Читать книгу Die Before I Wake - Laurie Breton, Laurie Breton - Страница 8

“It’s not that big a deal,” I said. “Really.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.” With intense concentration and quick, efficient hands, Tom dabbed antiseptic on the gash on my cheek while I tried not to wince. “Another six inches, and—” He closed his eyes and muttered something indecipherable. Darkly, he added, “I knew I should’ve cut down that damn tree last spring.”

He capped the bottle of antiseptic, picked up a Band-Aid, and held my chin in his hand to size up the injury. “It’s too old,” he said, turning my head to the left, then to the right. “Too brittle. Too dangerous.”

“It was just a limb.” A big one.

“Next time, it’s apt to be the whole tree. Damn thing took ten years off my life.”

“I’m fine. Honest.”

“You talk too much. Hold still.” He tore open the Band-Aid, peeled off the paper backing, and gently applied it to my cheek. Sitting back to admire his handiwork, he said, “There. You’ll probably live to talk a little longer.”

I gave him a radiant smile and said, “My hero.”

He grimaced. Crumpling the Band-Aid wrapper, he said, “Some welcome you got. If I were you, I’d run as fast as I could back to Los Angeles.”

“What? And miss all the excitement around here? Surely you jest.”

Humorlessly, he said, “It’s usually a lot more boring than this.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’ll stick around for a while and see for myself.”

He shoved the bottle of antiseptic back into his first-aid kit. “Tomorrow, I’m calling the tree service and having that pine cut down.”

“It seems a shame. It’s probably been standing there for a hundred years.”

“And I’d like to make sure that you’re standing for another hundred.” He closed the lid on the kit and zipped the cover. “The tree goes. Don’t even bother to argue.”

“I suppose you’re saying that because you believe a good wife always obeys her husband.”

Some of the somberness left his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he said, “Do you have any idea how tempted I am to say yes?”

I smiled. “But you’re refraining.”

“For now, anyway. We may have to revisit the issue at a later date.”

“Nice save.”

“I thought so.”

The sound of rattling glassware and cutlery drifted in from the kitchen. “Now that I’m all better,” I said, “I should be helping your mother clean up the mess.” We’d left the dining room littered with pine needles, broken branches, and rain water. Shattered glass was everywhere. On the floor. On the dining table. Tiny slivers of it embedded in what was left of our dinner.

“You’re excused from kitchen duty tonight. Doctor’s orders.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tom? You do realize that you’re an obstetrician?”

“You have a complaint, file it with the AMA.”

Outside, the chain saw had finally stopped its high-pitched whine. Now we could hear a rhythmic hammering as Riley boarded up the broken window. In the moments after the tree limb had made its unceremonious and unexpected foray into the dining room, chaos had reigned. The girls had been semi-hysterical. Jeannette had tried to calm them while simultaneously herding them away from the broken glass. Riley had thrown on a pair of snowmobile boots and a yellow slicker and rushed outside, flashlight in hand, to assess the damage. Meantime, Tom hovered over me like a mother hen, frantically cataloguing and documenting every scratch and bruise. For a man who spent half his life in the delivery room, he’d gone surprisingly pale at the sight of blood. Or maybe it was just the sight of my blood that frightened him.

Once Sadie and Taylor were convinced that nobody was seriously injured and the house wasn’t in imminent danger of collapsing around them, Tom’s mother had bribed them by promising that if they went upstairs and got ready for bed without argument, they could forego their baths for tonight. That was all it took. We hadn’t heard another sound from them.

Until now. They came padding into the living room wearing flannel pajamas and matching Miss Piggy slippers. Taylor had a book in her hand and a sly expression on her face. “We’re ready for our bedtime story,” she said.

“Say good-night, then, and run along to bed,” Tom said. “I’ll be right up.”

“No.” She held the book in both hands and teetered back and forth from one foot to the other. “We want Julie to read it to us.”

Tom and I exchanged glances. “Do you mind, Jules?” he said.

Did I mind? This was an opportunity for bonding, and I wasn’t about to pass it up. “I’d be honored,” I said, standing and taking Sadie by the hand. “Come on, girls. Let’s see what you’re reading.”

The book was Where the Wild Things Are, one of my own childhood favorites. Upstairs in their bedroom, Sadie slipped beneath the covers and I settled beside her to read, while Taylor perched on the edge of her own bed a few feet away. Both girls were engrossed in the story, but after a few minutes, I could see that Sadie was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

“Enough for tonight,” I said. “Time for bed.”

“We’re supposed to say our prayers now,” Taylor informed me. “Before you tuck us in.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Of course.” Nothing would have made me admit to them that I wasn’t familiar with this particular bedtime ritual. Dave Hanrahan had nursed a lifelong contempt for anything that smacked of religion, a result of his uptight Catholic upbringing. Dad had attended Our Lady of All Saints School until eighth grade, and the nuns had traumatized him for life. So there’d been no praying in our house. But I’m an obliging soul, and I’ve learned to fake it if I have to. When in Rome, and all that jazz. I could handle a little praying. It might even do me some good.

Taking a cue from the girls, I knelt beside Sadie’s bed, my stepdaughters beside me in their flannel jammies, their oversized Piggy feet stuck out behind them. Hands folded, I closed my eyes and tried to look pious. In unison, they spoke the words of the prayer:

“Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I should die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

“Amen,” Taylor said.

“Amen,” Sadie echoed. Her eyes popped open and she exclaimed, “Oops! I forgot!” Bowing her head again, she added, “God bless Daddy, and Grandma, and Uncle Riley, and Mommy up in heaven. And—” She opened her eyes, glanced at me, and smiled. “And Julie,” she finished. “Amen.”

