Brass Ring (26 page)

Suddenly, Randy sat up straight, throwing off her arm. “God, if any kid ever taunted Cary that way, I’d kill him.”

Claire nodded. “I know, but you were just being a—”

“I promised to stay close to him on the other side of the railing,” Randy interrupted her. “He finally mustered up all his courage and took a step, and then I darted away from him. Teasing him. I just wanted him to see that he could do it on his own.” He made a wry face. “Or maybe I wanted to torment him.”

“Or maybe you were just being a fifteen-year-old boy.” She wanted to soothe him. Save him.

“And then,” Randy said, “I swear I don’t know how it happened.” He raised his hands, palms open, before tightening them into fists. “There must have been ice beneath the snow right there. It was as though something sucked him under the metal railing, out onto the icy platform. He was wearing mittens, and couldn’t get a good grip on the railing, and in an instant he was gone. There was this horrible look of terror on his face. Then he disappeared. If he screamed, I don’t remember it. Maybe because I was screaming so loud myself.” Randy leaned back against the pew. His face was very pale.

“I’m so sorry.” Claire had taken her shoes off, and she drew her feet up to the padded seat of the pew, the skirt of her violet dress covering her legs. “But it was long ago. So long ago. You can’t fix it.”

“No, I certainly can’t.” He shook off her attempt to comfort him. “Anyhow, the rest of the story is the same as I told you. Margot tried to go after him, and fell herself, and I did carry her, unconscious and bleeding, all the way home. Of course I lied to my mother and stepfather about what happened, and Margot was in no shape to talk. Once she was better, I lived in terror that she’d tell them the truth, but she never did. I’m not even sure she remembered it. As we got older, I wanted to ask her why she kept it to herself, but she was so strange by then. I always wondered if she would have developed those psychiatric problems if she hadn’t gotten that head injury.” He sighed. “I like to think it was inevitable, but I don’t really believe it. I guess what I do believe is that I killed both my brother and my sister that night.”

What a burden to live with, Claire thought. What terrible guilt to carry around. “You were just a kid yourself, though,” she said. “Kids aren’t great at thinking through consequences. And they don’t think in terms of danger. Or mortality. If you’d known your brother could get hurt, I’m sure you would have done everything possible to prevent it.”

Randy looked at her. “Do you know I never even told LuAnne the truth about what happened that night?”

“Why me?” she asked. “Why now?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t run away. You try too hard and too fast to fix people, but you don’t run away from them, no matter how messed up they are.” He shook his head. “I guess I always thought that LuAnne only needed one little excuse to walk out the door. I could never have told her what I just told you.”

Claire rested her chin on her knees. “I’m so glad you could tell me,” she said. The score was somehow evened. They had each shared something private. Painful. She wanted to hold him, to make him feel the way she had the week before, when he’d held her in the museum. Safe and warm and accepted. She settled for resting her hand on his arm. The stillness of the chapel surrounded them, and she closed her eyes.

Angel
. Hadn’t people called Vanessa “Angel,” with her golden curls, her innocent little perfect-toothed smile? Hadn’t that been Mellie’s nickname for her?

“What are you thinking?” Randy asked after a few quiet minutes had passed.

“Vanessa. I’m not sure why. Something you said.”

“What did I say?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the ‘angel’ bit. My mother called Vanessa ‘Angel.’ She had this golden, sort of glittery, ethereal hair.” For some reason, the thought of that little blond girl irritated her. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t want to remember.”

“I think you need to remember.”

“I doubt there’s anything to be remembered.”

“I think the lady doth protest too much.” He turned his head to smile at her. “You look like you’re about ten years old yourself right now,” he said. “With your feet up, hugging your knees.”

She hesitated before speaking. “That’s how old I was then,” she said. “The summer Vanessa left.” She felt herself tiptoeing toward something. What, she wasn’t sure. “I know that’s the age I was. I just don’t remember anything else about it.”

“Okay,” Randy said. “You were ten. What do you remember from age ten?”

