Woman in Red (23 page)

When Colin and Jeremy left the room, Alice cautiously lowered herself into the wing-backed chair by the fireplace. The living room that had been eclectically furnished and cluttered with toys when she’d lived here had been done over in her long absence. It was now an almost exact replica of her former mother-in-law’s, down to the ginger jar lamps and framed Audubon prints on the walls. Which suggested that the only woman currently in Randy’s life was Mrs. Kessler senior. Alice wondered why he hadn’t remarried. Randy was still a handsome man. He could have almost any woman he wanted. But it wasn’t any of her business, so there was no point in speculating.

Randy sank down on the sofa that still bore the faint imprint of their son’s lanky frame. “This feels a little like déjà vu, doesn’t it?” she said to break the ice.

Ignoring the reference to her own past legal woes, Randy asked point blank, “What do you know about this guy, other
than the fact that he was some hot shot prosecutor back in New York?”

“I know that he’s good. And that there’s no one else on the island even remotely qualified.” Alice didn’t need to remind him that most of the crime around here was on the level of petty theft and DUIs. Warren Brockman, who’d represented Alice during her trial, had primarily handled civil cases before that.

Randy sighed, dropping his head to push his hands through his hair, which was longer than he used to wear it and styled in a way that flattered his square, defense linebacker’s face. He looked as if he’d been up all night, which he probably had. “Point taken. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on the guy like that. It’s just that . . . hell, Alice, I don’t have to tell you, of all people, how this could end up. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to Jeremy.”

“I don’t want that either,” she said quietly.

“Look, I don’t mean to open old wounds. It’s just that I’ve been worried sick.” Randy eyed her morosely across the expanse of thick-pile carpet that no doubt had been selected by his mother, a shade of Arctic blue that Alice would never in a million years have chosen. At last, he let out an audible breath. “Would you like a drink? I could use one myself.”

“Thanks, no,” she said.

He rose and went into the next room, returning a few minutes later with a tumbler containing his usual whiskey and soda. He sank back down on the sofa, where he sipped his drink in silence, absorbed in his thoughts, separated from her by more than the four or five feet of space that stood between them. After a minute or so, he roused himself to ask, “So, how have you been? Things going okay?”

“As well as can be expected,” she said, with a shrug.

“There’s a rumor going around that you’re opening a restaurant.”

She smiled. “I’ve heard the same rumor myself.”

“So is it true?”

“The grand opening is a week from tomorrow. I hope you and Jeremy can make it.”

Randy looked surprised but pleased to be invited. “I’ll try, if I’m not on the road.”

“Jeremy tells me you were promoted. Congratulations.”

Randy gave a snort. “Yeah, for what it’s worth. All it means is more territory to cover. If I didn’t need the money, I’d be cutting back on my hours instead. This thing with Jeremy . . . I can’t help thinking that if I’d been around more . . .” He shook his head, a distraught look on his face.

“You can’t blame yourself,” Alice said. She knew all about blame. Hadn’t she blamed herself, for everything from David’s death to the fact that Jeremy wanted nothing to do with her?

“Who else should I blame?” he threw back at her.

“Maybe no one’s to blame. Things don’t always happen for a reason.”

There was a pause before Randy said softly, “You mean David.” They exchanged a look more expressive than any words. “I still think about him. A lot.”

“Me, too.” Her throat tightened.

“I should have been there that night. If it weren’t for these crazy hours . . .” His hands balled into fists, and she could see a muscle working in his jaw.

Alice felt something give way in her chest, an anger against Randy she hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to. The years had taken their toll on him as well. He appeared
humbled in a way that was obvious only to someone who knew him as well as she did. In her long absence, he’d clearly had a lot of time to think. She wondered now if he regretted more than not being there the night David was killed. “It’s funny,” she said. “I always thought you blamed
me.
I was there. I should have kept a closer eye on him.”
Why hadn’t they talked about this before? It might have changed everything.

“Listen to us. Ten years, and it’s like it happened yesterday,” Randy observed with a dry little croak of a laugh. He contemplated this for a moment, sipping his drink as he stared sightlessly ahead. When he brought his gaze back to her, she saw that his eyes were bloodshot. “Maybe I did hold you responsible in a way, but it wasn’t because of that. I didn’t understand why you couldn’t let go. Why you wouldn’t stop hounding the guy.”

Our son’s killer, you mean
, she silently amended. Alice sat back, the flicker of a connection she’d felt with him fading. “I guess there are some things we’ll never agree on. Why don’t we just leave it at that?”

Just then, the door to Jeremy’s room cracked open. Jeremy stepped out into the hallway looking shaken. Colin emerged behind him wearing a flat, unreadable expression. Alice felt herself go cold. What had they talked about in there? Had Jeremy told him things he wasn’t comfortable sharing with her or Randy?

Randy put his drink down on the coffee table and jumped to his feet, closing the distance between him and Jeremy in several long strides. “You all right, son?” he asked, putting an arm around Jeremy’s shoulders.

Jeremy nodded, but Alice could see how pale and shaken he was. She wondered if this was indeed history repeating itself.

 

In the summer of that year the Allied forces under the command of General MacArthur began waging an all-out assault on Guadalcanal. The letters Eleanor had been receiving from her husband started coming less frequently. Each night, she and her daughter would gather around the old Philco, straining toward its amber glow as toward a feeble flame by which to warm themselves, listening to the latest broadcasts out of Washington. When the news wasn’t good, they would trudge off to bed burdened by the weight of their fears. Eleanor knew that even the victories weren’t without casualties, and she and Lucy lived in dread of a telegraph from the War Department.

