A Month at the Shore (60 page)

Tadeusz Grzybylek, a member of
Salem
'
s spirited Polish community, had wooed Helen
'
s spinster aunt late in her life. No kids, but plenty of amazing food, had come out of the union.

Helen smiled wanly.
"
Only a taste. It doesn
'
t have the blood of anything in it, does it?
"

Her aunt gave her a little laughing pinch and said,
"
No, no, you
'
re thinking of
czarnina—
duck
soup. You just lie there, dear. I
'
ll be right back.
"

With a mixture of affection and dread, Helen watched the elderly woman scurry out of the room for a bowl of her brew. Aunt Mary had given up a life of her own to raise Helen after Helen
'
s mother—Aunt Mary
'
s sister—had died; Helen owed her everything. Now that Uncle Tadeusz was gone, it gave Helen great pleasure to give her aunt the back apartment and let her have the run of the house.

Nonetheless, she could do without the soup.

Helen sighed. It came out in a shudder, and that reminded her of the deeply distressing sound of panting that she thought she
'
d heard. The jiggling—okay, that was because Aunt Mary
'
s cataracts made the back-door keyhole hard for her to find. But the sound of panting—that, Helen couldn
'
t explain.

Ironically, the panting could just as easily have been of someone in the throes of passion as someone in the throes of distress. Helen ought to know. In bed with Hank, she used to make the sound regularly. And yet. . . no. This sound had been too full of pain. Something deep inside Helen had responded the way a mother would
....

Becky!
Had something happened to Becky? Helen jumped up, terrified that she
'
d had some kind of premonition. At that instant the phone rang.

It was Becky, calling to ask whether her mother was interested in a set of Liz Claiborne sweats at seventy-five off.

"
Thanks, no, I
'
m all set,
"
said Helen, buckling with relief onto the sofa.
"
And, Becky? Please drive carefully. You know how intense you get when you
'
re yakking with your pals.
"

"
Yes,
Mother,
"
Becky said in an exaggerated way.

Obviously her girlfriends were near the phone: Helen heard giggling. Becky said good-bye and Helen, reassured, was left waiting for her medicine.

Aunt Mary came bearing a galleried brass tray on which a bowl of
kapusniak
sat like a queen
'
s coronet. Helen made herself sit up straight to receive the tray across her lap, then took the round-shaped spoon, part of the old set her aunt had foisted on her when she moved in, and skimmed a bit of clear liquid into it.
"
Here goes nothing,
"
she said with a game smile.

Aunt Mary sat perched on the edge of one of the corduroy chairs and shook her head.
"
You look so pale. I don
'
t know
...
maybe you need more protein. Say what you will about
czarnina,
it
'
s high in that, at least. It would put some color in those cheeks.
"

"
Don
'
t even think about it,
"
said Helen, shuddering. The one time her aunt had made a batch of
czarnina,
a neighbor had called the police.

"
She was overreacting,
"
said Aunt Mary, reading Helen
'
s mind.

Helen grimaced.
"
Well, what do you expect when you throw a quart of blood in a vat of water? It doesn
'
t smell like anything normal.
"

Aunt Mary gave a little tuck to her single long gray braid and said with great dignity,
"
I
'
m glad your uncle Tadeusz isn
'
t here to hear you say that about Polish cuisine. He
'
d be very hurt.
"

And so, obviously, was Aunt Mary. Her pale brown eyes were glazed over in tears and her rather small, once pretty mouth was trembling in distress.

"
I
'
m sorry,
"
Helen said at once, closing her eyes.
"
It
'
s this stupid, stupid headache. I wish it would go away.
"

"
Maybe that
'
s what I should do,
"
her aunt said, pushing herself up from the chair with a sigh. She gave the bowl of soup an appraising look, then shifted her gaze to her suffering niece.
"
Eat it,
"
she said, and then she left.

Helen, feeling honor-bound, finished the serving and then lay back down, closed her eyes, and dreamed of ducks being hunted, their quacks dissolving into panting sounds as hunters with bloodied hands wrung their necks.

She woke with a start at the sound of the front door opening.

"
Mom!
" yelled Becky up the stairs
.
"
It
'
s me! How
'
re you feeling?
"

Helen sat up, groggy and tentative.
"
I
'
m
down
here, Becky. And I
'
m feeling. . . better,
"
she said, surprised and pleased that the headache had retreated, if ever so slightly.

