Beyond Midnight (20 page)

Which was what made the funeral announcement so troubling.

Helen picked up the clipping again and reread the last line of it:
"
Memorial contributions may be made in her name to the Good Buddies Hotline.
"

Why a suicide hotline? Good Buddies was a volunteer organization dedicated to steering people away from whatever abyss they were peering into. Drugs, depression, bereavement, abuse—anything that could push people over the edge was the Good Buddies
'
concern. Their phone number was posted alongside most of the high bridges in the state.

Memorial contributions were nearly always directed toward charities that were related to the manner of death. It didn
'
t seem possible that Linda Byrne could have taken her own life, and yet...

The front door slammed, ending Helen
'
s uneasy reverie, and Becky yelled out,
"
Oh, no, he
's gone back to his mu
sic? Gross!
"

Her voice, half-joking, half-groaning, sounded like sleigh bells on a cold dark night. Helen grinned and called out,
"
You should
'
ve heard him an hour ago!
"

Becky popped her head in the kitchen doorway and rolled her eyes.
"
I mean, give me a break! I can
'
t possibly study here.
"

"
The Celts are playing in half an hour; he
'
ll be winding down,
"
said Helen. She added,
"
I kinda like it. It lets me know he hasn
'
t climbed out his bedroom window to escape.
"

"
Not with that ankle,
"
Becky decided.
"
Give him a week.
"
Still in her
hooded
black trench coat, she came over to the table and looked over her mother
'
s shoulder.
"
More Byrne? Where
'
d you get all this?
"

Coloring, Helen leaned back in her spindled oak chair and feigned a casual stretch.
"
Oh, just some stuff I picked up at the library.
"

"
Are we doing criminal background checks on the parents, too, now? I thought that
'
s what you only did with the staff,
"
Becky quipped, matching her mother
'
s light tone.

"
Don
'
t laugh,
"
Helen said grimly.
"
Some of the parents probably wouldn
'
t pass.
"

But Becky wasn
'
t about to be diverted. She picked up the copy of Linda Byrne
'
s wedding photo and studied it.
"
Pretty,
"
she said. She put it down and picked up the engagement picture. In a quiet voice she said,
"
Does all this have something to do with the way you
'
ve been acting lately, Mom?
"

Helen had to think about what she should tell her daughter. Except for the time two days earlier when Nat Byrne had smelled
Enchantra
in Helen
'
s office, Becky was clued in to every weird event so far. She may not actually have heard the tapping in Helen
'
s bedroom, but she certainly understood that her mother had suffered a crushing headache. And even she had smelled the perfume. The temptation for Helen to confide in her levelheaded daughter was irresistible.

But—resist she must. Becky wasn
'
t versed enough to take part in a discussion about psychic phenomena. Helen had an academic background in psychology; her daughter had, at best, a couple of tabloid TV shows under her belt.

"
Mom?
"
Becky persisted.
"
Does it?
"

Helen decided on a half-truth.
"
In a general way, yes. Linda Byrne
'
s death
has
affected me. Maybe it
'
s because of that phone conversation we had. There was something in her voice that must
'
ve set me off, something that I must
'
ve picked up on.
"

"
Like what?
"
asked Becky, slipping off her teddy-bear knapsack and letting it drop to the kitchen floor. Her face was wide-eyed and innocent as she sat down in the chair alongside her mother
'
s.
"
You said she was upset. You said she was sick. Was there more?
"

Without directly answering her daughter
'
s question, Helen shoved the funeral notice at her.
"
Look at where they wanted contributions to be made.
"

Becky understood at once.
"
Oh. She killed herself.
"

Helen was shocked at the ease with which Becky accepted the idea.
"
Oh, honey,
"
she said, reaching out to stroke her daughter
'
s hair away from her face.
"
Don
'
t be like that—don
'
t be so blasé about suicide. I know it
'
s a sign of the times, but God, I wish you wouldn
'
t.
"

Becky picked up the wedding shot again.
"
What else could it mean?
"

"
I don
'
t know; maybe she called the hotline once and they talked her out of. . . doing something rash. Maybe she was in a postpartum depression after Katie was born,
"
Helen said, struggling to come up with a less downbeat view.
"
Her hormones could have been out of whack. It happens.
"

