“I'm asking you, Kent. You're not going to turn out family, are you?”
Kent turned back. “Come on. Stop this, Helen. This is crazy. Just plain stupid! You'd hate it here! We have nothing in common. I'm a
sinner,
for God's sake!”
She didn't seem to hear him. “I can do the dishes too. Goodness, just look at that kitchen. Have you even touched it since I was here last?” She waddled off toward the breakfast bar.
“Helen! No. The answer is no. You have your own home. It's yours for a reason. This is my home. It is
mine
for a reason. You can't stay here. I need my privacy.”
“I'm walking every day now, Kent. Did I tell you that? So I'll be gone early in the morning for my walk. You'll be gone by the time I get back, but maybe we can have dinner together every evening. What do you think?”
Kent stared at her, at a loss for words at her insane behavior. “I don't think you're listening. I said no! N-O! No, you can't stay here.”
“I know the sewing room is full of stuff right now, but I will move it myself. I don't want to put you out.” She walked around the bar and turned the faucet on. “Now, you know I can't stand television. It's the box from hell, you know. But I thought you could watch the one upstairs in your sitting room.” She twisted the sink tap and ran water over her wrist, testing its temperature. “And I'm not crazy about drinking, either. If you want to drink any alcohol I'd prefer you did that upstairs as well. But I like music, you know. Heavy music, light music, any music as long as the wordsâ”
“Helen! You're not listening!”
“And you're not listening!” she said. Her eyes seemed to reach out with knives and hold him at the neck. His breathing shut down.
“I said I need a place to stay, dear son-in-law! Now, I gave you my daughter for a dozen years; she warmed your bed and ironed your shirts. The least you can do is give me a room for a few nights. Is it really too much to ask?”
Kent nearly buckled under the words. It occurred to him that his mouth was open, and he closed it quickly. The tequila was starting to speak, moaning lazily through his mind. He thought that maybe he should just pull the plug now. Go out and use that nine-millimeter on his own head. End the day with a bang. At the very least he should be screaming at this old wench who had played mother-in-law in his old life.
But he could not scream because she was holding him in some kind of spell. And it was working. It was actually making him think that she was right.
“I . . . I don't thinkâ”
“No, stop thinking, Kent.” She lowered her voice. “Start
feeling
a little. Show some kindness. Let me take a room.” Then she smiled. “I won't bite. I promise.”
He could think of nothing to say. Except okay. It just came out. “Okay.”
“Good. I will bring the rest of my belongings in from the car tomorrow after I've had a chance to clean out the sewing room. Do you like eggs, Kent?”
The woman was incredible. “Yes,” he said, but he hardly heard himself say it.
“Oh, but that's right. I will have to leave before you get up. I walk at sunrise. Well, maybe we can have an egg dish one evening.”
For a minute they faced each other in silence. Then Helen spoke, her voice soft now, almost apologetic. “It'll be okay, Kent. Really. In the end you will see. It will be okay. I guess you've already learned that we can't control everything in life. Sometimes things happen that we just didn't plan on. You can only hope that in the end it will all make sense. And it will. Believe me. It will.”
Kent nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “You know your way around. Make yourself at home.”
Then he retreated to the master bedroom upstairs, grateful that he had stashed a bottle in the sitting room. It was early; maybe he should call Lacy. Or maybe drive up to see her. The idea touched off a spark of hope. Which was good, because hope had been all but dashed today.
LACY CLEANED madly, fighting butterflies all the while and chastising herself for feeling any anxiety at all. So she was about to see Kent again. So he was coming to her condo this time. So he had brought that heat wave with him on Monday night. Her rekindled relationship with him was simply platonic, and she would keep it that way. Absolutely.
“Lacy, I need to talk,” he'd said, and by the sound of his strained voice, he did need something.
Lacy, I need.
She liked the sound of that. And it was okay to like the sound of someone's platonic voice over the phone.
Indirect lighting cast a soft hue over the leather sofa angled under a vaulted ceiling. The fireplace sat black and spotless. An eight-by-ten picture of her late husband, John, stood at the hearth's center, and she considered removing it but quickly discarded the notion as absurd. Possibly even profane.
