The sisters subsided for a moment, both looking far away. “I never thought of that,” Catherine finally said. “How stupid of me never to have considered whether he could have fallen in love with Mom.”
“You’re not stupid and Mitch loved Jean,” Marissa said decisively. She gave Eric a wounded look. “When you were thirteen, I thought you had a crush on me.”
“Marissa, you were a skinny nine-year-old with crooked teeth.”
“I had potential. I just needed braces.”
“I was waiting for the braces to come off.”
“You couldn’t look past my braces to see how intelligent and sensitive I was?” Marissa asked hotly.
Catherine surprised them by laughing. “Nerves must be responsible for this ridiculous argument.” They stared at her. “We have to accept that there is
nothing
we can do about Mitch and Jean, no matter how much we love them. We certainly can’t guess what Mitch’s feelings were for Mom. We
do
know that Mom was crazy about Dad and vice versa. So no matter how painful the scene was earlier, we need to let it—to let Mitch and Jean—go for tonight.”
“You’re right.” Eric sounded defeated. “But this talk about who should be in the hospital reminded me of something I need to tell you, Marissa. Bea Pruitt was released from the psychiatric ward today.”
Marissa was stunned. “Today! But it hasn’t been seventy-two hours!”
“By law, a person can be held for up
to
seventy-two hours.”
“She
needs
to be there,” Marissa protested.
Catherine intervened: “If the opinion of two doctors is that the patient is safe to go home, then they go home, even if they haven’t been in the hospital for quite seventy-two hours. Bea must have been very well behaved and convinced everyone she wasn’t a danger to herself or anyone else.”
“You should have seen her Monday night,” Marissa snapped. “And her fury was directed at
me
!”
“To be fair, she’d been deeply shocked to find Buddy’s body,” Catherine said calmly. “Maybe after she’d been given a sedative that night, some tranquilizers for a couple of days, and had several talks with a psychiatrist, she calmed down enough to see reason.”
“Wouldn’t she have to be released into someone’s custody?” Marissa asked hopefully.
“Not unless she’s been declared incompetent,” Catherine said.
“She hasn’t,” Eric returned. “She was always calm and happy living with Buddy. I hope if she’s reached some state of tranquility without him, she can hold on to it.”
Catherine nodded. “Only time will tell, to quote a cliché. She might be fine for a month and then lose it again. Or she might be all right the rest of her life.”
“Or she might go around the bend now that she’s free. Maybe she was just…I don’t know…playing possum in the hospital so they’d let her out.” Marissa sighed hugely. “Well, this just sucks.”
“Beautifully put but true,” Eric said. “Let’s get our minds on something more cheerful than Mitch Farrell and Bea Pruitt. Maybe we should play Scrabble.” Marissa and Catherine groaned. “Monopoly? Charades?”
Marissa glanced at Catherine and could see she’d picked up the vibe that Eric didn’t intend to leave quickly. She yawned in the way that only Marissa knew was fake and said in a sleepy voice, “My goodness, I’m suddenly
so
tired. The alcohol must be affecting me—pleasantly, I must say.” She stood up. “I think I’ll go upstairs, get in my nightgown, and watch television.” She trailed slowly to the stairs. “Thank you for taking us, Eric. Good night, you two. I mean three. Take good care of them, Lindsay.”
After Catherine disappeared up the stairs, Marissa said casually, “I don’t know how I expected your mother to act with me today, Eric, but after the first fifteen minutes or so being with her was almost like old times.”
“I’m glad. Sometimes she’s like that with me. Then she has a bad day and she’s distant. Dad’s mood seems more even, although he’s quieter than before Gretchen died.”
“I think talking can help a lot. Have you ever talked to them like you talked to me about Gretchen?”
He looked almost horrified. “No! They don’t want me to talk about her.”
“Maybe they don’t want you to, but maybe they need to hear some things. I thought you broke off our engagement because you blamed me entirely for what happened to your sister. Instead, you felt most of the blame, shoved some of it off onto me without even knowing what you were doing, and broke off the engagement because you knew marriage for us at that time couldn’t work. Professional psychologists like Catherine help people figure out those situations.”
Eric nodded. “I know what people like Catherine do, Marissa. I didn’t think she set broken legs.”
