The Last to Know (9 page)

“Well, Jane isn’t here,” Owen’s mother says. “And Schuyler needs comfort from someone other than a maid. I’ll go to her.”

Margaret knows little about the relationship between Owen’s mother and Schuyler; Jane has never discussed it. Margaret doubts that Louisa Kendall is a hands-on grandmother, the type whose mere presence would bring comfort to a child missing its mother. She says nothing, though, just watches the woman leave the kitchen, heading down the hallway to the stairs.

After a moment, alone in the kitchen, Margaret turns her attention back to the things she has removed from Schuyler’s carriage. After a moment, she picks up the baby’s soft pink blanket, holds it to her cheek, and absently strokes it.

K
aren Wu stands at her kitchen sink dumping a few ounces of unused soy formula from Taylor’s bottle. She wrinkles her nose as the familiar smell of the stuff wafts up. No wonder Taylor made a face and pushed it away just now.

Then again, she usually gulps down the soy formula hungrily—as opposed to how she reacted when Karen tried nursing her during the first few weeks of her life. Armed with statistics showing that a mother’s milk is far better than formula for newborns, Karen was determined to breast-feed her daughter at least through the first year. But when the baby grew increasingly fussy and constantly spit up, Ben Leiberman switched her to a soy formula despite Karen’s reluctance.

Sure enough, that did the trick. Taylor’s been on soy ever since, and she’s thriving.

Today, however, she has had little appetite. When Karen returned from Starbucks this morning, Tom told her the baby wasn’t interested in her bottle. She must be coming down with something.

Karen’s nieces were sick with some sort of stomach bug late last week, and they dropped by on Sunday. Karen’s younger sister, Lisa, mentioned their illness in passing. It would never occur to her to keep the girls home for fear of spreading germs to Taylor. Carefree Lisa never has been very responsible.

Unlike Karen, who seems to spend her days worrying. There are just so many dangers in the world—so many reasons to protect her tiny daughter. . . .

A door slams outside. Karen, running water into the empty bottle, looks up at the sound and notices a teenage boy emerge from the house next door. It’s Jeremiah, Fletch Gallagher’s nephew. He’s a gangly sort of kid, she thinks, watching him make his way across the yard. At that awkward age, although even if he weren’t, he wouldn’t have his uncle’s lady-killer looks.

She wonders if Rachel will call him to babysit. After she made the recommendation this morning, she thought better of it. For one thing, she doesn’t know the boy very well—has only met him a few times in passing. Not that Rachel is fussy about things like that. She’s the total opposite of Karen, never seeming to fret about things like references even when it comes to her kids.

Karen watches Jeremiah Gallagher open the door to a wooden storage shed among the trees near the back of the property line next door. The boy disappears inside, closing the door behind him.

That seems odd. What can he possibly be doing in there? The space has to be only a few feet square, and probably houses a lawnmower, yard tools, that sort of thing. At least, that’s what Tom keeps in their shed, Karen muses. But maybe the Gallaghers—

“Karen! Hey, Karen!” Tom shouts urgently from the next room.

“What’s wrong?” She turns off the tap and tosses the bottle into the sink.

“Taylor just threw up all over me. Bring something to clean it up!”

Karen grabs a dish towel and hurries into the family room, silently cursing her sister.
Taylor’s sick. I just knew it.

“M
ommy, can we have pizza for dinner?” Hunter asks, adding his lunchbox to the clutter on the kitchen counter and unzipping his jacket.

“We’ll see.” Tasha closes the door behind them, then locks it. There are days when she doesn’t bother, but after the whole thing with Jane Kendall . . .

She had the car radio tuned to a local station on the way to the elementary school. The latest reports haven’t revealed anything new. The woman is still missing, and her family is expected to give a statement later today. Anyone with any information about the case is asked to call a special toll-free hotline set up by the Townsend Heights police.

Tasha sets the baby on the worn blue-and-white-pinstriped family-room couch and takes off his little blue fleece coat. The fabric is pilling a bit—it’s a hand-me-down from Hunter, like pretty much everything else in Max’s wardrobe. He really deserves some new clothes, Tasha decides. Maybe she can go down to the mall in White Plains one of these days.

The thought of shopping brightens her spirits . . . but only a little. She’ll have to lug Victoria and Max along with her in the double stroller, and they’ll last maybe an hour, tops.