She shrugged, unable to pluck that age from any other. “Nothing,” she said.

“Well, what grade were you in?”

“Fifth, I guess.”

“And who was your fifth-grade teacher?”

“Um…” She tried to remember, came up blank. “I don’t remember any of my elementary-school teachers.”

“How old would Vanessa have been when you were ten?”

“Eight.”

“And why did your father take her with him rather than you?”

She shrugged again, uncomfortable now. She didn’t want to think about it.

“Sounds like you were a little jealous of her, huh? The way I was

jealous of Margot and Charles? Vanessa was beautiful, had this great hair.”

“I wasn’t jealous of her.” Maybe she had been. She didn’t remember.

“You were probably glad to see her go.”

“I was not.”

“Of
course
not, Randy,” Randy mimicked her. “How could you even imagine that such a negative thought could exist in this bowl- of-cherries head of mine?” He tousled her hair.

“Well, even if I had been jealous,” she said, “that’s normal in kids. The way you envied your siblings. Perfectly normal. All I know is that, for whatever reason, my father took Vanessa to Washington State with him, and I never saw either of them again.”

“
Let me call you sweetheart
,” Randy began to sing. “
I’m in
—”

“Stop it!” She pushed him away from her and felt the heat in her face.

“I’m sorry.” Randy lost his smile. His fingers crept under her palm until he was holding her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Mellie told me I would see Vanessa and my father again very soon,” she said quietly. “She always said that. Whenever I would ask when I’d see them again, she’d say, ‘Very soon, darling.’”

“Your mother was a liar.”

“In a way, I guess she was, but it was only to make things easier on me. She lied to protect me. To help me get over something painful.”

“The truth is the only thing that can help you get over something painful. It’s out in the open. You deal with it, and you’re done with it. Secrets and half-truths live on forever.”

She was barely listening. She lifted her wrist into the light from the balcony to see her watch. As usual, she had stayed far too long with Randy. “I need to get home,” she said.

They put on their coats in silence and walked toward the door. In the foyer, Randy turned off the heat and the balcony lights, leaving them in complete darkness as he pulled her toward him for a hug.

“Well,” he said, holding her, “this was quite an evening. The dancing was fun. This last hour was hell, though.”

“Yes.” She tightened her arms around him and knew by the way his body melted against hers that he felt the warmth and safety she was offering him. What she felt was love, deep and pure and whole. She felt closer to Randy than she’d felt to Jon—to
anyone
—in a very long time. Still, when he shifted his head, when he lowered his mouth to hers, it was unexpected and dishonest and wrong, and she quickly turned her face away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. “Out of line again. Please consider that a mere thank-you kiss for making me feel as though I have a life again.”

She trembled as she pulled away from him.

“You have an unusual marriage,” Randy said after a minute. “I shouldn’t take advantage of Jon’s tolerance by”—he hunted for the words, then laughed—”by getting too familiar with you. I don’t know how I’d feel about my wife going dancing with another man, no matter how platonic their relationship was.”

Claire hesitated a moment. “He doesn’t know,” she said. “I told him I was going to a movie.”

Reaching for the door, Randy turned to look at her. “With me?” he asked.

“No. I said I was going with a girlfriend.” Hearing the lie from her own lips sickened her. She should have told Jon the truth. She would, as soon as she got home.

Randy dropped his hand to his side. “Why did you lie to him?” he asked.

“Because I didn’t want to upset him.”

He sighed with a shake of his head, reaching past her again to push open the door. “You’re your mother’s daughter,” he said.

“What do you mean?” She stepped out into the night.

He turned her toward him, his hand on her arm. “I don’t like being part of a lie, Claire.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “It was a mistake. I didn’t think it through carefully.”

He looked down the street in the direction of his house. He pulled his pipe from his coat pocket, tapped it against his palm. “I’m going to walk home,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’ll feel good.” He lit the pipe, and the smoke rose into the cold air in small, fragrant puffs. He took the pipe from his mouth and touched her lightly on the arm. “Good-night, Claire,” he said.

