Don't Cry Now (10 page)

B
onnie had been driving for the better part of an hour through the wide, twisting streets of Easton. Many of the streets had the same names as streets in Weston: Glen Road, Beach Road, Country Lane, Concord Street, among others. She knew them all. They hadn't changed in the more than three years since she'd been up this way, had barely changed, in fact, since she was a child. What was she doing here? It would be getting dark soon. She should probably go home. What was she hoping to accomplish by coming out here?

The police had told her they would handle Haze, that she should take care of her daughter, get her that ice-cream cone she'd promised her. She'd done that, then promptly taken her to see their family physician, who'd examined her thoroughly and pronounced her in perfect health, advising Bonnie to wait until after she got the results back from the police lab before subjecting Amanda to any blood tests. The child had seen enough blood for one day, the doctor advised.

So she'd taken her daughter home, feeling like an unwelcome intruder as she pushed open her front door, hostile rap music blasting at her from the upstairs bedrooms. She'd tried to call Rod, was told he was busy filming a promo and couldn't be disturbed, and so she'd busied Amanda at the kitchen table with some paper and a box of crayons, and tried to think about what Sam and Lauren
might like for dinner, deciding on homemade macaroni and cheese. All kids loved macaroni and cheese, she thought, wondering if the way to a child's heart was as straightforward as the one to a man's.

Rod called just as they were sitting down to eat, saying he'd be late, that he'd just grab a sandwich at the studio, would she be all right alone with the kids? She heard Amanda giggle, looked over to see Sam making a face out of his macaroni, Lauren smiling indulgently. In the next instant, all three were making faces in their macaroni, something that would have horrified Bonnie's mother, but that filled Bonnie with something approaching pride—her dinner was a success. Yes, she told Rod, they'd be all right.

After dinner, Bonnie got Amanda into bed, then called Mira Gerstein, an elderly woman who lived down the street, and asked her to baby-sit. She wouldn't be long, she told her, wondering where she was going, what she was planning to do. Stay out of it, she felt Rod admonish as she climbed into her car and backed out of the driveway onto Winter Street. But how could she just sit home and do nothing when her child was at risk? How could she hope to rebuild her family until Joan's ghost was laid to rest, until her killer was caught? Only then could they move forward; only then would they be safe.

“So, just what is it you think you're doing?” Bonnie asked out loud, once again turning her car onto Marsh Lane, driving slowly past the old wood-framed houses that irregularly interrupted the landscape, eyes peeled for number 18.

It was the oldest house on the small street, or at least it looked that way, neglect covering it like a second coat of paint. Haze lived in this house with his maternal grandparents, his mother having abandoned him after she herself had been abandoned by his father. Bonnie slowed her car down further, so that she was almost crawling, trying to peer inside the curtainless windows of the single-story home. But the interior of the house was in darkness; it
didn't look as if anybody was there, although there was an ancient blue Buick in the driveway. What kind of car did Haze drive? she wondered, stopping, debating whether to get out of her car, knock on the door, demand to speak to Haze's grandparents, neither of whom she remembered ever meeting.

And what good would that do? she asked herself, returning her foot to the gas pedal. Just what was she planning to ask? Where was their grandson immediately after school? Had they noticed anything strange about his behavior lately? Did they believe he could be guilty of murder?

Sure, great. Terrific detective work. Let the police deal with it, Rod had told her, and he was right. She'd done her part, told them everything she knew.

Except that she hadn't told them everything she knew.

She turned onto Spruce Street, then again at Elm Street, and again at Cherry. She hadn't told them about seeing her brother. She turned again at Meadow Road, stopped the car at the end of the long street.

Two long blocks to the right and another to the left, and she'd be there—the old brick house she'd grown up in, the house her mother had willed to her brother. Nick had immediately turned around and sold the house to his father.

Just one right turn, and then another, then one more to the left, and she'd be there. She wouldn't go there now, Bonnie decided, knowing that she was already on her way, that it had been to this house, this haunted house, so full of skeletons and ghosts, that she'd been headed all along.

