Читать книгу Because You Loved Me - M. William Phelps - Страница 11

The morning of August 6, 2003, began without complication for forty-three-year-old Chris McGowan. A pleasant, reserved, middle-class Irishman, enjoying what were the best days of his life, Chris opened his eyes at 6:00 A.M. to the sound of the alarm clock buzzing in his ear. After a few moments of silence, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, Chris slipped into the shower, shaved and, after putting on a pair of Dockers and a Polo shirt, bent down and gave his fiancée, Jeanne Dominico, a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll see you at work later on, honey,” he said. It was one of the more memorable moments of Chris’s day: waking up and seeing Jeanne next to him.

“OK,” whispered Jeanne. She was still half-asleep, bleary-eyed.

After a quick bite to eat, with the morning newspaper downstairs, Chris headed out the door, being sure to lock it behind him. Greeting the pine-scented air of Nashua, New Hampshire, the same way he had every other morning, Chris took in a deep breath, relishing the peacefulness of the New England town he had called home for a better part of his life.

As Chris approached his car, the sun was just beginning to light up the New Hampshire skyline over the mountains off to the north. Already 71 degrees by 6:50 A.M., with a forecast promising humidity levels near 80 percent and temperatures into the mid-to-upper 80s by noon, it was a tranquil morning, as most were in Nashua, so gracefully beautiful in its launch. Save for a few cars on Route 101A nearby, all Chris heard as he got into his vehicle was the chirp of the birds and rustle of the wind moving the trees gingerly back and forth. Having been born in Norwood, Massachusetts, fifty miles south, spending four years in New Jersey during the 1980s, Chris took comfort in the unadorned, slow pace of life in the Northeast.

“Nashua is home, pleasant and peaceful,” Chris later remarked. “I have lived other places, but I don’t feel like I’m home unless I’m in Nashua.”

From Jeanne Dominico’s house on Dumaine Avenue, located northwest of downtown, it was a short drive for Chris—about twenty minutes—to work at Oxford Health Plans on Central Park Drive in the town of Hooksett. Leaving Jeanne’s driveway, downtown Nashua was a ten-minute ride east on Amherst (Route 101A), following the train tracks running in back of Jeanne’s house, by Boire Field, Daniel Webster College and the contemporary homes dotted about Broad Acres. On those work nights when Chris stayed at Jeanne’s, he liked to leave the house early the following morning. Arriving at his desk before most of his coworkers allowed Chris the opportunity to go over his schedule for the day and plan appointments. Jeanne, who worked for the same company, generally showed up an hour later, around 8:30 A.M. Both Chris and Jeanne worked on group contracts for the Benefits, Brokers and Administration department. Jeanne was the mother of two teenagers. It was important to her to be able to make sure the kids were prepared for the day before she left the house: food, rides over to friends, soccer and baseball practice. She couldn’t keep a leash on them all day long while school was on summer break, but she could certainly make sure they understood she cared about what they did and where they went while she was at work.

Jeanne Dominico was preparing to celebrate her forty-fourth birthday on August 29, 2003, a matter of weeks away. Chris McGowan didn’t have anything special planned for his fiancée, other than dinner, drinks, Jeanne’s kids and friends around her. Just the way she’d want it. Born in 1959, Jeanne was one month older than Chris. It had turned into a joke between them. “I like older women, what can I say?” Chris jabbed jokingly while they were out with friends one night.

Jeanne smiled, laughed. Rapping him on the shoulder, she said, “Stop that.”

Since they had started dating back in 2000, staying the night at Jeanne’s house during the week wasn’t something Chris was all that fond of doing. For Chris, the house could get chaotic and cramped at times. It was a standard New England Cape Cod–style home: two small bedrooms downstairs, a tiny eat-in kitchen, one bathroom, and a bedroom for Jeanne’s only daughter upstairs, converted from an attic.

“There really wasn’t a lot of room,” recalled Chris. “Especially with two teenagers trying to get ready for school and Jeannie getting ready for work. That’s really the only reason why I didn’t sleep over that much during the week.”

Chris remembered the moment he met Jeanne. It was such a vivid recollection because it was his first day on the job at Oxford. Jeanne, who worked two part-time jobs on top of her full-time gig at Oxford, had been with the company for years. Both had been assigned to the same department and started training on the same day. Since her divorce from Anthony “Tony” Kasinskas in 1999, Jeanne’s focus had been on the two kids: fifteen-year-old Nicole and fourteen-year-old Drew (pseudonyms appear in italics on first occurrence). While she was at work, the kids had the run of the house. Jeanne worried about them, like any single parent, but trusted they’d make the right decisions when faced with difficult situations.

She is so different, Chris thought, staring at Jeanne, sizing her up on that day they met. Her hands held a faultless delicate mixture of femininity and ruggedness; Chris could tell she was a hard worker, yet also took the time to have her nails polished and painted, as any woman might. Her straight hair, short, cut around the ears and just to the nape of her neck, had a faint reddish tint to it that accentuated the pronounced brown burnish it held in the light. Chris was taken with Jeanne’s eyes: a pale blue, just wonderful. Her face, too, was different, but then again so darn lovable; she had pudgy cheeks that bulged outward when she smiled, cute and definitive. There was no other woman Chris knew (or had ever met) who could exude such charm and eloquence with just the simple facial expression of a smile. Before he could mutter a word on that day, it was Jeanne’s grin, that same mannerism her friends and neighbors later called “contagious” and “infectious,” that had grabbed Chris. He felt comfortable and weak at the same time.