A tiny crack appeared in my heart. Maybe winning over Tom’s daughters wouldn’t be so hard after all. They were such precious little girls, and so very needy. And they seemed to genuinely like me.

I pulled back the covers. Sadie scrambled beneath them, and I tucked them up tight under her chin. She lay there beneath the blankets, a dreamy smile on her face, and said, “Are you my mommy now?”

Time stood still. While my heart beat in the silence, I glanced across the empty space between beds to Taylor, who seemed to be holding her breath, awaiting my response.

I lay a hand atop Sadie’s head, felt the cool, soft tickle of baby-fine hair between my fingertips. “Your mom,” I said, “will always be your mom.”

Sadie yawned. “Even though she’s not here any more?”

“Even though. I would never try to take her place. How about for now, we’ll just say we’re friends, and leave it at that? Okay?”

She gave me a sleepy nod and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. I stood and crossed the room to Taylor, who lay beneath her own covers. Tucking the snow-white bedspread tightly around her, I said, “All set?”

She nodded. I reached out to touch her cheek, then hesitated. I didn’t want to rush things with her. Instead, I simply said, “Good night.”

As I turned to go, she said, “Don’t get too used to being here.”

I paused, not sure I’d heard her correctly. Turning, I said, “Excuse me?”

Her eyes, so like Tom’s, held none of his warmth. Instead, they were glacial. “I said you shouldn’t get too used to being here. Grandma says you won’t last any longer than any of the others.”

I told myself she was just a little girl. Only seven years old. There was no real malice in her words; she was just repeating what she’d heard. But when I thought about the hostility on her face, I wasn’t so sure. Children were capable of cruelty, and Taylor was an intelligent child. She knew she’d upset me. That had been her intention. I’d seen the satisfaction in her eyes before she reached out and turned off the bedside lamp, leaving me to find my way in complete darkness.

I could almost forgive her for her animosity. After all, she was just a child, and she’d suffered an irreparable loss. I could still remember how I’d felt when my mother left us. The fear, the guilt, the knife-edged sense of betrayal. The years spent wondering if it was something I’d done that had driven her away. It had taken me a very long time to get over it—as much as anyone gets over that kind of loss—and I’d sworn that no matter what happened in my life, I’d never, ever do that to a child.

Taylor’s mother hadn’t run away like mine had, but Tom’s daughter had to be feeling some of the same emotions that I’d felt. Death was the ultimate betrayal. And for a girl to lose her mother at such a young age—a mother whose absence would be keenly felt at all life’s most poignant and significant junctures—the loss was immeasurable.

We all grieve in different ways. I’d walked in Taylor’s shoes, and I couldn’t fault her for how she’d chosen to grieve her terrible loss.

But Tom was right. This was some welcome I’d gotten. Wondering just who were these “others” that Taylor had referred to, I headed downstairs to find my husband and demand some answers.

I heard them arguing as soon as I reached the ground floor. They weren’t exactly trying to be quiet. “She can’t stay,” Jeannette said. “You know that as well as I do.”

“I don’t know anything of the kind.” My husband sounded agitated. Furious.

“You don’t know anything about her. For all you know, she could be a gold digger. I cringed when I heard that pathetic story she told about her impoverished childhood. What if she married you for your money?”

Heat raced up my face. Normally, I was adamantly opposed to eavesdropping. But, damn it, this was me they were talking about. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away. I crept a little closer to the kitchen door and pressed myself against the dark paneling of the hallway.

“That’s ridiculous,” Tom said.

“You’re a doctor, Tom. She probably took one look at you and decided you were her meal ticket.”

Wearily, my husband said, “I make a decent living, Mother, but I’m hardly in a league with the neurosurgeons of the world. I’m a small-town baby doctor.”

“The perception’s still there that doctor equals money. I just can’t imagine what you were thinking. What happens when she finds out—”

“Finds out what? That I’ve been eaten up by loneliness ever since Elizabeth died? I can’t believe you’d begrudge me a little happiness. Julie’s amazing, Mom, and you’d see that if you gave her half a chance.”

“What about your girls? They need you, Tom. How can you justify stealing what little free time you have away from them to give it to some stranger?”

“They need a mother!”

Sounding hurt, she said, “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past two years?”

Tom’s voice softened. “I know what you’ve been doing,” he said, “and I truly appreciate all you’ve done for us. But it’s not the same thing. The girls need stability, an intact family.”

“It’s not going to work. You know it as well as I do. It’s not too late to have this marriage annulled. I’m begging you to end it before it gets messy. Send her back where she came from and move on with your life.”

Indignation had me holding my breath. Send her back where she came from. What did this woman think I was, a FedEx package?

Tom’s voice again: “She has a name, Mom. It’s Julie.”

“Fine. Send Julie back where she came from, back to L.A., to her hippy-dippy life and her fond memories of her wastrel of a father.”

In a deadly quiet voice, Tom said, “I’m only going to say this once, Mother, so you’d better listen. I don’t give a damn whether or not you like her, but Julie is my wife and, by God, you’ll treat her with respect. If I hear one more negative word about her—”

A sound behind me tore my attention away from the sparring in the kitchen. Riley stood at the foot of the stairs, water dripping off his yellow slicker. I’d been so caught up in the drama being played out in the next room that I hadn’t even heard him come in the front door. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, or how much he’d overheard. Our eyes met, but neither of us said a word.

“Forget it,” Tom said in disgust. “This discussion is over.”

“Where are you going?” his mother demanded.

“Out. I need to cool off before I say something I’ll regret.”

“For God’s sake, Tom, don’t be an idiot. There’s a hurricane going on out there.”

“And it’s a welcome reprieve from what’s going on in here!”

