Objects of My Affection (27 page)

“Got it. By the way, Marva spoke very highly of you.”

“Send her my regards. I've never met her. All our interaction has been by phone. Interesting lady, though.”

“What are you doing for her that she has you on retainer? Must be a big job.”

He winks. “Top secret. Real hush-hush.”

“In other words, none of my business. Can you at least give me a hint? Who's she having you locate? An old lover? The one who got away?”

He gives me a mock scolding look. “If Marva wants you to know, she can tell you herself.”

W
hen I walk into Marva's kitchen the next morning, she's pulling a bowl of oatmeal from the microwave.

“Any word from your son?” she asks.

I'm touched—and a tad surprised—that she'd mention Ash. Of course, most people who know that your drug-addicted son has abandoned rehab and is wandering the countryside with no real plan would certainly ask, but this is Marva we're talking about here.

“None yet,” I say.

Yesterday, I made as many phone calls as I could bear, starting with my brothers and my parents, then moving on to a handful of Ash's old friends, including Samantha. Mercifully, Heather took on many of the calls—or, that is, she put DJ on the task. He checked Ash's Facebook page—nothing new there—then put out the word among his friends to contact him if they heard any news. So far, zip, zero.

“He'll turn up,” Marva says, as if I'm fumbling through couch cushions for a lost TV remote. “Which reminds me, I need to borrow your car, if I may?”

“My car? Why?”

“I find myself in the unusual circumstance of being in need of one, and yet you may have noticed that's one thing I haven't hung on to. The damned car-rental agency I called was no help. They kept carrying on about how I need a valid driver's license.”

“Wait. You want to borrow my car, and you don't have a license? They can impound it for that.”

“Only if I were caught, which I wouldn't be. I happen to be an excellent driver.”

“Marva, as much as I'd like to help you out, I can't loan you my car if you're not legally able to drive it. Where do you need to go anyway?”

She frowns. “It hardly matters if I can't get there, now does it?”

I silently curse the deal with the devil I made when I accepted the help of her private investigator. Hoping she won't take me up on my offer, I say, “I'm wondering if it's somewhere that I can take you.”

“Hmm, that's a thought. My knees
have
been bothering me. Ten hours behind the wheel could be taxing. Better to have someone else do the driving, although I was looking forward to hitting the open road solo.”

Ten hours?
The woman has barely left her house in years, and now she wants to go on a road trip? “I thought you meant close by. With all that's happening with Ash, I shouldn't be that far away … in case he calls and I need to be somewhere quickly.”

“I'd pay you, of course,” she says, as if she didn't hear what I said. “Chauffeuring is above and beyond your job description. Nelson could always do it, but the last time I asked him to run me on an errand, he got all worked up, saying he's a nursing professional, not an errand boy. And to be honest, I doubt his ability to be discreet. This venture is hardly anything I'd want him to go blathering on about to others.”

My curiosity piqued, I say, “Where is it exactly you need to go?”

“Grosse Pointe. It's in Michigan, outside of Detroit.”

“I'm familiar. What's in Grosse Pointe?”

“I'm looking at Friday,” she says, ignoring yet again what I said. “Day after tomorrow. If we get an early start, we can be back by early evening.”

“No.”

The decisiveness of my response startles her into paying attention. “Pardon me?”

“I'm not going to take an entire day to cart you to another state—especially at such a stressful time for me—when you can't be up-front about where we'd be going and why.”

Marva regards me, hand stroking her chin, as if I'm a painting she's evaluating and not finding to be a great work of art, but a piece she'd at least consider hanging in an upstairs hallway. “It could be handy to have you in the loop, I suppose. You can't imagine how irritating it's been coordinating this on my own.”

She continues unabashedly staring at me, so I sort cutlery as a distraction—Marva must have a dozen different sets, probably not one of them complete. After a moment, she says, “As you are aware, Larry Mackenlively has been doing investigative work for me.” I perk up immediately—am I about to hear about the love that got away—or whoever it is she's been looking for? “I'd hired him to locate something
I'd lost, something of value to me.” She takes a deep breath, and I realize she's stalling. It's the first time I've seen Marva visibly nervous—snarky, annoyed, bored, yes … but nervous? Never. “He recently located it. That's what's in Grosse Pointe. What he found. I'd like to go see it.”

“What is it?”

“A painting of mine. In particular,
Woman, Freshly Tossed.
It's in the home of a private collector, and I've arranged for a viewing. And don't start fussing at me—I'm not going to buy it and bring it back here. It's not even for sale, so far as I'm aware. This is a bucket-list sort of thing. I want to see the painting one last time before I die.”

Before I die.
There it is.

T
hat evening I'm moving boxes off the washing machine to use it—I'm tired of laundering my underwear in my sink—when Will walks in. He's handsomely dressed in a tux, but he ruins the effect by wearing his usual sour expression. “What's this crisis that's so important you couldn't tell me over the phone?”

Glancing around for Marva, I say, “I'd prefer to go out to the bungalow to talk.” Marva has been in and out of her office all day, and I don't want her overhearing the conversation. While she didn't actually admit earlier she was going to kill herself, it was close enough that I realize it's not right to keep her plans entirely to myself. As her nearest relative, Will needs to be told—thus, I find myself with the unenviable task of being the one to do it.

“Let's keep it brief,” Will says, as we weave through the kitchen. “I'm on my way to a fund-raiser. You had my hopes up this place had burned to the ground.”

