Orchids and Stone (12 page)

“Well, you know what weekend this is. And Blanche says, she said to me—”

“Vic has the kids this weekend. Saturday and Sunday.”

“Bring the kids.”

“And you know he takes them to visit his dad on his Saturdays.”

“I know. So come after you see him. Then after you all get here, we can all go lay flowers and then I’ll make dinner for everyone. The kids can watch TV or play in the yard. What do they like to do?”

“Aw, Mom.” Daphne closed her eyes. Above all, Jed and Josie wouldn’t want to go to graves of people they’d never known.

“They’ll be my grandchildren if you two ever get married instead of just playing house, you know. Are you ever going to get married?”

Choosing which question to answer made all the difference.

“They like to text their friends,” Daphne said, knowing her mother wanted a different answer, knowing the woman wanted what she could not have—a family. The idea of her mother living as a family of one—a twosome only when Daphne came for a visit—wrenched her.
But there are things I want that I don’t get to have either
, she thought, even as shame washed over her at the childishness of her reaction.

“I don’t understand that whole texting business,” her mother said and launched into a minor rant about kids these days and their cell phones.

Stifling a snort, Daphne thought about how Vic couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for smartphones for the kids or even for himself. She heard her mother’s screen door creak and knew her mother was stepping outside onto the old porch. She knew why, too.

“There’s stuff I don’t understand, too,” Daphne said, thinking that they would never talk about those big issues. They never had. She cleared her throat. “Like, why do you still smoke outside?”

“Don’t get after me, Daphne girl. I do not need my daughter telling me whether or not I can smoke.”

“I’m not telling you not to smoke. I’m asking why you still do it outside.”

The screen door banged shut in the background and Daphne heard the flint scrape of her mom’s cigarette lighter, knew why there was a pause before her mother spoke. The first big drag of poison from a Virginia Slim and the exhaling puff changed her mother’s tone to something more hollow. Her mother’s cat yowled.

“Nobody knows why anybody does anything, my girl. Don’t you know that by now?”

Daphne sucked in a breath of her own, too many unutterable responses competing in her mind. She kept it all in and her mother filled the silence with a demand. “Come by tomorrow. I have a surprise. It’s about this weekend.”

“I have to work,” Daphne lied, telling herself she was a lousy daughter.

“Off to be a carpenter again?”

Daphne kept her voice dull, expressionless. “I’m a roofer, Mom.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted you up on rooftops.”

Daphne said nothing, concentrating on getting dressed one-handed while she held the phone to her ear.

“It’s dangerous,” her mother went on. “It’s not for a girl either. When you started, I thought, well, our Savior was a carpenter, so maybe my girl is praying for—”

“Mom, I need to get off the phone. Thea’s here visiting and Vic’s got dinner going.” The lies were close to true. After her mom had gone out for the evening, after she’d had a chance to think about that man having her ID, her old address, she could decide then whether to badger her mom into leaving the house for a few nights.

Frances said, “Well, I’ve got bridge so I’ll let you go.” And Daphne suppressed the urge to correct her, to point out the truth, that they would never let each other go.

CHAPTER 11

Leaving the bedroom with wet hair and fresh clothes, Daphne heard voices bickering in the kitchen below and sank to the floor in defeat. Vic and Thea were at it again. The hum of voices rose and fell. Daphne leaned against the doorjamb.

Thea’s tone never diminished. “When her dad died—”

“Killed himself.”

“Yes, I know. We all know what he did. This is America. Guns in vending machines, free when you buy a Happy Meal. Kids see a million acts of violence and death every morning with their cereal—”

“Oh, stop it.” Vic’s disgust brooked no lectures. “He didn’t use a gun. I meant that he didn’t just
die,
it was worse, but don’t try to make it worse still. Stop it.”

“You started it.”

“I didn’t start anything. I just pointed out that you didn’t acknowledge how it was worse for the family because he . . . offed himself.”

Daphne drew her knees to her chest and wrapped one arm around her shins, extending the other hand to pet Grazie without thinking. But the comforting touch of the dog’s warm coat was absent. Grazie lay downstairs in the midst of Vic and Thea. She opened and closed her empty hand, pushed her body up the wall and swung the door open, telling herself to go downstairs.

The background noise of Jed watching TV became an added annoyance as he turned it up louder.

“Because it’s such a lovely way you put it,” Thea said.

“Offed himself?” Vic’s voice rose to Thea’s challenge now.

“Yes.”

“Well . . .”

“I’m just saying her father’s death still affects her,” Thea told Vic.

“Her sister’s death more.” Vic’s response was immediate, on top of Thea’s.

“You think?” Thea’s rebuttal showed cynicism. “But she was just a kid when that happened. Suzanne was twenty years ago.”

“It was exactly twenty years ago the end of this year. December. Her dad was ten years ago this Saturday.”