A door slammed, and a moment later, I heard a car engine start up. My gaze still locked with Riley’s, I saw something there that I didn’t want to see, something that looked remarkably like pity. Without saying a word, I stalked past him to the staircase and fled upstairs.

I closed the bedroom door and slumped against it, my chest heaving with suppressed fury. The luggage standing neatly by the foot of the bed seemed to mock me, and I wondered if I should even bother to unpack. To his credit, Tom—who’d vowed to cherish me until death—had stood up to his mother for me. How long would he be able to stand up to her before she wore him down? I was crazy about my new husband, but if this was the direction my marriage was headed, how long would it be before I decided I’d made a colossal mistake?

I lifted my overnight bag to the bed, unzipped it, and pulled out my pajamas. Stomping into the bathroom, I tossed the pj’s on the toilet seat, started up the shower, and began to strip.

I came to an abrupt halt when I caught sight of my reflection in the eight-foot-long bathroom mirror. I looked like the Wild Woman of Borneo, my cheeks flushed with fury, my eyes wide and wild. Even my hair seemed to be in on the act, standing electrified, as though I’d stuck my finger into a light socket.

How dare she call me a gold digger? The woman didn’t even know me. And she’d already tried to turn Tom’s daughters against me. What kind of monster would poison a child’s mind like that?

I had half a mind to march back downstairs and tell the woman exactly what was what. I’d never been one to mince words or to retreat from a fight. If there was one thing I’d learned firsthand from my dad, it was that quitters never win. Dave Hanrahan had been the poster child for how not to live your life. He’d allowed a run of bad luck, a few lousy decisions, and the hazy comfort of alcohol to destroy his future. Because I’d been witness to his slow and painful deterioration, I’d vowed that I would never let life defeat me the way Dad had. No matter what, I stood up for myself and for what I believed in. And I never, ever backed down.

But, damn it, the woman was Tom’s mother.

And I was the woman who wore Tom’s wedding ring.

Scooping my hair back from my face with both hands, I let out a ragged breath. None of this was his fault. I couldn’t blame Tom because his mother was a monster. He already knew that. He’d been living with the woman for nearly forty years. That was punishment enough for a lifetime. How could I justify giving him the added burden of lunatic behavior?

So I didn’t go back downstairs. For tonight, I’d let it go. Today had been stressful for everyone. Maybe tomorrow, in the clear light of day, things would look different. Maybe tomorrow, after things settled down, Jeannette would see the error of her ways.

But as I stood in the shower, steaming hot water pounding down on my shoulders, I wasn’t at all sure it would happen. Tom’s mother seemed so unyielding that I wondered if there was more going on here than I was privy to. Was there some deep, dark secret that Tom hadn’t bothered to tell me? Was it possible that Jeannette’s train had simply run off the tracks? There’d been something in that look Tom and his brother exchanged at the airport, something about their mother that remained unspoken but understood by both of them. I couldn’t help wondering if a woman so determined to deprive her son of happiness might be a little unbalanced. Would a sane, rational woman attempt to poison the minds of her grandchildren because she didn’t want their father remarrying? No matter how I looked at it, there was no rational explanation for her behavior.

One thing I did know as I stepped from the shower and toweled my hair dry: I’d never felt so alone in my life. Not even after my baby died and the world became a barren, empty place. This was far worse. The world after Angel’s death had been indifferent to my pain; I’d experienced none of the malevolence, none of the deliberate and focused hatred, that I felt here in this house.

I was wrapped in my fluffy white chenille robe, yanking a brush through my wet hair, when Tom came back. He closed the bedroom door quietly behind him. Brush in hand, I paused between strokes. Our eyes met: his uncertain, mine accusing. “Hi,” he said.

“I heard you,” I said bluntly. “In the kitchen. Arguing.”

He grimaced. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

“Jules,” he said, “I’m so sorry.”

“That makes two of us. I don’t understand, Tom. Make me understand.”

“I don’t know what to say. My mother’s overprotective. She’s always been that way.”

Overprotective? Was that what he called it? If so, we might as well be speaking different languages. “I can think of a few other adjectives that fit even better,” I said. “How about mean? Spiteful? Vicious? Just for starters.”

“I don’t have a response for you, Jules, because you’re right.” He raked slender, pale fingers through his dark hair. “I knew things would be a little awkward. I knew she wouldn’t be happy about our marriage. But I never thought she’d be insulting to you.”

“She called me a gold digger! And my father a wastrel!”

“And if you were paying attention, you know that I stood up for you.”

“Yes. You did. And I’m grateful. But if this is the way she’s going to treat me, I’m not sure how long I can refrain from giving her a large piece of my mind.”

“Aw, honey.” He took a step toward me. “She’ll adjust. Just give her a little time.”

“That’s not everything, Tom. There’s more.” I told him what Taylor had said to me, the terrible things his mother had taught her, and he winced as if in pain.

“Christ, Mom,” he muttered, rubbing his face with his hands. “What the hell are you thinking?”

I hated to see him this way. Hated even worse knowing I was the one who’d put that look on his face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to tell you, but I thought you should know.”

“I swear to God, Jules, I had no idea I was bringing you into this kind of nightmare. I wouldn’t blame you if you walked away. It would kill me, but I wouldn’t blame you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I take my marriage vows seriously. For better or for worse, remember? I’ll do whatever it takes to win her over. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll just have to learn to live with her. Somehow.” The picture that painted in my mind was bleak enough that I had to shove it aside.

“I’m not sure it could get much worse. This isn’t fair to you. It’s unacceptable. If Mom keeps this up, she’ll have to live somewhere else.”

Aghast, I said, “You can’t throw her out, Tom. She’s your mother.”

