Healing Waters (31 page)

“Like—did Lynn seem happy to you? Did she ever say anything to you about—not being—”

“You're not writing your memoirs.”

“No.”

Anna set the chalupa down in the paper dish it hadn't touched since she took the first bite. “Look,” she said, “if it were me, I'd want to put that whole period of my life behind me and move on.”

“This is part of my moving on,” Sully said.

She scratched at her chest, revealing a tattoo of a Celtic cross. “Okay—all I know is Lynn was nuts over you, like, over-the-top nuts. You know why she never got her degree. She majored in you. You were all she wanted.”

Sully felt the thickening in his throat again. Why had he even started this?

“I told her she was an idiot, of course.” Anna stabbed the corner of a tortilla into the guacamole. “You don't build your whole life around somebody else. If I'd done that with Tom Dickinson, I'd be a basket case right now. You knew we were divorced.”

“No, I didn't. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. We're both better off. We were never like you and Lynn were at first.”

Sully felt something stir. “At first?”

“You know, before the shine became patina. How poetic is that?” She laughed. “Look, you two were good together, Sully. Just go with that. You know how to love, so take that into another relationship. Have you even dated since Lynn died?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then there's your trouble. What are you doing Saturday night?”

Before Sully could get his tongue untangled, she laughed again. “Just kidding. I always thought you were a remarkable person, but you and I, I don't think so.”

Sully tried to smile. “Do I even want to know why?”

“Oh, it's nothing against you. I always told Lynn she got the last good one. I just need a guy who can take care of himself so I can do my thing.”

He couldn't even begin to sort that out.

“You know what?” she said. “Lynn and I weren't that close after—gosh, when was it? Sometime after that retreat up at Fall Creek Falls. You remember that? It was you, Lynn, Tom, me, and that Ukrainian couple. What were their names?”

Sully shook his head.

“It's probably not important. Right after that, Tom and I got married, and it was hard enough keeping up with him and going to school, much less devoting time to friends.” For a moment she looked sad. “Lynn always managed, though. I wish in some ways I could have been more like her.” She tossed her head back and laughed once more. “If I were, we'd be going out Saturday night.”

Sully stayed long enough to be polite, but in the end it was Anna who took off, after getting his phone number out of him and saying they ought to get the old gang together.

“I'll arrange it if you want,” she said.

“I'll call you,” he said.

“Ten bucks says you won't.”

And with a kiss on his cheek, she left Sully to wonder if the meeting had been a complete fiasco. All he'd gotten out of it was Anna's impression that he was a man who needed to be taken care of, which had at least let him out of a duty date. He looked dismally at the Spanish rice she'd left for him.

She was the only person he'd been able to get in touch with.

Lynn might have taken all her secrets to the bottom of the Cumberland after all.

Wesley appeared with a bag of swimsuit choices the next day, but the sky dumped rain and treated us to a lightning-and-thunder show. Bethany, James-Lawson, and I took shelter in the playroom, where they set up a fort with blankets and chairs, and I attempted my
Family Feud
list for Sullivan.

It wasn't the kind I usually made. Mine were usually about things like:

• find out when school starts for Bethany

• figure out who pays the bills so the power company doesn't turn off the electricity

• call Didi—see if she actually quit or if she's just on an unscheduled sabbatical

The biggest difference between that and the thing Sullivan wanted me to do was that when I wrote down the first five significant events of my childhood, I wouldn't be able to check them off. Those pieces of my life were always going to be there, and I couldn't do anything about them.

I clicked my pen aimlessly. My childhood memories were less like a game show than MTV. They came out in disconnected flashes I couldn't even focus on before the next one flickered in and out.

Flash: my mother wailing in the hallway in the middle of the night that it was too early, and my only later realizing that she meant too early for the baby to be born.

Flash: Grandma Broc taking me to my first dance class, probably to distract me while my parents anguished over the premature baby struggling for her very young life. That was probably the only time in my life when I danced through the days aware only in some narrow place that something was amiss.

Flash: my mother bringing home the ugliest little being I'd ever seen. Another “only”: the only time I was ever prettier than my sister.

I put down the pen. I still wasn't convinced that exhuming my past would help the present—or Bethany's future. So I looked back at the list I
had
made. The results of that one had been depressing too.

A call to Trinity Christian Academy revealed not only that classes started next week, but that Bethany was enrolled in first grade, when she'd never been to kindergarten. Or, for that matter, preschool.

No arrangements had been made for her to be picked up by their bus program—though they were sure they could fit her in—and since no one had attended the parents' orientation event, they would be happy to e-mail me the particulars about uniforms, supplies—oh, and the process for paying tuition.

From what I was able to get out of Marnie, who was now so stressed she could barely put two sentences together, Sonia's accountant paid her personal bills. That would have been a relief, except that she seemed to think I should be in touch with this Patrick person.

“If he's already dealing with her finances,” I said, “I don't see why.”