She donned jeans and a canary blouse, retouched her makeup carefully, opting for ruby lipstick and a light teal eye shadow, then made coffee. Her hand spooned the grounds with a slight quiver, and she mumbled to herself. “Lighten up, Lacy.”
The doorbell chimed just as the coffee maker quit sputtering. Lacy took a deep breath and opened the door. Kent wore jeans and a white T-shirt that looked as if it might have been left in the dryer overnight. He grinned nervously and stepped in. His eyes were a little red, she thought. Maybe he was tired.
“Come in, Kent.”
“Thanks.”
He scanned the room, and she watched his eyes in the light. A small cut on his cheek betrayed a recent shave. They sat at the dinette and launched into small talk. How was your day? Good, and yours? Good. Good. But Kent was not looking so good. He was forcing his words, and his eyes jerked too often. He was having a bad day; that much he was not hiding. Better or worse than Monday, she did not know yet, but he was obviously still fighting his demons.
Lacy poured two cups of coffee, and they sipped through the small talk. Ten minutes passed before Kent shifted in his seat, and Lacy thought he was about to tell her why he wanted to see her again so soon. Other than maybe just wanting to see her. Unless her antenna had totally short-circuited over the last decade of marriage, there was some of that. At least some, regardless of all this platonic talk.
He stared at his black coffee, frowning. Her heart tightened. Goodness, he looked as though he might start crying. This was not just a bad-day thing. Something big had happened.
Lacy leaned forward, thinking she should reach out and take his hand or something. But he might misread her intentions. Or
she
might misread her intentions. She swallowed. “What's wrong, Kent?”
He shook his head and lowered it. “I don't know, Lacy. It's just . . .” He slid his elbow on the table and rested his forehead in his palm, looking now as if the blood had been siphoned from his face.
Now Lacy was worried. “Kent. What's going on?”
“Nothing. It's just hard, that's all. I feel like my life is unraveling.”
“Your life
has
unraveled, Kent. You just lost your family, for heaven's sake. You're supposed to feel unraveled.”
He nodded unconvincingly. “Yeah.”
“What? You don't buy that? You think you're the man of steel who can just let these little details run off your big strong shoulders?”
Whoa, a bit strong there, Lacy. He
is
a wounded man. No need to kill him off with good intentions.
Kent looked up slowly. There was a look in those eyes that brought a strange thought to Lacy's mind. The thought that Kent might actually be drinking. And maybe not just a little. “It isn't that. I know I'm supposed to be grieving. But I don't
want
to grieve,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I want to make a new life for myself. And it's my new life that's driving me nuts. It hasn't even started, and it's already falling apart.”
“Nothing's falling apart, Kent. Everything will work out; you'll see. I promise.”
He paused and closed his eyes. Then, as if a spark had ignited behind his blue eyes, he suddenly leaned forward and grabbed her hand. A bolt of fire ripped through her heart. “Imagine having all this behind you, Lacy. Imagine having all the money you could dream ofâstarting over anywhere in the world. Don't you ever wonder what that would be like?”
He glanced at his hand around hers, and he pulled back self-consciously.
“Honestly? No,” she answered.
“Well, I do. And I could do it.” He gripped his right hand into a fist. “If it wasn't for all these fools who keep sticking their noses in my business . . .” Now it was more rage than anger lacing his voice, and he shook slightly.
Lacy blinked and tilted her head. He was making no sense. “Excuse me. What are we talking about here?
Who
are we talking about? You still work at the bank, right?”
“The cop at the bookstore for one thing. I can't shake him.”
“You can't shake him? You've seen him again?”
“No, well yesâor maybe. I don't know if I really saw him again, but he's right there, you know. Riding along in my mind.”
“Come on, Kent. You're overreacting now. For all you know, he was some kook pretending to be a cop. You don't know anything about this investigation of theirs.”
He snapped his eyes to hers. “Pretending?”
“No, I don't know. I'm just saying
you
don't know. I'm not actually saying he was a kook, but there's no reason to walk around in this fear of yours when you hardly know a thing about the man. You have nothing to hide.”
