Bleeding Heart (20 page)

By the time my sons-in-law arrived for the weekend, it was settled. I didn’t ask the details of who gave how much—all I knew was that a sum covering what Mackenzie owed me was being wired into the Green Acres business account and would be available the following Monday morning. I was touched and relieved and more grateful than I could ever say. I insisted on calling it a loan, though, and paying the going interest rate on the amount. I was still horribly embarrassed about getting myself into such a mess, but I was proud
of my daughters for behaving with such maturity and compassion. They were all the proof I needed just then that I wasn’t a complete failure in life.

To thank them I went all out and made an elaborate dinner on Saturday night. We ate in the dining room, setting out the heirloom silver and using the frail, paper-thin linen that had been in the family for generations.

Allen, who bought wine with the same discrimination and skill with which he purchased equities, opened a bottle of vintage Bordeaux. He held up his glass and said, “To the future!”

“Hear, hear!” I said.

“And to family!” Franny added, smiling across the table at Olivia. It occurred to me that they’d gotten on particularly well with each other that week. I’d witnessed none of the little episodes of sibling rivalry and jealousy that so often erupted when they spent more than a couple of days in close quarters. Despite my problems, it was one of the nicest vacations I could remember in a long time.

“No, you sit,” Olivia said when I started to get up to clear after the main course. “Franny and I will get the dessert.” But a few minutes after they disappeared into the kitchen, I remembered that I hadn’t turned on the coffeemaker. I got up and followed them through the swinging doors. They were standing side by side at the kitchen sink, rinsing dishes.

“When are you going to tell her?” I heard Franny ask.

Olivia whispered something in reply, but I couldn’t make it out. I guess it was because the last few months had brought so much heartache and disappointment, but I immediately jumped to the conclusion that something was wrong—and that they were keeping it from me.

“Tell me what?” I demanded.

“Mom?” Olivia said, turning around. “I thought we agreed that Franny and I would do the cleaning—”

“What’s going on?” I said. “What don’t you want me to know?”

“It’s nothing bad,” Franny said, laughing.

“Actually, it’s something very, very good,” Olivia said. “Allen wanted to open a bottle of champagne when we announced it, but who cares?”

“What? Oh! Don’t tell me . . . ?”

“Yes, Mom,” Olivia said, beaming. “We’re having a baby. You’re going to be a grandmother.”

T
hough I’d always hoped that my daughters would have children of their own someday, Olivia’s news thrilled me in a way I really hadn’t anticipated. It instantly recalibrated my priorities, and made me realize how, immersed in my own problems, I’d allowed myself to ignore the important things in life. Like the miracle of life itself. And the unbreakable bonds of family. I had a harder time than usual saying good-bye to everyone on Sunday afternoon. I hugged Olivia to me before she and Allen got into their car.

“You’ll take good care of yourself, right?” I told her. “You know you have to eat regularly and take plenty of folic acid and—”

“Your daughter’s already the leading expert on prenatal supplements,” Allen told me as he opened the passenger door for his wife. “If we’re going to beat the traffic, we’d better get going.”

Franny, Owen, and I waved them off as they started down the driveway, and Allen gave a farewell honk as he made the right onto Heron River Road.

“It goes by so fast, doesn’t it?” Franny said, turning to me. Owen started to load their suitcases into the trunk.

“Too fast,” I said. “And I could kick myself for wasting so much of it on Mackenzie.” I felt so sad! I had to work hard to keep a smile on my face, but Franny picked up on what I was feeling anyway. She’s always been empathetic, but after Richard left, she became even more acutely attuned to my moods.

“You know what I think, Mom?” she said. “It’s time for you to put that awful man behind you. I just hope he won’t affect how you feel about
all
men. It seems to me there are some pretty nice ones kicking around up here.”

I knew she meant Tom Deaver. They’d met him when he dropped by the house late Friday afternoon, unaware that I had visitors. He had a gallon-size ziplock bag full of ripe tomatoes with him.