“Just making sure. After all, we could use someone like Catherine in Aurora Falls.”
“I believe we have a few people like Catherine in Aurora Falls. But you think we need another one? Particularly, your sister?”
“I wouldn’t mind it.” Marissa stopped talking and cocked her head. She heard Catherine’s television. “I was waiting for that. I also don’t think it would hurt if we had some music down here. Any requests?” Eric looked at her quizzically. “I acquired an envelope in Gretchen’s room today. I don’t want anyone to know what’s in it until you do. And that goes for me, too.”
“Oh. You’re being cloak-and-dagger.”
“I’m sure it’s very private. Now pick some CDs and load them.”
In a minute, Don Henley sang “The Boys of Summer” as Marissa handed Eric the sealed envelope. He stared at the words
The End
on the front of the envelope and finally began tearing it open. Marissa took Lindsay into the kitchen and gave her a bacon treat, then poured another glass of wine and took a quick sip.
Marissa wandered over to the wall of windows. A whimsical birdhouse shaped like a castle still hung in a nearby poplar tree and swung gently in the cold breeze. She couldn’t bear to look at the blackened remains of her mother’s rose garden, though. This spring wouldn’t bring forth the rainbow of colored petals looking almost too beautiful to be real.
In the past, Jean had always helped Annemarie with the roses and seemed truly delighted to do so. The two women had tried to teach Marissa how to tend roses and she hadn’t been interested. Now she cared. She would read, she thought. She would read everything she could find about raising and caring for roses and she would ask Jean to help her plant a new garden. The project would keep her busy and also make certain Jean didn’t spend all her time sitting in that tiny house mourning Mitch. After they finished with the garden, she would take Jean out for dinner and a movie.
As Marissa looked out at the vacant dark night, musing over roses and her plans to help Jean get through a difficult year, she suddenly had the creeping feeling of being watched through the windows. The feeling was sharp, cold, malevolent, and so powerful she shuddered. Marissa lowered all the blinds and turned off all the lights except one. She didn’t think she was letting her imagination run wild. At the same time, she was certain someone in the chill of the night watched through the thin blinds—not casually, like a neighbor standing in a yard looking around absently—but someone whose gaze purposely sought out Marissa Gray. For a moment, she thought of calling for Eric, but this wasn’t the time to interrupt him.
Marissa pushed aside a blind and peeked out. When she saw a pair of golden eyes near ground level next to the locust tree, she recognized the neighbor’s small black cat. Marissa was much more frightened and upset this week than she’d admitted, even to herself, if she’d let herself be spooked by a cat, she thought, trying to smile to herself.
But Marissa didn’t feel relieved. She felt exactly the way she had before she’d realized just a cat had been watching her. Quickly she let go of the kitchen blind. Inexplicably shaken and uneasy, she didn’t want anyone to see her, even a cat. In fact, she wished she could become invisible.
Marissa closed her eyes, tried to clear her head, and sat down at the counter, inspecting her nails to see if she needed a fresh manicure. Giving herself a manicure every few days had become a habit long ago when she and Gretchen had discovered nail polish. They used to joke that if her dream of being a concert pianist and Marissa’s dream of being a world-renowned journalist failed, they could always get jobs as manicurists. Gretchen had loved painting Marissa’s semi-long nails in fun colors. Gretchen’s had to be short for the piano and Susan Montgomery had always been strict about Gretchen’s nail polish, making sure she wore nothing darker than a shell pink. Pink. Just like her room, Marissa thought. Little-girl pink.
Marissa felt as if she’d sat in the kitchen for nearly an hour, but the clock showed she’d been at the counter only twenty minutes before Eric called for her. She hoped the envelope contained something helpful. At the same time, she dreaded what he might have found. She steeled herself mentally and walked into the living room, where Eric sat on the couch with papers spread around him.
She stood in front of him—not certain he wanted her to sit beside him—and tried to read his expression, which told her nothing. In a moment, he looked up and asked, “What do you know about tremors?”
“Tremors? Like shaking or vibrating?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s about all I know except that a lot of elderly people suffer from them. My father’s mother did. They started when she was in her late seventies.”
