“How could you do this to your son?” The words jumped out of her mouth like horses. The words tore at her throat like the hooves were shredding it.
She didn’t realize she’d moved until she felt Veronica’s hand on her arm—cool, as if it had no blood in it.
“Rae, please.”
Rae jerked her arm away. Her hand became a fist drawn back. No! The effort not to hit Veronica set the blood pounding in her temples. Not in front of the boy. It wasn’t his fault.
She heard him mumble something to his mom. The wet-eyed look that passed between mother and son made Rae wish she could cry, too. But her eyes were so dry she couldn’t even blink and get rid of the sight of the two of them.
“Yes, it’s okay. Go on over to Bobby’s. We may not eat till late,” she heard Veronica tell him.
Then he was gone. Justin. Did he know he had a brother and a sister? And two nephews? Did he have a picture of Anthony in his room?
“It’s not what you think,” said Veronica.
“I’m sure,” said Rae, “that it was an immaculate conception.”
“You’re closer than you think. If it’d been…what you’re thinking…would I have invited you over here to explain? With my son present? Justin is my life.”
“Be careful what you call your life. It may not be what it seems.” Rae twisted the words into Veronica like knives.
“I know you think you have every reason to hate me, but--”
“Please! You’re not worth my hate.”
Rae looked away from Veronica, but everywhere she looked, there was Anthony. Naked.
“I knew it might pose a problem, but I never thought it would turn so ugly,” said Veronica. “I had to find out before you signed the contract with our office. It would have been much worse if we were in the middle of the case and you found out by accident. I thought this way I’d have a chance to explain.”
“What explanation could there possibly be,” said Rae. Though posed as a question, she left no room for an answer as she stared Veronica down.
Veronica, with every hair in place, oh, she was a cool one now that the boy was safely somewhere else. Probably hadn’t even broken a sweat. Rae felt her own heat rise up, the red tide of impending menopause combined with rage shooting up her neck. Sweat bled through her ecru silk blouse. Yes, she’d even dressed up for the occasion of this dinner meeting. And she knew if she looked under either arm, she’d see humongous dark brown rings staining the new blouse.
“There was no affair,” said Veronica.
“Oh, please. Tell me another.”
“He loved you. Only you. Will you just let me explain what happened?”
“No,” said Rae. The image of naked Anthony with Veronica wouldn’t let her be. She bolted for her car.
Once inside, Rae’s hands trembled so badly that she couldn’t get the keys into the ignition. Don’t drive like this, said a little voice in her head.
She sat back and took deep breaths. She looked at the house. No sign of Veronica. She willed herself calm, started the car and backed carefully down the driveway instead of nicking the Camry or driving through Veronica’s front door.
By the time she reached the street, she knew she could manage the drive home. Automatic pilot. A mode she had used often in the weeks and months following Anthony’s death.
When she got home from Veronica’s, Rae sat in the kitchen, dry-eyed, remembering, wondering when it had happened.
The age of the boy made that obvious. But, it wasn’t the act, but the when that precipitated the act that eluded her.
She ground coffee beans in her electric grinder. The dark Italian roast she used had been her grandmother’s mainstay. Somehow, Rae’s brew never achieved that bitter-sweet, almost syrupy taste and texture of Grandma’s.
Had it been Rae’s preoccupation with passing the CPA exam? The whir of the grinder rang in her ears. Grandma had ground her beans by hand.
Out of context, bits and pieces of the past returned. The whir of numbers, computations and accounting rules buzzed in her head. Six weeks of intense Becker CPA Review had left her a bundle of raw nerves.
Anthony and the kids tiptoed around her during that time. No one asked “How was your day?” They already knew that the sound of asking would set her off, and she’d fly out the back door into the postage stamp sized yard. Their first house in a Denver suburb had been really tiny, hardly room to breathe. No room to dream.
Rae spooned three scoops of ground coffee into the basket of her Krupps, poured in water and flipped the on switch.
Then she remembered the balm of Anthony’s humor. One night after a particularly grueling Becker session, as she lay in bed with her back to Anthony, she felt his hand on her shoulder. Her muscles had tightened involuntarily as she’d pulled away from his touch.
“Hey, you,” he’d said, “I just want to feel your nose.”
She’d scrounched down further into her self-imposed, info-loaded dungeon, but Anthony wouldn’t give up. He’d turned her toward him, felt her nose with the back of his hand and then declared, “Cold and moist. Yep, you’re healthy.”
She’d laughed till the tears came. Looking back, it wasn’t all that funny—being reminded by your husband that you’d been acting like a bitch. But it had done the trick. Rae had relaxed and fallen asleep in Anthony’s arms.
No, that couldn’t have been the when.
Rae poured herself a mug of coffee and thought of Grandma’s intricately flowered demitasse cups that now sat with their saucers on a shelf in the dining room. She yearned for the comfort of her childhood, remembering Grandma’s anise-laced almond biscotti.
Rae made biscotti herself according to Grandma’s verbal instructions. Recipe? What’s that? A pinch of this, a spoonful of that. Teaspoon? Tablespoon? Just a plain old spoon, Rae. You tell by what it tastes like, how it feels when you stir.
