Читать книгу DARK WORK - Barbara Rush - Страница 12

Erin woke up Saturday morning paralyzed by a fresh wave of fear, and the familiar triage of hollow pain, dread, and anxiety. After Lydia and Kristy left, she’d curled up in a ball on the living room sofa and had been there ever since. Pale winter sun poured through the tall windows in the living room, spilling across the hardwood floors. A glass and steel clock Liz had bought in Denmark hummed on the fireplace mantle. It was eight o’clock. How can this house be so empty? She still could not grasp the fact that Liz would never be on Earth again.

Erin ticked off the post-Liz differences in her life. No more Christmas parties, where they made egg nog and sat around the fire listening to the Carpenters Christmas album. No more trips to Puerto Vallarta at Thanksgiving. No more catching up on the phone every other day. No more shopping for birthday surprises for her mother. No more deliveries of hot chicken soup from Lucky’s when she was down with a cold. No more long lunches. That last one was especially painful. If she’d known that was their last lunch, she would have stayed much longer. No, in reality, she would not have gone to lunch at all.

Erin’s thoughts ran the spectrum and circled back to this: It was her fault, entirely, that her mother was dead. There was no getting around it. If she hadn’t asked her mother to lunch, she wouldn’t be sleeping in an empty house full of useless things — things Liz would never again need because she was gone forever. Erin cried silently, eventually cascading helplessly into violent, gut-wrenching sobs. Then she fell silent, thinking about what lay ahead for her.

She turned onto her side and pulled the blanket up to her chin. Should she sell the house? The lease on her apartment wouldn’t be up until Spring, so she could put that decision off for a while. In the meantime, she would stay here. She needed to come to grips with her loss and, as a practical matter, sort through Liz’s possessions. Kristy’s uncle Dan, who was working on Liz’s estate, told her she was entitled to take something called “FMLA leave.” She could be gone from work up to 12 weeks, and they couldn’t fire her for being gone. Erin’s boss, Robert Vincent, knew this law, too, and he’d been careful not to overtly pressure her to come back to work. He was probably fuming that she’d taken more than a half day off to handle this. She needed to decide whether to cremate Liz and what kind of memorial service to have. The police warned her that they might not be able to release the body for as much as two weeks, maybe even longer.

Last night’s visit from Lydia had been a surprise. Because of Liz’s travels, she did not attend church much, but when she was in town, it was an important part of her life. She’d even volunteered in a language translation program. Did Liz know Lydia? Whether or not the two women knew each other, they must have a lot in common because they’d chosen the same church. That felt somehow comforting to Erin. She wanted to maintain the connection to Lydia.

Liz didn’t have too many friends. Actually, thinking about it, Liz had no close friends, just a few acquaintances. And although several of them called when the news covered the story, none had come around. Just Lydia.

It was unimaginable to Erin not to have friends. She wondered if her mother ever missed that aspect of life. Sure, Liz spent most of her social time with her, and the rest of the time went to her career and travels, but looking back—was it enough? Erin closed her eyes for a moment. She probably didn’t have the time and energy required for close friendship. When she wasn’t traveling, I was her priority. We were both priorities to each other. She pressed her eyes tightly together supressing a new wave of grief. No one would ever feel like that about her again.

Forcing her eyes open, she surveyed the living room. The memories they had here. So many warm moments laughing, talking . . . It was solely her mother that brought that warmth. The house itself had always seemed sterile. It was simply a place Liz stayed when she was not gone. After buying the house a few days before an extended business trip, Liz set a budget and hired a decorator. The decorator selected drapes, furniture, rugs, even plants and decorative items while Liz was in Berlin for the summer. Because she wasn’t involved, the house reflected the personality of the decorator, not Liz. It never seemed to Erin that it was fully Liz’s house. Erin had never told her mother, but when Liz wasn’t home, the place had all the warmth of a large, impersonal suite in a nice hotel.

A great contrast existed between this place and the house Erin lived in while growing up. She smiled at the memory. Liz had decorated their hold house with furniture from junk and antique stores and eccentric items she picked up at flea markets. Sprinkled into the mix was furniture from the 1920s through the 1950s. The house was around 1,000 square feet, the home where Liz had grown up long before Erin was born. It was in a section of town that unfortunately had deteriorated over the years. Liz had kept the house as an investment, planning to remodel and rent it. But it was now in a bad neighborhood, and Liz didn’t want the kind of tenants who would gravitate to that section of town. So it was empty. Liz installed iron bars over the windows and doors and set it up with a sophisticated alarm system that was loud enough to raise the dead if anyone dared to break in. For the past decade, the house had just sat there. Once Liz had to replace some of the wood siding which had been inexplicably riddled with bullets. Even after that, Liz kept saying, “I just can’t sell it. I just can’t. That’s where we lived when you were born. Maybe the neighborhood will turn around one day.”