She drove as if on automatic pilot, her fingers barely touching the steering wheel. She hadn't been back to the house since her mother's death, refusing to even think about it on a conscious level, although sometimes, when she closed her eyes in sleep, the dark walls of her childhood reappeared, closing in on her, like a coffin. It was then she saw the heavy floral wallpaper that she'd always
held responsible for the slightly sickly odor that permeated every room.

What am I doing here? Bonnie wondered, stopping her car in front of the house at 422 Maple Road, not sure for a moment if she had made a mistake, turned at the wrong street. “What have they done?” she asked, stepping outside, her feet wobbling as they touched the pavement.

The redbrick exterior had been painted gray, and there were white shutters around each window. Brightly colored pansies sat in two large clay pots on either side of the white front door and in a long window box suspended outside the kitchen window. The scent of freshly mowed grass wafted toward her nose as Bonnie inched her way slowly up the front walk. “What am I doing here?” she asked again, thinking that there was still time to turn back, that no one had seen her, that she could crawl back into her car and leave with no one being the wiser.

The front door suddenly opened, a woman appearing on the outside landing, watching Bonnie, as if she had been aware of her presence all along. “My goodness,” the woman said. “It
is
you.”

“Hello, Adeline,” Bonnie said, surprised to hear her voice so strong. She stopped, her feet immediately taking root.

“I thought it was you when I saw your car pull up. I said to Steve, ‘I think we have a visitor. I think it's Bonnie.'”

“And what did he say?” Bonnie asked.

The woman shrugged. “You know your father. He doesn't say much.”

Bonnie nodded, not sure whether to stay where she was or to continue up the pathway. Not that her feet gave any indication they would cooperate, she realized.

“I kind of thought we might get a visit after your phone call,” Adeline continued. “I said to Steve, ‘I bet Bonnie pays us a visit.'”

“Here I am,” Bonnie acknowledged.

“So I see.”

“This isn't easy for me,” Bonnie said.

“It doesn't have to be so difficult.”

“Is my brother here?”

“Not at the moment.”

Bonnie felt her shoulders sink, although she wasn't sure whether it was with disappointment or relief.

“Why don't you come inside and spend a few minutes with your father?” the woman continued. “Seeing as you've come all this way.”

Was she being sarcastic? Bonnie wondered, fighting the urge to turn around and flee. The truth was she didn't know this woman her father had married very well at all. She'd seen her only seldom since their wedding, talked to her only when she had no other alternative. Exactly the same way Rod's children treated her. What goes around comes around, Bonnie thought.

“We won't bite,” Adeline Lonergan added, her wide smile revealing both rows of teeth.

Bonnie was about to say no, but her feet, rather than backing their way down the front path, suddenly propelled her forward. “I see you've made some changes,” Bonnie said, nearing the front door.

“About time, wouldn't you say?” Adeline's blue eyes almost twinkled under a soft gray fringe of hair.

Bonnie was too busy staring at the interior of the small house to reply. The heavy flowered paper that had once covered all the walls had been literally whitewashed. White walls were everywhere—the halls, the kitchen, the living and dining areas. Pale green sheers had replaced the dark velvet drapes of the main rooms, light maple substituted for heavy mahogany. Whites, yellows, and greens stood in for burgundy and black.

“Like it?” Adeline asked, inviting Bonnie into the living room, and motioning for her to sit down on the pale yellow sofa.

“It's certainly different,” Bonnie allowed, the only concession she was willing to make. In fact, her heart was racing. She felt giddy and light-headed, as if she were
Dorothy newly awakened in the Technicolor world of Oz.

“Those dark colors were so oppressive. And depressing,” Adeline added, lowering herself into a mint-green chair. “How have you been?”

Bonnie took a second to calm herself. “All right,” she said, then wondered what the question had been.

“Everyone is well, I hope.”