“Ever wonder why he did it when he did?” Thea asked, her tone different, making the inquiry of a journalist, an outsider. Someone who did not understand but wanted to, for all the wrong reasons.

Private pain wasn’t to be explained to satisfy onlookers’ curiosity, Daphne decided. Her mother had learned this, too, and whittled her exposure to friends down to a once-a-week bridge group. Not every prying question from a well-meaning friend or a stranger deserved an answer. Daphne rubbed her forehead. Frances Mayfield realized this truth and
built walls after Suzanne’s death, then again after her husband’s.

“There aren’t . . . answers for everything.” Daphne’s whispered words
left her considering, wondering where they came from and if they were
true. How had her mother known? How had she accepted unfinished facts?

Downstairs, Vic’s voice became more modulated than usual. “It was the day before Suzanne’s birthday.”

The day before.

I think I even know why he did it.

Vic’s comment yesterday hadn’t seemed anything but plaintive, an attempt to say he understood what was not understandable. People did that, claimed to understand when there was no way they could begin to fathom. Daphne decided now she should have challenged him, not let him get away with thinking he understood.

“So,” Thea went on to Vic as though this were an average conversation, “do you think that’s what has her so worked up?”

So worked up? God, Thea painted an image of Daphne in a complete tizzy.

“Yes,” Vic said. The whoosh of the gas stove shutting off and the flame extinguishing fit with Vic sighing his agreement, making him sound surrendering and sympathetic.

“What actually happened at her sister’s funeral? Some guy wasn’t supposed to be there, right? He got thrown out? What did he do?”

“I guess he was . . . out of sync.”

“The boyfriend?” Thea’s persistence in Daphne’s absence raised goose bumps on Daphne’s arms. And although she strained to hear a response from Vic, there was none. Perhaps he nodded, because Thea continued with, “Out of sync how?”

“Um, he acted suspiciously or out of turn or something. Got escorted
out. Bad scene.”

Unbidden memories of Ross Bouchard walking the church aisle—guitar clutched to his belly while he nodded at the cross and coffin—flashed in Daphne’s mind. Gasps from her parents and other congregants created a chorus as her sister’s boyfriend sang in a broken voice about Suzanne and knowing she was half-crazy.

“I know she thinks about it,” Vic said. “I know he didn’t pass his polygraph. After he came to her funeral and . . .”

“And . . . ?”

“And you should—”

“Don’t tell me what
I should
,” Thea told him.

Vic snapped. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about what happened to Daph today?”

Thea snorted back. “Why don’t you talk to
Daph
your own self?”

“I can hear you up here,” Daphne hollered, much louder than she intended. Her voice pealed off the walls. She heaved herself up and stomped down the stairs, grabbing the end post to stagger for balance at the bottom. Vic and Thea leaned out of the kitchen, Vic shifting from foot to foot, Thea’s fingers striking the doorjamb in a repeating drumbeat.

At the left of the landing, Jed stood openmouthed, looking from Daphne to his father.

“Sorry I was upstairs so long, everybody,” Daphne said. “I had to call my mom.”

Thea wiggled her eyebrows and made a face. They’d had many talks on how impossible mothers were. The gabfests had started in college and never stopped.

And when things had changed for Daphne and her mom, Daphne never made herself fix what was broken, she’d just moved in with Thea.

Vic turned and stepped into the kitchen. Daphne heard the clink of Grazie’s leash from the refrigerator hook. A year ago, Grazie would have heard it, too, but her ears perked when Vic waved the leash at her, then his son.

“Jed, take Grazie for a walk.” Vic held the leash out to his son.

“Why?” The boy’s tone was a clear refusal.

Vic hooked the leash onto Grazie’s collar. The dog’s tail wagged; then she slumped to a lazy sit. He patted his leg, opened the door, and called her as he beckoned to Jed. “Thanks, buddy. We’ll talk in a bit.”

Jed rolled his eyes. So did Thea.

Daphne watched Vic avoid eye contact with everybody but his son. The boy didn’t understand, but he didn’t protest more. Thea didn’t understand either, Daphne knew. And there was so much she didn’t understand herself.

Vic still held the door open after his son and dog passed through, then moved down the walk and to the street. He gave Thea a stiff smile.

“Oh,” she said. “I guess I’ll be going.”

He nodded. “It was good to see you again.”

Daphne gave him a sharp look, grabbed her checkbook, and followed Thea outside. Using the hood of the car to write Thea a check, she saw a fat folder between the seats which had been covered with the bag of snacks. Papers splayed from the folder, printouts of newspaper stories. The headlines were familiar, but old.

Local Girl Missing. Body Found in Snohomish Woods. Body Identified as Missing Woman.

The headlines were twenty years old. When Thea plunked her purse and shopping bag on the car’s roof, Daphne pulled the door open. “What are you doing with those articles?”