Liz remembered the house as Erin did, with expansive green lawns, trees, white fences, dogs and children playing on the sidewalks, an ice cream truck crawling through the neighborhood playing “Turkey in the Straw,” neighbors gathered in front of their houses chatting or calling out to each other over the back yard fence. There was another thing Erin would have to take care of. What would she do with her grandmother’s house? She made a mental note to talk to Dan about it.

Erin threw off her blanket decisively and sat up. Lydia said to call and she’d come back to help again today. Why not call her? On the other hand, cleaning out the house was something she and Kristy could do. They could call some of their other friends to help with the heavy lifting and the hauling of boxes to the Goodwill center or Salvation Army. She needed someone to take part of Liz’s shoes and clothing to the place where Liz always donated clothing, the Women’s Shelter from Church On The Wall.

She pushed back her short blond hair distractedly, reached for the phone, and called Kristy.

Kristy was up, and sounded like she’d been crying. ”Oh, Erin, I’m so glad you called,” she said. “I’ve been up since 3:00. I wanted to come over, but —”

“Well, I’m ready for you, friend. Do you think you could get Gina and Todd to come over later on with their truck, and take some of this stuff to the Goodwill?”

“Yeah, I’ll give them a call. Sara has been wanting to help. Should I call her too?”

“Yes, call Sara. We need some help getting the stuff out of the basement.”

“I’ll be right over. How about some bagels?” Kristy was still concerned about Erin’s lack of appetite. She had barely eaten any of her dinner last night.

“I don’t want a bagel, but bring whatever you want to eat,” Erin said.

No sooner had she hung up the telephone than it rang. It was probably Kristy again. Erin picked it up.

“Good morning, Erin.” It was Lydia Knox.

“Oh, hi, Lydia. I was just talking to Kristy.”

“Poor Kristy. She must be exhausted,” Lydia said, her voice infused with sympathy.

“Kristy? Exhausted?”

“Well, she’s grieving over Liz, and worried about you. We need to keep an eye on her. I’ve seen many best friends winding up worse off than the person they are trying to help.”

What a warm, sensitive person. I hadn’t even been thinking about Kristy; I’ve been too absorbed with my own problems. Kristy said she’d been up since 3:00 and I just ignored her.

“That’s one of the strengths of Good Grief,” Lydia continued. “We are outsiders, so we can absorb some of the emotional fatigue that might otherwise fall on the friends you love.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been so selfish. I wonder if I should tell Kristy not to come over here today.”

“That might hurt her, to feel like she’s being left out,” Lydia said. “Here’s a suggestion. Why don’t you let them all come over for a few hours. I’ll be there with you, and drop the hint that you need some rest. When they’ve left, we’ll continue. Better yet, you can rest after they leave and I’ll continue.”

“Can I ask you something, Lydia?”

“Sure. I’m here to help.”

“I know you were at Church On The Wall. Did you know my mother?”

Lydia paused for just a second. She had anticipated this question. Evidently Erin hadn’t understood that Lydia was from a separate agency.

“Oh, sure, I knew Liz Griffin.” I have a thick file on her. I have her bank account numbers and I know her underwear sizes. And I need you to help me get into her safety deposit box, and soon. “She always looked for me when she came to church, so we could sit together.” People did that, didn’t they? Sat together at church?

Erin relaxed. A friend of her mother. A connection to her mother. A part of her mother’s life. She felt that she had gotten a tiny part of her mother back.

“I’m glad you’re here for me, Lydia. Come on over.” Now that I think of it, Lydia dresses like Mom.

“Be right there,” Lydia said. “Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll sort through all this together.”

The woman stubbed out her Marlboro and walked to the window to survey the hotel parking lot again. I can never be too careful. Today she would pack up her things and move to another hotel. Rule No. 1 was simple: Don’t stay in one place too long. A fixed constellation of simple rules had kept her alive so far. That, and a good assortment of driver’s licenses and passports in various names. She wasn’t stupid enough to carry any extra identification. Just what the current project required.

She checked to make sure her silver “heart” necklace was in place. It had become a ritual for her, checking every few minutes to make sure she had it, and that the secret compartment in the back was firmly shut. It wouldn’t do to lose that particular cargo, and that’s how she thought of it—as cargo, not cyanide.

She closed the draperies and headed for the shower. Time to become Lydia again. She was starting to hate “Lydia.” Meaning, of course, that Lydia’s character and her nauseating “goodness” were about as close to perfection as they would ever get. She was bored.