Lucy had stopped asking when her papa was coming home; several of the children in her school had lost fathers to the war and she knew there was a chance she might also lose hers. Eleanor worried, too. The difference was that, while Joe remained Lucy’s chief preoccupation, Eleanor’s thoughts had been straying to other things. Whenever she
was reminded of the reason for that distraction, a slow heat would unfurl up her neck to flood her cheeks, and at night, as she knelt beside her bed, she would pray all the more fervently for her husband’s safe return.

The man responsible for this new and unwelcome tide of emotion was William McGinty. In the months since they’d met he’d been coming by the house once or twice a week, sometimes more often. He never showed up empty-handed. Usually it was basic supplies he brought, food and items of clothing he thought Yoshi might need. But always there would be at least one luxury item tucked in with the staples: a small sack of coffee or sugar, a pound of butter, a bar of soap. If he wasn’t in a hurry to get back, he would stay and chat.

Eleanor had come to treasure those stolen hours, hoard them like the rationed sugar he brought. Conversations with friends and neighbors usually centered around the war, but William talked about things that took her mind off such weighty concerns, stories about his student travels abroad and all the fascinating people he’d met along the way. He brought her a Europe untouched by war, one of ancient canals and labyrinthian streets so narrow they could barely accommodate a car and a bicycle at the same time; outdoor markets where you could buy any kind of foodstuff or household item imaginable; rural villages where humble thatched-roof cottages stood side by side with soaring cathedrals.

In her mind, she could see the moon reflected in the waters of the Seine off the Pont du Change, the pigeons that flocked Venice’s San Marco Plaza, and the special way the light fell over the rooftops of Florence, a phenomenon known as
chiaroscuro,
she was informed. She learned about the artist
named Gaudi and his famous palace in Spain, ugly and beautiful at the same time, from which the word gaudy had come; and the wonders of the Louvre where William had studied the techniques of the Old Masters. There were fondly recollected meals, in which she could almost taste the wine, made by vintners who’d been doing it exactly as had their ancestors for hundreds of years, and the bread baked in great, crusty loaves in wood-fired ovens. It was as if he’d handed her the keys to a hidden door, though which she could escape, for brief intervals, to a better world.

One day in early November they were sitting at the kitchen table, chatting while they sipped coffee and nibbled on freshly baked gingerbread, Eleanor telling him about a wedding she’d attended the weekend before, when William asked with his usual forthrightness, “What about you and Joe? How did you two meet?”

Eleanor’s eyes darted to the doorway, through which she could see Lucy, seated cross-legged on the living room floor with Yoshi, who was teaching her how to tie a sailor’s knot. She lived in dread of Lucy’s finding out that Joe wasn’t her real father, so it was a subject she normally sidestepped. Now she turned her gaze to the window, staring out at the rain pouring down, wondering how best to reply.

She looked back at William to find him eyeing her intently. She searched his face for some hint that he’d gotten wind of the old rumors that must have circulated around the time Lucy was born, but his blue eyes were clear and guileless. “We met at church,” she told him, settling on a partial truth.

“So was it love at first sight?”

Eleanor felt warmth steal into her cheeks. “I don’t know about that. I thought he was nice. And apparently he liked
me well enough. Beyond that, we didn’t really know each other all that well when we got married. I suppose you could call it a whirlwind courtship.”

“And if you had it to do all over again?”

“Goodness, what a question!” She dropped her gaze, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. “Why, yes, of course. Why do you ask?” Time and again she’d asked herself the same question, and it always came back to the same thing: Lucy. For Lucy’s sake, yes, she would do it over again.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just that the war has got me thinking. Every day we’re reminded of how fragile life is, how it can be snuffed out at any moment. You can’t help wondering if you’re making the most of it, if you wouldn’t be happier doing something else . . . or with someone else.”

He bent to run his hand absently over the thick ruff of the dog curled at his feet. He never went anywhere without Laird, named after William’s Scottish forbears and every inch the aristocrat, with his sleek lines and perfectly shaped head, his thick glossy coat black as midnight, except for his snow-white paws and the patches of white around his eyes and on his chest. For it seemed the now-grown puppy intended for his son preferred William’s company. Laird lifted his head to give William a questioning look, and when it was clear nothing was required of him, he settled back down with a contented sigh.

“Would
you
do it differently?” she asked, wondering once more about his wife. He rarely mentioned her except in passing, but from what little Eleanor had been able to glean, their marriage clearly wasn’t what it ought to be.

“Honestly? No.” His reply brought a jab to her midsection that caught her unawares, a blow she hadn’t thought to protect
herself against. One that was softened by his next words. “I wouldn’t have my son if I hadn’t married Martha.”

“So no regrets?”

He shrugged. “We all have regrets. It’s human nature, I suppose.”

Eleanor ventured hesitantly, “Your wife. Does she know about these visits of yours?”

William fell silent, peering out at the rain-soaked yard. Beyond it lay the field that bordered on her property, where the grass that had stood high in summer was broken and stubbly and the blackberry vines reddish-brown with autumn’s rust. The far end of the field was marked by a nearly impenetrable wall of green, Douglas firs and hemlocks mostly, through which she could make out only faintly the path that wound its way up Spring Hill, where she enjoyed hiking in the warm weather months. When he spoke at last, his voice was quiet, troubled almost. “No, she doesn’t know. I couldn’t think of a way of telling her without putting you and Yoshi at risk.”

“I suppose it’s for the best,” Eleanor said dubiously. “It’s just . . . I can’t help wondering what she would make of your spending so much time in the company of a lady whose husband is overseas.” It was the closest she had come to voicing what she’d long suspected: that these visits were spurred by more than mere generosity on his part.