Coast Road (24 page)

He flipped through Rachel's mail, tossing junk in the basket, putting bills next to his. Samantha had already taken a handful of catalogues.

And the ones that were left, the ones addressed to Rachel? Most were for outdoor clothing. Several were for artists' goods. The rest were for garden supplies. No surprise there. Nor in the CD collection in the living room. Oh, yes, she had a supply of James Taylor, Van Morrison, and the Eagles, but she had half again as many country discs.

He supposed it went with outdoor clothing and garden supplies. He supposed it went with a country life. But he hadn't even thought of Rachel as a romantic.

Sweet, sentimental, and sensitive�but romantic?

Actually, now that he thought of it, she was. He recalled returning from a business trip once to something very romantic. Rachel had picked him up at the airport, typically breathless but on time. It was dark out. The girls were in the backseat, in their pajamas, giggling behind their hands. Looking back, he guessed they had been six and four, or seven and five, which put the time at two to three years before 7, X the divorce. There had been tension at home surrounding this trip.

Rachel had been quiet driving him to the airport. He was missing a school play in which both of the gids had parts.

"If it was just me, I wouldn't mind, " she had said the night before he left, but it was an imDortant triD for him, and it had been productive.

The girls giggled most of the way home from the airport. "What are you guys up to? " he asked more than once, to which they had only giggled more.

What they were up to was a rerun of the play in the living room, with scenery taken right from the school�easily done, since Rachel was the chief set designer�and Rachel playing every part except the girls' parts. Jack applauded roundly, then read good-night stories to each gid in turn. He had thought that the ongoing grins and giggles were simply because he was home.

Then he reached his and Rachel's room and found the place ablaze with daffodils in candlelight. Rachel had unpacked his bag and filled the bathtub with hot water and bubbles. There were daffodils and candles there, too. And fresh raspberries. And wine. Without eating a thing, he felt totally full.

All the more empty by contrast now and needing more of Rachel, he went to her studio. His laptop was still plugged in, resting on a mound of Boca paperwork. The canvases he had placed against the wall the day before hadn't moved. He sat down on the floor and studied them.

After a bit, he began rummaging through her supplies. She had oils and acrylics in tubes, neatly arranged on a work desk. Watercolors were in tin boxes. Brushes of varying widths lay on a cloth with several palette knives. There were more tubes and tins in the storage closet, plus her traveling gear�a heavy-duty manual camera and film, a portable easel, a large canvas bag, a folding seat�plus a supply of sketch pads, pencils, and pens.

There was also a metal file cabinet. He opened it to find her professional records�sales receipts, lists of what painting was at what gallery, expense receipts, tax forms, memos from her accountant. He closed it just shy of seeing how much money she made. He didn't want to know that, didn't want to know that.

/ V Instead, snooping idly, he pulled out a portfolio that was stashed between the file cabinet and the wall. It wasn't a large portfolio, either in size or thickness. Squatting down, he set it against the front of the file cabinet, opened it, and found a sheaf of rag paper bound with a thin piece of blue yarn. He pulled it out, untied the yarn, and sat back, resting the sheaf against his thighs.

The first page was blank, a title page without a title. He turned to the next page and saw something that looked like a baby in the very first stages of development. An embryo. He turned to the next and the next, watching the embryo develop into a fetus with features that grew more distinct and increasingly human. Then, in a moment of silent violence, the sac holding the fetus burst. Jack was shaken. He looked at it for the longest time, unable to turn forward or back. When the shock passed, he went on, and then it was as if the explosion hadn't occurred.

The fetus grew page by page into a baby, confined in its sac but in different positions.

It was a little boy. As fingers and toes were delineated, so was a tiny penis.

Again, Jack was shaken. He studied the infant, feeling the utter reality of the child, though it was drawn with nothing more than a blue pen. A blue pen, on high-quality, heavy ivory rag.