“I just don't know how much longer he's going to stay on,” she'd said, eyes shifting. “He and Sonia aren't on the best of terms.”

“What does that mean?” I said.

“I have no idea.” She'd already been halfway out of the room by then, heeding Sonia's bark from the office. “You should call him. I'll get you the number.”

Didi-the-housekeeper had been more difficult to locate. I wrote out a message and read it over the phone so I wouldn't tell her she was a complete flake for terminating her employment by just not showing up anymore.

“Didi, we have no problem with your missing work,” I read through gritted teeth. “With all that's been going on around here, and all the long hours you've put in, you obviously needed a break. But could you give me a call and tell me when you might be returning?”

I didn't add, “Or if,” but I realized now that her silence was my answer. The dust collected on tabletops and baseboards, and the bathrooms exuded an unpleasant aroma. I couldn't keep up with the laundry or do more than spray a little Lysol in the toilets, and I could find neither the vacuum cleaner nor the time to use it.

And that was just the inside of the house. Bryson Porter didn't come back, either, after his encounter with the FBI. I assumed from Deidre Schmacker's visit that he wasn't their guy, in spite of whatever they had found in the garage, but he must have decided this was no longer the place for him. The lawn was ankle high, and the weeds brazenly encroached on the flower beds. I toyed with the idea of doing the yard work myself until I remembered what Wesley had said to me, and what I'd promised Sullivan Crisp I would do.

So I crossed Didi off the list and added:

• tell Sonia I'm hiring a lawn service

• and a once-a-week maid

• eat more chocolate

The doorbell rang, and despite my assurance that I would be right back, both James-Lawson and Bethany tailed me down the stairs, chattering about how they hoped it was J. Edgar. I of course hoped it was not—or that he at least had come alone. Deidre Schmacker's was another list I was avoiding.

I peeked out through the glass in the front door. “Sorry, kids,” I said. “It's the mailman.”

Bethany shrank against the foyer mirror.

“It's okay,” James-Lawson said to her. “The mailman's not a stranger.”

Bethany just shook her head.

When the carrier had handed me more mail than would fit in the box and left, I turned to her.

“Were you afraid of him?” I said.

“I'm not allowed to talk to strangers,” she said.

“That's true.” I squatted in front of her, arms full of envelopes. “But it's okay if I tell you the person is safe. Just like yesterday.”

She looked extremely doubtful.

“I would never let anyone hurt you,” I said.

“You might not be able to stop them.”

I could feel my eyes springing open.

“If someone wanted to take me, they just would,” she said.

I didn't even ask where that had come from. The child watched entirely too much television.

“Come on, you two,” I said. “Snack time.”

We were pulling a sheet of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven when I heard Wesley come into the kitchen behind me.

“You're just in time,” I said, “as long as you don't mind a little kid-spit in your dough.”

“I think we'll be all right with that,” Wesley said.

We.

I turned, pot holder still in hand. Sonia was with her.

Immediately something brushed past my leg: Bethany, sliding around me and retreating into the pantry. At least she wasn't screaming.

James-Lawson, on the other hand, walked up to Sonia and offered a hand still gooey with butter. “I'm James-Lawson Kane,” he said. “It's nice to meet you.”

Sonia still stood above him, so he couldn't possibly have seen her face yet. What the Sam Hill was Wesley thinking?

Or Sonia, for that matter? Could she possibly still believe that any new person who laid eyes on her wouldn't recoil in some small way? And a child—for Pete's sake.

“Aren't you just about half-cute?” Sonia said.

She bent over to James-Lawson, who shook his head.

“No, ma'am,” he said. “I'm all the way cute.”

Sonia smiled, a grisly affair with the prosthesis firmly lodged in her mouth.

James-Lawson leaned his woolly head to the side. “You got a boo-boo, huh?”

“Just a little one,” Sonia said.

“You know what? No. It's a really big one.”

Sonia stood back up. “Don't worry,” she said. “It's going to go away.”

“I know, 'cause my mama's helping you.”

Dear God, please don't let her start preaching at this child.

God seemed to answer for once. Sonia nodded, as best she could, and patted his head.

“I have work to do, boys and girls,” she said, and turned to go. “The kids and I baked cookies,” I said again.

“Maybe Bethany would like to give you one.”

Sonia looked around as if she'd just discovered her child's absence. “I don't want to push her,” she said. “Let's just wait until I'm better.”

Wesley gave her a look hard enough to pound her into the ground, but Sonia simply drifted out of the kitchen.

“You know what, Miss Lucia?” James-Lawson said.

“What?” I said.

“
I
want a cookie.”

“And
a
cookie is all you're going to get, boy,” Wesley said.

“But this is a special occasion!”

“You think every time you see Miss Lucia it's a special occasion.” “It is!” he said. Only because he was a very smart child did he not add, “Du-uh.”

“Two,” his mother said. “And that's all.”

“Bethany!” he hollered. “We each get two cookies.”

She appeared from the pantry, peering around the corner until she apparently decided that the coast was clear.