Becky came in—mercifully free of shopping bags—and Helen smiled a greeting.
"
I guess that last decongestant kicked in,
"
she explained.
"
What time is it?
"

"
Eight-thirty. So what
'
s going on?
"
asked Becky, flopping tiredly into one of the corduroy chairs. Obviously she expected her mother to answer
"
Nothin
'
much.
"

But the death of Linda Byrne was uppermost in Helen
'
s mind. She related the call that Russell had taken, then said,
"
I feel unbelievably bad about it.
"

"
Yeah.. . I can see. I
'
m surprised you didn
'
t notice something in the obituaries,
"
Becky added.
"
You always read them.
"

"
Ah, but not this week,
"
Helen realized.
"
It
'
s been so crazy, I
'
ve hardly had time to scan the headlines.
"

She went to the butler
'
s pantry and fished out the week
'
s copies of the
Evening News
from the iron recycle rack, then dumped them in a pile on the claw-footed, round oak table in the center of the kitchen. She pulled the chain on
the
stained-glass lamp above the table, throwing light that was more quaint than bright across the walls and high ceiling of the carefully restored room.

Becky came in with the big brass tray and left it on one of the marble counters—Helen
'
s one indulgence when they redid the kitchen—and pulled out a carved-back oak chair.

"
Why do you want to look her up, anyway?
"
Becky asked, dropping her chin onto the cupped palms of her hands.
"
Isn
'
t that a little ghoulish?
"

"
When you
'
re older, you
'
ll understand,
"
Helen said, flipping through Monday
'
s obituaries without success. She picked up Tuesday
'
s paper and went straight to the deaths, then sucked in her breath.
"
Here it is. It
'
s true, then,
"
she added rather stupidly.

She read the headline aloud—
" 'Linda Byrne, thirty-
two; former art teacher
' "
—and then scanned the rest.
"
Born in Geneva
...
graduated from Wellesley with a degree in art; taught at Boston College before she was married
...
member of a couple of art societies
...
survived by her husband
...
one child
...
a mother and two brothers in Geneva
...
a couple of nieces and nephews.
Huh.
It
'
s not much to go on.
"

"
What do you mean,
'
to go on
'
?
"

"
Hmm?
"
Helen looked up in a daze.
"
Did I say that?
"

"
Mom. Get a grip,
"
said Becky, laughing. She slid the paper over to her side of the table and studied the obituary.
"
Y
'
know, I think I
'
ve seen this name Nathaniel Byrne somewhere,
"
she added, tapping her
m
ulti
-
ringed fingers on the page.

"
The husband? Can
'
t say I have,
"
Helen decided.

"
Yeah
...
wait
...
somewhere in the house
...
I know!
"
Becky dashed out of the kitchen, went flying up the stairs, stomped across Helen
'
s tiny but efficient home office overhead, and came roaring down again.

"
Ta-dah!
'
Nathaniel Byrne, Mutual Fund Manager of the Year,
'"
Becky said, holding up an investment magazine that Helen subscribed to but never had time to read.

"
If he
'
s the same Nathaniel Byrne,
"
said Helen. She took the magazine and studied the cover of the magazine.
"
And anyway, since when are you interested in mutual funds?
"

"
Who cares about those?
He
'
s
what caught my eye when I dumped the mail on your desk. It was like, when you walk into a supermarket and you see
Brad Pitt's
picture on the cover of
People?
 
It was like that. You can
'
t help but look.
"

She was right. The Fund Manager of the Year was a dark-haired, steely eyed, square-chinned, unsmiling male who wasn
'
t the least bit shy about looking straight into the camera and daring it to expose his inner self. His brows were thick and straight, his hair, attractively unruly. He was wearing a heavy wool shirt, khakis, and work boots and was sitting on a massive tree stump in an autumn setting, with his thighs pulled up to his chest and his arms slung loosely across the knees. A gold band adorned his left ring finger and, if Helen wasn
'
t mistaken, that was a Rolex on his left wrist. He was the kind of man that women described as intense rather than hunky.

Near the tree stump was a woodpile with an ax leaning against it. Helen took in the man, took in the setting, and shook her head.
"
Wrong guy. The Byrne I heard about is a workaholic who ignores his family, flies his own plane, and is never at home. He wouldn
'
t have the time or inclination to chop wood. Besides, look at his boots. They
'
re brand-new.
"