“And you’re my wife! There’s another vow you should remember: forsaking all others. Yes, she’s my mother. But you’re my family now. You and the girls. If she’s determined to come between us—” he scowled “—or between you and my daughters, I won’t allow it.”

I wasn’t sure if I felt better or worse. It was a comfort to know that Tom was solidly in my corner. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be responsible for the dissolution of his family. Wishing I could avoid asking, but knowing I couldn’t, I said, “Tom? What did your mother mean when she told Taylor I wouldn’t last any longer than any of the others?”

My husband rolled his eyes. “All those others,” he said. “All the screaming, swooning hordes of women I’ve dated since Elizabeth died.”

This was one thing we hadn’t talked about, not in detail. His sexual history. Mine. We’d been too busy falling for each other to get around to the topic of our collective romantic past. At first, we hadn’t thought much about it. Once we were married, it didn’t seem to matter.

But now, suddenly, it did. “Have there been screaming, swooning hordes?” I asked.

“Come on, Jules. Do I look like Jon Bon Jovi to you?”

In my book, he looked far better than Jon. Which was saying a lot. But he was deliberately missing the point. “I’m serious, Tom. How many were there?”

He crossed the room to me and took my hand. “Elizabeth’s been dead for two years.” He tucked a strand of wet hair behind my ear. “I haven’t lived like a monk. I’ve dated a few women. None of them stuck around. None of them stuck around because I wasn’t serious about any of them. I swear, Jules, you’re the only one who ever screamed or swooned.”

Coyly, I said, “I don’t seem to recall any swooning.”

He leaned over me and buried his nose in my hair. “You smell so good. What’s that scent you’re wearing?”

“Strawberry. It’s my shampoo.”

“Don’t ever stop using it.” His chin brushed my temple, his five o’clock shadow grazing my skin. His breath warm on my ear, he crooned softly: “Julie, Julie, Julie, do you love me?”

“Stop,” I said weakly. It was a private joke between us, that hokey old Bobby Sherman song. “Please stop.”

“You know you love it. So tell me, Jules, is the honeymoon over yet?”

I toyed with a strand of his hair and said, “Not quite yet.”

“Then why are we wasting time? Hand over your weapon.”

I gaped at him stupidly until he pried the hairbrush I’d been brandishing from my fingers. “You could do a lot of harm with that thing,” he said, “depending on where you’re aiming it.”

“Ouch.”

“Exactly. So what do you say, Mrs. Larkin? Time to end the foreplay and cut right to the main event?”

I flashed him a huge grin and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”

It was hours later and inky dark when his cell phone rang. Peeling his naked body away from mine, Tom fumbled on the nightstand until he located the offending object. He cleared his throat and said, “Dr. Larkin.” Listened a moment, then said, “Yes, of course. Not a problem.”

I raised my head and looked at the clock, then hooked an arm around him and pressed my cheek against his sleek, broad back. Leaning into me, he said, “How far apart are the pains?” A pause. Then, “All right. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

He hung up the phone and turned to me. “Sorry, Jules. Gotta go.”

Sleepily, I said, “It’s two-thirty in the morning.”

“Might as well get used to it. Life would be a lot easier if babies were courteous enough to plan their arrivals between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.” He kissed the tip of my nose and left the bed. I listened as he dressed in the darkness, then walked to the window and peered through the blind. Quietly, he said, “Looks like the storm’s over.”

“Be careful anyway.”

“Always. Go back to sleep, Jules.”

When I woke again, the blinds were open, the sun was pouring in, and the clock read 8:37. I rolled over and spied the note propped against Tom’s pillow. Didn’t want to wake you, it read, you looked so beautiful asleep. Make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa. Literally. Oh—if you want to go anywhere, the Land Rover’s all yours. Keys are hanging in the kitchen. Can’t wait to see you tonight. Love, T.

Smiling, I lay back against the pillow. I must’ve been dead to the world, because I’d never heard him return, never heard him leave a second time. It must have been the fresh Maine air or something. I got up, showered and dressed, then headed downstairs, anticipating a run-in with the dragon lady. But the house was deserted, silent, the morning sun flooding the kitchen with warmth. My new mother-in-law must be a cog in the wheel of the American workforce. Or else she’d fled the house because she didn’t want to deal with me any more than I wanted to deal with her. Wasn’t that the way with most passive-aggressive types? They tended to avoid conflict. And being nice to my face, then talking trash behind my back, was classic passive-aggressive behavior.

Or maybe she was just a two-faced bitch.

With some satisfaction, I pondered that possibility before telling myself to let it go or it would spoil my day. And what a day it was! Abundant sunshine and cloudless cerulean skies. Not a hint of the storm that had raged a few hours earlier. Except, of course, the damage it had left behind. With a bowl of Cheerios in hand, I flung open the French doors that led to the patio and stepped outside. The lawn was littered with branches, leaves and assorted debris. A small tree had been uprooted, and it lay forlorn, felled by the storm’s fury. I found a wooden chair that wasn’t too wet and sat down to eat my breakfast. A pair of bright yellow birds flew past, darting and swooping and twittering before they disappeared in the branches of a massive elm tree. I thought they might be goldfinches, but I wasn’t sure. On the ground beneath the bird feeder, a cluster of sparrows pecked at spilled seed.

Around the corner of the house, a chain saw started up, its obnoxious whine tearing a jagged hole in the smooth fabric of the morning. Startled by the noise, the sparrows scattered. I finished my Cheerios and went back inside to put the bowl and spoon in the dishwasher. Then I went in search of the chain saw.