A woman's voice chides, “Will, that's not funny,” and then I see a tall brunette walking in from the mudroom—very pretty, very pregnant.

“I told you I'd only be a minute,” he says to her, but his voice doesn't have the hard edge it always does with me. “Just wait in the car. Please.”

“I'm not going to sit outside of my own mother-in-law's home, like I'm not good enough to come inside.”

“You know that's not what it is.”

“I don't care what it is. I'm not waiting out there.” She finally takes notice of me. “Hi. Are you the one who's clearing this place out?”

“Yes, I'm Lucy.” I step forward to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“I'm Padma. Will's wife.” She gazes around. “She here?”

I assume the
she
refers to Marva. “In her office, I believe. You want me to get her for you?”

“Yes, please,” she says, just as Will says no.

He gives her a flinty look. “We don't have time for this. We're running late.”

“So we'll miss a soggy Caesar salad. I can't have a damned glass of wine anyway. I'm in no hurry.”

I can almost see the battle being waged in Will's brain like a movie projected on a screen as he resists his wife's request. Eventually he acquiesces. “Fine, I'll go get her.”

After Will leaves, Padma starts poking around the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards. “It's worse than I remember it. And you've already cleared a lot out, right?”

“Right. When's the last time you were here?”

“Years. Will and I were still dating at the time … so at least four. Even then I had to beg him to let me meet her. He kept stalling, but I insisted. I mean, how can you be sure you love a man if you don't know how he treats his mother? That's the measure.”

If that's her criterion, I'm curious why on earth she married Will, but he's walking in with Marva so there's no time to ask even if I could. Marva is complaining to Will about how he needs to find her a new gardener. The current one's leaf blower is too loud—can't he find one that uses a rake, for Christ's sake?

Padma straightens, jutting out her chin. “Hello, Marva.”

Marva stops short, surprise registering on her face. After a moment, she says, “I see congratulations are in order.”

I'm dumbfounded. She didn't know Will's wife is pregnant? They live only fifteen miles away! Marva and Will talk all the time!

“Thank you,” Padma says. “We're very excited.”

Will takes his wife's elbow and says to Marva, “We stopped by to check on the progress while we were in the neighborhood. Lucy, you wanted to show us the bungalow?”

That's it? He went to get Marva for a three-second exchange? Is it me, I wonder, or does anyone else in the room find it strange that Will never mentioned to his own mother that his wife is about to birth a baby? Marva's
grandchild.

I hesitate, figuring that there'll be more, but Padma—for all her bravado before Marva arrived—is already heading for the back door. “Nice seeing you, Marva,” she says, all cool politeness.

“Likewise.”

Apparently it
is
me.

I follow, giving a last beseeching glance at Marva—surely she'll want to chat further, ask about the baby, show some enthusiasm—but she's already busied herself fitting together the pieces on a broken bowl.

“That went well,” Padma says in wry tones when she and Will settle on my couch a minute later.

I take a seat on the spare chair. It never ceases to be humiliating to host people in what is currently my home amid Marva's squalor—and I'm struck again how badly Will must feel every time he has to bring anyone here.

He cuts to the chase. “So what's the big emergency?”

I'd hoped to speak to Will alone, but Padma doesn't look as if she plans to go anywhere soon. “It's about your mother. It's okay to tell this to the both of you?”

“Nothing you could say about Marva would shock my wife,” Will says.

I take a bracing breath. I'd thought earlier about how I might broach the subject, but all I concluded is that there's no easy way to tell a man his mother is going to kill herself. “I found some information while going through Marva's things that's … disturbing.”

“What, that she's a pack rat?” Padma says.

I smile to acknowledge the joke, then say, “She wrote some notes in a book.” I look at Will. “Does
Grimm's Fairy Tales
have any significance for your mother?”

“None that I'm aware of. Why?”

“That's the book she wrote in—I was surprised because it was such a rare edition, worth a fair amount of money.”

“She probably couldn't find a blank sheet of paper,” Will says without irony, and it occurs to me he's probably right.

There's no use stalling, as much as I'm tempted, so I continue, “Her notes at first glance seemed random—some lists, to-do items, and so on. But it quickly became clear they were all on the same topic. Will, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I believe they were notes planning how and when to commit suicide.”

I pause to let those words sink in. They must not have because Will's expression remains impassive. Padma says, “Are you sure? Can you show us the book?”

“She still has it. I couldn't reveal I'd seen it, or, frankly, she'd fire me. I had no business looking at it, but it sort of happened by accident. Anyway, yes, I'm sure.” I go on to describe specifically what I'd seen. The more I talk, the more the color drains from Will's face.

When I get to the part about how she wants to make sure it's not the housekeeper who finds her body, he stands abruptly. “Give me a minute,” he says, and walks out the door.

“He needs to process it,” Padma says, looking worried. “It's a lot to take in.”

“Of course. You sure I can't get you anything? Water?”

“I'm fine.”

“So how far along are you?” I say, deciding to break the tension by switching to a happier topic.

“Seven and a half months. I'm due June tenth.”

“That's so exciting. Your first?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Boy or girl?”

“We've decided to keep it a surprise.”

I nod, although personally I couldn't wait to find out my baby's gender. Finding myself pregnant was enough of a surprise. “Do you have names picked out?”

“Lullabelle if it's a girl, and we haven't decided on a boy's name. We can't seem to agree.”