Читать книгу What We Remember - Michael Thomas Ford - Страница 15

1991

It was hard for Celeste to believe that Adam was five and Mary was soon to be four. It seemed to her that she had been pregnant only a few months ago. Now she was getting Adam ready for kindergarten. And it was proving to be something of a battle. She wanted him to wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, but he was insisting on shorts and a T-shirt with a Transformers picture on it. She decided to compromise on jeans and the T-shirt.

“Okay,” Adam said doubtfully. “But no jacket.”

“Deal,” Celeste agreed. “Now go downstairs and eat your breakfast. I’ll be down in a minute.”

She watched her son run off, listening to his little feet as they thudded down the stairs. Why were boys always so loud? Nate was the same, always banging around. Girls were so much quieter. So much easier, she thought as she looked around Adam’s room. It looked as if a tornado had recently swept through, strewing toys and books and clothes everywhere. She’d cleaned it just the other day, and it had taken Adam approximately fifteen minutes once he’d gotten home to undo two hours of work.

She shut the door to his room. She would deal with the mess later. Right now she had to make sure Mary was dressed. Adam, being more stubborn, required more attention in the morning. With him at the breakfast stage of the daily ritual she could now turn her attention to her daughter.

“How do I look?” Mary asked as Celeste entered her room. She was standing in front of the mirror, admiring her outfit of pink corduroy pants and a white sweater. She’d even combed her hair, although not terribly well, and put it into a lopsided ponytail.

“You look beautiful,” Celeste assured her, slipping the elastic from her hair and picking up a brush from the dresser. “You just need a little tweaking.”

Mary giggled. “Tweaking,” she repeated.

A minute later, Celeste and Mary entered the kitchen, where they found Nate and Adam seated at the table. Adam was eating cereal; a glance showed Celeste that it was of the brightly colored variety.

“I thought I told you no Froot Loops,” she scolded Nate. “Oatmeal, remember?”

“I couldn’t find it,” Nate answered without looking up from the paper. “Besides, the box says this has vitamins and whatever.”

“The ‘whatever’ being about six cups of sugar,” said Celeste. “And you don’t have to deal with him when he’s all wound up, or when he crashes and starts whining.”

“I want Froot Loops!” Mary announced, eyeing her brother’s bowl.

Celeste sighed. She knew she couldn’t let Adam have the cereal without giving Mary the same. That would involve at least half an hour of fighting, and she didn’t need it. Let their teachers handle them, she thought as she poured some cereal into a bowl and added milk from the carton on the table. As Mary began happily to eat, Celeste poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, then sat across from her husband.

She wanted to talk to him about what was going on, but not in front of the kids. Mary might not be old enough to understand exactly what was being said, but Adam was. Even though neither of them had ever known their grandfather, Adam would pick up on the fact that something was wrong and that it involved his family. She had to wait until they were at school.

Nate folded the paper and set it down. “I was thinking,” he said. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted your father dead?”

Celeste darted her eyes at her children, both of whom seemed not to have heard their father, then glared at Nate. He waved a hand at her. “They don’t know,” he said.

“Know what?” Adam piped up.

“Nothing,” Celeste said quickly. “Your father was talking about someone else.”

“Uh-uh,” Mary said. “He was talking about us. Right, Daddy?”

Nate laughed. “You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?” he said, patting Mary on the head.

“Who’s dead?” Adam asked. When no one replied, he looked at Celeste. “Who’s dead?” he repeated.

“Um,” Celeste said, trying to decide how to proceed.

“They’re going to hear about it,” said Nate. “You can’t hide it forever.”

Celeste frowned. She didn’t want her kids exposed to something so awful. Even if it wasn’t their grandfather they were talking about, the subject was way too morbid for them to be discussing. But now Nate had forced her past the point of no return.

“Do you remember how we told you that Grandpa McCloud is dead?” she asked.

Adam and Mary both nodded. “He died a long time ago,” Mary said. “’Fore we were born.”

“That’s right,” Celeste said. “Before you were born. Well, when he died we couldn’t find his body.”

Adam laughed, startling her. “What’d you do, lose it?” he asked.

Mary joined in the laughter. Celeste had to remind herself that to them her father was just a name. They didn’t understand yet what it was to lose someone they loved. They hadn’t even suffered the death of a pet. Still, their callousness disturbed her.

“No,” she said, remaining calm. “We didn’t know where he was when he died. But now we do. We found his body.”

“Where?” Adam asked.

“He was buried in the ground,” Celeste answered.

“Who buried him?” Adam continued.

Celeste looked to Nate for help. He was the one who had gotten her into the situation. Now she wanted him to help get her out of it.

“We don’t know who buried him, sport,” Nate said. “That’s what we need to find out.”

Adam nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. Or maybe, Celeste thought, it was that the explanation had come from Nate and not from her. Adam always took what Nate said as the truth, while he questioned her on almost everything. Nate often joked that their son was almost certainly going to grow up to be a cop like his father and grandfather. Celeste, although she said nothing, hoped for exactly the opposite.

“See?” Nate said to her. “No big deal.”

“We’re telling you about your grandpa because you might hear people talking about him,” Celeste said, ignoring her husband. “And if you hear anything you don’t understand, we want you to come ask us, okay?”

“Sure,” said Adam, shrugging.

“Mary?” Celeste said. “Do you understand?”

Mary nodded.

“Good,” Nate said. “Now go brush your teeth. Amy will be here in a minute to take you to school.”

The kids left the kitchen, obediently going upstairs where, Celeste suspected, Mary would brush her teeth and Adam would begin playing with some toy. As soon as they were gone, she turned on Nate.