“That’s what most people think about tremors. It’s what I thought. I just found out differently.” Eric fell silent and stared at a paper in his hand. “May I be completely decadent and ask for another drink?”
“You’re not on duty tonight. You can get rip-roaring drunk if it will help.”
A few minutes later, Marissa brought him a fresh drink. He thanked her and then patted a spot beside him on the couch.
“Gretchen copied some pages from a medical book and put them in here,” he began, and went on in a cool, toneless voice. “They describe ‘kinetic tremor’ or ‘essential tremor.’ It’s a tremor that usually begins in the arms and spreads to other parts of the body, even the head and voice. It can cause a person to have trouble thinking clearly, to have anxiety and depressive symptoms, and there’s a risk of developing dementia. The tremors often start with people around sixty and less commonly around age forty, but they can start at any age. The shaking is usually seen in the hands and arms, even when the hands are at rest. The tremor gets worse when a person has to ‘perform.’” Eric stopped scanning the pages and looked at Marissa. “She included results from medical tests.
Her
medical tests. She went to three doctors and her diagnosis was always the same. Gretchen had essential tremor.”
Marissa stared at the medical test results, not understanding a lot of what she saw but not willing to accept what she did understand. “We’re not doctors. We don’t really know how to read these test results or what tests were run.” She looked at him pleadingly. “Can Catherine look at them? She’s not a medical doctor, but I’m sure she knows more about this condition than we do.”
Eric nodded. “I’d like to get her opinion, if she wouldn’t mind being disturbed.”
Ten minutes later Catherine sat in the family room wearing a mint green kimono robe and delicate silver slippers. In spite of the shock of reading Gretchen’s hidden papers, Marissa pictured herself the night of the wreck in her bulky white robe and big bunny slippers. Catherine had pulled back her hair with a beautiful clip at the neck so the line of every one of her perfect features showed. Mitch was right, Marissa thought. Catherine did look like Annemarie.
When Catherine glanced up, Marissa almost jumped, realizing she’d been analyzing Catherine’s looks to divert herself from the deepening line between Catherine’s eyebrows. Eric gently shook Marissa’s hand. She’d been squeezing his hand as hard as she could and hadn’t known it.
“If you want a really thorough explanation of essential tremor, you should talk to a neurologist,” Catherine said. “It’s a neurological disorder.”
Eric shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to a neurologist now. I—we—just want the basics tonight.”
“Well, I believe the basics are fairly well described in these articles. Essential tremors affect the kinetic muscles. The condition can cause trembling and shaking. Physical activity or stress can make it worse. So can fatigue and cold and caffeine. It becomes more noticeable when sufferers try to do exact, precise tasks—”
“Like playing the piano,” Eric said flatly.
Catherine nodded. “The tremors can even attack the voice—it becomes shaky and the singing voice can become vibrato. Essential tremor can also affect balance and the way the patient walks. It creates general unsteadiness.” She hesitated. “Sometimes, mostly in older people, it can result in dementia.”
“What causes it?” Marissa asked.
“It seems to be genetic. That’s why it’s sometimes called ‘familial tremors.’ It runs in families. Here we get into genetics and I’m out of my area of expertise. I do know it usually doesn’t manifest itself until later in life, but it’s sometimes seen in people in their twenties.”
“Treatment?” Eric asked crisply.
“Some drugs have helped. Physical therapy. Even alcohol sometimes helps—it has a calming effect in moderation. But there really is no effective treatment right now.” Eric looked straight ahead and Marissa looked at her sister. “Didn’t your family know about Gretchen’s condition?” Catherine asked Eric.
“No. She didn’t tell us. She even kept those papers hidden. Marissa managed to get them.”
“How—”
“I’ll tell you later,” Marissa said quickly.
“All right. Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”
Eric shook his head again but didn’t speak.
Marissa smiled at Catherine. “Thanks. I think we—especially Eric—just need some time to let this sink in.”
“I understand.” Catherine smiled at her in return. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk. Don’t hesitate to come upstairs and get me if there’s anything else I can do.”
Marissa looked over at Eric, and when she looked back Catherine had already disappeared up the stairs, silently and swiftly, not remaining to watch their reactions or hear their discussion. Such sensitivity was one of the reasons Catherine had excelled in her training, Marissa thought.