It wasn’t hard to find. The noise level was appalling. In Riley’s capable hands, the lime-green monster sang its own peculiar aria, the whine working its way up and down the scale. Dressed in a Hard Rock T-shirt, jeans, and safety glasses, Tom’s brother finessed the saw with smooth, efficient motions. The branch that had fallen was as big around as my waist, and the chain saw protested loudly as he sliced it into neat, foot-long segments. I stood watching him until he became aware of my scrutiny. Then he took a step back, turned off the chain saw, and removed his safety glasses.

Birdsong filled the sudden silence, and for an instant I felt awkward, remembering what he’d witnessed last night and wishing he hadn’t. “Sleep well?” he said.

“As well as can be expected.” I raised a hand to shade my eyes from the bright sun. I knew we were both thinking about our last meeting. I might as well bring it into the open instead of dancing around it. “Your mother,” I said, “doesn’t seem to like me.”

Fiddling with the pull cord to the chain saw, he said, “You did seem to bring out the worst in her.”

“It’s a talent,” I said.

He balanced the butt of the saw against his booted foot. “I wouldn’t let her get to me if I were you.”

“I don’t intend to. I’m indomitable.”

He studied me with blue eyes very much like Tom’s. And the corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah,” he said. “I can see that.”

“So where, exactly, is she this morning? Your sainted mother?”

“She’s at work. Tessie’s Bark and Bath.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tessie’s Bark and Bath?”

He grinned. “Mom’s a dog groomer.”

“And I’ll bet she frightens the poor things into submission.” Changing the subject, I pointed to the pile of wood he’d cut. “This pine branch is enormous. What’ll you do with all this wood?”

“Split it. Stack it. Come winter, it’ll keep the house warm.”

“Winter,” I said. “That seems like such a foreign concept. I’m a Southern California girl. I’m used to sunshine. The beach. I’ve never done winter. Does it really get as cold as I’ve heard?”

“Take whatever you’re expecting and multiply it by ten. February may be the shortest month, but it’s also the coldest. And the darkest. You’ll want to buy an extra-warm coat. Fur-lined boots. Thick gloves. And a wool scarf. That is, assuming you’re still here come February.”

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Are you saying there’s some reason I might not be here?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“She’s not going to drive me away, Riley.”

“I didn’t say that, either. It’s just—”

“What?”

His blue eyes studied me, but I couldn’t decipher what was going on behind them. “Nothing,” he said. “I have to get back to work. This tree won’t get cut up by itself.”

I stepped away as Riley fired up the chain saw. He adjusted his safety goggles, nodded to me, and went back to cutting.

I suspected I’d been snubbed, although I wasn’t wholly certain. But I was definitely starting to feel as if I’d stepped through the looking glass and into some otherworldly dimension where everything was a little off center.

But I didn’t allow myself to wallow in it; I had no sympathy for people who sat around bemoaning their fates. Pity parties aren’t my style. I had far too much to do. Since I’d decided against making a run for it, I needed to unpack and try to find space for all my things in Tom’s bedroom. Our bedroom, I reminded myself.

I headed back to the house, rummaged through my purse for a notebook and pen, and sat at the kitchen table to make a list of what needed doing. I’m a compulsive list-maker. I simply can’t seem to stop. Jeffrey used to make fun of me because of it, but list-making helps me keep my life organized and running on track. If I didn’t make lists, I’d never remember anything. I use them in both my private and business life, and my friends and coworkers always point out how utterly organized I am. I just smile enigmatically and accept the compliment, while mentally thumbing my nose at my ex-husband. What can I say? Sometimes even a mature woman has to let her inner child out once in a while.

First on the list: Go to bank. I’d already closed my bank account and had the balance transferred electronically to Tom’s account, but I still had to drop by the bank and fill out paperwork to make it official. I’d managed to put away a small amount of money in savings, and the sale of my Miata had added a couple thousand to that. I’d hated selling my car, and I’d nearly cried when the used car salesman drove it away. But Tom had said that come winter, the sports car would be useless in the snow, and he’d promised to replace it with a brand-new four-wheel-drive SUV of my choice. So I’d caved. My life in California was over. Big changes were taking place. If I intended to live year-round in Maine, I needed to start acting like a Mainer. I would drive the SUV, even if my heart did secretly ache for a two-seater sports coupe.

Items two, three and four on the list were more housekeeping stuff: Get a Maine driver’s license, Apply for a new social security card, and Notify credit card company of new name and address. Item five was more generic: Contact old friends I’ve lost touch with. People I talked to once or twice a year, exchanged Christmas cards with. Old school chums, friends of my dad, people Jeffrey and I used to socialize with. A couple of great-aunts. People I had little in common with, but that I didn’t want to lose complete contact with.

I paused at number six. Chewing absently at the cap of my Bic pen, I pondered. At some point, Tom and I needed to figure out where to store my household belongings, which were in a moving van headed east on an Interstate highway somewhere between California and Maine. My entire life, packed into a green-and-yellow box truck. The ETA was next Sunday; I expected it would take me some time to go through everything and decide what to use, what to keep in storage, and what to discard. But we hadn’t yet discussed where the boxes and furniture would go in the interim. Number six: Talk to Tom about storage! I underlined it, then circled it several times in heavy black ink just in case there was any chance I might miss it next time I looked.

I thought about putting Find a job on the list. I’d been working since I was fifteen. No slacker, I’d worked my way through college, then bounced around the L.A. job scene for a couple of years before I landed at Phoenix. There, I worked my way up the ladder to store manager. I’d always been a high-energy person, and it seemed odd to have no place I needed to be every morning at eight, hi-test cup of java in hand.