“Thanks a lot!” she snapped. “I wasn’t going to say anything to them.”

“You said yourself, they’re going to hear people talk,” Nate replied. “They might as well know now.”

“They don’t even understand,” said Celeste. “We might as well be talking about a movie they saw on TV.”

“They’ll be fine,” Nate assured her.

A knock on the door ended the argument as a teenage girl came in. “Hey,” she said. “Are the tinies ready?”

“Hi, Amy,” Celeste said. “Just about. I’ll go get them.”

She was relieved to get out of the kitchen. She was still mad at Nate, and going upstairs to get the kids gave her a few minutes to calm down. As she’d suspected, Mary was ready to go, but Adam was in the middle of a battle involving action figures from three recent movies. It took her five minutes to get his teeth brushed and his backpack loaded.

When the three of them returned to the kitchen, she could tell that Nate had told Amy about the finding of Daniel McCloud’s body. The girl looked at Celeste with a pained expression, although she said nothing. That’s the look I’m going to see for the next couple of weeks, Celeste thought miserably.

“You guys ready?” Amy asked Adam and Mary, her voice betraying no sense of the pity Celeste had felt in her look.

The kids kissed Nate good-bye, then came to Celeste for hers. She hugged them each tightly, telling them she loved them, then watched as they followed Amy out to the car. Amy had been Nate’s idea. She was a neighbor girl, sixteen or seventeen, a junior in high school. Nate had suggested they pay her to drive Mary to preschool and Adam to kindergarten and then pick them up in the afternoon when her own school let out. That way Celeste had one less thing to do. Celeste had been hesitant at first to surrender her children to the care of someone else, but it had worked out fine, and now she was more than happy to have the extra help.

“I want to ask you something,” Nate said when they were alone. He added some sugar to his coffee and stirred it, while Celeste waited impatiently for him to actually ask the question. It was a habit of his that irritated her, and she suspected it was the same thing he did when he questioned suspects at work.

Finally he spoke again. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill your father?”

“No,” she said instantly.

Nate looked up at her, his eyes fixed on her face. Again she imagined what it would be like to be sitting in a chair across from him being interrogated about a crime. For a moment she forgot that she was speaking to her husband.

“I mean, I’m sure there were people who did,” she continued. “You know, people he’d arrested or made trouble for. They were always making threats. You know how that is.”

Nate nodded as he sipped his coffee. “I mean really want him dead,” he said. “So badly that they might have actually done it.”

Celeste sighed. “He never talked about that kind of stuff,” she said. “He didn’t want us to think his job was dangerous. Really, you’re probably better off asking your dad. He was his best friend.”

“I will,” Nate said. “I just thought maybe you could think of anyone Dad might not know about.”

“Like who?” asked Celeste.

“Like someone who isn’t a criminal,” Nate said. “Someone maybe nobody would think of under normal circumstances.”

Celeste shook her head. “No,” she said. “Everybody loved him.”

She drank her coffee, thinking about Nate’s question. It was true that everybody loved her father. He’d been a favorite in town, and his death had saddened just about everyone.

“Sometimes it’s not obvious,” Nate said. Celeste looked at him. “Who might want someone dead,” Nate elaborated. “Sometimes it’s the person you least expect, or someone no one even knew that the victim was associated with.”

“You know pretty much everyone in town,” Celeste reminded him. “If you know someone who wanted him dead, it’ll be news to me.”

She returned to her coffee. Could there, she wondered, be someone who hated her father so much that he wanted him dead? He or she, she corrected herself. It doesn’t have to be a man.

Suddenly her blood turned cold. Her fingers gripped the coffee mug tightly, and she couldn’t even swallow what was in her mouth. It was as if her muscles had frozen and she were paralyzed. But her brain continued to function, and as it did a scene played out in her mind. It was one she hadn’t thought of in a long time. Now it returned in startling clarity.

No, she told herself. That has nothing to do with this.

It couldn’t. It simply wasn’t possible. Yet the more times she replayed the memory, the more she couldn’t help but wonder. What if it did happen that way? she asked herself. The idea was too terrible to even consider.

Just as suddenly as it had come upon her, the paralysis left. She swallowed the coffee and blinked her eyes. Across from her, Nate had resumed reading the paper. He hadn’t seen the moment, didn’t know what was running through her head.

She struggled with whether she should tell him what she was thinking. Part of her wanted to. But another part told her to keep her secrets to herself. It would just cause a lot of trouble, she argued with herself. And you know that’s not what happened.

She wanted to believe that. Oh, how she wanted to believe it. But she had seen something. And if that something was related to her father’s death, didn’t she owe it to him to tell Nate?

Nate put the paper down. “I should get to the station,” he said, standing up. “You’re going to your mom’s, right?”

Celeste nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be over there.”

Nate came around the table and kissed her. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promise. Try not to worry.”

“I know it will,” said Celeste. “I just worry about Mom.”

“Well, this is a big shock for her,” Nate reminded her. “For all of us. Just give her time.”

“You’re right,” Celeste agreed.

“I’ll call you later,” Nate told her as he picked up his hat and jacket and walked out. “If you need me, you know how to get me.”

“Just dial 9-1-1,” Celeste repeated automatically. It was their little joke, one that still made Nate laugh whenever she said it.

Celeste listened for the sound of the car door shutting, then the engine turning over. She didn’t move from her spot as Nate pulled out of the driveway. For a long time she remained still, the coffee growing cold in the cup. Her thoughts were haunted by the memory dredged up by Nate’s question.

“You’re right,” she said as if Nate were still at the table. “It’s a big shock. To all of us.”