Only three pages remained. On the first, the baby was simply larger and more detailed, tiny eyelashes, perfectly shaped ears, thumb in mouth. On the second, his little body was turned in preparation for birth, with only elbows and heels, head and bottom making bumps in the smooth egg shape. On the last, the child had his eyes open and was looking directly at Jack.

So real. Jack felt a chill on the back of his neck. So real.

Sofamiliar.

Turning back to the first page, he went through the sheaf again. He felt the familiarity begin soon after that silent violence. By the time he turned the last page, he had an eerie thought. He pushed it aside, gathered the pages together, retied the yarn, and returned the sheaf to the portfolio. Closing it tightly, he stashed it back between the file cabinet and the wall.

Still, he saw that last picture. It haunted him through the night and woke him at dawn. He phoned Brynna in Buffalo and his client in Boca, but as soon as he hung up, that baby was back.

Watching the girls in the car, he wondered if they knew anything about a baby, but he couldn't ask. Whether he was wrong or right, mentioning it would open a can of worms.

Rachel knew. But Rachel wasn't saying. That left Katherine.

Chapter Eleven.

NATURALLY, KATHERINE WASN'T at the hospital when he arrived, but that was fine. Jack had taken her phone number from Rachel's address book�both numbers, work and home. Standing just outside Rachel's room, he called the work number on his cell phone.

"Color and Cut, " came a bubbly young voice.

"Katherine Evans, please."

"I'm sorry. She's with a client. Would you like to make an appointment? " "Not for my hair, " Jack remarked.

"Oh. Uh. Then, can she return your call? " He gave the sweet young thing his number, pushed the phone in his pocket, and returned to Rachel. Drawing up a chair, he put his elbows on the bed rail.

"So, " he said, feeling resentful. "She's your unofficial spokeswoman.

Make that spokesperson. Might as well be politically correct, here.

It looks like I have to go through her to get to you." He half expected a gloating smile. Of course, there was none, which, irrationally, annoyed him more. He rubbed his thumb over those immobile lips, found them dry, applied Vaseline. What excess there was, he rubbed into the back of his hand.

"Remember when we used to ski? " They had done Aspen and Vail. They had done Snowmass and Telluride. The trips were gifts from Victoria, the only gifts from her that they had truly enjoyed. While the girls took lessons, Rachel and Jack skied together. One Chap Stick was all they ever brought, and they shared. "That was fun. This isn't.

Rachel? Are you there? Can you hear me? It's been a week, Rachel, a whole week. You may be having a ball in there, but it's getting harder on us out here. Hope needs you to help her with Guinevere's death.

She disappeared this morning�didn't show up for breakfast and wasn't in the house at all. I ran to Guinevere's grave. No Hope. I was getting ready to panic when she came down from Duncan's. That's starting to make me nervous. I mean, he's a big guy living alone. Could be he's a pervert." Rachel didn't look upset. Neither had Hope when she returned from Duncan's. Jack had watched her closely for signs of distress, but there were none. "She says she needs his faith. If that's the extent of it, I still feel inadequate. We never talked about religion, you and me. Maybe we should have. Maybe the kids need a faith of their own for times like these." He stood, bringing her arm up with him, and began to gently put it through its paces. "And Sam.

She's a trip. I have no idea what's going on in her head. She vacillates between being an angel and a shrew. I'm never quite sure whether she's listening to what I say or whether she's only nodding while her mind is offsomewhere else. Do you get through to her? " The ring of the phone was muffled by his jeans. Gently, he set her arm down. Less gently, he flipped the phone open as he walked to the door "Yeah? " "It's Katherine, " said a frightened voice. "What's up? " "I need to talk with you." There was a silent beat, then, "Rachel's the same? " "Yeah. Sorry. She's the same." Katherine swore softly.

"Can I ask a favor? Next time you call, please tell them it isn't an emergency."

"But it is, " he said, looking back at his wife. "I found a pack of drawings in Rachel's studio. Of a baby. A baby boy.

" The silence this time was for more than one beat.

