Suddenly (11 page)

He looked away. “I’m saying it because it’s the truth, and because I don’t know how else to get through to you.”

“Who is she?” Angie heard herself ask. It seemed important, the acquiring of as much information as possible.

He turned to the window and put his hands on his hips, and for a minute she thought he wouldn’t answer. Finally, in a low voice, he said, “Nora Eaton.”

Angie conjured up the image of a pleasant-looking woman, average in nearly every respect except for a headful of long, incredibly vibrant salt-and-pepper curls. She was Tucker’s librarian and terrifyingly real.

“She’s older than we are,” was all Angie could think to say.

Ben shrugged. “I never really thought about it.”

Her legs were shaking. She eased herself down onto the chair. “How often do you see her?”

“I don’t know—once, twice a week sometimes. Look, Angie”—he turned back—“it’s not some kind of sexual perversion. There are times when all we do is talk, like you and I used to do before we were married. I miss that. I miss having you around.”

“You never told me that.”

“I did. You just chose not to hear.”

“But if you have her now, you’re not missing anything,” Angie said, feeling empty inside and alone.

“Not true. I’m still missing you. She’s a stopgap measure, not a cure. She can’t hold a candle to you, but, damn it,” he said with a renewal of the anger that had spewed earlier, “I can’t spend the rest of my life competing for your attention and coming in last.” That said, he pushed away from the counter, went out the back door, and disappeared into the night, leaving Angie with the scattered shreds of her life.

Peter spent an hour searching through reams of negatives, looking for just the right one. He put that one into a carrier, put the carrier into the enlarger, and adjusted the enlarger head for the print size he wanted. He made a test exposure, slipped the print into each of the developing solutions in turn, then turned on the light and examined the print. Back in the dark, he made a second, darker print, then a third one with higher contrast. With succeeding prints he focused on detail.

He made no less than a dozen prints before he was satisfied. Then he returned to the reams of negatives, selected a second one, and started the process all over again.

It was well past midnight before he emptied out the solutions and left the darkroom, and by then he was too tired to do much of anything but fall into bed.

He was up at seven the next morning, back in the darkroom, examining the prints he had left to dry; but what had looked good to him the night before no longer seemed adequate. So he hastily gathered what he’d done, crammed the prints into the trash can, and vowed to do better that night.

His frustration followed him to the office, where the first of the morning’s drop-ins were waiting. On the theory that the more he worked, the less he would think, he saw patients straight through until ten-thirty, when he stopped for a cup of coffee. That was when Paige cornered him.

P
AIGE DREW THE PAISLEY SUSPENDERS FROM
the pocket of her lab coat. She held them forth and watched Peter’s face. Though his expression didn’t change, he lost enough color to answer the question she hadn’t asked.

“I found them in Mara’s night table,” she said. “It seemed an odd place for them to be.”

“I’ll say.” He cracked his knuckles. “In Mara’s night table? Interesting.”

“You didn’t know they were there?”

“If I had, I’d have taken them back. They’re my favorite ones. I thought I’d lost them at the health club. Thanks.” He took the suspenders from her hand and stuffed them into his pocket. “Why were you looking in Mara’s night table?”

It was a fair question. Theoretically, Mara’s death could be explained away by Valium, fatigue, and a mistimed telephone call. But Paige wasn’t satisfied. The more she learned, the more of a mystery Mara became—and the mystery nagged. Paige was driven to learn more. Mara, in death, had become her personal responsibility.

“I was sitting on her bed, trying to get a better understanding of what had happened,” she said. “Bureaus can be enlightening. Night tables, too. So I opened the drawer to see what was inside. Why do you suppose these were there?”

He took a gulp of coffee, grimaced, added another spoonful of creamer, and stirred. “She liked them, I guess.”

“So did you. You used to wear them all the time. How did she get them?”

“She was at my house a lot. She must have taken them.”

“Without your knowing?”

“She had free run of the place. I didn’t follow her around keeping track of what she touched.”

“But why would she take your suspenders and then hide them in her night table drawer?”

He drank his coffee.

“Peter?”

He looked at her. “Because, damn it, Mara had a thing for me. Come on, Paige. You knew that.”

Paige hadn’t known any such thing. She made a face that told him so.

“Well, she did,” he insisted.

“You were friends. You did things together sometimes. What do you mean, she had ‘a thing’ for you?”

“She
liked
me. She was
obsessed
with me.”

Paige shook her head. “Obsessed? Forget it. Mara wasn’t obsessed with you. I would have known.”

“Like you knew about the Valium? Like you knew the little girl was en route from Bombay? Face it, Paige. Mara kept secrets. She was a little crazy that way.” He paused, then asked the question she had been grappling with most of the night: “Why did
you
think they were there?”

“I thought,” Paige began, but the truth was that despite all the grappling she hadn’t known what to think. “I thought that maybe you had spent the night once and left them there.”

“Why on earth would I have spent the night? Mara was enough for me to handle in the daytime. Why would I buy into trouble at night?”

“Because you liked her.”

