Prospect Street (14 page)

“Why didn't you?”

Why hadn't he covered his tracks? Lived a lie? Told Faith one thing and done something else when she wasn't around?
He sighed. “Really? I guess I thought it was more important to tell the truth.”

“You hurt Mom. You lived with her all those years, and you didn't love her.”

“I always loved her. I still do, but in a different kind of way, I guess. That part's hard for you to understand, I know. But you will someday.”

“Me? I'm not like you!” Alex slid across the booth as if he was planning to get out.

David grabbed his arm. “Alex, that's not what I meant. Having a gay father doesn't mean you're gay, son. One has nothing to do with the other. You don't have to worry about that. I just meant that someday, when you fall in love with some lucky girl, you'll understand.”

Alex shook off David's hand, but he didn't complete his exit. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

That was fine with David. He suspected the most important things had already been said. “Come back here and tell me what you're doing with your computer. It looks like you're making modifications.”

Alex slid back into the booth. “You won't like it.”

“Try me.”

“I got rid of the controls.”

“You're right, I don't like it.” And he particularly didn't like the fact that Faith had allowed it.

“What are you going to do about it?” Alex challenged.

In the old days David would have ordered Alex to reinstall the controls or give up his computer. In the old days, just months ago, when he'd been sure he knew what was best.

David shrugged. “I guess I'm going to ask you to be reasonable and remember a computer is just a machine. There's a whole big world out there you have to get to know, and you can't do it if you're sitting in front of a computer screen all day.”

“I can surf the whole Internet now. Not just the places you want me to go.”

“Can you be trusted not to go places you shouldn't?”

Alex made a face. “Nobody's ever bothered to ask me before. Like nobody thought I was smart enough to know what's good to see and what's not.”

David thought about all the things he'd tried so hard to protect his children from. And the things they'd had to face anyway. “Just be careful.” David cleared his throat. “Just use the good sense God gave you.”

For the first time since their reunion, Alex smiled.

W
ith Marley and Lydia's help, boxes were unpacked and carted away, and the row house began to assume some semblance of order. Alex returned from lunch silent and downcast, but he did tell Faith he and David were going out again on Friday to the movies. Remy was invited, too. Faith was sure that was one ticket sale the theater would never see.

By late afternoon they were ready to quit. Marley's daughter picked her up, and Lydia got ready for the drive home.

Faith had tried out the stovetop by making a pot of tea, since iced tea was out of the question. Two of the four burners worked marginally well.

“I want to show you something before you go, Mother.” She handed Lydia a cup of oolong and poured one for herself. “Something in the attic. And you haven't seen the kittens.”

“All these comings and goings haven't scared away the mother?”

“She doesn't seem very wild. I'm wondering if your last tenants just left her here.”

“I wouldn't be surprised, though they weren't supposed to
have pets. Of course they weren't supposed to destroy the place, either.”

On the second floor Remy poked her head out of her doorway. “I'm sorry I worried you. Can I come out now?”

“
May
I come out now,” Lydia said.

“You're already out.”

“You may.” Faith thought the smile, although not terribly genuine, seemed like a hopeful sign. “Would you like to see the kittens with us?”

“I guess.”

Faith knocked on Alex's door, and they went through his room to the attic stairs. The four of them tiptoed to the side of the attic where the kittens were hidden, and Faith motioned for her mother to stoop down for a view.

Lydia leaned over farther. “Can you tell how many?”

“Two, maybe three. The mother's always on top of them when we visit.”

“Thank goodness the fan is working or the poor things would be cooked. The fan's fairly new. I remember paying the bill.”

“It looks like a lot of houses on the street use their third stories for living space. Some insulation, an air conditioner and we might have something here.”

“My mother didn't live in this house after she married, but she told me that my grandfather talked about converting the attic into a barracks for all the sons he planned. No sons, no attic renovation.”

“And when you lived here with Dad?”

“I don't think Joe planned to live here long enough to need the room.” Lydia stood. “He was never fond of this house.”

“And you?”

Lydia didn't smile. “Inordinately fond, until…”

She didn't have to go on. Faith knew.

“I wanted to show you what we found last night.” Faith moved to one side and pointed to the rafter where Millicent had carved her name. “Did you know this was here?”

Lydia traced the letters with a fingertip. “I hadn't thought about it for years.”

“Dottie Lee didn't forget.” Alex joined them after his own pointed feline investigation resulted in a hiss. “She told us there was a mystery here.”

“A good one,” Faith hurried to add. “I think she was trying to make us feel better.”