Rae’s efforts had never tasted the same, though Anthony and the kids had praised them elaborately.
The when still eluded her. Why should it be important? Knowing couldn’t change things.
Rae nibbled on a store-bought biscotti dunked in fresh coffee that was too bitter.
She’d met Anthony at a Sons of Italy dance.
“Come on, Rae, humor your grandma.”
“Ma, only old people go to those dances.” Rae was nineteen.
“It won’t kill you, this once.” Even her German-American dad had joined in.
So she’d gone with Grandma and Grandpa in their old Buick station wagon. Her hair was cut short even then. No seventies sprayed, teased-to-death look for her.
They wouldn’t let her wear jeans. “Please dress like a girl, Rae. The sky won’t fall.”
The minute she’d spotted him, Rae knew they’d been set up. Black hair towering above a sea of gray heads and stooped shoulders. Maybe not all gray—but nobody there was under forty except the two of them. God, forty was old back then.
Anthony had noticed her, too, in her little black cocktail dress. She, too young to order a cocktail, tottering in her three-inch heels, had looked up into the most gorgeous pair of hazel eyes she’d ever seen.
“We’ve been conned,” said Anthony, nodding toward two sets of Italian grandparents, their heads together like conspirators.
Rae didn’t care. She was lost but not dumb-struck. “Did anybody ever tell you that you’ve got the most arresting eyes?” she’d blurted.
Anthony had cracked up, which put her off until he’d explained to her that he’d just graduated from Denver’s police academy.
*****
The sound of a rooster’s crow through the open kitchen window stirred Rae. Through the large east-facing window, a red sun peeked over the horizon, jerking her back to the now. She’d just spent the night at her kitchen table.
Not that she’d slept. But she hadn’t been awake either. Rae stirred, upsetting half a mug of cold coffee onto herself and the floor.
“Shit!”
A cat’s paw on her knee said
“feed me.” Soon all three of them were yowling and rubbing around her.
“Get your own damn breakfast,” she growled even as she was taking cans of cat food out of the pantry.
Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. One of Grandma’s many bits of wisdom.
“Good. We need the rain.” Rae answered Grandma’s memory aloud. The goose on the bird clock honked. Five o’clock. Time to feed the animals.
She stumbled out the back door like a sleepwalker, then realized she still wore her new silk blouse and dressy pants that had to be dry-cleaned. Wrinkled beyond belief. Not just the clothes. Wrinkled clear to her soul. Everything all wadded up inside her. Can’t you just throw out old dreams and start over?
The morning air was pregnant with moisture. Spider webs speckled with dew dotted the lawn. Rae slipped bare feet into her muck shoes and opened the gate to the barnyard.
The lilac hedge that separated the formal garden from the barnyard triggered something in her heart. She paused, sniffed the air, but found no scent left in the spent blooms now turning brown.
The heady scent of the lilac hedge on that first anniversary of Anthony’s death came back at her with a force that flattened her.
“Oh, God, don’t go there,” she said aloud. But it wasn’t that first anniversary. It was the eighth she didn’t want to relive.
She’d run out on a meeting with Sandy and a client. Bad timing. She’d always managed to have that day free. Eight years. Never mind that your son had just left for college and the nest was really empty. Seemed like that should be enough time to pamper yourself, Rae.
Sandy’s client had illegal income, but was trying to square up with Uncle and stay out of jail. It wasn’t a new situation for Sandy to hire her so that her work product could come under the attorney-client privilege. When the conversation drifted toward drug money, she’d bolted. Only that time, thank God, she hadn’t slugged the client in the chops. But she hadn’t thanked God. Not then nor at any time after. And she still wasn’t speaking to Him.
She’d driven home from Sandy’s office, gotten as far as the lilac hedge, parked and bawled her eyes out.
When she got out of her car, there he was, come to see if she was okay. Sandy.
She’d stumbled. Not on a rock, but on the scent of lilacs. Stumbled into Sandy’s arms where he’d held her until they both realized where that embrace was going. And she hadn’t pulled away. Married Sandy had.
He’d kissed her cheek and murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“No. My fault.”
They’d put distance between them. Quickly.
“If there’s anything I can do…”
Her eyes had told him what he could do. She’d never meant for the raw hunger of eight years to spill out.
Anything but that, his eyes answered. Aloud he said, “I just wanted to make sure you got home okay. I would have driven you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Next time, ask me. I’m here for you.”
Sandy had left after a brotherly pat on her arm.
When she was sure he was out of earshot, she’d cried aloud. Pangs of guilt and embarrassment hit her with hard, surface blows. How could she face Sandy again? How would she be able to work with him?
They hadn’t had much contact since then. Not until Danny’s dilemma had brought them back face-to-face. And it had been a good thing. She and Sandy—friends and colleagues again. The baggage of a weak moment pitched into the manure pile.
*****
When Rae got back from feeding the livestock, the message light was blinking on her answering machine. She pressed the caller ID and saw Veronica’s name.
Her hand hovered over the erase button. Then she pressed play.
“Rae, please don’t hang up. I couldn’t sleep last night and I’ll bet you couldn’t either.”