He blinked a few times quickly and bobbed his head. “Yeah. Hmm. Never thought of that.” His glassy eyes stared at her cup now. Poor guy was upside down.
“Cliff 's driving me nuts. I could kill the guy.”
“Cliff, the new programmer? I thought you liked him. Now you're talking about killing the kid?” Lacy stood and walked to the coffee machine. “You're sounding scary, Kent.”
“Yeah, never mind. You're right. I'm okay. I'm just . . .”
But he wasn't okay. He was sitting with his back to her, rubbing his temples now. He was coming unglued. And by the sounds of it, not from his wife's death, but from matters that followed no rhyme or reason. She should walk over there and knock some sense into his head. Or maybe go over there and hold him.
Her stomach hollowed at the thought.
A woman does not hold a man in a platonic relationship, Lacy. Shake his hand, maybe. But not hold him, as in, Let me put my hands on your face and stroke your cheek and run my fingers through your hair and tell you that everythingâ
Something hot burned her thumb.
“Ouch!” Lacy snatched her hand to her mouth and sucked on the thumb. She had overfilled the cup.
Kent turned to her. “You okay?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Coffee burn.” She returned to her seat.
“Helen moved in with me,” he said.
Lacy sat back down. “Your mother-in-law? You're kidding! I thought you two were at each other's throats.”
“We were. We are. I'm not even sure how it happenedâit just did. She's staying in the sewing room.”
“For how long?”
“I don't know.” He was shaking his head again, and this time a tear had managed to slip from his right eye. “I don't know anything anymore, Lacy.” Kent suddenly dropped his head onto folded arms and started to sob quietly. The man was stretched beyond his capacities.
Lacy felt her heart contract beyond her control. If she wasn't careful the tears would be coming from her eyes as well. And then one did, and she knew she could not just watch him without offering some comfort.
She waited as long as her resolve would allow. Then she stood unsteadily from her chair and stepped to his side. She stood over him for a brief moment, her hand lifted motionlessly above his head. His wavy blond hair rested against his head just as it had years ago, halfway down a strong neck.
Lacy had one last round with the inner voice that insisted she keep this relationship purely platonic. She told the voice to stretch its definition of
platonic.
And then she lowered her hand to his head and touched him.
She could feel the electrical impulse run through his body at her touch. Or was it running through
her
body? She knelt and put her arm around his shoulder. His sobs shook him gently.
“Shhhh.” Her cheek was now wet with tears. “It will be okay,” she whispered.
Kent turned into her then, and they held each other.
That's all they did. Hold each other. But they held each other for a long time, and when Kent finally left an hour later, Lacy had all but decided that
platonic
was a word best left in the textbooks. Or maybe just erased altogether. It was a silly word.
KENT DRAGGED himself to work Thursday morning, swallowing continually against the dread that churned in his gut. It reminded him of the time he'd been audited by the IRS three years earlier. He'd felt like a stranded Jew interrogated by the Gestapo. Only this time things were clearly worse. Then, he'd had nothing to hide beyond the moving deduction he'd possibly inflated. Now he had his whole life to hide.
His eyes had taken to leaking againâas they had those first few weeks after Gloria's death. The tears came without warning, blurring traffic signals and dissolving his dashboard to a sea of strange symbols. A dull ache droned through his headâa reminder of the “nightcaps” he'd indulged himself in after returning from Boulder. If it wasn't for the single thread of hope that strung through his mind, he might have stayed home. Downed some more nightcaps. Of course, he would have to tread lightly now that Helen had managed to work her way into his life. Things seemed to be coming apart at the seams again, and he had hardly begun this mad plan of his.
As it was, those words Lacy had spoken the previous evening triggered a new thought. A most desperate plan, really, but one to which he could cling for the moment. “For all you know he was some kook pretending to be a cop,” Lacy had said. It was true that the cop had not shown his badge, and everyone knew that a business card could be had in half an hour at Kinko's. Still, he had known too much to be pretending. That was not it. But the comment had spawned another thought that centered around the word
kook
. And it had to do with Cliff, not the cop.