But looking for a job now would be pointless. Tom and I had talked it over, and in January, I was going back to school to get my master’s degree. I’d been thinking about it for some time now. Although I’d loved my job at Phoenix, I didn’t aspire to a career in retail. Actually, to my surprise, I’d realized that what I most wanted to do was teach. My degree in business management hadn’t prepared me for that particular career choice, so it was time to hit the books again. Tom had been extremely supportive, reassuring me that he was fully capable of supporting me financially while I trained for a new career.

When my list was as complete as I could make it, I went back upstairs to unpack. The master bedroom suite had been designed with his-and-hers walk-in closets. I opened the door of the left-hand closet and found Tom’s clothes, his suits and shirts and pants, arranged by color and hung with care, evenly spaced a half-inch apart. His shoes were lined up neatly on two shelves. Some fancy contraption built into the wall held his neckties, hung with a meticulousness that prevented any one tie from touching any other. Good God. I hoped he didn’t expect me to share his neatness fetish. I generally took off my clothes and flung them. If I managed to hit the chair instead of the floor, I figured I was doing exceptionally well.

Because snooping in my husband’s closet seemed like an invasion of his privacy, I closed the door and moved to the other closet. Not so much as a dust bunny inhabited its vacant space. Ditto for the bureau drawers. Tom kept his underwear and socks—stacked with razor-sharp precision—in the upright dresser. The bureau must have been Elizabeth’s territory. I was a little surprised to find no evidence that she had ever lived here. No clothes, no knickknacks, no wedding photos, no froufrou female stuff. At some point after her death, Tom had removed all her belongings. Now that I thought about it, I’d seen no evidence of her presence anywhere in this house. Downstairs, photos of the girls were displayed here and there: school photos as well as candids of them with Tom, and with their grandmother and their uncle Riley. But not a single likeness of Elizabeth graced the house.

I wondered why this made me uneasy. It seemed odd that a man who’d loved his wife, a man who’d spent years with her and made babies with her, would keep no physical reminders of her after she was gone. No little personal objects, no mementos of any kind. It was as if the moment Elizabeth was gone, Tom had tried to pretend she’d never existed.

Had their marriage been unhappy? Tom hadn’t mentioned any problems with his first marriage, so I’d simply assumed theirs had been a satisfactory union. On the other hand, I hadn’t bothered to ask. For all I knew, they could have been on the verge of divorce when Elizabeth died. If there were problems, that might explain why all trace of her was gone from the house.

Trying to rationalize away my unease, I told myself I was probably just identifying too closely with Tom’s late wife. More than likely, my subconscious was wondering what would happen if I died. Whether I, too, would be erased from this house as though I’d never set foot inside it.

Because that thought bothered me more than I cared to admit, I distracted myself with unpacking. It didn’t take long; I’d traveled light. Most of my clothes were packed away on that moving van. Until they arrived, I’d manage quite nicely with the jeans and casual shirts I’d brought with me. I’d packed only one “serious” dress, and I doubted I’d be needing it here; I couldn’t imagine that, as the wife of a small-town Maine doctor, I’d have many formal social engagements.

I managed to fill one bureau drawer, and I hung the rest of my clothes in the closet. They looked pathetic hanging in all that empty space, as did my toiletries, lined up on one end of the massive white marble bathroom counter. I sneaked a peek in one of the medicine cabinets. Empty. I opened the other and found Tom’s toiletries—razor, toothbrush, deodorant, aftershave—all shelved neatly, again carefully spaced so that no two objects touched. I closed the cabinet, looked at my cluster of mismatched items cluttering up the counter, and decided to move them to the empty medicine cabinet, where my neatnik husband wouldn’t be forced to look at them every time he walked into the room.

It was an improvement. I closed the mirrored door on my hair care products and perfumes, returning the powder room to its formerly immaculate state. Because I had no excuse to kill any more time up here, I headed back down to the kitchen. I still had the whole house all to myself. Except for Riley, but he was still outside, wielding the chain saw with its ferocious growl.

I took the keys to the Land Rover from the hook in the kitchen, let myself out the screen door, and marched over to where my brother-in-law was working. He shut down the saw and watched me approach. “Can you give me directions? I need to go to Tom’s bank, the DMV, and the social security office.”

He swiped at his brow with a shirtsleeve, picked up a bottle of water, and took a long swig. “The bank’s downtown,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “First National Bank on Main Street. You can’t miss it. Social security office is in the federal building across the street from the bank. Second floor, above the post office. The nearest DMV office is in Portland.”

I thanked him and headed across the lawn to the driveway. It wasn’t until I got into the Land Rover that I discovered it was a stick shift. Crap on a cracker. My Miata had been an automatic. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Bright yellow, automatic, four-cylinder convertible. You’re thinking, chick car. I plead guilty as charged. But I liked driving an automatic, and I was a disaster with a stick. Jeffrey had tried once to teach me how to drive his five-speed Corolla, but the lesson had been a catastrophe I didn’t want to repeat. The shifting part I got down without much trouble. It was the clutch, the dreaded clutch, that was my downfall.

In theory, I understood how it worked. The clutch goes to the floor, the car starts, the clutch comes up slowly as the gas pedal goes down. When it catches, you give it more gas and ease the clutch the rest of the way up. It sounds so simple, but a crucial piece of the puzzle, the kinetic understanding of when to ease up on the clutch and when to press down on the gas, had thus far eluded me. I could probably manage to drive the damn thing, but it would be a herky-jerky, humiliating experience.

My options ran the gamut from A to B. A, I could stay home, tell Tom that I couldn’t drive a standard shift, and see what happened. Or, B, I could teach myself to drive the car, no matter how humiliating it might be.