“Sure, to pal around with sometimes, but being with Mara for any length of time was like having a pebble in your shoe. So why would I have spent the night at her house?”

“Because you
liked
her.”

“I did not.”

“Sure you did. And she liked you. Okay, you hated each other sometimes, too—the two of you could drive us nuts with your bickering—but through it all you were friends.”

“Friends,” he insisted. “Not lovers. What ever gave you the idea we were lovers? It’s a preposterous thought.”

Paige hadn’t said they were lovers. Not once had she used that word. She had imagined that Mara and Peter might have been out late doing something, or
in
late doing something, then fallen asleep. A pair of suspenders might easily have been discarded for comfort’s sake, then left behind. Sure, the placement of them was odd, but it wasn’t beyond the pale to imagine that Mara had found them lying around and stuffed them anywhere just to put them out of sight.

No, Paige hadn’t said they were lovers. It was interesting that Peter had mentioned the word.

“Hi,” Angie said, joining them with a fast look at each before turning to the coffee machine. “Am I interrupting something?”

Peter moved aside. “Nothing I can think of.”

“Why do I sense you were talking about Mara?” She poured herself a cup.

“Maybe,” Paige answered, “because she’s still front and center in our minds. Want to know what I learned yesterday afternoon?” She told them about the talk she’d had with the Air India supervisor.

Angie gasped. “Poor Mara! That might have done it. She wanted a baby so badly. If she believed that after everything she’d gone through, Sameera’s plane had crashed, she might have been distraught.”

But Peter was shaking his head. “She’s lost patients without going over the edge, and she knew those children. She didn’t know Sameera.”

“But Sami was going to be her daughter,” Angie pointed out, “and there’s a difference. If you had children of your own, Peter, you’d know. When it comes to parenthood the emotional involvement is far greater. Mara had her heart set on adopting that child.”

Paige wasn’t a parent any more than Peter was, yet she agreed. “She saw adopting Sami as her best shot at motherhood.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Peter argued. “Why was it so important to her?”

“Time, perhaps. She was thirty-nine. She heard the old clock ticking away.”

“You’re the same age. Are you getting desperate?”

Paige didn’t have time to get desperate. “I never lie awake for hours the way Mara did. It’s the night thoughts that do a person in. Besides, I’m coming from a different place.” Her parents were flighty, not rooted to home. They had considered parenthood a chore. Mara, on the other hand, had come from a home where the bearing of children was revered.

She thought of the words Thomas O’Neill had spoken, standing on the front steps of the funeral parlor. “Having a baby was what her parents wanted.”

“But she hated her parents. She rejected everything they stood for.”

“Outwardly, perhaps. Inside, maybe not so.”

“Did she ever say that?”

“No,” Paige admitted. “But it makes sense. Mara loved children, and she was big on motherhood. Speaking of which”—she turned to Angie, who looked distracted but snapped back under her gaze—“Jill Stickley had good reason to see me yesterday. She’s pregnant.”

Peter touched his cup to his forehead. “Good God, when will these girls ever learn?” He made for the door.

“It takes two to tango,” Paige called after him—sharply, since she hated sexist comments, even offered in jest—then returned to Angie and told her about Jill. “I talked with her mother this morning, and she’ll tell the school that Jill won’t be back until September. In the meantime, she’ll be my au pair.”

Angie nodded. “Sounds good.”

“That is, until the adoption agency finds a permanent home for Sami. She’s a sweetie, Angie. She deserves the best.”

“Mara would want that. Then again”—Angie looked at the ceiling—“who am I to say what Mara would want? I thought I knew her, but it seems I didn’t.”

Paige had said the same to herself all too often in the days newly past, and the mystery went on. “Angie? Do you think that Mara and Peter were ever romantically involved?”

“Romantically?”

“Sexually.”

Angie hesitated. “That’s an interesting thought. Why do you ask?”

Paige told her about the suspenders. “If she was hung up on Peter, she never let on to me.”

“Or me. Then again,” Angie said, frowning at her coffee, “maybe she dropped hints that I didn’t hear. If so, she wasn’t the first.” She took a drink, burying her face in the cup.

Paige felt a glimmer of unease. “What do you mean?” For all her competence, Angie had never been a braggart. Nor, though, had she ever been one for self-effacement.

She sighed tiredly. “Oh, I don’t know.” She fingered the rim of her cup, running her thumb back and forth, back and forth.

“Angie?”

She raised her eyes. They were filled with tears. “I think I’ve messed up,” she said slowly.

Paige reached for her arm. “You? Mess up? No way.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve always thought,” Angie said, “but I was wrong. Ben and I had a huge fight last night.”

“I don’t believe that, either. You and Ben don’t fight. He’s too peaceful and you’re too right.”

“Not last night.” She pulled a tissue from a nearby box and pressed it to her eyes.

Paige was shaken. She had never seen Angie vulnerable before. “Okay, so you had a fight. It can’t be that bad.”

“He’s having an affair,” Angie said into her tissue.