“Mommy, help me,” Victoria says in a whiny voice, struggling with the buttons on her coat.

Tasha carefully counts to three before saying evenly, “Victoria, don’t whine.”

“But it’s stuck,” Victoria whines, and stomps her foot. “I can’t do it!”

Patience
, Tasha reminds herself as she puts Max on the floor. He crawls across the blue carpet toward a basket of foam blocks, and Tasha kneels to help her daughter take off her pink coat.

“Thank you, Mommy,” Victoria says, throwing her arms around Tasha as though she’s just been promised unlimited candy for dinner.

“You’re welcome.” Tasha smiles. All Victoria wants is attention.
This time
. Oh, who knows? Maybe all the time.

Maybe, Tasha thinks, as an oldest child with two younger brothers, she has a hard time relating to the needs of a middle child. She can’t remember ever feeling like she needed more than her own parents could give.

In fact, Mom and Dad did a great job with Tasha and her brothers. The boys are both well-adjusted, successful adults with thriving careers. Gregg is a financial analyst in Cleveland with a bubbly, sweet blond wife, and their first child on the way around Christmas. Andrew, a tax accountant, is engaged to marry a hometown girl and lives a few blocks from their mother. He has looked out for her ever since Dad died almost two years ago from the lung cancer that ravaged him long before he drew his last breath.

Since then, Tasha hasn’t gone home. She and Joel used to make the trip every Christmas. She used to tease him—back in the teasing days of their marriage—that she only married him because he was Jewish and they would never have to argue over where they would spend Christmas, the way so many of their friends seemed to do. They would simply celebrate Hanukkah whenever it fell in December and always go to Ohio at the end of the month.

Joel loved spending the holidays back in Centerbrook with her family. Her parents’ sprawling Victorian would be decked out in garlands and lights, and it always seems to be snowing there. Tasha still remembers the first time she brought him home for Christmas, the year they got engaged. They drove that year, renting a car in Manhattan and playing corny carols on the tape deck the whole nine-hour trip. Every house on the block had a tree glowing in the front window, and her parents’ porch roof was lined in colored lights, the old-fashioned kind with the big flame-shaped bulbs.

“It looks like something out of
It’s a Wonderful Life,
Tash,” Joel said, gazing at it in wonder.

She still remembers how she felt in that moment. As though she were going to spill over into laughter or tears from sheer joy.

How long has it been since she felt that way?

How long has it been since she and Joel went back to Ohio?

They haven’t been back since Daddy’s funeral. He had died in early December, so close to Christmas that it didn’t make sense for them to return for the holiday a few weeks later. Joel had to use his vacation time for the funeral, anyway.

They were planning to go back for Christmas last year, even though Max was a newborn. They had even purchased plane tickets, but it turned out that Joel couldn’t take the time away from the office. The agency was pitching new business, an important account that they ultimately won.

That didn’t make Tasha feel much better about spending Christmas at home in Townsend Heights, just the five of them. Joel, overworked and exhausted, came down with a miserable cold that the kids prompty caught. Tasha spent Christmas Eve alone in the living room, watching some ridiculous cable movie starring Tim Allen as Santa Claus, drinking too much spiked eggnog, and crying and feeling sorry for herself as she put together the toys Santa would be leaving for the kids.

What a crummy Christmas.

They haven’t even discussed what they’ll be doing this year. She assumes they’ll go to Ohio, but they had better make their airline reservations as soon as possible, come to think of it. It’s only two months away. She’ll have to talk to Joel about it tonight, along with everything else on her agenda.

Max is playing happily with his blocks. Hunter has turned on the television set, and he and Victoria are already transfixed by a Disney cartoon. Tasha normally doesn’t like them watching TV when Hunter comes home from school, but right now, if it keeps them occupied it’s fine with her.

After hanging the coats in the hall closet, where there are somehow never enough empty hangers, Tasha goes into the kitchen. The red light on the answering machine is blinking.

She presses the “Play” button, the tape whirs, and Joel’s hurried voice fills the room. “Tasha, Stacey said you called again. Is everything all right? It’s been a crazy day. I’m leaving the office now. I have a meeting across town, and then I’m going to try and catch the six forty-four. I’ll call if I don’t make it.”

The six forty-four? That means he’ll be home by eight.