“I suppose you have no choice but to talk to Dottie Lee since she's your neighbor now. But really, Faith, you don't need to fraternize. She is a woman with a reputation.” Lydia's expression told the rest of that story.

“I like her, and she seems to know a lot about this house.”

“She'd know about the carving. My mother was only four or five years older than Dottie Lee. Dottie Lee was like a younger sister.” Lydia dropped her hand. “But you've only discovered part of the mystery, if this is the one she's talking about.”

“What other parts are there?” Alex said.

“It's too hot to go into it up here.”

Faith saw that even Remy looked interested. “Do you want to finish your tea and tell us?”

“Maybe.”

They trooped downstairs to more comfortable climes and tea that had cooled enough to drink. Lydia took full advantage of their attention, showing a flair for the dramatic Faith hadn't known she possessed. She refused to say a word until she was comfortable, recovered from the higher temperatures and half finished with her tea.

“I'm not sure exactly when the house was built. There's a lot I've forgotten. I do know that counting you, Faith, five generations of women in our family have lived here. I did the math on the way downstairs.”

Faith had never felt any real connection to her relatives. What was left of her father's family lived in southwestern Virginia, and family gatherings had dwindled through the years, although Joe still made full use of all the connections he had
during election years. Her mother's family was even more remote. Faith's grandparents and great-grandparents had died before she was born. She knew of no relatives on Lydia's side, even distant ones.

“That makes Remy the sixth generation,” Faith said, trying to include her daughter.

Remy sniffed. “Don't count me. I'm a prisoner.”

Wisely Lydia only sent her granddaughter a warning glance. “Some of us lived here longer than others. I never lived in the house until I was married, and then my stay was brief. My mother only lived here
until
she married. But my grandmother Violet was born in this house and died here. All eighty years of her life were spent under this roof.”

“She died here? Where?” Alex, who had only been half listening, stopped playing with the fireplace tools.

“Your mother's room. She refused to go to the hospital. My grandfather passed away the year before she did, and she was ready to get things over with. She was a very organized, strong-willed woman.” Lydia smiled a little, as if reviewing a private memory. “She was a talented pianist. As a child I would come here to spend the night and wake up to the sound of music.”

Although they had gotten off the subject of the mystery, Faith saw the right moment for another question. “Dottie Lee told me that you were a talented musician, Mother. But I don't remember ever hearing you play the piano.”

“I never did. Not since before you were born.”

“Why did you stop?”

For a moment Lydia seemed to weigh a response. Then she met Faith's eyes. “I put Hope to bed on the afternoon I brought her home from the hospital, and once she went to sleep, I came down here to rest. In those days there were glass doors between this room and the dining room. I pulled them to, so not to wake her. Then I sat down at the piano and began to play. Playing always relaxed me. To this day, I'm still not sure how much time passed—not a lot, I think—before your father came home from a meeting. But when he arrived and I went to check on Hope…she was gone.”

Lydia nodded at the realization in Faith's eyes. “If I hadn't been at the piano that afternoon, I would have heard the intruder, and Hope might be sitting here with us now.”

 

Pavel stood outside the house on Prospect Street and gazed up at the roofline. The house was fairly ordinary by Georgetown standards, built for a working-class family sometime before the turn of the twentieth century. He knew local history. Although some of the houses on Prospect were nothing less than mansions, built by shipbuilders and tobacco merchants, the row houses on this block had been built for the laborers they employed.

Still, by today's less exacting standards, the row house was a graceful architectural gem on a picturesque street.

On the way over he'd stopped on Wisconsin to buy Faith Bronson a bouquet of asters from a flower vendor and dinner from his favorite hole-in-the-wall takeout. Since it was already past nine, he supposed she had eaten earlier. But no one with a soul could refuse green chicken curry. The flavors danced across the tongue. Even the aroma was enough to send him into ecstasy.

He was a connoisseur of Georgetown, and he knew this house well, the way a shutter at a first-floor window buckled and curved away from the brick, the rust nibbling at the iron porch railing, the narrow, virtually abandoned flower bed beside the sidewalk. In the years he'd lived here he had watched the house deteriorate.

On the porch he knocked softly, hoping he would find her awake. He imagined that after a day of unpacking, Faith was exhausted. He had just decided to head home when she opened the door.

“Pavel.” She ran a hand through her hair, as if hoping to undo serious damage.

Faith's hair looked neat enough to him, but grooming was not an issue he dwelled on. On the whole she just looked a little blurred around the edges.

“Too late to look around the kitchen?” he asked.

