair and turned toward the kitchen door, and the safety of the world that waited just outside. Paul stood as well, shadowing her movements closely’more closely than he did within the walls of the main house. She could feel him now, not as the steady fixture that comforted her throughout the day, but instead as a live, unpredictable entity. And it made her stop.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said, turning to face him.

  He was surprised, but he didn’t back away. “Of course,” he said.

  “How have you lived alone for so long?”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “I mean, without attachment. How do you live without a permanent attachment? A wife, children?”

  “Ah,” he answered, now aware of the real question. “I was married, once.”

  It was Gayle’s turn to be surprised. She had never thought to ask, and he had never mentioned it. How selfish she had been all these years’going on and on about herself, and never inquiring about his life, as though he existed solely in relation to her.

  She studied the sadness in his eyes, and he allowed it to be seen.

  “Not much in life is permanent, is it?” he said.

  “Can I ask what it was like? Your marriage?”

  Paul shrugged, seemingly unsure how to answer. “Immature, I think. We were young. I didn’t know what I wanted then.”

  “Were you happy, though?”

  “Yeah. I guess I was for a while. But I found marriage difficult. I was changing, she was changing. We started wanting different things.”

  Gayle moved toward the door, not sure of what to say next. “I should go,” she said, and this time it was Paul who stopped her.

  “Wait,” he said, reaching out for her arm. “What did you come here to tell me?”

  Gayle looked away. “Nothing.”

  But he did not back down. He took her right hand in his and exposed the small cuts on her palm that were almost healed.

  Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Gayle stepped back until she felt the hard wood against her shoulders. She leaned into it, wishing it would give way and swallow her’taking her from this place and back to the house she could see through the window.

  “How much do you know?” she asked. In his face it became clear that her question had given her away, or at least confirmed the evidence he surely had gathered over the past few weeks’if not from years of living in such close proximity to the catastrophe of her life.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asked, his demeanor uneasy.

  “Please.” Her voice was quiet and pleading as she pressed him. He had to understand.

  Paul looked away for a moment, calculating the decision. When he looked up again, his expression was definitive. She had openejd this door and he was charging through it.

  “OK,” he said in a gentle tone. Then he continued, speaking slowly and with compassion.

  “I know about broken glass. I know about pills and head shrinks with bad advice. I know about two women possessing one body, and a scared little boy. I know about fear. And I know that I’m not the only one who lives alone in this house.”

  There. He’d done it’listed her crimes. Gayle was flustered. The blood flooded her cheeks. She watched his hand as it moved slowly from his side to her face, the back of his fingers gently pressing against her skin.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  She moved away, walking into the kitchen to break the connection. “It’s hard for him. At the office, living here. There’s no measure of a man beyond his income’how well he provides for his family,” she said, surprised at her need to explain her husband. “I make that impossible for him.”

  Paul remained in the doorway. “Is that what they’ve been telling you?” His voice was calmer, but there was an urgency that lingered just below the surface.

  Standing at the sink, Gayle turned to face him. “I think if I were a stronger woman …”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  Gayle shook her head vehemently. But Paul wasn’t letting go. “You grew up with it, didn’t you? It’s familiar. That’s why you can’t see it.”

  The presence of the truth overwhelmed her, and she felt herself gasp for breath. Never had she spoken of the rage in her childhood, carrying it about like a cancer beneath her skin. Avoiding it, ignoring it, trying in vain to belittle it with indifference. It had been a substantial undertaking, not just in her present situation, but throughout her life. And she could hear now the sound of her mother’s voice, the red heat that would seep from the woman’s body in those moments when she lost control, burning into Gayle the scars that no one had ever seen before.

  She felt the tears come, and she didn’t hold them back. She couldn’t have. Instead, she looked at Paul and told him. “My mother,” she said, watching him carefully as though the weight of her words might somehow destroy him. But he was still standing there, his face steady.

  Gayle took another breath, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She smiled out of sheer reflex, and was, in the end, not able to say any more.

  Moving closer to her, Paul reached for her hand and pulled it to his chest. “You didn’t deserve this,” he said.

  He wrapped his arms around her then, and she let her body fall into his, accepting his embrace. Strong hands stroked her hair, caressed her back, and she let him hold her longer than she should have, until the sound of Celia’s car in the driveway jolted her from the moment.

  “I have to go,” she said, abruptly pulling away.
>
  Paul followed her as she rushed to the back door. “Gayle!” he called after her. She was halfway down the stairs before he could get the words out.

  She stopped then turned to face him, still wiping the tears from her face. “I’m fine. Really. I’ll be fine.”

  Leaving Paul on the landing, she hurried down the stairs, around the side of the garage to the driveway. Celia was pulling up with the groceries. She stopped and rolled down her window.

  “Aren’t you getting Oliver from his swim class?” she asked, her voice scolding. It was almost five.

  Gayle rushed past the car to gather her keys from the house. As she ran into the mud room, past the jackets and shoes and their other belongings, she felt a strong disconnection. Her body was moving, grabbing the keys, hurrying back outside to her car. But part of her was not there. Part of her was still upstairs, over the garage. On the other side of the world.

  Standing in the driveway with a bag of groceries, Celia watched her. But Gayle avoided her discerning eyes.

  “I’m going now,” she said. Then she pulled away.

  THIRTY-TWO

  NEW AGE SHRINK

  “WHAT ARE WE DOING here?” Love asked, though it wasn’t really a question. She knew where she was, and why she was sitting in the hallway outside the office of Dr. Keri Luster.

  Yvonne did not look up from the literature she’d been poring over since they arrived. She was at home in this place, on this little planet from the universe of alternative medicine. The smell of herbal candles, the little sand garden with the rocks and doll-sized rake on the table, and of course the barrage of pamphlets explaining why Western medicine was one giant conspiracy to sell pharmaceuticals. All of it spoke to the L.A. earth mother in Yvonne.

  “It says here that one of the founders of sensory work suffered from debilitating back spasms. She discovered the methods while trying to find a cure.

  “Great.” As usual, Love wasn’t buying any of it. She was, after all, married to a medical doctor. Scientific studies, clinical tests, and pills were the way to go. Maybe, if pressed, she could get her head around traditional psychotherapy’talk about your problems, understand your issues. This was in another realm. Connecting her back pain to something going on in her head was as asinine to her as it was insulting.