Light from a Distant Star (47 page)

“Here we go,” he said, turning into the emergency room parking lot.

He had parked and was coming around the back of the car to open her door, but she was already out and walking away from the hospital toward the street. He hurried after her, insisting she go back and see a doctor. He kept trying to reason with her. She wasn’t thinking straight. The most important thing was her health, making sure she was all right, and that’s all he was trying to do here, he explained, protect her, keep her safe. That’s all he’d ever wanted. She did know that, right? And not just her, but all of them. “Your mother, Ruth, Henry.” He was
growing breathless. “This whole thing, it’s all been so … ugly. And what’s the point? Why on earth would you put everyone through all of that again?
Especially
your mother!” He took her arm and stopped her. “Why?” he demanded so desperately she didn’t know what to say. “Don’t you know what this will do? Don’t you care?”

She didn’t answer—just kept walking with a dizzying sense of elation. He kept pace, both of them silent now, the only sound from cars whizzing by on their way home from work. It was suppertime. Her stomach was growling. For the first time in weeks she was hungry, but not for food. She felt bad for her father. She had a jacket on, but he didn’t. His shoulders and the top of his dark hair were skimmed with snow.
Odd
, she thought,
how it melts when it hits the ground, but doesn’t on his head
. Her glasses were wet.

Gripping the railing, she walked up the front steps of the police station with him close by her side. He pulled open the door and held it for her. Instead of what she expected, policemen milling around a large room, they were met by a glass partition. Behind it a woman with spiked orangey blond hair spoke to them through a grate. She asked her father why he was here. She didn’t even look at Nellie, who recognized her as the parking meter lady.

“To drop off an accident report or file a complaint?”

“Is Detective Des La Forges here?”

“Sure, but he’ll wanna know why.”

“We’d like to speak with him, that’s all,” her father said and the woman rolled her eyes.

“Name, please.”

“Benjamin Peck. And this is my daughter, Nellie.”

“Oh yeah, sure!” the woman said. “From the hardware store. Hey, I heard you’re closing. That’s too bad.”

“Thank you,” her father said.

“Yeah, jeez, what am I gonna do now every time I need a key made?”

“Buck Buster’s, on State Street—they make keys,” her father said.

“Yeah, that’s where I went last time. Only cuz your machine was broke,” she added, then pushed a button on her console to tell the detective he had people waiting to see him.

Detective Des La Forges looked thinner than the last time Nellie
had seen him. And sure enough, he was telling her father that he’d lost twenty pounds and had never felt better. Well, he certainly looked great, her father said. Soup and salad, the detective explained, for both lunch and dinner. And three fruits for breakfast. Any three he wanted. With yogurt. Low-cal, of course.

“Sounds easy enough,” her father said.

Detective Des La Forges nodded, then peered at Nellie. “Everything okay?” He pointed to her face. “Looking pretty bruised there.” He looked back at her father. “That why you’re here?”

“Is it? Is that why?” her father asked gently, hopefully, as if to give her one last chance, then before she could answer, he said, “No. No, it isn’t. We’re here b … b … because Nellie wants to … she wants to talk to you about something.”

“Sure,” the detective said, looking at her. “Anytime, I told you that. Even when it’s over, people still have questions. A trial—there’s just so much information, it can be confusing.”

“It’s not about the trial. It’s something I didn’t tell you. I should’ve, but I didn’t.” She took a deep breath to contain the whirling dizziness.

Des La Forges held up his hands. “Stop right there. No explanation, no apology needed. That was a heck of a lotta pressure for a kid, and you did a good job. You got a little off course there, maybe,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the desk. “But then you rallied.”

“Thank you,” Nellie said. “But that’s not what I want to talk about.”

“Oh. Sure. Go right ahead then. So what’s going on?” He flashed her father the quick smile of a commiserating parent.

“My father doesn’t think I should tell anyone this, but the thing is, I don’t think one man’s life is more important than anyone else’s. And I know not telling the truth is just as bad as telling a lie.” She wondered if she was making sense. Afraid she was slurring, she tried to speak more slowly. “That day, when Dolly died, well, there was another person there that day, at our house. It was afternoon, about one o’clock. And he didn’t want me to see him. He was, like, trying to squeeze back into the lilacs. And his face was scratched, but it couldn’t’ve been from the bushes, I know it wasn’t.”

“Who? Who was it?” the detective asked.

“Mr. Cooper,” she said.

“Huh?” the detective shook his head.

“Andy,” her father said with halting gravity, as if he were exposing his own daughter as well. “Andy Cooper. Nellie, she came out and saw him. Looked like he was trying to hide.”

“Andy Cooper! I don’t get it. What’s the connection?”

“Mr. Cooper was Dolly’s boyfriend,” she said certain now that she was going to have to go through everything all over again.

The detective looked stunned. “How do you know?”

“Because I used to see him there sometimes. And because I just know, that’s why.”

T
HE SNOW WAS
falling faster as they walked back to the hospital parking lot. When she told her father she didn’t need to see a doctor, all he did was nod. He was upset. The most he’d said was to warn her about the slippery sidewalk and wonder how much snow would fall tonight. There hadn’t been anything on the news. When they got in the car, he turned on the heat but not the wipers, then sat looking at the windshield and its snowy stare back. He took a deep breath but instead of speaking, groaned.

“Don’t be mad at me. Please, don’t,” she begged in a small voice but knew he wasn’t angry. He was disappointed, once again, painfully disappointed in her, and couldn’t begin to hide it.

“I’m not mad. Why would I be?” He tried to smile but only looked sadder. “You did what you had to do, what you thought was right.”