She looked where Daphne stared. “I was reading, that’s all. I was thinking of you. I . . . wondered. I hadn’t thought about Suzanne in a long time and . . .”

“And?” Daphne felt her teeth clench.

Thea’s voice went to a whisper as she brought two fingers to touch Daphne’s face. “And I’m a little worried about you, friend. So I was kind of trying to get inside your head. Maybe I could worry with you.”

Something cracked inside Daphne and she shook her head, then palmed the fingers on her face. “Thanks then. Thanks for everything today, Thea.”

Her best friend grinned and let her hand drop down to Daphne’s hard shoulder. “Did you carry a billion pounds of roofing crap around again today?”

Daphne shook her head. “We usually load roofs with a lift or conveyor nowadays, especially on big projects.”

“But haven’t you ever thought all that physical work will make you grow a mustache?”

Daphne leveled a look at Thea. “No. I haven’t. But thanks, I’ll get started on that right away. Worrying about a mustache. Useful.”

“I’m having a drink with Henry at eight.” Thea winked and checked her watch.

“Who?” The last guy Thea mentioned dating had a long multisyllabic name and the massive build of a Pacific Islander.

“Henry. Henry Fragher. He’s a hotshot in the police union.”

“Oh.” Recollection flooded Daphne. “The guy you said you’d see—”

“Smoke,” Thea corrected.

“Yes. That. I don’t want you to—”

Thea smacked Daphne’s shoulder. “Would you relax? I’m messing with you.”

Daphne felt hope fade. “You’re not seeing him? You won’t be able to get me . . .” She glanced about for Vic, spied him at the open doorway watching them with his arms folded across his chest. “. . . An address or some kind of contact info for the retired detective?”

“Oh, no. I mean, yes, I’m seeing Henry. No, I won’t blow him, and yes, I bet I can get a phone or addy for your guy.”

“Mm, how?” Daphne imagined Thea going to jail for some wild indiscretion, too.

“Fact is, I’m going to look in his phone when he goes to get us drinks.”

“She doesn’t want to go,” Jed said, padding up the walkway with Grazie.

Daphne opened her mouth, watching Thea back into the street, catching sight of a smudge in the asphalt between the Mercedes’ tires. Then she blinked at the panting dog who wanted to go back inside and at the boy holding the leash who wanted the same.

“Thanks for trying,” Vic called. As Jed and Grazie cleared the doorway, Daphne heard Vic project inside, “Be inside in a minute, buddy.” And then the door shut and he was beside her, a hand on the small of her back.

“Where’s my car?”

“It got impounded after the accident.”

“You weren’t hurt?”

She shook her head and noticed the headache it caused. She rolled her shoulders in exaggerated shrugs, testing. Movement hurt. “The side window shattered,” she said, remembering the crumbled remains. “Maybe it rang my bell a little.”

“You got in an accident and the result of the accident was . . . you were charged with reckless driving?”

She nodded, wordless.

“It would probably be a good thing if Cassandra didn’t know about you getting arrested, if we can manage that.”

“You think I want her to know? You think I want anyone to know? Jesus, Vic.”

His jaw clenched in response, but he said nothing more. Daphne thought of how she’d playfully chastised him when they met and he’d semi-sworn, said
Jesus
when he spilled a glass in a restaurant on one of their first dates. She’d told him how she’d been instructed as a child not to speak that way. He’d never sworn Jesus again, but a few times when she’d let fly with choice words, he’d pointed out how she dabbled in profanity when stressed.

She gestured to the empty space where his car should have been parked. “I’m inconvenienced, too. My tool belt and my coil nailer were in your car. Vic, I needed you this afternoon and you weren’t there for me.”

He spread his hands in defense. “What was I supposed to do? I called your cell this afternoon when I got to Jed’s game. I thought of you at Josie’s game and I called you, just because I was thinking of you. Then I got your voice mail. And you, you sounded insane, telling me to bring cash and identification and that you’d been in an accident and you were raving, but you didn’t say
where
you were. I called your cell again and again, I called the house, I even called your work and—”

“You called my work?”

“Yes. They just told me you’d worked a half day and left at noon. It’s what I’d expected you to do. I did not expect you to get arrested. If you’d been unable to reach me this afternoon, would your next guess have been to show up at the police station to bail me out?”

“I wasn’t in a police station, I was in a jail. In a holding cell. But fine. No, I wouldn’t have looked for you in jail. Not you.”

“Not you either,” he said, his voice soft and smile wry. “This was unusual—”

“A guy grabbed me today. I was trying to help, to make an effort for a little old lady and one thing led to another. I’m not perfect. Neither are you.” She pointed to a smudged, bare clump of feathers ground into the street. “See that?”

“Who grabbed you exactly? What are you talking about?” Vic said, not looking where she pointed.

“It was a robin. You killed it Wednesday. You ran over it. Twice. Just yesterday.” She headed for the door, ignoring him following her.