Paige was astonished.
“Ben?”

Angie nodded. Her voice shot up and went wobbly. “With the town librarian.”

“Are you kidding?” But Paige knew Angie wouldn’t have said it, wouldn’t be crying, wouldn’t be in the least bit vulnerable, if she were kidding. “Why in the world is he having an affair with
anyone?
”

It was a minute and several quiet sobs before Angie was composed enough to answer. “He says that I don’t listen to him. That I don’t
see
him. That he’s lonely.”

“So why didn’t he tell you?”

“He said that he
did
tell me, but that I never took it seriously, and I might have thought he was wrong if it hadn’t been for Mara. But here Mara commits suicide, and I’m her partner and friend, and I didn’t see it coming. So maybe I didn’t see what Ben was feeling, either. And when he names the woman, how can I argue? Nora Eaton. My God.”

Paige would never have guessed Ben capable of infidelity, which made a sad statement about her own insightfulness. She hadn’t been any more perceptive about Mara’s state of mind than Angie had been, and she had supposedly been that much closer a friend.

Now she wrapped an arm around Angie and offered what comfort she could. “I’m sorry, Angie. What can I do?”

“Not much,” Angie said through her tears. “The dirty deed is done.”

“What happens now?”

Angie looked utterly bewildered. “I have no idea. I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“But your instincts are good.”

“Apparently not, if I missed this. My own husband has been having an affair—for eight years”—her voice tripped—“and I had no idea. I’m looking over my life with Ben the way I looked over my life with Mara and wondering where I slipped up. I’m looking for things I didn’t see, but, so help me God, I keep coming up blank. There was no lipstick on his collar. There was no strange perfume on his clothes—or on him.” She shivered.

Paige could imagine the direction of her thoughts. Gently she asked, “Was there any change in his behavior toward you?”

Angie shot her a self-conscious glance. “Not in bed, no. Our relationship wasn’t overwhelmingly physical. We never had time—
I
never had time,” she corrected. “We didn’t make love often, but when we did, it was good, and it still was, at least for me. I thought he enjoyed it.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I thought it was okay to have quality over quantity. I feel like a fool.”

“You’re no fool.”

“Can you imagine him making love to me and thinking of her?”

“He may not have done that.”

“
Eight years.
How could I have missed it?”

“If you didn’t catch it in the beginning, it would have been nearly impossible to see later on. Over eight years’ time, whatever he was doing would have become the norm. There wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary for you to see.”

Angie shot her a dry look. “
The New England Journal of Medicine
hasn’t written this one up. I’m out of my element.”

Paige smiled. “So how did you leave it with him?”

Taking a long, slightly uneven breath, Angie settled against the edge of the table, seeming, to Paige’s relief, calmer. “I didn’t kick him out, though I’m sure Mara would have told me to do that. ‘Sue him,’ she would have said. ‘Take him for everything he’s worth. If he likes Nora Eaton so much, let
her
wash his socks.’ Mara adored Ben, but she hated infidelity.”

Paige smiled again. Angie’s analysis of Mara was right on the mark. For all the softness Mara may have had inside, she had her militant moments. “But that doesn’t take into consideration the fact that you love him.”

“I do,” Angie breathed.

“Did he say what he wanted?” She couldn’t quite get herself to use the word
separation,
much less
divorce.

“He left the house after we argued. He came back later, but we didn’t talk. He stayed in bed when I got up this morning.” She pressed a shaky hand to her upper lip, then wrapped her arms tightly around her middle and looked at Paige beseechingly. “What should I do?” she whispered.

“Talk to him. Go home now and do it.”

Angie shook her head. “There’s too much to do here.” She pushed away from the table and blotted her eyes in the reflection on the microwave door. “My patients are waiting.”

“So are mine, but don’t you think this takes precedence? This is your husband, Angie.”

“I know. But I need time.”

“Time is a luxury. We ran out with Mara. Ten times a day I wish I could turn back the clock and talk with her. Talk with Ben, Angie.”

Angie paused with her hand on the doorknob and her back to Paige. “I don’t know what to say. Do you know how disconcerting I find that? I’m rarely at a loss—but never in a million years did I expect something like this from Ben. I thought he loved me—I still do”—she shook her head—“I just don’t understand. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I haven’t been giving him what he needs.”

“Are you justifying it?”

“No, but I have to take part of the responsibility. You said it to Peter—it takes two to tango. If one of a pair isn’t listening to the music, the other one may want a different partner.”

“Angie,
nothing
condones infidelity.”

“I
know.
But this is
Ben.
I need time to decide how to handle it.”

Paige let her go and, soon after, started seeing her own patients, but Angie’s dilemma was with her for the rest of the day. She felt it personally—the shaking of something that had been a rock. Angie’s marriage had always been a paragon, a shining example of the way things should be. During those times when Paige wondered what it might be like to be married, she dreamed of a setup like Angie’s that allowed both for work and family. At the hub of such a life was a husband, and though a different type of man from Ben turned her on, he was steadfast in the very same way.