“I thought maybe you could use some nourishment,” he said, holding up the bag and looking past me to my daughters, who were hovering in the hallway behind me. I introduced everyone and invited Tom in for a visit.

“No, I can’t stay,” he said, glancing from me to Franny and Olivia. “I was just checking in. But it’s nice to meet you both. You know, I realize this is going to sound really hokey, but as far as I’m concerned the three of you could easily pass for triplets. Anyway, here are some tomatoes for your dinner. I’ve got so many coming in right now I don’t know what to do with them.”

Before Tom was even halfway down the driveway, Franny poked me in the ribs and giggled.

“He was flirting with you, Mom!” she said. “
Triplets?
You know, that really was hokey, but he was able to pull it off somehow. He has a kind of boyish, endearing Jason Bateman vibe going.”

“Yeah, with maybe a little Dennis Quaid macho swagger thrown in,” Olivia added. “Not bad for a middle-aged guy. Who
is
he?”

I tried to brush my daughters’ questions aside, but they were persistent, and before too long I found myself telling them about
the selfless way Tom had handled his wife’s illness and early death. About his Clean Energy Consulting firm. And the Wind Power Initiative that Mackenzie had helped shoot down. How, despite that, he’d stepped up and done what he could when Mackenzie collapsed during the Open Day event.

“He came by here later that night to tell me Mackenzie hadn’t made it,” I said.

“Later? How late? And what’s that look on your face?” Olivia demanded.

“You’re blushing,” Franny said. “I knew it! You’ve got a thing for this guy. Well, I’ve got to say, I like the sound of him. Plus he grows his own tomatoes. That’s hard to beat.”

After Franny and Owen left, the house felt empty. I usually don’t mind being by myself. My disastrous marriage cured me of the need for intimacy. And the fear of loneliness. Over the last half dozen years or so I’d come to realize that I really enjoyed my own company. But Olivia’s announcement had stirred up all sorts of maternal and nostalgic feelings in me. It brought back vivid memories of my own pregnancies—and the joy and excitement of young motherhood. Along with all that, of course, it brought back Richard. I could still never think of him without pain. And I resented the way he remained embedded in my life, tangled up in all my memories. Every happy moment that I’d shared with him was now tinged with anger and regret.

It was still light out at seven thirty. I poured myself a glass of white wine and wandered outside in my bare feet. The grass was cool and lush, the shadows lengthening across the lawn. I loved this time of day in the summer, when the crickets are tuning up in the underbrush and the birds are calling back and forth to one another.
Good night! Good night!
I sat down in one of the old teak chairs facing the long back border and watched the first of the fireflies drift
across the patchwork of bleeding hearts, Shasta daisies, and echinacea. How lucky I was to be able to hold on to all this! How grateful I was that my children could help me out the way they had. What a relief not to have to worry any longer about how I was going to cope. And yet . . .

I couldn’t seem to shake my melancholy. It was more than that, really. It was a helpless sense of time passing—and of regret. About the mistakes I’d made in love. And now with work. The misjudgments for which I had only myself to blame. Just when I was convinced I’d finally gotten my life back on track, I’d stumbled badly. I’d nearly lost everything again. It frightened me how close I’d come.

“Alice?” I heard Tom call from the front of the house. I got up quickly and walked around to the front yard. He was looking through the open screen door, the light from the hallway spilling out onto the porch.

“I was in the back,” I said, climbing the steps. “My family left a little while ago. Would you like to come in and get something to drink—and then join me outside?”

“Yes, thanks, I would,” he said. I pushed open the door, and he followed me into the house. As I led the way down the hall to the kitchen, I could sense his gaze taking me in. I had on a pale pink sleeveless linen sundress, wrinkled from a day of wear. But I knew that it showed off my well-toned arms to good effect and contrasted nicely with my summer tan. I had my shoulder-length hair up in a clip, though strands had escaped and curled around the nape of my neck. I wasn’t sure if it was me—or the effect he had on me—but I thought I looked pretty good. Hardly one of Tom’s triplets, but still womanly and attractive. Which was not something I’d felt about myself in a long time.