She slumped against the door frame. “You're a man of your word.”

“I just finished a conference call, but I didn't forget.”

“Alex has already gone to bed.”

He was sorry. Faith's son was an interesting kid. He knew enough about David Bronson's buttoned-down ethics and Joe Huston's retro-patriotism to wonder where a free spirit like Alex had come from.

“I can come back, but this won't keep.” He held up the takeout bag.

Her gaze drifted down to the flowers in his other hand, then back up to his face. “I warn you, being nice to me could have side effects.”

“What and how many?”

“I might start babbling.”

“Or you might fall asleep in the curry.”

“Curry?” Her eyes lit up.

“If I tell you where I bought it, you'll become an addict. It's dangerous. If you've had dinner already, you can put this in the fridge for tomorrow.”

She laughed. The sound wasn't what he'd expected. She had the face of a cheerleader and the low, sexy laugh of a Marlene Dietrich.

Faith stepped aside to let him in. “We have to eat it tonight. The refrigerator doesn't come until next week. Will you share?”

That was no hardship. Pavel was always hungry. “I bought a bottle of white wine to go with it.” She didn't respond immediately, and he remembered what he knew about her. “I bet you don't drink.”

“Wine sounds lovely, but we'll have to drink it out of water tumblers.”

Wisely he kept silent. Obviously Faith didn't need to be reminded that her life was an open book. And maybe David Bronson's stand on temperance hadn't appealed to his wife anyway.

She marched through the house, with him at her heels. With furniture and fewer boxes, it was starting to be a friendlier place. “The flowers are lovely. You've been very kind.”

In the back of the house he spotted an extravagant display on the kitchen table. “I'm not the first.” He nodded toward the arrangement.

“Those are from my mother, although she's pretending my father sent them.” She held out her hand for Pavel's bouquet. “I've actually got a vase unpacked. And these are perfect. Very fresh and natural. My favorite.”

He turned over the asters; then he set the takeout on the counter. One brief glance around the room and he saw what she was up against. “Nice floors.”

Faith, who was filling a cut-glass vase with water, glanced at him, then apparently saw the larger truth in his eyes. She laughed. “Pavel, you'd better stop right there or your nose is going to grow.”

He lifted his hand to his face. “If it does, I'd better move to another room.”

“The kitchen's not that small. There's room for a lie or two.”

“The floors
are
nice.”

“They are, aren't they? Heart of pine. But the rest of the room? Heartbreaking.”

“If you like to cook, I'm afraid you're right.”

Faith set the vase on the counter and began to rummage through one of the three wall cabinets, victoriously pulling out two glasses after a skirmish with a set of white pottery. “I'm surprised Betty Crocker never sued me for copyright infringement. From the moment I said ‘I do,' I never served a meal that wasn't perfectly balanced.”

“Sounds deadly.”

She stopped fussing with the glasses. “Look where it got me. Not that anything would have changed, but at least I would have had a few moments of real pleasure along the way.”

Pavel realized how much he liked looking at Faith. She was not his usual type. His women were more exotic, less Ameri
can Standard. She was too fresh-faced to be beautiful, with features a discerning eye might pass over in its search for a more interesting place to rest.

Despite that, his own gaze was resting squarely on her. He supposed it was something in her face, not of it, particularly. One part honesty, two parts modesty, three parts intelligence. All exceedingly easy to miss and vitally important.

“You're still young.” He pulled the wine from the bag. “Lots of pleasure to come.”

A smile, genuine and unhurried, lit her face. “I forget sometimes.”

“Consider tonight a turning point.”

She tilted her head to one side, as if weighing his comment. They had been talking about food. Simply talking about food. And now they seemed to be talking about something else entirely.

“You know, I don't know anything about you except that you like to be helpful and you live nearby. Tell me more.”

“First tell me if you have a corkscrew?”

She continued to stare at him. “Got me, didn't you?”

“I had a feeling you never had a lot of need for one.”

“Let me see if I have anything that'll do the job.” She dug through a drawer of utensils, coming up with a bottle opener. “Voila.” She handed it over to him. Embedded in the side was a corkscrew, the implement at its most primitive.

“I can make it work.”

“I'm going to check with my daughter and see if she wants to join us.”

He already knew the answer to that. Remy Bronson had disliked him on sight.

While she was gone, he managed to insert the corkscrew without shredding the cork. He was carefully wiggling it loose when Faith returned. “Remy just turned off her light, and Alex went to sleep half an hour ago. The move's bled both of them dry.”