"I need to know what those drawings meant, Katherine. That baby had my eyes." There was more silence. Finally, she murmured something to someone on her end, then said, "I'll be over in forty-five minutes. " BY THE TIME she arrived, Jack had exercised every appropriate part of Rachel's body. He had talked to Kara Bates. He had talked to Cindy Winston. He had rearranged the framed pictures of Rachel to accommodate several more that the girls had produced, showing Rachel running, painting, laughing, further evidence of the vibrant woman inside the shell on the bed. He had listened to Garth Brooks from start to finish, and had asked himself a dozen questions about the baby whose existence Rachel's best friend hadn't denied.

Katherine entered the room looking wary. Pocketing her keys, she kissed Rachel's cheek. "Mmm. You smell good. So he's been rubbing in cream?

Isn't that typical. They'll do anything to get their hands on our bodies."

"Sex was never a problem for us, " Jack said, out of the gate at the crack of the gun. "It was good from start to finish. So, were those drawings wishful thinking on Rachel's part? Or was she really pregnant? " Katherine looked torn.

"Come on, Katherine, " he warned. "You've told me other things about Rachel. Besides, you're not denying it, which means she was. Unless I misinterpreted those drawingsj she lost the baby." When Katherine's eyes fell to Rachel, he said a gentler "Look. We don't know what's going to happen here. It's been a whole week. I'm sleeping in her bed, using her shower, digging coffee beans out of a canister shaped like a cuke. I'm using her towels. I'm eating her frozen zucchini bread. I'm putting my shorts in her underwear drawer because I'm getting fuckin' tired of living out of a suitcase, I'm�" "Yes, she was pregnant." Suddenly real, it took his breath. He looked at Rachel, trying to imagine it. The pain he felt was gnawing. "How could she pick up and leave me, if she was pregnant? " Katherine's eyes rounded.

"Oh no. She wasn't pregnant when she left. It was before. " "Before." That made even less sense. "No. I would have known. " "From what she told me, she barely knew it herself. Things weren't going well between you. There was less talk, more silence. When she missed a period, she figured it was because of the strain. She didn't have an inkling until she missed a second one, and even then she let it go. Like I said, things weren't good at home. She didn't know what to do." He shook his head. "I knew her body. Even two months along�" "She was three months along."

"I'd have seen it."

"Not if she was thinner to start with. The bloat of early pregnancy would have brought her up to normal." Jack forced himself to think back. Yes, Rachel had lost weight before the split. And despite what he had said, there hadn't been much intimacy at the end. Either he was traveling or one of them was tired. There was a chance he hadn't seen her undressed in anything but the darkest of night.

"But she would have told me, " he argued. That was what hurt most. A baby affected him directly. A baby was part his.

Katherine sighed. "She tried. You were on a trip when she started feeling sick. She called and asked you to come home. You wouldn't. " Swallowing, he focused on Rachel's still face and struggled again to think back. There had been a trip to Toronto two weeks before the split.

Yes, she had called, not feeling well, wanting him home. But the trip had been an important one. A large contract had hung in the balance.

Turning to Rachel, he said, "I kept asking you what was wrong. You said, nothing terrible. That was what you said, nothing terrible. You had stomach pains. Maybe the flu, you said." He looked at Katherine.

"She was miscarrying? " Katherine nodded.

He made himself remember more. "She was pale as death when I came home, but she said she was getting better. I was home for four days.

Not once did she mention a baby." He felt shaky inside, even vurruru uellnory lOZ close to tears. "Then there was a bunch of trips in close sequence." And an ultimatum before the last one. He recalled being annoyed that she seemed to be in . . . in pain. Good Lord. She had cause. "When I came back from the last, she was gone, " he murmured, before anger killed the tears. "Why didn't she tell me? " "She couldn't."

"She lost a baby I didn't know about, then left because I hadn't somehow figured it out? " When Katherine looked reluctant to speak, he wiggled his fingers. "Come on, Katherine. Talk to me. Tell me what she said."

"She said it wasn't just the miscarriage. It was everything about your relationship. The miscarriage was only the clincher. She saw it as a sign that the marriage wouldn't work."