I thought about my determination not to let life defeat me. Thought about my dad, who had. Thought about how I’d survived the death of my newborn, and the subsequent death of my marriage. I was a strong woman. An intelligent woman. A determined woman. I’d survived the loss of everyone I loved, then moved on and started life over with Tom. I’d moved three thousand miles away from home to be with him. If I could do all that, I could drive this damn car.

I took a breath, pressed the clutch to the floor, and turned the key. The engine roared to life. So far, so good. I locked the seat belt into place, made sure the shifter was in first gear, then slowly, smoothly, eased up on the clutch with my left foot while stepping on the accelerator with the right.

The car lurched forward and came to a rocking, shuddering halt.

A trickle of sweat ran down my spine. I started the engine again. Concentrating hard, again I eased up on the clutch. This time, I gave it a little more gas than I had the first time. When I felt the car begin to roll, I stepped down hard on the gas pedal and let up on the clutch. The engine roared, and I actually managed to move forward a couple of feet before coming to a stop so abrupt that if I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt, the windshield and I would have experienced a close personal encounter.

I was not having fun. I wiped sweat from my eyes and bit down on my lower lip. Concentrate, I told myself silently. Just concentrate. You can DO this. I let up on the clutch and pressed the gas, and the car jerked and shuddered so hard my teeth clacked together.

“Fuck,” I said, thumping the palms of my hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Having a little trouble?”

I flushed crimson when I saw Riley standing there. “Go away,” I said. “I really don’t need a witness to my mortification.”

“You’re thinking too hard. You don’t drive a car by thinking. You drive by feel.”

Slumped over the steering wheel like a beach ball with a puncture wound, I said, “Then I believe my feeling apparatus is faulty.”

“No, it isn’t. Slide over.”

“I thought you had work to do.”

“It’ll still be there when I get back. Go ahead. Scoot over.”

I climbed awkwardly over the gearshift and plunked down hard on the passenger seat. Riley slid in behind the wheel, started the car, and together we listened to the purr of the engine.

“You can’t think your way through it,” he said. “You have to turn off your brain and tune into the vehicle. Become one with the car. Feel what it’s feeling.”

“How new age-y. Will we be hearing Yanni playing in the background anytime soon?”

“It has nothing to do with any new age bullshit. Close your eyes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer. Just do it.”

“You know, your family might be a little unusual…but you certainly aren’t boring people.” I closed my eyes and waited for what would happen next.

“Instead of thinking,” he said, “I want you to use your other senses. Hear the sound of the engine. Feel the vibrations. Let the car tell you what it wants.”

“Whatever you say, Yoda.”

“Stop being a wiseass and pay attention. We’re going to take a little spin around the block, and you’re going to feel how I drive the car. Without filtering it through your left brain thinking mechanism. No talking. Just feel.”

Eyes squeezed tightly shut, I gamely settled back against the passenger seat. This little experiment was doomed to failure, but I was a good sport, and it wasn’t as though I had anything to do that wouldn’t wait.

But a funny thing happened on the way to failure. As we cruised the suburban streets of Newmarket, Maine, population 8,931, I began to get a sense of what he’d been trying to tell me. Experiencing the motions of the car, listening to the up-and-down hum of the rpm’s, I thought I understood. Just a little.

Until he pulled over. “Your turn,” he said.

He left the shifter in neutral and the parking brake on, and we swapped places. “Remember what I said,” he told me. “Don’t think. Just feel.”

“Do I get to keep my eyes closed while I drive?”

He reached around behind him, found the seat belt, locked and tightened it. “No.”

“I sort of figured you’d say that.”

I made a couple of false starts. “When you feel it start to catch,” he instructed, “synchronize your left and right foot. Don’t think about it. Feel it catch, feel the car start to move, feel how much gas it needs, and follow through.”

Right. Like that was going to happen. But this time, I actually got the car moving. No shuddering, no jerking. Just a smooth ride down the street. I shifted at the proper time, with a minimum of disturbance, and Riley nodded.

“You’re a good student,” he said.

“I do all right once I’m moving. It’s the stopping and starting that bother me the most. Where to?”

“Keep going straight.” Apparently without fear of imminent death, he slumped comfortably on his tailbone and stretched out his legs. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“All righty then.” I upshifted until I reached cruising speed, then sneaked a glance at him from the corner of my eye. “So,” I said. “What’s the story with you and Tom?”

I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept mine on the road. “What story?” he said.

“Don’t be oblique. It’s obvious to anybody who isn’t deaf, dumb and blind that there’s some kind of bad blood between the two of you.”

“Maybe you should be asking Tom.”

“Tom’s not here,” I said brightly. “So I’m asking you.”

Riley casually pressed the button for the car window. A little too casually, I thought. The window lowered with a soft hiss and he turned his face to the fresh air. “There’s no bad blood,” he said, scrutinizing the passing scenery. “We just don’t always see eye to eye. Maybe you’ve noticed that we don’t have a lot in common.”

Looking at him, with his torn T-shirt, wrinkled jeans and shaggy hair, I thought of my husband. Thought of his buttoned-down neatness, his trim haircut, his meticulously clean fingernails with the cuticles pushed back to reveal the white half-moons. Thought of his closet, the clothes hung with such precision that he could have measured the distance between them with a ruler. “Yes,” I agreed, “I think it’s safe to say that your styles don’t quite mesh.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“What’s another way?”

He thrust his arm out the window and held it there, his palm open to deflect the wind as we drove. “Tom,” he said, waggling his fingers, “was always the golden boy. Star quarterback, class president, head of the debate club. National Honor Society. Prom king. Everybody loved him. Everybody knew he’d go far. He played basketball. Soccer. Golf, for Christ’s sake.”

“Golf?” I said skeptically.

“Stupidest game ever invented.”

“And what did you play?”