So I was surprised—and disappointed—by what Tom said when we took our seats outside on the darkening lawn.

“I’m afraid I’m once again the bearer of bad news,” he told me. “Or at least upsetting news.”

“Oh, dear,” I said, turning to look at him in the fading light. “What is it?” He had a profile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Roman coin: high forehead, aquiline nose, strong chin. But he seemed distant and distracted.

“I’m friendly with Harry Corbett, who’s in the district attorney’s office,” he replied as he stared unseeing out over the wildflower field. “Apparently, they received Mackenzie’s autopsy report, and something’s not right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Harry told me they’re going to be opening up a homicide investigation into what happened.”

“What? That’s crazy! Mackenzie had a heart attack. We were both right there.”

“Yes, I know,” Tom said. “And I’ve been going over it again in my head. That’s certainly what the EMS guys seemed to think. And that’s what the doctor at Berkshire Medical Center told us. I was with Chloe and Lachlan when they heard the news. I’m absolutely sure the doctor said he thought Mackenzie’s heart ‘just gave out.’”

“But now they think it
wasn’t
a heart attack? What was it, then?”

“I don’t know. The DA’s keeping a tight lid on whatever the autopsy findings are—but something’s obviously wrong.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to make sense of Tom’s news. I’d already adjusted my thinking to the idea that Mackenzie had died because of heart problems. And it seemed to fit with everything I knew about him: the high blood pressure, his distrust of mainstream medicine, the severe financial pressure he was under. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to be forced to imagine a different—and
possibly suspicious—scenario. I was ready to put Mackenzie’s death and all the bad things associated with it behind me.

“You must have been there pretty early that morning,” Tom said. “Did you see anything that seemed odd to you?”

“No,” I said, but then I remembered the eerie sensation of making my way down through the gardens in the heavy mist. “Though—I know this is going to sound a little weird—I did
feel
something. The mountain was all fogged in, and I was upset because Mackenzie’s last check to me didn’t clear. I hadn’t slept well, worrying about how I was going to get paid. So maybe it was just my own anxiety, but I felt something ominous in the air.”

“That’s awful about the money,” Tom said. “Did you have the chance to talk to him about it?”

“No, I didn’t. Nobody seemed to know where he was. In fact, I didn’t see him until much later on—maybe halfway through the morning. He was dressed in white, talking to some people not that far from where he collapsed.”

“I don’t remember seeing him at all,” Tom said. “At least, not until I heard that scream and went down to see what had happened. Well, obviously, we’re not going to solve this ourselves. Harry told me they’ll be sending out detectives to interview everyone who might have any information. I imagine they’ll want to talk to you, Alice.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m an old hand at that sort of thing.”

Tom took a moment to think about what I’d said. I could feel him glancing over at me. Finally, he asked:

“You mean . . . because of your husband?”

So he knew. Though I didn’t like the fact that he’d heard the gossip about my failed marriage, I was relieved that I didn’t have to explain the whole thing all over again. And yet I also realized that I wanted Tom to know what had happened from
my
point of view.
How it had blindsided me. How it had altered my once trusting and compliant nature. But mostly, I think I wanted him to understand the person it had forced me to become.

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” I said. “Listen—would you care to stay for dinner? I’ve all sorts of delicious leftovers from the weekend. It would be very easy to throw something together for us.”

“I’d like that, Alice,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

We had cold chicken and a variety of salads and the rest of the white wine. We ate at the kitchen table.

“Should I light the candles?” he asked as I put out the plates and silverware.

“Sure,” I said.

“It’s so hot tonight,” he said after we took our seats across from each other. “Maybe you could turn the overheads down a little?”

I turned them off and opened the French doors. We ate by the light of the flickering candles. At first we didn’t say much. I think the romantic atmosphere made us both suddenly feel a little awkward and shy. But then he asked me again about Richard, and I began to tell him the whole dreadful, complicated story. It’s one I’ve always struggled through in the past, groping for the right words and emphasis, but there was something about Tom’s straightforward questions and obvious concern that made this particular telling easy.