Suddenly, the day doesn’t seem quite so grim.

Tasha opens the freezer and takes out a package of chicken breasts, putting it into the microwave to thaw. She’ll give the kids a frozen pizza, put them down early, and make dinner for herself and Joel so that they can actually have a conversation.

“C
an we have Spaghetti-Os?” Lily asks Jeremiah as he opens the wide stainless-steel refrigerator.

“You just had Spaghetti-Os last night,” he tells the twins, who are sprawled on the two steps that lead from the kitchen to the adjoining family room. They’re both wearing embroidered jeans with ragged hemlines, and short, tight tops that show their stomachs. Melissa would never have let them get away with looking like that, even though it’s what all the kids are wearing, but Aunt Sharon and Uncle Fletch don’t seem to mind. In fact, it was Aunt Sharon who bought them most of their new clothes.

“So what if we had Spaghetti-Os last night? We bring peanut butter sandwiches to school for lunch every day,” Daisy points out. “Peanut butter’s healthy, and so is spaghetti. What’s the big deal if you eat a lot of something that’s good for you?”

Jeremiah, who assumes it matters, but isn’t sure exactly why, merely shrugs. He pushes past the cartons of Panda Palace takeout, the diet salad dressings, the imported beer, in search of something to give his stepsisters for supper. Finally, he closes the fridge and says, “Okay, whatever. You can have Spaghetti-Os.”

They slap each other’s hands in a high five.

As he opens the can, he tells them, “Tomorrow night, you guys are on your own. Tell Aunt Sharon or Uncle Fletch to get you something for dinner before they go out.” He has no doubt that his aunt and uncle will have plans—they’re rarely if ever home in the evenings. That’s fine with him. In fact he prefers it that way.

“Where will you be?” asks one of the twins—he doesn’t bother to turn his head to see which one, and their voices are as identical as their faces.

But it’s easy to tell them apart visually ever since Lily impulsively got her reddish curls lopped off a few weeks ago. To Jeremiah, she looks strangely shorn. He can only imagine what her mother would have said about the haircut. Melissa insisted on long hair for the twins and short hair for Jeremiah.

He’s been growing his dark hair ever since her death. Now that it’s getting shaggy, down past his ears and collar, he’s been half-expecting Uncle Fletch and Aunt Sharon to ask him to cut it. But they haven’t. At least not yet.

Dad definitely will, when he gets back from overseas. With his own military-short buzz, he’s as conservative as Melissa was. But who knows when Dad will be back? Maybe by then, Jeremiah will be sick of the long hair and ready to cut it off anyway.

“Jer, I was talking to you! Where are you going tomorrow night?”

“I have to babysit,” he tells Daisy.

“Babysit?” She and Lily exchange a glance.

Jeremiah knows what they’re thinking. That babysitting is for girls. Well, they’re wrong. He scowls and turns his back, dumping the Spaghetti-Os from the can into a small glass casserole dish.

After he hung up with Mrs. Leiberman earlier, Uncle Fletch said, “Babysitting, huh?’’ in a way that let Jeremiah know he thought it was for girls, too. Jeremiah felt his face grow hot.

Why is it that Uncle Fletch can make him feel so . . . wimpy? Just the way Peter Frost and his friends do. But Uncle Fletch doesn’t mean to do it. He’s been trying so hard to be a father figure to Jeremiah, who’s sure his uncle isn’t deliberately making him feel uncomfortable. But every time Uncle Fletch gives him that look—the sort of head-tilted, can’t-relate look—Jeremiah feels angry.

“For who?”

Startled, he says, “Huh?”

Daisy repeats, “For who—I mean, you’re babysitting for who tomorrow night?”

“For this lady down the street.” He sticks the casserole dish into the microwave, sets it for three minutes, and glances at the twins. “When this beeps, serve yourselves.”

“Aren’t you gonna eat with us?”

“Nah.”

“How come?”

“I’ve got stuff to do upstairs.”

“Wait, Jer, we need to ask you something.”

He pauses in the doorway. “What is it?”

“We need to get our pumpkin downtown for the judging on Saturday,” Daisy says. “Will you help us?”

He hesitates. His sisters grew the giant pumpkin in the backyard of the house where they lived until the fire. They planted it last spring in hopes of winning the cash prize and getting their picture on the front page of the
Townsend Gazette
, a local tradition.