“The Doors and Kurt Cobain, for the most part.”

It explained a lot. “So you were one of those anti-establishment types.”

Riley drew his arm back into the car. “I was a loser. That was my assigned role in the family. While Tom was out running touchdowns and winning awards and getting laid by every blue-eyed blond cheerleader in sight, I was sitting in my room with the curtains closed, smoking weed, contemplating my teenage angst, and plucking minor chords on my Gibson.”

“It must’ve been hard,” I said, “growing up in his shadow.”

“It was torture. Everyone thought he was God. That he could do no wrong. I was always being compared to him, and always falling short. I wasn’t perfect like he was. I was actually capable of making mistakes. I wasn’t interested in the same things Tom was. Athletics bored me to tears. I was into music. I wasn’t a clone of my brother, and it made people uncomfortable. They didn’t understand me. Because I wasn’t like Tom, I must be defective in some way.” His voice held no bitterness; he was simply stating facts. “It never occurred to anybody that there was nothing wrong with me, that I just needed to be me.”

“So you rebelled.”

“I smoked and drank and raised hell. I totaled a couple of cars, got into fights, got kicked out of school two or three times. I didn’t go looking for trouble, it just seemed to follow me around. Which, of course, made my faultless older brother look even better. If they’d only known.” When he smiled, his eyes crinkled the way Tom’s did. “Tommy wasn’t anywhere near as perfect as Mom wanted to believe.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t a bad kid. Just a normal one. He did his share of wild and crazy things, only he was smarter than me. He never got caught. But everybody—the entire town—had him on a pedestal. It wasn’t any easier on Tommy, growing up here, than it was on me. That’s the big drawback to living in a small town. Everybody knows you, or at least they think they do. You get a certain reputation, a label, and it sticks. The perfect kid. The troublemaker. In a small town like Newmarket, those labels are the kiss of death, because people wear blinders. They see exactly what they expect to see, and nothing more. Most of them wouldn’t know the truth if it hit ’em upside the head.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why should you be? You had nothing to do with it. It all happened a long time ago.”

“Maybe so. But a lousy childhood sucks, no matter who or where you are. How did Tom deal with it?”

“He played the game, the same as I did. Except that it was a different game he played. After Dad died, as far as Mom was concerned, it was Tommy who’d be our savior. He was the good son, the one who always did exactly what was expected of him. It was actually easier on me, because I was the invisible one. Everybody’s attention was so focused on Tom that most of the time, they forgot I was even there. I did pretty much whatever I wanted. Tom was the one who toed the line. He graduated with honors, went to college on a full athletic scholarship. Continued on to medical school. Married Elizabeth, started his own practice, and started raising a family. He’s almost forty years old, and he’s still doing what Mom wants him to do.”

“Not necessarily,” I pointed out. “He did marry me.”

“His one act of rebellion. I have to admit I was impressed when I heard what he’d done. It was so out of character. Turn left at the next intersection.”

Following his directions, I lost speed during the turn. The car shuddered and nearly stalled, but I feathered the accelerator and pulled out of it. Riley nodded approvingly.

“And you,” I said, once I’d upshifted again, “it looks as though you’re still playing your assigned role, too. Bad boy. Prodigal son.”

“We humans are most comfortable with the roles we find most familiar.”

“There’s another little ditty I’ve heard: Familiarity breeds contempt.”

“I manage to sleep quite nicely at night, thank you, in spite of being the black sheep of the family.”

“Good for you,” I said, not sure I really meant it. Riley was the classic underachiever, and I identified with him more closely than I wanted to admit. It wasn’t necessarily an admirable trait. “Can I ask you something else?”

“I doubt I could stop you if I wanted to.”

“Tell me about Elizabeth.”

Silence. It stretched out for an endless five seconds before he said, “Why?” There was something in his voice, something that hadn’t been there before, but I couldn’t identify it. “Shouldn’t that be Tom’s job?”

It was too embarrassing to admit that my husband had told me virtually nothing about his first wife. Instead, I left Tom out of the equation. “I want to hear what you have to say about her. For starters, why aren’t there any pictures of her in the house?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask. I don’t even live there anymore. I have my own apartment, upstairs over the carriage house.”

“It just seems odd. If only for the sake of the girls, there should be something. But it’s as though she never lived there.”

“The Lord and my family both move in mysterious ways. I gave up years ago trying to figure either of them out.”

“Then tell me about her. What was she like?”

“She was the ideal life partner for my brother, so much like him it was nauseating.”

“In what ways?”

“She was perfect. Maybe a little too perfect. Smart, pretty. Not in a glamorous way. More a Katie Couric than a Sharon Stone. Elizabeth was the quintessential freckle-faced girl-next-door. She was a cheerleader in high school, one of those girls you love to hate, except that in her case, it was impossible. Nobody could hate Beth. She was sweet, in a genuine way that softened the heart of even the hardest cynic.”

“So you liked her.”

“Everybody liked her. Just like Tom, she was universally loved, and placed on a pedestal by the good citizens of our fair city.”

Wondering how I could possibly measure up to this paragon of virtue, I took a deep breath and tightened my fingers on the steering wheel. “Did she and Tom have a good marriage?”

I could feel his eyes on me again. “Julie,” he said, “you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I can’t answer that question. Nobody knows what goes on inside somebody else’s marriage.”

“Of course not. But you must have an opinion, based on what you witnessed. Did they seem happy together?”

Riley shifted position and stared out the window. “I’m probably not the person most qualified to judge.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I guess you could call it a conflict of interest.” He turned away from the window, and when his eyes met mine, I saw something in them that looked an awful lot like resentment. “You see, before my brother stole her away, Beth was engaged to me.”