Red Silk Scarf (27 page)

Pressing fingers
to Mark's lips sealed them.
 
“You have to
take it easy.
 
Concentrate on getting
well for your family,” Cassidy sniffled into a Kleenex plucked from a nearby
box.

“What happened to
me, what almost happened to you and Sullivan, changes everything.
 
I'm giving it up, Casey, the whoring,
drinking, and the drugs.
 
I have too much
to lose.
 
What do you say?
 
Let's do it together, huh?”

           
Cassidy wanted to say I wish I
could, I wish this nightmare was over, but she knew her problems had only just
begun.

           
“I know you loved DeMarco.
 
I'm sorry, Casey, really, but I think he
believed the way it ended was for the best.
 
When it mattered most, he was a brave and honorable man.”

Time was ticking;
Sullivan and Margie would return any moment.
 
This was Cassidy's only chance to ask what she needed to know.
 
In a reluctant voice sounding very timid,
very small, “Do you think DeMarco was the killer?”
    

           
“That's what it looks like, doesn't
it?” As though he could not hold her gaze any longer, Mark’s attention jerked
away locking on all the paraphernalia attached to his battered body.

Mark ended his
answer with a question, why, Cassidy wondered.
 
Her guts were on a roller coaster; she felt them rise, then fall, rise,
then fall, still she had to ask, “You think its Patrick, don't you?”
  

Mark’s eyes met
Cassidy’s briefly then roamed again.
  
She saw moisture building in them, fear.
 
He was about to say something when Sullivan and Margie returned.

           
As though newlyweds separated
forever, Margie rushed to Mark to feather kisses on his face. “I can't stay
away, darling.
 
I need to be with you,
touch you,” she cooed.

Made
uncomfortable by their affection, looking away at the same instant made
Sullivan’s and Cassidy’s eyes collide.
 
Instantly their reflections began dangling in the space between
them.
 
Silently both were replaying their
intimacy, what they would say and do under other circumstances, but everything
was different now.
 
Even normal intimacy
did that, theirs had realigned the earth.

           
Mark’s attention found Cassidy then
Sullivan.
 
“I want all of you to go home,
and rest.
 
I'm very tired.
 
Patrick, take Margie home.
 
Stay with her and the kids.
 
Take care of Cassidy; don't let anything
happen to her.”
 
Only three people in the
room knew the meaning of Mark's last statement.
  
Cassidy got her answer.

Margie
interrupted the decisive moment.
 
“I
could use the company, Cassidy, would you please join us?
 
I don't have many friends and would love some
female companionship.
 
Besides I really
don't want to be alone tonight.”

What could
Cassidy say, or do?
 
Forget Sullivan, his
blood pressure gauge had exploded, the heat dispersing from his beet red face
evaporating any verbal objection he was prepared to blurt.

           
Mark's eyes kept closing, each time
for longer periods until Margie finally decided they should leave.
 
After saying their goodbye‘s, they were at
the door when Mark added, “Remember what we discussed, Cassidy.
 
Promise me you'll think about it.”

           
Sullivan’s puzzled looked struck
Cassidy.

Wearing a blush consisting
of equal parts of embarrassment and remorse, head bowed, Cassidy rushed from
the room swiping at a flood of tears.

CHAPTER 21

           
Disregarding protests and
exhaustion, the moment they entered the kitchen Margie insisted on preparing a
light meal.
 
She was starving, she said
with the sweetest of smiles, besides; busy hands lessen the worries of the
mind.
 
Picking the children up at
neighbors, then entertaining them was Patrick's job, she sprightly ordered,
shooing him out the door.
 
Cassidy was to
relax and visit while drinking the freshly brewed coffee still steaming and
filling her cup.
 
Soup and sandwiches
would suffice, Margie rambled, rummaging through the cupboards to retrieve the
necessities.
 

           
It seemed that all she’d been
through over the course of twenty-four hours made it the longest day of
Cassidy's life.
 
Incredibly, she was
sitting at Margie’s kitchen table sipping coffee.
 
Through the screen-door, she watched as
Sullivan pushed the children on swings, their boisterous laughter like a
soothing salve for the deadliest wounds.
 
A spectacular sunset highlighting Sullivan’s smile and gleaming his hair
drew attention to the muscles her hands had memorized.
 
At once, a hand flew to her breast to contain
the heart that wanted to run away.
  

           
Children and Sullivan were sharing
the same reflection.
 
Imagining him the
kind who, loved children, enjoyed their childish games, was frightening enough,
watching disconcerting.
 
He was reacting
to the children so effortlessly, as if it came as natural as breathing,
troubling her more, it was all too obvious the children worshipped him as
well.
 

Occasionally
lifting her head from her task to gaze out the window, Margie exchanged private
smiles with Sullivan.
 
Their attraction
was so obvious it nudged a still raw speck of newly discovered jealousy.
 
To Cassidy’s chagrin, the children weren’t
the only ones who worshipped Sullivan.

           
Everything Cassidy was experiencing
resembled the lives of a fairy tale family, as though cocooned in a private
part of the universe where nothing bad ever happened.
 
Knowing there was no such thing as fairy
tales, a huge pile of sorrow and regret building and longing for freedom began
pressing on her Adam’s apple.