And whose fault is that you… The memory of Sandy’s arms around her smacked Rae soundly.
Again, she drew her hand back from the erase button and listened.
“You really need to hear me out because it’s not what you think.”
What else could it be? Anthony was drugged? No way. Somebody held a gun to his head and said Screw your partner or die? Please!
End of message. Click.
How could it not be what she thought?
The house wren on the clock chirped six o’clock.
Rae put a cup of last night’s coffee in the microwave and hit the return call button on the phone.
“I’m waiting for your explanation,” Rae said when Veronica answered on the third ring.
“Over the phone?” Veronica sounded flustered.
“I’m not coming to your house again.”
Rae sipped warmed-over coffee and waited. Veronica was quiet at the other end of the line. Then Rae could hear muffled voices. Probably Justin getting ready for school.
“We really need to get this behind us. Can I come to your place?”
“You take your life in your hands if you do.” Rae nibbled again on the stale coffee that was cooling quickly, unlike her anger.
“Well, what’s it going to be? Scrap your participation in the Lassiter case now or hear me out?”
“I’ll give you directions. What time do you plan on being here?”
“Eight o’clock? Will that work for you?”
“As in morning?”
“I’m very motivated to at least have my say. You can always back out after.”
“If I don’t answer the door, try the barn.”
*****
Veronica arrived at 7:55, dressed smartly in black slacks and a camel jacket, every hair in place. Rae saw her walking up to the front door as she scurried in the back.
Rae had just time enough to remove her barn boots when the doorbell rang. A quick glance in the mirror told her she looked like she’d just rolled out of bed—except she was wearing jeans and an oversized shirt.
She braced as if for a blow as she threw open the front door. Up close, Rae could see the ravages of emotion in Veronica’s face beneath the near-perfect makeup. Tiny smudges of mascara showed at the corners of Veronica’s eyes. And there were lines in her forehead that her foundation couldn’t hide.
“Let’s go to the kitchen. I put on a fresh pot of coffee a while ago.” Rae glanced back as she led the way. Veronica followed cautiously, head held high, her dark eyes taking in details of the house. She reminded Rae of a wary horse crossing water.
“Do you have any herbal tea?” asked Veronica.
“Of course. I might have known.” Rae snatched a box of Earl Grey from the pantry and plopped it unceremoniously in front of Veronica. “It’s not herbal, but it’s all I have. I’ll boil some water.” She reached into the cupboard for a mug.
“Why not just put a cup of water in the microwave?”
“This is not going to work.” Rae slammed the mug down on the countertop, hoping to break it. The mug stubbornly resisted. Rae turned on the tap and began to fill the mug.
“Okay, okay. Let’s get it out in the open first. He was my sperm donor.”
“What?” The mug dropped a second time, the impact flinging water in all direction.
“I said he--”
“I heard what you said. No. There’s no way. Anthony would never do that. He’d never make a decision like that without asking me.”
“I see. You’d rather picture him hopping in the sack with me. You’d accept that but not what really happened.”
Veronica retrieved the dropped mug that was miraculously still intact, filled it with water and popped it in the microwave.
Rae stood shaking her head. This hadn’t even been in the realm of possibilities she’d processed.
“You think he would have asked your permission?”
“Not permission. Discussion. There would have been some discussion.”
“And what would your reaction have been?” Veronica removed her mug from the microwave and put a tea bag in to steep.
Rae seethed. “You know damn we
ll what my reaction would’ve been.” She paused for breath. “And so did Anthony.”
“I guess not.”
Rae looked hard into Veronica’s eyes but couldn’t read what she saw there.
“We talked about getting your input. Anthony was sure that you’d want to…be involved in the baby’s life.” Veronica took a sip of tea and waited for Rae’s reaction.
“He thought I was that controlling?”
“He called it loving. I’m the one who saw it as controlling. It was going to be my baby. No way did I want you, a woman I barely knew, participating in my child’s life.”
“You told him that and he still─”
“No, no. I didn’t word it that way.”
“Just tell me why you’d want to take my husband’s sperm and make yourself a baby.”
“Because he was the finest man I knew. And I didn’t think I had that much time left.”
Rae sank into a kitchen chair and stared at Veronica for a full minute. Finally: “He was the finest man I knew, too. We have one point of agreement. But the time left part…I don’t get it.”
“My clock,” Veronica whispered.
More silence, then: “You’re how old?”
“I’m fifty-three, Rae.”
“God, you’re older than me. I figured you for younger.” The words tumbled out, leaving Rae wondering why this revelation gave her some relief. “You’re even older than Anthony…was.”
“So?”
“So, I guess your clock was ticking all right.”
“I looked for Mr. Right, kissed a bunch of frogs, but all I got were guys like Reggie Navarro and his ilk.”
“Who’s Reggie Navarro?” Rae grimaced, then tried to wash away the imagined taste of frog kisses with a gulp of black coffee.
“You don’t want to know.”
Rae sighed. “Why didn’t you just get an anonymous donor? You can look at their backgrounds…so I understand.”
“I really wouldn’t know what I was getting. With Anthony, I knew. It took a lot of persuading, let me tell you.”
Pool of Lies Page 11