"
And her husband was thankful to the Good Buddies for saving her?
"
Becky frowned at the black-and-white image, twice removed from reality, that she held in her hand.
"
I guess it could be the reason. But then why are you so bothered? You should only be sad that she died so young.
"

Damn. Her logic was impeccable. This is what happened when you took someone only halfway into your confidence.
"
Well, look at the circumstances,
"
Helen said lamely.
"
I was there when she
..
. died. It was very unusual.
"

"
So it was the melodrama that affected you?
"
Becky asked, scrunching her nose in an unconvinced way.
"
I guess.
"

She got up slowly, then picked up her backpack and slung it over one shoulder.
"
I
'
ll be in my room.
"
She looked at the ceiling after an especially sour note came wafting down from Russ
'
s room.
"
Trying to study.
"

After a step or two she turned around and said to her mother,
"
If you want to tell me what you really think, you know where to find me.
"

* * *

The next couple of weeks proved to be passable, all things considered. Russ, while not happy, wasn
'
t as disagreeable as Helen feared he
'
d be during his confinement. He divided his time between the electric keyboard and the TV and spent long hours on the phone with Scotty and one or two other friends. The melodious
bong
of his computer going on and off filled Helen with the hope that he was using it for something besides games. He was reasonably civil to Becky and positively courteous to his great-aunt Mary. Helen began to feel that the pain of disciplining him was going to pay off, after all.

She shortened his term by a week.

In a way, she had no choice; it was getting harder and harder to ride shotgun on the boy. Administrative chores which she
'
d been putting off were beginning to pile up. Deadlines loomed. Helen needed to be at the preschool more and more, whic
h meant pressing poor Aunt Mary
into baby-sitting service more and more. Russ saw the problem for what it was: a question of trust.

Helen didn
'
t have much of that. It was actually easier to grant Russ his liberty than to hope that he
'
d keep himself under lock and key.

I
'
m pathetic,
she decided one afternoon as she plowed through a pile of paperwork.
I
'
m supposed to be an expert on child-rearing, and sometimes I haven't got a clue.

Her hand reached out to the phone. Russ should just be getting home from school. If he stopped long enough for Oreos, she might be able to catch him before he took off to join his pals at the basketball court. She punched in her home number but got the machine.

He
'
s come and gone,
she decided. Unless he hadn
'
t bothered even to come home first. Maybe she should just slap his face on a milk carton and be done with it, she thought wearily. He was making her nuts.

Clutching an evaluation form and an OSHA checklist, Helen walked out of her office to Kristy Maylen
'
s classroom. She needed to ask Kristy whether she
'
d taken the CPR refresher course, and while she was there she thought she
'
d check the tags on the fire extinguishers in the room.

Kristy had left. Helen was inside the empty classroom, out of sight of those in
the hal
l, when she heard one of the mothers cry out in surprise,
"
For heaven
'
s sakes—Nat Byrne! What on earth are
you
doing here?
"

The voice that answered—the voice that made Helen
'
s heart go banging up against her rib cage—was cooly polite.
"
Hello, Gwen. Actually, I
'
m looking for the director.
"

"
Did you check the playground?
"

"
No. Might she be there?
"

"
She could be anywhere. Ask Janet to page her.
"

"
Thanks
...
I
'
ll just try her office again.
"

Instead of stepping out into the hall to greet them all, Helen hid in the shadow of the door. It was hard enough keeping Becky from learning her off-the-wall suspicions about Linda Byrne; what on earth might she say to the widower? Let him drop off the books—if that
'
s why he was here—and be on his way.

But in the meantime, Gwen and a woman whose voice Helen didn
'
t recognize were lingering in the hall outside the room. Helen stayed breathlessly quiet as Gwen said,
"
I hope he
'
s not too grieved to manage my money properly.
"

"
Him? He
'
s married to his work.
"

"
They say his wife was gorgeous. Did you know her?
"

"
I didn
'
t know her. I knew of her. I heard
...."
Here the woman
'
s voice dropped low.
"I heard she was in the mid
d
l
e of an intense affair right up until the time she
...
you know.
"

"
Get out. Why would anyone cheat on
him?
"

"
I can
'
t imagine. And I can
'
t remember who told me. I might
'
ve overheard some gossip at a party. Anyway, it
doesn
'
t matter; he
'
s a free man now. And rich as sin. She had tons of money of her own, more than he had, I think.
"