           
The practiced lies Cassidy mastered
with Pamela and Vera worked again, answers that seemed to calm Margie enough to
begin conversing about herself.
 

           
“It was love at first sight when I
met Mark five years ago at a coffee shop.
 
At the time I was engaged to my employer, a well-established attorney,
ten years my senior, still Mark continued to pursue me.
  
Our romance was a ferocious whirlwind that
completely swept me off my feet and made me ignore parental pleas to come to my
senses.
 
Eloping with Mark three months
later cancelled the long anticipated formal wedding my parents desired, broke
my fiancés,’ and parent’s hearts as well as alienated me from the family, a
feud that thankfully ended upon the birth of our first child.

           
Fool and heartbreaker that Mark is,
I knew from the very beginning he’d be a challenge.
 
Although parts of him are very difficult to
handle, he’s a multifaceted man that makes life interesting and
worthwhile.
  
The highs and lows are what
keep my ole heart ticking.
 

           
 
Anxious for a family, we mutually agreed that
when I became pregnant I’d give up my paralegal career to enable me to stay
home with the children.
 
With Mark's
crazy schedule, the responsibilities of work and family would have been
insurmountable, especially when the children came one right after the
other.”
 
Glancing at motherhood's
rewards, face beaming with pride, the sacrifices were little in comparison,
Margie sighed.
 
       

           
During the conversation, while
Sullivan mesmerized Cassidy, in tune to women’s feelings, Margie’s conversation
wandered to Patrick.
 
“His abrupt entrance
into our lives was a long awaited blessing.
 
Though Mark had plenty of friend’s none were as close as Sullivan, their
relationship more like brothers.
 
Patrick
became our adopted “child,” she joked, “though the oldest, the most childish,
which made him the best nanny in the world.
  
Typically, arriving unannounced shortly after he’d shove us out the door
stuffing a fifty-dollar bill into Mark's shirt pocket.
 
“Have a good time on me.
 
Don’t worry about the kids,” Patrick would
say.
 

The confession that
followed Cassidy was least prepared for.
 
Voice brimming with sweetness, “I love Patrick, I really do,” Margie
boasted, just like that, silence growing unbearable before continuing with a
smile, “But, I’ll always love Mark more.”
 

           
Even before the paint dried,
Margie's portrait of Sullivan was that of a Saint.
 
Cassidy could testify otherwise, for Saint's
didn't use drugs, or make love to women the way he did.
 
However, watching him as he washed the
children, prepared their plates, joined them in prayer, and reminded them of
their manners, Cassidy was beginning to wonder.

When dinner was
ready, suspiciously, the only seat remaining for Cassidy was beside
Sullivan.
 
They spoke only when
necessary, their eyes never quite meeting.
 
Cassidy sensed he was uncomfortable from memories of their intimacy,
understandably, so was she.
 
Once when
their elbows brushed by accident, though both quickly recoiled, she felt
bruised all over.
 
His intoxicating scent
made it impossible to inhale throughout the meal, the reason for the deep
intake of fresh air the moment he left to bath the children.

Tending to the
after dinner chores, Cassidy and Margie conversed about this and that,
primarily the children.
 
Moreover, as
time lazily floated along, not once did Margie lead Cassidy to believe she knew
of Sullivan and Mark's deceitful ways.
 
Later, while in the bathroom preparing for bed, Cassidy concluded,
Margie was either the most naive person in the world living within a private fairy
tale, or the best actor.
 
In her defense,
Cassidy preferred the later.

           
Thought processes rudely interrupted
by voices coming from the backyard that spiraled upwards through the screen of
the bathroom window.
 
Eavesdropping was
an imperative part of her job Cassidy mumbled in defense of her
intentions.
 
Looking down, careful not to
be discovered, she watched as Margie and Patrick sat on the porch step, close
together yet not touching.

           
“It should have been me.
 
It should have been me,” Patrick rambled.

“Don't say that,
Patrick, please.
 
Risk is the part of the
job that makes you both thrive.
 
Mark
would feel the same if it had been you.
 
He loves you Patrick and . . . so do I.”
 
Margie shoulder nudged his, she smiled, the kind that seals love forever
inside a heart.
 
“We’ll be O.K., Patrick,
so will you,” she added reaching to ruffle his hair as though one of her
children, a response that turned Patrick into clay in the palms of her hands
and wrung a confession.

           
“You don't understand, Margie,
there’s so much you . . .” Patrick's hands became a cradle for the burdens of
his mind.

Spreading her arm
the breadth of his back, Margie's hand began smoothing back and forth.
 
The time had come for a long overdue
confession, she decided. Swallowing a mountain of emotions, she cleared her
throat and as if a volcano spewing red-hot fire and ash, “I know, Patrick,
about you, about Mark, the drugs, the prostitutes.
 
I've always known.”

Cassidy was
unsure if it was Sullivan or she gasping, whose eyes spread wider or, whose
heart had skipped more beats.

Sullivan's
shocked expression struck Margie, moments of stillness lingering beyond the
realm of belief as they searched the depths of each other’s eyes.
 
Finally, Sullivan’s fingers tucking stray
curls behind her ears calmed him enough for a swollen voice to expel regrets.
“Dear God, Margie, dear God, I'm so sorry.” Someone gave into grief’s fierce
grip in the form of sobbing.
 
Cassidy
knew it wasn't Margie.