“Maybe they’ll prove it wasn’t him, and then—”

“No, Nellie, that’s not it.” He closed his eyes a moment and then he looked at her. “You see, even when you were a baby, I knew how very special you were. And how … how good I’d have to be as your father. But then …” He kept nodding. “The time came when you needed me most, and I let you down. I failed you. And that, that’s the worst thing, the worst thing of all.”

“No, you didn’t!” She couldn’t bear seeing him so distraught. “You just didn’t know, that’s all. I mean, I’m just a kid and I say all these things and—”

“No, I knew. I knew something was going on. And Cooper, he
knew I knew. I’d seen him coming out of there a couple times. But neither one of us said anything.”

“Why not?” She sank back against the door.

“Weakness.” He shook his head in disgust. “Such an easy companion. Always tells you exactly what you need to hear. I couldn’t stand the thought of letting your mother down again, the way I always have, so I just told myself, ‘No, that’s not what it is, it can’t be. Impossible.’ Even after, when you told me, I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t.”

“But why?”

“I wasn’t good enough, strong enough.” It almost seemed like a question, the way he looked past her, tilting his head, puzzled and ashamed. “I wanted to be. But I wasn’t.”

Yes, you were! You were!
she wanted to reassure him, instead, cried, “But why? Why weren’t you?”

“Because it wasn’t just you I couldn’t hear it from, it was me. I stopped listening to what’s in here,” he said, hand pressed to his chest. “I wanted to keep believing that everything I’d always believed in still mattered, that everyone was good and decent, so I started making excuses for myself and everyone else, and then, it was just easier to look the other way and tell myself that as long as
I
did the right thing, as long as
I
led a good life, everything would be all right in the end.”

“But all those things you said, Dad, all those things you told me, and the whole time … I mean … poor Max!” she sobbed.

“I know. But I kept thinking, what if it was. What if it
was
Max, how could I do that to the Coopers? What right did I have?”

“But it wasn’t up to you, Dad. Was it?”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” he groaned, leaning his forehead against the wheel. “I’m so, so sorry.”

They both were. But what she felt most keenly in the cavelike closeness of the snow-covered car was the great expanse between them. The one fixed point in her life, and he was a blur. If she hadn’t known her own father, who then could she know?

T
HE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED MOVED SLOWLY
. N
ELLIE WANTED
to be hopeful for Max, hard though with such uneasiness, such dread in the house. She could tell that her father was relieved, but now whenever he tried to be upbeat, it seemed thin and forced. Especially with her mother, whose initial shock had given way to fear. Of everything, Charlie dying, another trial, their future.

Mr. Cooper had only been questioned. He hasn’t been arrested, Nellie’s father had to keep reminding her mother. “Who knows how this’ll play out? We just have to be patient, that’s all,” he said.

“Oh, sure, Ben, sure. If he did do it, then he goes to jail. And if he didn’t, then he’s really going to want to do business with us, right? And if he did it, but they can’t prove it, then what? We’ve gotta always be worrying about this killer who hates us? Especially Nellie?” The butcher knife chopped in double time on the cutting block.

Her mother was dicing celery for the turkey stuffing. Thanksgiving was two days away, and she’d been really busy at the salon with all the last-minute appointments, so she was trying to prepare as much of the food ahead of time as she could. This year Lazlo would be bringing his sweet potato and marshmallow casserole that they all loved. Aunt Betsy and Uncle Phil were also coming, but because Aunt Betsy was a terrible cook, she was only ever asked to bring canned cranberry sauce and bakery rolls, which she inevitably had some big story about—how the first bakery had been closed, and the only other decent one was way up in Mountcliff, then after creeping through bumper-to-bumper traffic, the parking lot was full and the only spot she could find was two blocks away, which meant she’d had to walk through just the worst gale force wind, and once she got inside, she’d had to wait in line for almost
an hour, only to get them home and find one bag three rolls short, so, believe it or not, back she’d gone. Every year was a new version of the extraordinary effort it took to buy two dozen snowflake rolls, which always left Nellie conflicted, guilty if she ate one, guilty if she didn’t.

“No, Sandy,” her father was saying, “all we’re going to worry about is having a wonderful holiday. Okay?”

In spite of Charlie having been admitted to the hospital again, though no one said it.

“Oh, Lord,” her mother sighed. “Lord, Lord, Lord.” Then suddenly roused by yet another fear, she called out, “Nellie! Where are you?”

“Here, Mom. In the pantry,” she called back. Assigned the task of checking Grandmother Peck’s sterling silver for tarnish, she’d been wiping each piece with a special cloth.

Every night her mother sat on the edge of Nellie’s bed, talking, until Nellie would close her eyes, pretending to sleep. There was so much she’d never told anyone, especially not her children, all the disturbing people and incidents she’d endured in her childhood, and how confusing life had been with her mother practically an invalid and her father without a tender bone in his body, though she’d long ago accepted that that’s just the way he was, so, then, when it came to being a mother herself, she was so afraid of making mistakes that she held everything in, herself included, which was probably why Ruth had so many problems. But from now on, she wanted them all to be completely open with one another and say whatever was on their minds, no matter what it was. Which, though Nellie didn’t say it, was the very trait that had always gotten her in trouble. More than anything, what Nellie needed right now was for her family to stay the same as they’d always been.

“Come in here a minute,” her mother called, and when Nellie did, her mother hugged her. “My little girl. My poor little girl,” she sighed into Nellie’s hair, then stood there patting her back.

“I’m okay, Mom,” Nellie said.

“Look at you,” her mother said, holding her at arm’s length. “Taller than me. You’re probably going to end up as tall as your father. Lucky girl.”

Not what Nellie wanted to hear, but she smiled.

“You should go out for basketball—you’d probably be the center,”
commented Henry from the table, but she ignored him. He was peeling apples with their father, each vying to see who could do it in just one long peel.