She watched him set off down the street, and she made no move toward her car in the parking lot. She didn’t take her eyes from him until he’d been swallowed by the darkness, and she knew then that she was in trouble. She didn’t want to go home, or see Jon, or feel the weight of her lie hanging over her. She wouldn’t confess it to him. What was the point? Confession would only ease her soul and hurt his. Besides, if she had to lie to see Randy the next time, she would do so all over again.

VIENNA

THE CALL FROM AMELIA
came at nine o’clock, just as Jon was wheeling in the back door of the house. She wanted to speak to Claire.

Jon hesitated for a moment, mentally replaying the message Claire had left on his voice mail. “Isn’t she with you?” he asked. “She said you two were going to a movie.”

“That’s news to me. You’re sure she said Amelia?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Maybe a later movie?”

“I’d know about it by now, Jon, don’t you think? Look, tell her I called, okay?” She laughed. “And tell her that next time she uses me as a cover she’d better let me know so we can get our stories straight.”

He didn’t smile.

“Jon? Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Fine. I’ll tell her you called.”

He hung up the phone and sat in the middle of the kitchen for several minutes, thinking. Somewhere there lurked a logical explanation for this. He wouldn’t spend his energy hunting for it, though. She could tell him when she got home.

He built a fire in the fireplace and sat in the recliner, sifting through a stack of articles he’d collected over the years. There were magazine and newspaper pieces on museums and day trips and restaurants and parks, and a batch of pamphlets on wheelchair accessible events. He’d gone through this file of articles twice since their talk in Baltimore, putting together a partial list of things they could do for fun. As far as he knew, Claire hadn’t even begun her own list. He felt like a nag each time he brought it up and so hadn’t mentioned it in several days. He would present her with his list this weekend. If she didn’t make one of her own, he supposed that was her choice.

He lost himself so thoroughly in the brochure on wilderness adventures that he was only vaguely aware of the knot in his stomach, the tension in his arms. When he next looked at the clock on the mantel, it was after ten.

She was with Randy. He leaned his head back against the recliner, shutting his eyes. She was with Randy, and she had lied to him about it. And why would she lie unless something more was going on there than friendship? What had happened to him and Claire, to their marriage? He couldn’t believe he’d reached the point of suspecting—no, of
knowing
—that she was betraying him. Was this the first time? She hadn’t mentioned Randy more than once or twice since that weekend in Baltimore, and he’d hoped that their argument in the hotel had shaken her up sufficiently to put her back on track.

An hour later, Jon was in the kitchen, taking his medication before going to bed, when Claire walked in the door.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” she said, setting down her purse. “We were talking, and I didn’t realize what time it was.” She was rosy-cheeked, and she kept her coat on as she opened the dishwasher and began unloading the dishes. Not long ago, she would have walked in the door and kissed him before she did anything else. Now she was not even looking at him.

“Who was talking?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She pulled a frying pan from the dishwasher and set it on the counter.

He stiffened his spine, girding for battle. “Amelia called here at nine, looking for you.”

Holding a glass in her hand, she turned to stare at him, mouth open, and he felt something like hatred toward her. He wheeled his chair toward the hallway door.

“Get whatever you need from the bedroom,” he said. “Because you’re not sleeping with me tonight.”

She set the glass on the counter. “Jon, wait. Listen to me.”

“Go to hell! I don’t want you anywhere near me. You’ve got a choice. Susan’s room or the guest room. Or you can go back to Randy.”

He heard her start to speak, but she quickly stopped herself, and he turned to face her again.

“What? You’re going to try to tell me you weren’t with him tonight?”

She drew the lapels of her coat together like armor. “I was with him, but it’s not what you think.”

His heart contracted painfully in his chest. He wished he’d been wrong.

“You lied to me about being with him,” he said, “and I’m supposed to assume there’s nothing between the two of you?”

“There
is
something between us. A friendship. And it’s important to me. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I know you’re…uncomfortable about him, and I don’t know how to see him without upsetting you.”