“We're all fine, thank you.” Bonnie fidgeted in her seat. She noticed a Bible sitting on the coffee table beside the latest edition of
Vanity Fair
. “My father…?” Bonnie looked toward the hall, head spinning, her brain unable to digest the changes her eyes were perceiving. She felt her body reel, grabbed the arm of the sofa to steady herself.

“He knows you're here. He'll be down in a minute, I expect. Old bladders are just one of the joys of aging.”

Bonnie nodded, already regretting her decision to come inside. “You're looking well.”

“I watch what I eat and try to stay in shape. I have a Debbie Reynolds tape that I exercise with a few times a week, and your father and I go for long walks every day.”

Bonnie stood up, walked to the window, stared outside, trying to picture her father walking by with her mother, but the image refused to come. Her father had always been too busy to go walking with her mother. “What about your travel business?”

“Oh, my daughters took over that several years ago. Your brother is working there now.”

Bonnie's head swiveled toward her father's third wife. “Really? And how is that working out?”

“Very well, from what my daughters tell me. Nick has changed a lot in the past eighteen months.”

“I hope you're right.” Bonnie checked her watch. It was almost seven-thirty. “Look, I have to go. Will you tell my father…”

“Tell me what?” a voice asked from the doorway.

Bonnie's head snapped toward the sound.

“Hello, Bonnie.”

“Dad,” Bonnie acknowledged, the word heavy on her tongue, like a wad of cotton.

Steve Lonergan folded his hands against his chest and drew his shoulders back, a gesture Bonnie remembered from her youth, one that had always filled her with anxiety. Even now, she felt her pulse quicken, although the almost delicate old man who stood before her, his white hair receding into nothingness, his skin oddly translucent, was hardly a figure of fear. Age was shrinking him, Bonnie realized, common sense telling her he'd never been as tall as he stood in her memory, but surprised anyway by his obvious mortality. His face still bore a thin veneer of toughness, but there was a softness in his light hazel eyes that Bonnie couldn't remember having seen before.

“What brings you out this way?” Her father walked into the living room, easing himself into a green-and-yellow-striped wing chair and beckoning her back to the sofa.

“A student of mine lives in the area, and I needed to drop something off for him,” Bonnie heard herself reply, feeling the soft cushions of the sofa collapse under her.

Her father chuckled. “You were always a terrible liar.”

Bonnie's face flushed a deep red. Was she a bad liar because she hated lying, or did she hate lying because she was so bad at it? “A student of mine lives in the area,” she repeated, “and I was hoping to talk to Nick,” she admitted after a brief pause.

“Nick's not here,” her father said.

“I know.”

“Adeline gave him your message. Didn't he get in touch?”

“Yes, he did.”

“You're looking a little tired,” her father said suddenly, and Bonnie felt her eyes well up with tears. “Working hard these days?”

“Well, it's been a busy time.”

“So the police tell me,” her father said. “I guess now I have
three
grandchildren I've never seen.”

For an instant Bonnie was speechless.

“How
is
my granddaughter?” her father asked.

“She's fine,” Bonnie whispered, her words wobbling into the air, dropping to the ground. Someone emptied a pail of blood over her head today, she almost shouted, but didn't. She wanted to jump from her seat and run from the room, from this house where she'd known only unhappiness, from the oppressive dark flowers that were threatening to burst through the whiteness of the walls, but she couldn't move. Imaginary vines had wrapped themselves around her ankles and wrists, tying her to the sofa, securing her to her past, refusing to let her break free.

“She's how old now? Three? Four?”

“You know how old she is,” Bonnie reminded him.

Steve Lonergan nodded. “Well, let's see. She was born two months after your mother died….”

“I don't want to talk about my mother.”

“Really? I thought that's why you might be here.”

“I'm here to see Nick.”

“Nick's not here.”

Bonnie closed her eyes. This was stupid. Why had she come? Again, she tried to push herself out of her seat, but her body refused to cooperate. “Did Nick ever say anything to you about his relationship with my husband's ex-wife?” she ventured.